Unraveling the need for innovation support services in new technology-based firms: The impact of commercialization strategy

New technology-based firms (NTBFs) are considered to contribute significantly to the economy. Given that NTBFs face many challenges and liabilities, the academic literature has tried to identify how public policy measures could help to overcome challenges related to innovation, amongst other factors, by identifying NTBFs' need for innovation support services. Our study contributes to this stream of research by exploring the determinants of the need for innovation support services by this particular set of firms. Specifically, we focus on the commercialization strategy of firms, which can either operate in a market for technology or a market for products. We find that NTBFs pursuing a technology strategy are very much in need of finance-related services, whereas their counterparts targeting a product market have much more need for soft services and market-related services. Our findings have implications for policy-makers, high-tech entrepreneurs and academia. Copyright The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.