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In today’s highly competitive business environment, firms can ill afford the consequences of overlooking opportunities for innovation. An organization seeking to increase its existing knowledge base, in most cases, aims to identify and pursue useful knowledge available outside its borders. However, for companies interested in engaging in collaborative arrangements for innovations, systematic approaches for knowledge transfer may become a major challenge. In our research we focus on the diffusion of innovative knowledge that occurs during a joint knowledge development process. We present an empirical study spanning the period 2004 to 2018 which aims to explore the impact inter-organizational collaboration in the form of joint patenting has on the distance between partners’ technological bases. In addition, this paper looks into the change in technological distance when joint patenting occurs between different-country and same-country partners. The empirical results of the study suggest that engagement in joint patenting positively influences the technological proximity between partners and indicates a transmission and utilization of knowledge outside of firms’ existing knowledge base. Our findings contribute to knowledge related to innovation under inter?organizational collaboration and provides a basis for further theory development and testing.

While innovation contests and intermediaries are widely used in large companies to source knowledge from the outside, it is not clear how contests could be utilized to break the barriers that SMEs face in pursuing Open Innovation. In this paper, we shed light on the topic by analysing ten innovation contests that have been successfully run in three European countries with the specific aim to create innovation opportunities between SMEs and higher education institutions, research centres, other companies, or end users. The analysis resulted in the identification of common elements that played a crucial role in these innovation contests, but were overlooked in previous research. Moreover, we collected early evidence supporting the case for innovation contests as tools to support Open Innovation policies for SMEs. On that basis, we propose a new framework that can be used by innovation intermediaries to design innovation contests specifically aiming at supporting Open Innovation in SMEs.

A few months ago, we claimed that COVID-19 had the potential to be a catalyst for change and innovation (Mention et al., 2020). Undeniably, this has indeed eventuated, but to a scale that was unforeseeable and unpredictable to many. Over the last few months, the world has literally changed. Around the world, people and communities have seen their lives put on a standstill, experiencing and experimenting with variable levels of restrictions preventing social interactions. We have learned what physical – rather than social, at least initially – distancing meant and have uncovered new ways of doing things. And that applied to almost for every single aspect of life. (...)

Over the recent years, the importance of innovation in academic R&D projects has increased. Nevertheless, innovation facilitation in the academic field has rarely been researched. Currently, innovation support focuses on the industrial context. In our study we aim to address this research gap and examine the facilitation of innovation in the academic and the industrial context. In our abductive empirical case study, we investigate the role, skills, mindset and instruments of innovation facilitators by interviewing 25 individuals from nine organizations. We discovered different behaviors and perspectives in dealing with innovation work, depending on the context of the either academic or industry-driven projects. Academic innovation projects focus on feasibility, whereas industry-driven projects focus on viability. In both contexts, the facilitators usually intend to include the user perspective (desirability). With our results we contribute to the facilitation literature and show that innovation projects and their facilitation depend on their specific context and the mentality of the facilitators. With these results, we strive to improve academic and industry-driven projects with advice for innovation practitioners and facilitators on helpful tools and important perspectives to fully exploit the innovation potential.

In this article, we explore and interpret organizational identity transformation associated with open innovation strategy of the largest telecommunication company in Italy, Telecom Italia (TIM). When TIM established eight joint laboratories within five major Italian universities to benefit from opening its business model, it transferred some of the R&D employees to the new laboratories to work with the university scientists. This organizational transformation created underexplored conditions for R&D employees engaged in the open innovation activities of the firm. Our interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) answers the question of “How do R&D employees experience organizational identity change in the process of open innovation?”. We based our analysis on interpreting lived experiences of 14 employees. Studying the phenomena of organizational identity change during the process of open innovation implementation suggests the following: (1) The process of open innovation through mobility of skilled R&D employees triggers organizational identity ambiguity and change, (2) Organizational identity ambiguity phase in the process of open innovation can be shortened by the support of parent company and managerial skills highlighting sensemaking mechanisms, (3) Constructing a shared organizational identity with university members involved in this process is an undeniable element of OI success for this strategy. We contribute to the literature by establishing linkages among organizational identity and open innovation and by building on recent works on the role of individuals within open innovation ecosystem. Our qualitative analysis draws on a conceptual framework for open innovation and organizational identity transformation.

