Search

This paper introduces the METRIC (MEasuremenT of Regional Innovation Capacity) framework, designed to assess and enhance regional innovation ecosystems comprehensively. METRIC addresses the complexities of measuring innovation by integrating a refined process model and a robust measurement method, underpinned by empirical research and best practices across various international models. This dual approach not only quantifies the innovation capacity of regions but also guides systematic improvements through actionable metrics. The framework has been demonstrated through pilot studies in Sweden, highlighting an initial adaptability to different regional conditions. By providing a structured methodology for continuous evaluation and development, METRIC aims to elevate regional competitiveness and quality of life through sustained innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely recognized as a powerful tool for various areas, such as innovation activities and management. In innovation, AI can make new connections between previously produced knowledge. However, innovation also emphasizes social aspects, such as trust, often related to human interaction. We approach innovation processes as social interactions traditionally involving only humans. We found that the integration of AI varies in different phases of innovation. Currently, its impact seems to be incremental; for example, new networks and social interactions are formed around understanding and implementing the use of generative AI. AI has the potential for radical changes in organizations, but does it operate as one of the actors in interconnected innovation networks? If yes, how does it affect social interaction? In this ongoing research, we address these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generating and maintaining competitive advantage in today's hypercompetitive and globalized market environment becomes increasingly challenging. Innovative approaches are essential to differentiate from competitors and to preserve company performance. Context-oriented innovation approaches provide companies with a choice of suitable process models and methodology to conduct innovation projects while taking the context into account. The current paper aims to operationalize the contextoriented innovation approach in form of a decision-making framework called 'Smart-Innovation-Cube'. The framework allows to select and adapt processes and methods according to the three influential context factors 'External Change', 'Internal Change' and 'Path Dependency'. By applying the framework companies can chose appropriate processes and methods to increase the innovation efficiency. Moreover, the innovation process becomes customizable to fit individual innovation projects and thus becomes more agile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to come out of a crisis strengthened like a phoenix from the ashes, for established companies it takes courageous and radical innovation. Due to high time pressure and a decreasing scope of action, this innovation process needs crisis-specific methodology. Particularly three conflicting challenges are to be addressed. First, the workforce must be involved to adequately take the company's knowledge base and idea repository into consideration, and to ensure acceptance for change. Second, new products and services must be ideated, prototyped and tested in an iterative and outside-in manner, taking external trends into account, in order to be sustainably effective. Third, the entire process must be highly fast and efficient. To handle this dilemma, the paper introduces a new approach for struggling companies to sense and seize opportunities and successfully transform their business model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the launch of ChatGPT-3.5 in November 2022, a broad discussion has arisen about how disruptive this new and freely available generation of generative artificial intelligence is. Quite a few users are of the opinion that this form of artificial intelligence can even take on creative tasks and, thus, support innovation processes. To shed more light on the potential of ChatGPT in the innovation process, four interdisciplinary and intercultural student groups worked on the same design challenge as part of a design thinking project. Two of the groups were allowed to use ChatGPT. The other two groups were allowed to note down when they would have liked to access ChatGPT. In addition, the Design Challenge was worked on once by the lecturer and exclusively with ChatGPT. The experiences, strengths and weaknesses of using ChatGPT in the context of Design Thinking are critically reflected in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies must cultivate new dynamic capabilities to meet the demands for sustainable solutions in an uncertain and dynamic world. This longitudinal case study explores the significance of project maturity as a critical capability within complex innovation processes for developing sustainable business models. The purpose of the study is to gain a better understanding of the central factors companies encounter when making efforts to build sustainable business models through innovation projects. Tracking a market-leading company's journey from ideation to implementation over an extended period, this study focuses on creating a sustainable business emphasising waste reduction, heightened customer satisfaction, and profitability. Key insights emerge through qualitative methods, including interviews, observations, and document analysis. The findings highlight the pivotal role of project maturity in innovation projects centred around sustainable value propositions. Project maturity is salient in creating an autonomous unit, fostering agility, and promoting open collaboration. It encompasses organisational ambidexterity and collaborative engagement with vital stakeholders. Furthermore, proficient project managers well-versed in agile project management and innovation processes and contextual resolution emerge as crucial drivers in innovation projects aimed at developing capabilities for sustainable business models. By tailoring project maturity to the specific needs of each project and integrating agile methodologies, organisations can forge the necessary capabilities for crafting sustainable business models. Additionally, dynamic capabilities can be cultivated by aligning projects with the overall business strategy and implementing practices that facilitate continuous learning and improvement. This study underscores the importance of project maturity within innovation processes and its role in creating profitable and sustainable business models by developing new dynamic capabilities. The research findings offer valuable insights for businesses seeking to design effective innovation processes supporting sustainable business model realization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a responsible business model innovation process is