An integrated model of innovation drivers for smaller software firms
Authors: Rose, Jeremy; Jones, Matthew; Furneaux, Brent
Journal: Information & Management (2016)
High technology innovation is essential for economic development in industrialised societies. Innovation practice in smaller software companies, however, has received little attention. We derive software innovation drivers and outputs from a fragmented literature and analyse their empirical relevance using qualitative data from twenty-five in-depth interviews with software executives in the Silicon Fen. Repeating patterns in the dataset revealed through content analysis show that the most important innovation drivers for smaller software firms are external knowledge, leadership and team process. Specialised innovation tools and techniques are hardly used. We develop a model of software innovation drivers, together with explorative theoretical propositions.