COVID-19 pandemic-related direct public support mechanisms have received more attention than previously and budgets for SME subsidies have skyrocketed around the globe. Currently, most support measures focus on short-term liquidity needs. However, policy makers have already started thinking about which role subsidies should play in the renewal of the economic structure once the pandemic dust has settled. The pandemic offers a good opportunity to restructure a company support system taking into account the structural barriers that innovation support systems have been subject to over the last decade. The aim of the analysis in this paper is threefold: (1) to map the barriers to innovation support, (2) to offer policy makers and SME support agencies a set of solutions to overcome these barriers and (3) to re-interpret these results against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic that started to unravel shortly after finalising the set of research interviews.

Successful aging at work is an important topic which is pertinent to everyone who works to make a living because getting older is unavoidable. The objective of this paper is to draw on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to explore successful aging in the field of entrepreneurship. A conceptual approach was used to examine the successful aging in the field of entrepreneurship. Building on JD-R model, older workers who pursue entrepreneurship may have improved mental and physical health and obtain successful aging at work. The current study developed a theoretical foundation to explore successful aging in the field of entrepreneurship and offered suggestions for future research.

This study assessed resources capability of government co-operative supporting organizations (GCSOs) in innovations dissemination to primary co-operative societies (PCSos) in Tanzania. Case study research design using multiple cases was used involving five cases. Primary data were collected using key informant interviews, focus groups discussions, documentary reviews and personal observations. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Findings indicate that, most GCSOs in Tanzania were poor in terms of resources to disseminate innovations to PCSos. Most GCSOs were also not determined at prioritizing and utilizing available resources for dissemination of innovations to PCSos. Further, some external factors e.g. inadequate government resources commitment, employment freezing and others have been adversely affecting GCSOs resources capability to disseminate innovations to PCSos. Moreover, there were no formal and comprehensive incentive systems to reward innovation dissemination activities in most of the GCSOs. It is recommended that GCSOs should mobilize more internal resources and ensure sufficient innovation resources prioritization and utilization to adequately facilitate innovations dissemination to PCSos. The GCSOs should also establish clear incentive systems to reward innovation dissemination activities.

The innovation management literature describes a competitive advantage when applying Design Thinking (DT) in corporate environments. In this paper we study the perceived challenges, enablers, and benefits for implementing DT in publicly funded transdisciplinary industry-academia research and innovation consortia (RIC). We facilitate and investigate five large RIC from the food and high-tech industry in Norway and Germany using an explorative qualitative action research design. Our research shows that the challenges of using DT in RIC are to some extent comparable to those for the corporate context. Additionally, we identify distinct challenges for RIC. Benefits from using DT in RIC are stronger user and innovation focus, better transdisciplinary collaboration, and triangulation of qualitative with scientific data. We suggest that complex RIC benefit from an intermediary (DT) role translating business needs into research questions, and research results into understandable and business-relevant information and innovation.

This study explores the relationships among the use of different types of humor (affiliative, aggressive, reframing, and coping humor)—both among immediate co-workers (“ingroup”), and with actors external to the firm (“outgroup”), international competitiveness, as well as innovativeness. An exploratory study based on survey data suggests that humor, when connections exist, is negatively related to international competitive potential and performance. Whether or not these negative effects emerge, depends on with whom and which type of humor is used. However, the situation is not straightforward: innovativeness is positively related to international competitiveness, and to innovativeness, humor types relate in different ways, some positive, some negative. Overall, humor seems to play a relevant, but challenging-to-manage role especially in settings where borders—organizational or national—are crossed: Humor that works as a lubricant for innovation processes, does not necessarily work directly in advancing international competitiveness.