developed based on the existing process of the St. Gallen Business Model Navigator. For its development, a literature review was conducted to formulate requirements that a responsible business model innovation process should fulfil. In particular, the four guiding principles of responsible research and innovation were considered: anticipation, inclusion, reflection, and responsiveness. Based on these findings, several aspects were added to the Business Model Navigator. The focus was on extending the description of a business model along the magic triangle with two additional levels, the environmental one and the social one. Additionally a new step was added in the initiation phase to make the purpose of the process more visible. The results contribute to the current understanding of a responsible business model innovation process, where ethical, social and environmental aspects are included as core parts of the business model itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In uncertain and dynamic environments, established companies must engage in strategic “innovation-to-business” to continuously develop new technology/market-combinations as competitive advantages for future profitable growth. To achieve this, they can leverage Research & Development (R&D) and similar innovation functions for such strategic renewal. However, this requires enhancing their innovation management system, as they are traditionally focused on more incremental technological innovations for established markets. A theoretical framing of the key concepts provides an organizational framework with the required dynamic capabilities and organizational characteristics for such an innovation management system. The following case study of the Schaeffler Group presents their enhanced innovation management system in practice. Summarized as P 3, this includes specifically organizational measures for an agile Portfolio management, systematic Process, and supporting organization of the involved People. Together, these measures help Schaeffler to establish and apply the required dynamic capabilities and ambidextrous orientation for successful “innovationto-business”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New emerging digital technologies are evolving at an unprecedented pace. These advancements create increasing expectations for public sector organizations. However, we do not yet know much about the processes of these organizations when approaching emerging technologies. Such early innovation processes are critical to reaping the benefits of emerging technologies. We conducted a case study of a Nordic government agency to explore how a potentially paradigm-changing idea involving blockchain, evolves through an innovation process. We investigated the characteristics of early innovation search processes as a public sector organization approaches emerging technologies. Our contribution shows 1) how the search focus shifts over time - focus can be more about the solution, the need or the need-solution pair, and 2) how the conceptualization of technology plays an important role in the process. The findings increase our understanding of innovation processes in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Striving for innovation and advancement, a phenomenon can be observed wherein organizations are progressively incorporating their 'ordinary' employees into the innovation process, capitalizing on their creativity, expertise, and knowledge to foster novel ideas. Such integration mandates formalized yet flexible processes to offer a common ground for both employees as idea contributors and managers as decisionmakers, enabling control and governance. Despite this, a conspicuous knowledge gap exists within the realm of employee-driven innovation (EDI) concerning the design of EDI processes. In this paper, we present the outcomes of an action design research project conducted with a medium-sized organization, focusing on formalizing and designing an EDI process with decision points through three iterative cycles. This research contributes fourteen meta-requirements and eleven design principles for EDI process design, thereby expanding the theoretical (prescriptive) knowledge base. Additionally, the results offer practical implications, enabling organizations to adopt the EDI process accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast-growing number of research of Innovation Studies especially innovation process, had been main concerns in many research funding organizations. Recent studies on innovation process during merger & acquisition (M&A) present information overload that may burden effective academic research and collaboration. Scientometric analysis has a possibility for an accurate quantitative analyze and visualize the database into extensive landmark of research trend using suitable software tools. This study adopted scientometric analysis on innovation process during M&A using VOS Viewer software. Bibliographic data was taken from Scopus database ranged from 2003 to 2022. There were 275 documents to be compared and analyzed. Scientometric evaluations described density and network of authors, contributing countries & affiliations, and keywords. Number of documents by type and by year were analyzed by using data tables and graphics. The results showed that innovation process during M&A was still wide open to be discussed in terms of public organizations. Innovation process during M&A was strongly linked to open innovation. Meanwhile, to achieve deeper understanding of innovation process, several aspects (such as market and managerial challeges) were needed to be discussed carefully. Finally, this study also suggested further research in terms of innovation process during M&A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of the relationships between personal characteristics, thinking preferences and learning activities on academic achievements in creativity studies for innovation management. Development of theory related reflexivity on creative experiences and competence as well as training of required skills in innovation processes needs to activate both the pre-requisites and predictors of creativity (OECD, 2019). Statistical analysis of quantitative data and qualitative data collected within the framework of a course aiming to develop competence and skills for creativity in innovation processes' is presented. The results are related in the model for covarying creativity constructs based on the statistical correlation and regression analyzes. Based on this developed understanding consequences for developing creativity competences and considerations for assessment and grading of academic achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because process and product innovations are usually no longer sufficient to establish a company in the market or to generate a competitive advantage, Business Model Innovation is considered a powerful tool, especially for start-ups for which innovation is