Intra-Firm and Inter-Firm Learning in the Context of Start-Up Companies

Organizational learning has come to be seen as a critical feature of a firm's success. The concept captures the sense of a firm being involved in a process of continuous adaptation to a changing environment and drawing on organizational knowledge and competencies that can be brought to bear on any particular circumstance. Successful firms are good ‘learners’. Acquisition of new knowledge and competencies is especially important in high-technology companies. This paper asks what have been the main firm-specific knowledge and competencies of pharmaceutical start-up companies, and considers how the start-up companies have enlarged their knowledge and competencies through intra-firm and interfirm learning in a national business environment. The empirical issues are addressed in the context of four small innovative drug discovery companies in the Turku area of Finland. These are highly focused, specialized R&D companies that have been established as spin-off companies from larger firms or universities. They also saw the founding of a new cooperative pharmaceutical network as an essential response to the apparent resource gap.