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The Open Innovation paradigm has been increasingly considered as a relevant approach to innovation. Among the different sources, end users are particularly meaningful. Scholars have highlighted several methods and strategies to involve them in the innovation process by asking, observing, and giving them the chance to actually co‐create. Digital technologies are expanding the span of opportunities in this direction, gathering a huge amount and variety of data, while the end user enjoys a digital product; these data can be called “user generated big data” (UGBD). The aim of this research is to understand whether UGBD can contribute in user innovation and to highlight the enabled strategies to create value through them. Leveraging on a multiple case study (Twitter, Spotify, Strava, and Deliveroo), the paper first classifies UGBD among the methods to foster user centered innovation, and then it defines two strategies to create value relying on UGBD. First, companies can leverage on a “using data” strategy—addressing both the end user or other player in the ecosystem—fostering service innovation through an inbound approach. Second, a “selling data” strategy can be pursued, addressing new clients and fostering business model innovation, enlarging the company's value chain in an outbound perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on lead user identification in an open data context through the principles of digital anthropology (DA). The approach is demonstrated using a case study from the entertainment industry: the festival of Tomorrowland. Following the principles of DA, the specific data structure of the case selected is studied. This structure follows the tribal roles of Cova and Cova, which are then compared with the lead user characteristics of Belz and Baumbach. The different characteristics and roles are used afterwards to establish the user types that may be found in the big data set of the case study. Unlike earlier methods, such as netnography, which focuses on a specific user type as the main source of insights, our results show that DA requires a change of focus from specific individuals to groups of individuals with the capacity to produce the insights of a lead user. DA shows how all the roles in the data structure present different possibilities for innovation. The application of DA to big data enables the extension of analysis to whole populations instead of specific samples, bringing about new possibilities to model and extract the insights of consumers publicly exposed in the digital media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A firm's competitive advantage can come not only from internal resources but also from inter-firm innovation networks. This paper shows that network capabilities (i.e., network visioning capability, network constructing capability, network operating capability and network centring capability) are special skills that enable values residing in network resources. Based on a sample of 211 Chinese hi-tech firms and by applying structural equation modelling, network capabilities are found to have a positive relationship with innovation performance. Four antecedents of network capabilities - IT maturity, openness of culture, the management system involved and experience with network activities - are also identified in the research and empirically tested. The results of this study provide a new framework that describes how networked firms can gain a competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms striving to maintain high rates of innovation need a continuous flow of new ideas. This is resulting in the establishment by large firms of IT platforms to generate ideas for innovation, and to encourage employees and customers to participate in innovation contests. However, there has been little published research on the use of IT platforms for idea generation by employees, and it is unclear whether they facilitate in-house innovation. The purpose is to investigate how firms use IT platforms internally to generate ideas, and how their use contributes to the innovation process in large firms. We rely on data from two collaborative research projects in the automotive industry: Volvo Cars and Renault. We found that both firms used IT platforms as campaigns to promote innovation and to involve employees in the innovation process. The findings suggest that these virtual idea campaigns support innovation in large firms mainly by (1) encouraging employee creativity in idea generation and (2) involving employees and top managers simultaneously in the innovation process. This paper contributes to idea management systems theory by highlighting the importance of virtual idea campaigns for the firm's innovation process, and their dual role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been long known that firms can benefit substantially from basic research. Recently, however, the open innovation literature has questioned whether firms should conduct these basic research activities in-house and has suggested that outsourcing is more appropriate both for small and large firms. However, existing empirical work investigates the performance implications of R& D outsourcing in general, but does not take into account the differences between basic research on the one hand and more applied R& D on the other. This paper therefore studies whether outsourced basic research indeed contributes equally to firm productivity as in-house basic research, while explicitly incorporating the moderating effect of firm size. A production function approach is applied to firm-level data stemming from three waves of the Flemish R& D survey, combined with data from firms' annual accounts. The results show that small firms benefit from outsourcing their basic research activities. For