at the core of their business. Due to the complexity of this process, frameworks should help entrepreneurs with executing Business Model Innovation. However, theory and practice diverge. The aim of this paper is to identify the needs of a start-up regarding Business Model Innovation frameworks, underlining the importance of Business Model Innovation for start-ups as well as the relevance of a supporting framework. The research results aim to contribute to an ideal process for Business Model Innovation when applied to start-ups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies offer companies opportunities to achieve competitive advantages or to respond to market challenges. For digital innovation, it is important to have a solid decision-making basis for or against the adoption of a digital technology. Therefore, companies need the capability to identify and monitor developments in digital technologies as well as in the market environment and incorporate these insights into the innovation process at an early stage. Prior research has explored the capabilities that companies need to succeed here. In this paper, previous findings are confirmed and extended by examining in detail the related activities that companies perform in practice. Drawing on the dynamic capability approach as a theoretical foundation and a multiple-case study, results reveal seven key activities that support the sensing capabilities for digital innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to analyze entrepreneurship worldwide through the dimensions and pillars of the entrepreneurship ecosystem of each country, identifying the contribution and patterns of behavior and correlation within the entrepreneurship ecosystem. This analysis intends to show the main actions that countries have carried out in support of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. The tool used to analyze is machine learning, where various algorithms are applied. The evidence shows that the most relevant pillars in the entrepreneurial ecosystem are I. Opportunity Startup, II. Technology Absorption, III. Risk Acceptance, IV. Risk Capital and V. Process Innovation. The pillars that best correlate are I. Competition and Opportunity Startup, II. Opportunity Startup, and Risk Acceptance, III. Opportunity Startup and Technology Absorption, IV. Cultural Support and Opportunity Startup, and V. Opportunity Startup and Risk Capital. The present work aims to provide knowledge to decision-makers in both the public and private sectors to channel public policies that support entrepreneurs in this time of crisis and promote the generation and strengthening of entrepreneurial activity. Although there are still no reliable GEI data for the years 2020 to 2022, the economic crisis generated by the stagnation in the development of the countries has reduced support for entrepreneurs, which in many cases can be a key factor for the rescue of the most disadvantaged countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the knowledge-based view (KBV), knowledge is the most significant strategic resource of an organization. From a strategic management standpoint, connecting knowledge and performance is one of the most vital undertakings of any knowledge-based theory of an organization. However, most existing studies in this field left many questions unanswered. Although many researchers have recognized the importance of knowledge production in generating an organization's competitive advantage, they have failed to establish a solid causality between organizational behaviors in knowledge creation and firm performance, and hence the mechanisms remain unclear. This study argues that the innovation process is characterized by the generation of new knowledge, where creative problem solving and new product development can occur and yield innovation results. Idea management and intellectual property, innovation process, and innovation portfolio and project management represent broad innovation processes. Thus, this study proposes a new conceptual framework to investigate the link between broad innovation processes and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) performance. This novel perspective sheds light on how new knowledge generation, i.e., innovation, in the innovation process directly impacts SME performance, thereby connecting knowledge and firm performance via innovation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to determine the connection between absorptive capacity and innovative behaviour. We analyzed firms' innovation processes and revealed the connection with their absorptive capacity at a regional level. The innovation process decomposition into sub-processes for the analysis of regional innovation processes was used in the study. For that aim, three types of innovation products were specified depending on their market and technological novelty level. Each of the types of innovation product bears the result of some innovation process implementation. For the analysis of the connection between companies' innovation process and absorptive capacity, two types of realized absorptive capacity to technological adoption from abroad will be highlighted. That adoption can take place either in disembodied or in embodied forms. The analysis uncovers that it is possible to reach large-scale innovative products with high market and technological novelty when firms intensively invest in R&D and participate in global technologies transfer, primarily in disembodied forms. The firms' ability of international technological knowledge absorption is the key factor to the innovation process. This is because most industries in these countries do not reach the level of technology of countries on the stage based on their innovations. Furthermore, the processes of innovation creation based on in-house R&D, which are performed by the firms studied, do not provide any significant contribution to the innovation process structure of the considered regions. If the regional industry's development level is relatively high but lags behind the international technological level, the scaled innovation creation processes are based on the firms' capability of the imported technologies adoption. If the companies' absorptive capacity is not large enough to transfer technological knowledge from abroad, the strategies of modifying and imitating new-to-firm products prevail in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies are constantly looking for new ways to innovate and integrate external knowledge into their innovation processes. In the era of makerspaces, a new source for collaborative innovation has evolved. As research shows, the users of makerspaces, so called makers, tend to be highly creative and innovative. That makes this tech-savvy community very promising for companies to collaborate with during innovation processes. Prior research revealed that makers and companies are open to collaborate. However, we still know little about how makers