The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been engaged in a wholesale redesign of many of their surveys in recent years and today I want to talk about one of these surveys, the Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges.  NSF's proposed redesign includes the addition of a new module on commercialization and technology transfer, which I think is quite exciting.  You can find out more about their proposed redesign or read some of our comments on the redesign below. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the role universities are being asked to play in society has changed over recent years.  Many universities are now seen to have a significant economic development mission.  As such, I think universities should welcome many of the changes that NSF is proposing.   

NSF letter 0609.pdf (110.81 kb)

NSF Attachment 1.pdf (558.88 kb)

A couple of weeks ago I called for comment on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' proposed new entrepreneurship questions in their next round of questions for the National Youth Longitudinal Survey 1979.  Since that time we have been engaged in a review ourselves and with Mathematica Policy Research, our survey vendor for the Kauffman Firm Survey.  As the deadline for comments is quickly approaching, I will be sending this by the close of business Thursday.  In the meantime, in the spirit of openness, I am posting a draft letter and attachments here.  We remain open to other ideas from scholars or individuals with survey research experience on this population. 

BLS.pdf (90.09 kb)

BLS attachment 1.pdf (106.66 kb)

BLS attachment 2.pdf (59.93 kb)

I have a lot of respect for the operation Denny Dennis runs at the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).  Denny is in charge of the small business polls that NFIB releases eight times a year looking at small businesses (under 250 employees, I believe).  NFIB, and I believe Denny, have been doing these continually for more than twenty years.  In that time, they have covered a lot of questions which are interesting but would never get asked by most federal agencies.  And in the last year they have taken the very forward-looking step of making all those survey questions available in a searchable interface which brings back both interesting survey data but also puts it in an easy to read format: 411 Small Business Facts

One of their weekly emails highlighted a recent question which I thought would have a lot of interest in the current environment:

• Was one or more of the mortgages taken out on this property to provide capital for your business?
  Twenty-six (26) percent of small employers who own their residence and have a mortgage on that property had one or more of the mortgages taken out on this property to provide capital for their business (Q#18d). Eighteen (18) percent of small employers took out one or more mortgages on their residence to provide capital for their business (Q#18d). 

Eric Von Hippel of MIT and coauthors have been engaged with some interesting research in the Netherlands and Canada.

• De Jong, Jeroen P.J. and Von Hippel, Eric A.,Measuring User Innovation in Dutch High Tech SMEs: Frequency, Nature and Transfer to Producers(February 27, 2009). MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4724-09. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1352496
• Gault, Fred and Von Hippel, Eric A.,The Prevalence of User Innovation and Free Innovation Transfers: Implications for Statistical Indicators and Innovation Policy(February 3, 2009). MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4722-09. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337232

The Netherlands work is based on survey questions which were added to an existing panel survey that the EIM manages.  Here is how the De Jong and Von Hippel describe the data in their paper:

"The Dutch research institute EIM manages a panel of high-technology SMEs in the Netherlands which it surveys every year. The panel was created to explore the nature of high-tech SMEs’ business processes, and to assess the effectiveness of innovation and entrepreneurship policies (EIM, 2006). In the fall of 2007, EIM gave the authors of this paper permission to include several questions about user innovation in this annual survey, and the data and findings we report upon here are derived from responses to these questions. 

The panel defines high-tech firms as those who actively engage in R&D, and who develop and/or apply new technologies in their products (Grinstein and Goldman, 2006).  They are innovative and process-intensive firms. Following the Dutch definition of SMEs, the panel contains only independent commercial organizations with 1-100 employees. Data were collected with computer assisted telephone interviewing. During a period of four weeks in November and December 2007, surveys were completed with 514 of the 779 panelists (66%). Respondents were all directors or managers with a good overview of their firms’ practices, including innovation. It appeared that since the start of the panel (November 2005), 16 respondents had been purchased by larger organizations, or had grown to the point of having more than 100 employees. These respondents were discarded from further analysis. Our data therefore reflect answers by 498 respondents. Since all respondents were participants in a panel that had been surveyed before (EIM, 2006), we were able to enrich our data by including previouslycollected data on background variables such as industry classifications."

What is interesting about this work is its focus on user innovation development, the assistance from producers and others in developing those innovations, the costs related to the innovations, and the ultimate transfer of the innovations to others.  The authors report that fifty-four percent of their sample report "developing new and/or modifying existing process equipment or software for in-house use within the last 3 years" at a cost of more than €235,000.  Of these developments, the authors find that a quarter have been transferred back to equipment producers or software vendors for commercial sale with 48 percent of these transfers happening at no charge.  The authors go on to report that "narrowcasting information about their innovations to equipment producers which whom they have a preexisting relationship" is the preference of the innovators.  Most of the questions used are available in Table 1 of the paper (although the questions are shown out of context from the larger survey).  

The work on Canada is perhaps a better piece for those wanting an overview of this line of research.  Questionnaires for this work are available online.  Stats Canada undertook this survey in in 2007 and early 2008.  Only manufacturing and logging establishments were surveyed with a more than 20 employees.  Many of the findings are in line with the Dutch study but by the nature of the survey population, we are able to see more into the costs associated with process innovations by "user firms," which the authors report could be close to 10 percent of all R&D expenditure in Canada.  In this paper, the authors also get into more detail on the possible policy implications of their work, for both statistical offices in terms of measurement and for policy makers wishing to promote societally beneficial dissemination of innovations. 

I would last like to applaud the researchers for their presentation of new survey research that is tied into the larger discussion of how innovation measurement can be improved.  In their conclusion they point out that the Oslo Manual, which defines much of how innovation measurement is standardized across countries, would not currently track many measures of innovation which the authors find to be prevalent.  Specifically, the authors indicate that the Oslo Manual would not consider an innovation which is developed by and consumed by users only as an innovation, because it had not been commercialized.  

Family-ownership of firms isn't something that we deal with a lot at Kauffman, but it's something that the larger field considers a part of entrepreneurship.  As such, when I got an email inquiry today through our website on the subject and data available on family-owned firms, I decided to take a look.  I didn't go far because for this type of thing, in the United States, there is really only one great source, the Survey of Business Owners.  It's done every five years in conjunction with the Economic Census.  The most recent released data is from 2002.  And what I found really fascinated me:

Respondent firms 16,687,541 total - 4,091,884 employer firms; 12,595,657 non-employer firms

• Family-owned, yes: 23.4 percent overall – 28.1 percent for employer firms; 21.9 percent for non-employers
• Family-owned, no: 9.4 percent overall– 18.3 percent for employer firms; 6.5 percent for non-employers
• Family-owned, only one owner: 63.6 percent overall - 51.0 percent for employer firms; 67.7 percent for non-employers
• Family-owned, item not reported: 4.2 percent overall - 4.1 percent for employer firms; 4.2 percent for non-employers

Last week, I received an email from the the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds.  In the email, the group talks of "taking a proactive approach to encouraging government entities to understand the value of offering incentives for early stage investment."  As such, they are doing two surveys on surveymonkey "to provide government officials and the media with information to support the need for increased early stage capital."  One survey was focused on the investor and one the professional support organization.  Given the audience of for this blog, I thought I'd pass along the professional support survey link, in case it applicable to readers.  This survey is obviously not meant to be very scientific, but if nothing else, readers can benefit from seeing the questions which are being asked. 

Professional Support Survey - This survey is for professional service providers, university/federal technology transfer groups and economic development professionals.

Everyone benefits through strong participation and we will share the results with those who participated. Any questions, please e-mail Marc Kramer at mkramer@nasvf.org.