Identification of the Technology Commercialization Strategies 

of High-tech Small Firms

Diana Hicks, Dirk P. Libaers, Alan L. Porter, David J. Schoeneck, 

Search Technology, Inc., Atlanta, GA, 2006 [19 pages]. Under contract no. SBAHQ-05-M-0292. 

This report was developed under a contract with the Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, and contains information 

and analysis that was reviewed and edited by officials of the Office of Advocacy. However, the final conclusions of the report do not 

necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Advocacy.

Purpose

Small, highly innovative companies have been at the 

forefront in creating the industries of the future, but 

finding highly innovative companies is often difficult. The goal of this study was to discover the range 

of business strategies adopted by small firms that 

focus on commercializing an innovative technology. 

A unique method was used to find these companies: 

searches of innovative terms on their websites. 

Overall Findings

Searching for innovative terms on firms’ websites 

determined that high-tech strategies could be found 

on known high-tech small firms but not on the control group. This indicates that this method holds 

promise for gaining insight into finding highly innovative firms. 

Highlights

• “Serial innovators” (small firms with 15 or more 

patents in a five-year period) do not fit easily into 

business industry classifications. 

• Small firm websites tend to be geared more to 

describing the firm, or creating an image, than seeking customers. This transparency about the firm 

enables researchers to evaluate their websites to 

determine the firms’ business strategies. 

• High technology small firms tend to have common strategies, while their less-innovative competitors tend to have varied strategies. 

• Factor analysis showed that search terms could 

be created to categorize firms into the following 

groups: 

- science-based product/service firm, 

- R&D organization or contractor, 

- product solutions provider, 

- highly specialized component/module/

consumable or raw materials suppler, and 

- specialized subcontractor.

• The web searching method presented in the 

paper holds promise for capturing more than just 

business strategies, and in some circumstances could 

be a cost-effective way to replace surveys and reduce 

respondent burden.

• Further research is needed to find out if this 

search method can determine categories for random 

individual firms.

Scope and Methodology

The study used six classes of firm technology strategies to evaluate which category firms match. 

From 80 small firm websites, 67 terms were 

identified as being strategy indicator terms. Using 

Internet search programs, the terms were run on 

407 serial innovators and a control group. The serial 

innovators, also referred to as high-tech small firms, 

were found by using a previous study identifying 

small firms highly involved in patenting. Hoover’s 

Company Capsules was used to find competitors to 

those firms for the control group.

Of the 67 search terms, 43 keywords were useful, 

and the number of pages mentioning the terms was 

captured and normalized by size of website. Factor 

analysis was used to detect patterns of the keywords 

on the websites for both groups. 

This report was peer reviewed consistent with 

the Office of Advocacy’s data quality guidelines. 

More information on this process can be obtained 

by contacting the director of economic research at 

advocacy@sba.gov or (202) 205-6533.

December 2006 No. 289
Ordering Information

The full text of this report and summaries of other 

studies performed under contract with the U.S. Small 

Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy are 

available on the Internet at www.sba.gov/advo/research. 

Copies are available for purchase from:

National Technical Information Service

5285 Port Royal Road

Springfield, VA 22161

(800) 553-6847 or (703) 605-6000

TDD: (703) 487-4639

www.ntis.gov

Order number: PB2007-100690

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