can be engaged in corporate innovation processes and in which phases (ideation, prototyping, test and launch) they are interested in for collaboration. Our quantitative study tackles this research gap and specifically looks into what might motivate makers to collaborate with companies in new product development processes. We find four distinct maker types that differ in their collaboration motives: reward enjoyers, knowledge hunters, opportunity seekers and intrinsic enthusiasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study explores a value-based innovation process and a value-based innovation network emerging in the Thai digital content industry. Qualitative data were collected from 40 participants in 17 Thai digital content creators and five related actors involving in the Thai digital content industry. The results show that value-based innovation is induced by the Thai digital content creators through a value-based innovation process, which contains seven stages: customer insight researching, designing, prototyping, testing, redesigning, commercialising and modifying. Within the process, value co-creation between the Thai digital content creators and customers occurs. Along the process, related actors involve in the particular stages to ensure new and valuable digital contents to customers. A value-based innovation network in the Thai digital content industry emerges to facilitate negotiation and resources transfer between the Thai digital content creators and related actors to generate new and valuable digital contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unicorns (extreme-value start-ups) may reorganize existing industries or create new ones and are therefore a force to be reckoned. While unicorns typically receive venture capital funding, it is less clear how the resources are allocated internally to allow search, selection, implementation, and value capturing from innovation in a way that generates the scaling up. In this study, we explore three unicorns from their establishment until the initial public offering, looking especially at the allocation of financial and human resources to the R&D and marketing & sales (M&S) functions. The findings indicate that for innovation to promote extreme growth, R&D and M&S (1) need to receive balanced attention, with investment in human resources in particular, and they (2) need to be conducted according to the contextual demands (high growth, venture capital logic). Moreover, (3) the benefits from R&D and M&S can be realized when operational maintenance functions receive adequate resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the research field of innovation management, so-called circular-oriented innovations are focused on combining circular economy tenets within the development of innovation. Even though academia agrees that an economic transition has to develop from the bottom up, studying the implementation of circular economy on micro-level has been thus far neglected. Thus the paper examines the circular oriented innovation specific activities within the general innovation process and its distinct phases. Via multiple case study, the paper analyses the development of innovations suitable for the biological cycle of circular economy in the industry of biodegradable plastic substitutes. The findings show that circular economy aspects influence the innovation development from its very beginning. Starting from the triggering of idea generation, the end-of-life considerations and material choice show high importance in the front-end of innovation. Moreover, the research shows the high importance of cross-cycle and cross-sector collaborations throughout the entire development process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches like Design Thinking or Lean Startup have become standard frameworks to provide guidance for problem solution processes. But, creative processes often do not fit in a standardized process frame. They are built successively with respect to the individual setting, topic, team structure and type of problem. At the same time, creative teams often need guidance and structure to find their way towards the whole creative process, especially in difficult problem situations. To meet this dilemma, we propose the Solution Explorer© toolkit which represents a process framework on a meta level able to integrate standard frameworks and to combine their elements. Beyond, elements of storytelling and gamification are implemented in order to add a playful character to the tool for motivation reasons. The Solution Explorer© toolkit allows a customized solution process modeling and is applicable in different kind of settings such as coachings, hackathons, incubation programs or in higher education [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imagine a world in which the search for tomorrow's trends is not subject to a long and laborious data search but is possible with a single mouse click. Through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), this reality is made possible and is to be further advanced through research. The study therefore aims to provide an initial overview of the young research field. Based on research, expert interviews, company and student surveys, current application possibilities of AI in the innovation process (defined as Smart Innovation), existing challenges that slow down the further development are discussed in more detail and future application possibilities are presented. Finally, a recommendation for action is made for business, politics and science to help overcome the current obstacles together and thus drive the future of Smart Innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital innovation provides manifold opportunities and challenges. Companies need to master digital innovation cycles faster and leverage the increasing amount of available data. In this regard, artificial intelligence (AI) is of great interest, providing applications and tools to support humans and to enable more data-driven, customer-centric innovation. To date, however, the potential of AI for digital innovation processes remains poorly understood and needs to be further investigated. Thus, we developed a comprehensive framework for investigating the potential of AI along the steps of the digital innovation process. Drawing from the concept of cognitive skills and relating them to digital innovation activities as a theoretical lens, we used an initial survey with innovation experts and a focus group discussion with AI experts to assess the potential of AI along the steps of the digital innovation process. Our work contributes to the descriptive knowledge at the interface between digital innovation and AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular Economy (CE) emphasis minimizing resources and waste generation by transforming traditional take-make-dispose value chain into various circular value chains. Living lab approach has been suggested as a promising innovation