medium-sized and large firms, however, in-house basic research is more productive than outsourced basic research. These results contradict the general belief that small firms benefit little from basic research and cast doubts on the recent trend to close medium-sized and large firms' corporate labs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a sample of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms in Australia drawn from a wide range of product and service providers in the Sydney region. It researches the sources of information and ideas that firms utilize to sustain their competitive position through innovation. While the firms in the survey varied in size in terms of turnover, number of employees and level of business activity, most see themselves as innovative. Not all firms utilized the same sources of innovation-related knowledge and most used research and technology organizations (RTOs) or other publicly funded sources of information for help with ‘technical’ (standards etc) or trade issues. While ICT firms are often regarded as leading-edge developers of new ideas, this research indicated that ICT firms still see their sales force, customers and suppliers as the most important sources of innovation knowledge and ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of trust, asymmetry and contracting in R&D collaboration. At best, asymmetry brings major benefits to collaborating firms, but it may also become the basis of dissimilar orientation towards informal and formal governance methods, which makes managing the collaboration and reaching goals more complex. These issues are studied among 87 small Finnish ICT firms and the findings indicate that drawing overly straight generalizations on the roles of trust, contracting and asymmetry in R&D collaboration is risky. They all are closely bound together, affect each other differently, and have multiple dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new impetus for greater knowledge-sharing among team members needs to be emphasized due to the emergence of a significant new form of working known as ‘global virtual teams’. As information and communication technologies permeate every aspect of organizational life and impact the way teams communicate, work and structure relationships, global virtual teams require innovative communication and learning capabilities for different team members to effectively work together across cultural, organizational and geographical boundaries. Whereas information technology-facilitated communication processes rely on technologically advanced systems to succeed, the ability to create a knowledge-sharing culture within a global virtual team rests on the existence (and maintenance) of intra-team respect, mutual trust, reciprocity and positive individual and group relationships. Thus, some of the inherent questions we address in our paper are: (1) what are the cross-cultural challenges faced by global virtual teams?; (2) how do organizations develop a knowledge sharing culture to promote effective organizational learning among culturally-diverse team members? and; (3) what are some of the practices that can help maximize the performance of global virtual teams? We conclude by examining ways that global virtual teams can be more effectively managed in order to reach their potential in this new interconnected world and put forward suggestions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the relationship between product newness and non-linearity of new product development processes has been examined in the context of the UK’s information and communications technology industry. The results showed that new product development and implementation are contingent on the product’s newness. New product development managers should be aware of such differences in order to avoid costly iterations when they are not necessary, and accept them when they are. Such knowledge may encourage managers to consider the scope for deliberately introducing feedback/iteration processes when they lead to more effective new product development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the business model concept as a theoretical framework, this paper examines the relative disruptiveness potential between technology-driven and market-driven innovations. The study analyses retrospectively four case studies comprising two technologically sophisticated IT innovations and two technologically less sophisticated market-driven innovations starting from their inception to the point of disruption over a period of 5-15 years. It finds that, while the disruption process of technology-driven innovation conforms to the patterns predicted by disruptive innovation theory, the disruption process of market-driven disruptive business model innovation depicts a bottleneck shape, where the positive effects of initial strategic choice, model specialization and investments on disruptiveness potential reach the maximum level and start to stagnate due to the same initial strategic choice and cost factors. