Rural Development Institute

Until now, the literature on innovation has focused either on radical innovation pushed by technology or incremental innovation pulled by the market. In Design-Driven Innovation: How to Compete by Radically Innovating the Meaning of Products, Roberto Verganti introduces a third strategy, a radical shift in perspective that introduces a bold new way of competing. Design-driven innovations do not come from the market; they create new markets. They don't push new technologies; they push new meanings. It's about having a vision, and taking that vision to your customers. Think of game-changers like Nintendo's Wii or Apple's iPod. They overturned our understanding of what a video game means and how we listen to music. Customers had not asked for these new meanings, but once they experienced them, it was love at first sight. But where does the vision come from? With fascinating examples from leading European and American companies, Verganti shows that for truly breakthrough products and services, we must look beyond customers and users to those he calls "interpreters" - the experts who deeply understand and shape the markets they work in. Design-Driven Innovation offers a provocative new view of innovation thinking and practice.

This report offers important insights for stakeholders involved in business development. This research establishes that entrepreneurs starting a business are advantaged by also planning and organizing for their enterprise’s growth over the long term. This study shows that business advisors and coaches need to inform their clients of the importance of ongoing risk assessments both prior to and after launching a business. It also suggests that governments need to have employment and industry sector data updated regularly to aid entrepreneurs in their business planning and operations.

This report presents the findings of Rural Development Institute’s research project focused on the Aurora Business Leadership Program (ABLP) – a business development tool delivered to immigrants in the Brandon area. This report identifies the success rates of start-up businesses in Canada and concepts of successful business start-ups. These findings establish benchmarks for measuring the success and growth of enterprises owned or operated by Canadians and immigrants. Both dimensions of success may help inform government agencies, chambers of commerce and policy analysts as well as investors and business advisors helping start-ups, and entrepreneurs themselves in their planning for business development in rural regions.

This research involved two literature scans conducted in 2019. The first scan identified a number of Statistics Canada studies, which applied differing criteria of SME success, including SME survival, positive employment growth, contribution to exports, and contribution to GDP. Two references were particularly relevant for this project. Ostrovsky and Picot (2018) compared survival rates for Canadian and immigrant-owned SMEs from 2003 to 2009. The rates started similarly at ~88% after year 1 but declined to 58% for Canadian-born and 56% immigrant owned SMEs after seven years.

This paper is a work-in-progress, meaning it is a very modest start to exploring risk averse culture, beginning in the rural areas of southwest Manitoba.

The aim of this paper is to explore risk culture in relation to business growth and business support services. Bozeman and Kingsley (1998) define the risk culture of an organization as the perception among workers that co-workers and top managers take risks and promote risk taking. The perception creates the culture, as the perception provides the cues to acceptable behavior. We are using the term “risk tolerant” for risk cultures that are perceived to take risks and promote risk taking, and “risk averse” for cultures that are perceived to avoid risks and not to promote risk taking.

Growth in food processing to produce bulk ingredients represents a major opportunity for Manitoba to increase economic activity in the province. This two year project studied growth opportunities from innovation in the bulk food processing industry in Manitoba. The Rural Development Institute conducted case studies into eight processing companies, their associated supply chains and innovation partners.