approach for developing and testing CE solutions. However, in-depth analysis of what kind of co-creation and testing methods CE related living lab projects are applying is somewhat uncharted. By applying qualitative document analysis and in-depth interviews approaches, this multiple-case study is mapping living lab methods across the different CE value chain and innovation process phases among five companies participating in European Commission H2020 funded CIRC4Life-project. Visual matrix tool including eight CE value chain phases and six innovation process phases is generated to illustrate the evolution of living lab activities during the various innovation process phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic of a new coronavirus - COVID-19, hit the world unprepared. In a short time, it affected everyone and everything around us. Households, businesses, universities and national governments have had to adapt to changes from day to day to protect their health. One of the biggest challenges has been and still is the challenge of maintaining economic activity in compliance with current epidemiological measures. It will also be necessary to respond to changes in the implementation of research and development projects with application output for practice. Of all the actors affected by the pandemic, this paper focuses mainly on businesses that are faced with the challenge of rapidly adapting to the changes they need to make to their micro-environment as well as to the macro-environment. The speed of the innovation process in companies has never been more important than in this period, and companies had to reduce the time between the innovation idea and the implementation of innovation in practice to a minimum. The aim of this paper is to identify the changes that have occurred in the business environment during a pandemic and the changes that companies have had to make in their behavior both internally and externally, and which have contributed to their corporate social responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we start developing an innovation ecosystem, the feeling of "getting involved in making it more open!" is very exciting. However, in practice, we face a number of challenges, and to tackle these challenges we turn to the precedents and similar cases. However, because of the ecosystem's diversified applicability, simple and direct comparison among ecosystems tends to be impractical. This paper describes a framework, which consists of a few sub frameworks, to understand innovation ecosystem in a structured way, which the author has been developing through experiences to develop innovation ecosystems. So far the set of frameworks have proved appropriate, at least as a first-stage tool to start comparative studies among ecosystems, by checking out an ecosystem's characteristics along with others. This could be used for policy development with wide perspective, or in defining specific features of your own ecosystem for a specific business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is a research-in-progress outcome of a large-scale study of open innovation in European SMEs. The study presents a process model of an open innovation in SMEs, which has been developed and validated through the course of studying the cases of 117 Europe-based SMEs (of various sectors, region and lifecycle stage) practicing open innovation. The proposed framework provides a non-linear, cyclic model of SME’ open innovation, which considers not only internal company space, but also extra-organizational or open innovation space. This framework provides not only a contribution to the innovation management literature, but also appears a tool to support an informed decision-making in SMEs entering the open innovation space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explored the existing pool of innovation experience in a public hospital in Sweden which is one of the largest tertiary care centers in Europe. Four innovation initiatives were looked at and twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with innovation leaders and clinicians. Studying a highly specialized university hospital led to the development of a revised framework for innovation process with a strong focus on learning and experiential knowledge exchange. Having a dedicated innovation center was key to the studied hospital‘s innovation capacity building. There appeared to be an unrealized potential for innovation in health care, suggesting that clinical staff could benefit from being taught people and project management skills, while non-clinical innovation center employees – from increasing their visibility and accessibility in the clinical environment. The results could help guide other hospitals in their innovative efforts, especially with increasing the proportion of practice-based innovation and running a dedicated innovation facility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the elements of skills and competences needed in the field of creative industries and how the professionals of the creative industries are positioned in the innovation process. In this paper the focus is in describing the methodology, i.e. the concept of core competence tree, but also in analyzing the produced core competence trees of the participants and fitting them to the phases of the (service) innovation process. According to our data, there seems to be six main categories in the field of creative industries: new creating status quo challengers, human-oriented inspirers, creative visualizers, digital urbans, business-minded developers, qualified craftsmen & artists. The categories are covering all the phases of the innovation process quite extensively. However, it seems that skills related to commercialization and strategic focus are often lacking from the creative industries professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this research is to examine the effects on a company’s innovation process by being established in a science park. The effects of the science park on each phase of the innovation process will be examined: 1) conception, 2) implementation, and 3) marketing. The research is based on a qualitative exploratory study conducted among the main players of seven science parks in the province of Quebec, Canada. The main findings indicate that partnerships with other research organizations, funding, reputation and visibility of the park are major contributions of the park. The science park represents an opportunity for companies that launches a new technology to reduce the cost and the risk of development, as well as speeding up its launch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managerial attention has been considered to be a prerequisite for innovation initiatives to proceed and thrive in innovating organizations. At the same time, it has been noted that this attention does not come automatically, nor is targeted always to the “right” issues. Valuable innovation may go unnoticed. In