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of ‘Big Data’ has recently been attracting an increasing degree of attention from scholars and practitioners in an attempt to identify how it may be leveraged to create innovative solutions and business opportunities. Specifically, Big Data may come from a variety of sources, especially sources outside the usual boundaries of organizations, and it represents an interesting and emerging opportunity for sustaining and enhancing the effectiveness of the so‐called open innovation paradigm. However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior works have provided a broad overview of the use of Big Data for open innovation strategies. We aim to fill this gap. In particular, we have focused our investigation on two types of companies: small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and big corporations, reviewing the major academic works published so far and analysing the main industrial applications on this topic. As a result, we provide a relevant list of the main trends, opportunities, and challenges faced by SMEs and large corporations when dealing with Big Data for open innovation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore processes of innovation - which are inherently uncertain - from a complexity perspective, in which they are understood as new patterns of experiences as they emerge in human conversational interaction. We reflect on local interactions between people involved in emerging processes of innovation, with a particular emphasis on the improvisational nature of interaction. Through an abductive approach, by iterating actual experiences and our understanding of them, we show that such processes are collective efforts that take place as informal, highly improvised conversations - happening 'below the radar' - which may unpredictably offer windows of opportunity to enable change. We show that innovation often emerges as 'shadow themes', experienced as subversive by those involved in the moments of interaction. While these themes are embedded in informal conversations and processes, they can be induced by invitations - conscious or unconscious moves that encourage those involved to make spontaneous moves together in a mutually improvised context. Our experience shows that the emergence of shadow themes can have a long-term impact on the organization and the people involved, and that managers may be 'in charge but not in control' of such innovation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial body of theoretical and practical knowledge has been developed on continuous improvement. However, there is still a considerable lack of empirically grounded contributions and theories on collaborative improvement, that is, continuous improvement in an inter-organizational setting. The CO-IMPROVE project investigated whether and how the concept of continuous improvement can be extended and transferred to such settings. The objective of this article is to evaluate the CO-IMPROVE research findings in view of existing theories on continuous innovation. The article investigates the similarities and differences between key components of continuous and collaborative improvement by assessing what is specific for continuous improvement, what for collaborative improvement, and where the two areas of application meet and overlap. The main conclusions are that there are many more similarities between continuous and collaborative improvement. The main differences relate to the role of hierarchy/market, trust, power and commitment to collaboration, all of which are related to differences between the settings in which continuous and collaborative improvement unfold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical and empirical investigation of information technologies (IT) innovation implementations reveals that they lack conceptual and practical support from HRM professionals. The HRM practices undertaken by HR professionals are not even discussed. We argue that HR departments should contribute to IT innovation projects by being responsible for explicitly defining job tasks that have to be automated, establishing a rewards system for those who have to learn and use a new technology and analysing the training needs of the users and providing them with adequate training. HRM should more actively intervene in IT innovation projects. Such intervention would, we believe, foster compatibility between the prior intentions of information technology, the strategies and practices, the individual users’ needs in it and the adoption of IT by the users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is becoming more and more important for companies to have an optimal alignment between business strategy and information strategy. The approach developed in Hewlett-Packard is one way to achieve this. Proper alignment and embeddedness within the IT environment is needed to realise business objectives to achieve competitive advantage. Effectiveness and flexibility are the key-words to ensure competitive advantage by delivering a maximum service level to the customers, by reacting adequately on market changes and to optimise the business processes. Harvesting the creativity of users is an important aspect of the process. ‘Our fundamental goal is to build positive, long-term relationships with our customers, relationships characterised by mutual respect, by courtesy and integrity, by a helpful, effective response to customer needs and concerns, and by a strong commitment to providing products and services of the highest quality.’ (extracted from Hewlett-Packard's Corporate Objectives for Customers) One of the objectives of Hewlett-Packard is to create a competitive advantage both for the customers and the company by selling and delivering quality business solutions. This objective and the globalisation of our services ask for a business solution delivery approach based on standard products and in conformity with internationally accepted standards. The quality of the business solution delivery process is managed through the project delivery process. The customer's business solution delivery appreciation is an implicit result of the quality of each individual project. This quality is based on international standards and generic company methodologies. These standards and methodologies combined with the quality of the people are the drivers for the embedding of quality within the entire organisation. The resulting total quality approach triggers a continuous quality improvement process in order to guarantee a win-win situation for both the customer and... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]