our study, we apply this same idea to an understudied issue of managerial attention paid to securing resources – funding – for innovation. We suggest that securing funding may be a problematic issue for SME managers trying to attend simultaneously to multiple operational and strategic tasks. Particularly, combined with the complexity of many innovation funding/ policy schemes and the related intermediary support structures that would provide SMEs with external support for their innovation, a paradoxical situation emerges, where the discontinuities and shortcomings in attention capacity of SMEs to funding keeps them from benefitting from these support systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capability Maturity Models (CMM) permit defining and capturing the quality of organizational processes, and make them comparable across different contexts and implementations. CMM proposes five stages of organizational process maturity: from initial to optimising. Open Innovation (OI) has not been addressed comprehensively from a CMM perspective. In this paper, we developed and empirically validated five stages OI-CMM (on the data collected from over 500 European firms). We found that OI maturity is a complex process and includes internal process of knowledge absorption, sharing and dissemination, collaboration proclivity, HRM (education, leadership, rewards management support) and establishing supporting OI organisational structures. The OI maturing process is based on strengthening the knowledge absorption, sharing and dissemination capabilities, followed by empowering OI organisational capabilities. The proposed OI CMM serves as a managerial tool evaluation, developing OI organisational capabilities and processes at each maturity stage in order to resolve innovation process asymmetries, and organisational barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore different perspectives on innovation capability of a firm. Subsequently, this study analyzes the relationships between innovation capability, innovation measurement and innovation performance at the firm level. The research is based on a bibliometric analysis, which includes analyses of research frontiers, keywords, and corresponding time propagations. The dataset consisted of 3,903 scientific publications. Findings showed that innovation capability and measurement are multi-faceted constructs. This research area has become more and more diversified over the considered periods and innovation drivers have emerged. Different innovation capability drivers were identified based on keyword analyses and research frontiers upon which an innovation capability measurement framework was established. Managers and researchers should be aware of a comprehensive view of innovation capability. There are limitations regarding the search string and the parameters used in the bibliometric analyses. Nevertheless, this study provides a state-of-the-art bibliometric analysis of innovation capability, measurement, and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The front-end of innovation offers the largest potential for innovation. However, research on unconscious processes of idea development in this stage is scarce. Employees often do not speak about raw ideas to avoid a loss of face. Hence, they cannot further develop and contribute their ideas. To explore this phenomenon, we identified the most prevalent needs for ideation in literature and evaluated them by surveying 122 employees of a German automotive company. Our results show that employees with relatively more ideas require the most support. Employees with few ideas need social interactions and access to information technology to gather information and evaluate ideas. We find financial resources and peer support to be of low importance, while role models are highly important. Hence, organizations must address employees’ needs differently depending on the phase of the idea development process and the number of ideas employees submit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The telecommunications industry is a sector that is developing at a fast pace, in a particularly strong competitive environment. Innovation is a key process in this sector being one of the most important factors ensuring the competitiveness of companies. The analysis of the components that are evaluating the performances of the telecommunication companies as a result of the adoption of the innovations enables the creation of strategic models that can lead to important competitive advantages with the effect of increasing their competitiveness. The paper aims to analyze the correlation between the factors that determine the innovation process in the telecommunication companies with the effect of increasing their performance. As a case study, the analysis was carried out in a telecommunication company from Romania. The data were collected through the application of questionnaires to 30 managers of the studied company. The research methodology used multifactorial analysis tools. The results of the analysis confirmed positive correlations between the factors that determine the innovation process and the performance of the telecommunication companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to highlight problems of development modern approaches to design the ecological innovation systems on different levels of organization. There is investigation the role of environmental innovations in solving some ecological and economic problems for providing ecological safety and sustainable development. The functional model of the environmental innovation system has been developed. This model is based on system approach and analysis of innovation process. The unified structure of the global environmental innovation systems is presented. This structure is based on the hierarchical set of sub-systems and it is developed by decomposition of functions of environmental innovation system as well as analysis of states set of each component of this system. A mathematical toolkit for testing of the dynamic and static characteristics of the environmental innovation system has been formed. It provides optimal decision making in the process of environmental innovation system management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Congreso Internacional de Investigacion Academia Journals is the property of PDHTech, LLC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we analyze the influence of open innovation on the structure and organization of the contemporary innovation process. The paper starts with a literature survey followed by a few empirical cases. On the basis of this, the multi-process model of innovation is presented. Afterwards we identify the main managerial issues or rather challenges to be faced by managers of innovation processes in enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovation is a complex phenomenon which exists under a high level of uncertainty. Predicting probability of success of an innovation project is a difficult task. Existing mathematical models do not always take into account rapid development of approaches on how to organize innovation process. This creates a gap between innovation practice and innovation theory. One of the examples of such developments is the lean approach, which considers pivoting to be an essential part of an innovation process. In reality we observe a number of companies, which found their success after making a decision to pivot their product or their market. The purpose of this study is to understand in which way existing mathematical models of technological innovation process such as Markov Chain Models incorporate pivoting phenomena and propose directions of model improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on innovation has highlighted its role in enhancing a firm's competitiveness. Although the process of innovating products is widely determined by the availability of financial and physical resources, companies facing resource constraints may alternatively engage in innovating a product's value proposition instead, thereby allowing for differentiation. We observed managers and sales agents of a German SME acting in the industry supply sector for two years and reveal how they manage to successfully differentiate despite offering standardized products and facing resource constraints. We introduce a by now widely ignored form of innovation -- value proposition innovation and describe one example of a value proposition innovation process. Our findings show how employee training becomes a specific driving force of innovation and how managerial interactions can be of major importance in overcoming resource constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation champions have been subject in various innovation management studies which showed that the existence of innovation champions is beneficial for innovation projects in various ways. However, innovation champion theory lacks understanding at what point in various innovation phases different innovation champions promote a project. By taking a dynamic view on the emergence of innovation champions in the inter-organisational innovation process, we show that it is not important that innovation champions exist all the time in an open innovation project, but at the right time. Furthermore, by analysing scienceindustry R&D collaboration projects, we provide insights in the innovation champion differences between science and industry partners and in the specific contributions these roles make for each partner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present research on the front-end of innovation mainly examines factors or resources influencing an employee's creativity, measured by outcomes such as generated ideas. From the point of articulation, the ideas are more or less easy to handle as they enter a company's sphere of influence. However, ideas that are held back by employees are not so easy to grasp, although they could provide a large pool of ideas to benefit from. This qualitative-empirical study points out demands of employees that have to be met to create an environment which supports the development of ideas. Employees have the greatest demands during the gathering of information and idea evaluation. Furthermore, the moment when ideas are entered into the idea management system, employees are very sensitive to hurdles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specific innovation management issue in this case study is: What strategic role has the brand in the innovation process in new venture startups? The case describes the innovation process from 1997 to 2018 for a new Swedish company in the vodka-market, Cariel Spirits AB. The case is neither a success story nor a failure, instead it describes both things that goes as plan but also a lot of backlashes. The innovation process moves, changes, or occurs in the dramatically changeable manner of a roller coaster. The case show how the entrepreneurs have to deal with different kind of risks, uncertainties and ambiguities during the whole innovation process and what kind of role of the brands have in this process. A proposition is that a brand portfolio strategy is an undervalued but potential prolific strategy in marketing of innovations in a context of a new venture start-ups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation and creativity have become increasingly important determinants of organizational performance and success. As organizations seek to harness the ideas and suggestions raised by their employees, it is axiomatic that the process of idea generation and implementation is a source of distinct competitive advantages. In this conceptual study, creativity is defined as generation of new ideas and innovation as implementation of the ideas in the innovation process. Based on the current literature review of the creativity and innovation, there were more studies and research within individual creativity and team creativity and less in organizational creativity. It is suggested that there is a need for further research in the level of organizational creativity. Further, this study illustrates, that the research on creativity and process innovation is less than research on creativity and product innovation in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is increasingly more relevant to researchers. Following a literature review, which revealed that research on innovation processes in a country averse to uncertainty (e.g. Portugal), and thus inhibiting of innovation, is still lacking, a focus group was performed at a product development firm, as well as a survey of the firm's employees, with 48 valid answers. The case is of a firm which develops innovative products and services for the telecommunications and information technology market. The firm is situated in central Portugal and the focus group involved six employees - one from each operational department (pre-sales), plus two employees from sales. How innovation is managed at the firm was a main topic of discussion in the focus group. The results revealed a corporate culture focused on teamwork, where employees are free to innovate in areas not directly linked to their job description, and where innovative ideas, however disruptive, are welcomed. No formal or informal recognition is given, to more innovative employees, and there is a desire by employees to change this. At a firm where product innovation older than 24 months may no longer be seen to be innovation, numerous tools to promote innovation are used, namely: brainstorming, scrum, agile, focus groups, and design thinking. Operating in a business-to-business market, innovation is continuous and open, also involving, for example, universities. Business cases are constructed for each product, customers are surveyed for their satisfaction, all ideas are valued and none are rejected. Despite an innovation-welcoming atmosphere at the firm tact and common sense are still needed to communicate new ideas. External competition by rivals is considered at all times. Internal competition, between colleagues, however, is not seen to be healthy, and work is done towards the common good. Knowledge sharing platforms abound and include internal blogs, workshops, and the registering of projects on specific knowledge-sharing platforms. Finally, product pricing will depend on a number of factors, including the degree of innovativeness of the product in question. The main influence on pricing is, however, the market - an extreme effort must be made to make product prices fit in with what the market is prepared to pay for a technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to analyse firms' innovative behaviour and identify its connection with their absorptive capacity. Firstly, we study the innovation behaviour of Russian enterprises at a regional level. Toward this nd, the decomposition of innovation process into sub-processes is used. Four types of innovation product were specified depending on its level of market and technological novelty. Each of the types of innovation product is the result of some innovation processes implementation. Secondly, we distinguish different types of absorptive capacity for the transfer of technological knowledge from abroad. In the study, the absorptive capacity for technology transfer is defined as the ability to acquire advanced technologies. To that end, we analyse the import of embodied and disembodied technologies. Moreover, the disembodied form can be divided into two types. The first one is the adoption of R&D results and the second one is the acquisition of patents, licenses, and know-how. At the same time, we take into account that companies can not only buy R&D results but also can absorb them in partnership and cooperation. The ability to absorb technological knowledge from abroad is essential for firms' innovative strategies in developing countries. The four regions of the Russian Federation with developed manufacture were chosen to demonstrate the results obtained. The results of the study show that, if the development level of regional industry is relatively high, but lags behind the international technological level, the scaled process of innovation creation is based on the firms' capacity to adopt foreign technologies. Particularly, when firms both intensively invest in R&D and adopt disembodied technologies, they get able to change the structure of innovation process and thus become more creative. It is also established that intensive investment in in-house R&D is an essential factor for efficient application of technological knowledge transferred from abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses trust in organizational leadership in nurturing and sustaining innovations for business competitiveness. The focus is on the interplay between trust and innovation from the leadership perspective. Trust is a key element and resource for building open communication culture needed for creating and sharing ideas and knowledge. The research questions are how trust and innovativeness are related and how leaders build and sustain trustful climate for generating ideas and innovations. Trust building is an intangible asset, resource, and skill for leaders to influence creativity and innovativeness in workplaces. The paper also presents two real-life examples of trust in leadership for innovativeness. Trust is discussed within workplace relationships taking into account the emerging e-leadership context. Implications are made to leaders of trust building in workplace relationships. The originality of the paper is based on examining the interrelation between trust and innovation from the organizational leadership point of view. The paper highlights two leadership issues that have an impact on innovativeness; first, trust is an intangible resource and influencing force and a skill for leaders to build trustful workplace climate manifested in openness, appreciation, and competence. Second, leadership by trust enables collaboration in innovation activity supporting the idea and new knowledge creation and sharing. Leadership and organizational culture have a significant influence on innovation processes. Trust is critical to the idea and knowledge creation and sharing and, hence, the entire innovation process. The paper suggests that in innovation management it is important to understand the role of trust and leadership in order to stimulate creativity and innovations. Trust formation is clearly a social and collaborative process affected by local and global practices. The paper concludes that trust and innovation are inter-related in many ways. Leaders are the key drivers for open communication and trustful climate where ideas and innovations may prosper. For sustaining creativity and flow of ideas, ways of trust-building change in e-leadership, as technology-mediated management affects interaction and learning practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms can be inhospitable environments for attempts to promote a mindset for sustained innovation. Consequently, efforts to adopt design thinking as a methodology for driving innovation and an agent of mindset change are often unsuccessful and results are seldom sustained over time. There is little guidance available on optimising design thinking’s adoption and diffusion within an organisation. This paper proposes a design thinking paradigm and process that act as a beacon for new and infrequent practitioners and thereby help them transcend the plethora of methods employed. The new process positions reframing as a central pivot or gateway between old and new. The new paradigm introduces strategic suitability, of a project in respect of a firm, as a key project attribute. Strategic suitability must be a design consideration for every project at all stages of progress, so that the project’s innovation is ready for the firm where it is to be adopted, and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital innovation can play a critical role in delivering more innovative solutions for the power generation industry, which is called to manage the complexity of massive electro-mechanical machines to produce energy. Building on a single case study of a large European technology company (the "Provider") which sells Product Life Cycle Management ("PLM") systems, we investigate how the innovation process of the power generation industry (the "end-user") can benefit from the adoption and implementation of a digital innovation such as the PLM system. To this extent, we adopt a capability-based perspective, mapping into a framework (i) the capabilities triggered by the Provider on the end-user for adopting and implementing a PLM system in its innovation process; (ii) the capabilities stemmed from the PLM adoption by the end-user, and deriving from the activities performed by the Provider within the end-user premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]