Purpose: Most organizations seek for innovative solutions to address tabulate changes and competition. However, each organization is required for rapid and effective processes of assimilating technological innovation into its operational activities. Consistent with previous studies, the aim of this study was to understand whether an organization characterized as CAS (Complex Adaptive System) could positively affect the process of assimilating technological innovation through supporting the development of knowledge workers. Such workers deal mostly with changes. Hence, they possess the ability to combine personal benefits with organizational goals, they are sensible to changes in the environment, they understand the integration of information required for such a process, and they need the ability to socialize among themselves. Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 300 employees in organizations of different sectors responded to an online questionnaire, which examined their attitude towards technological innovation in correlation with the level of organization's CAS characteristics. Pearson and regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between the functioning of the workers as CAS fractals[1] and their attitudes toward the process of assimilation of technological innovation. Findings: Workers who function as “fractals”, namely as knowledge-worker in organizations having the characteristics of CAS, were able to combine personal benefits with organizational goals. They had sensitivity to changes in the environment, integration of the information required for the process and the ability to socialize among themselves. These abilities of knowledge workers have significantly influenced the development of positive attitudes towards the process of assimilation of technological innovation, a better understanding of the technology and the advantages they gain from it, which make them ready to be involved in the process. Practical implications: The practical contribution of this study is the ability to best portray the characteristics of an optimal work environment in an organization that wishes to undergo assimilation processes, technological innovation, management and dissemination of relevant knowledge for the organization's use. Such an organization is required to provide its employees with a degree of operational autonomy enabling them to interweave personal interests and organizational goals, and to be involved and to influence the processes of assimilating technological innovation in the organization. The organization should also maintain a high level of updating, transparency, and transfer of knowledge from outside into the organization. In addition, investment in information systems for the information integration provides the employees with the possibility of social networking during their work.

This article aims to provide a conceptual framework for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to evaluate the appropriation of blockchain technology for their business needs and challenges. This conceptual framework aims to respond to the problem of increasing speculations surrounding the blockchain that is considered to be an absolute and innovative solution to many business-related problems. However, this argument might not be realistic for SMEs despite this assumption. The main argument of the article is that SMEs should be skeptical while evaluating the appropriation of this technology for their business needs and they should follow a tailored approach whilst adopting it. Otherwise, the likelihood is high that a short-term and unstructured knowledge management process to adopt blockchain will end up with a waste of resources. The present paper conceptualizes an appropriation framework within nine factors namely, reduction of costs, internalization, digital representation of assets, unalterable data recording, network size, transparent and synchronized ledger, scalability, fair trade, and financing. Given the field’s infancy state of development, the paper relies on a qualitative document analysis involving SME literature and extant literature and white papers of blockchain applications.

In the last decade, design thinking has been discussed as a new paradigm for dealing with complex business problems. The implementation of design thinking is linked with substantial changes in the organizational culture, and becomes visible in new approaches to designing office and learning spaces. To analyze proponents’ perspectives on the implementation process, we adapted Schein’s (1990, 2017) approach of different layers of an organizational culture. In general, two layers in an organization are addressed, namely visible artifacts and behaviors, as well as basic principles to think about approaches to deal with business problems (mindset). In total, eight semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with proponents to learn more about the implementation of design thinking and the architecture of related office spaces. The findings suggest that design thinking addresses both aspects—the provision and inner design of physical space as well as a change of mindset.

Worldwide wine production has a great cultural and economic importance. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to improve wine quality. The First Science & Wine World Congress was planned to be a discussion forum considering the wide wine research spectrum. The idea attracted more than 100 attendees most of which scientists. Wine sector professionals missed the call, which emphasize the necessity of implementing strategies to approach those to the academy. Among the topics discussed, the effects of wine in health was pointed out as a priority. Global forums are a good approach to discuss wine in a holist mode.

There is an extensive literature on characteristics of “entrepreneurial” or “innovative” universities. As both terms have generally been used to refer to the same condition, different rankings of entrepreneurial universities use indicators universally recognized for innovative activity and primarily related to research and knowledge transfer (scholarly production, patents granted and licensed, number of firms created to exploit research results, etc.). Innovation is essentially grounded in an entrepreneurial mentality, but an innovative university (hereafter, IU) is one that transmits this mentality to all of its members, including the foremost among its central missions: education. The IU is a university that becomes a driver of economic and social development in the region in which it is established, seeking to improve society through knowledge. In recent years, various attempts have been made to “measure” this innovative/ entrepreneurial character in a more technical way. In a prior study, we proposed a characterization of an entrepreneurial and innovative university. Here, we build on that study to define the IU. The originality of this proposal stems from its inclusion of the so-called third and fourth missions (knowledge transfer and social responsibility, respectively) as transversal elements implicit in the university’s two central missions. In an IU, therefore, the university’s relationship with and impact on its surrounding agents are essential aspects entwined with its two basic functions.

The purpose of this note is to introduce a simple diagram that I suggest provides an intuitive and useful way of looking at the connection between institutions and innovations, regardless of what level of institutions one is concerned with. The 'back-of-the-envelope' diagram focuses attention on the effects of a new idea on the existing ideas that some institution might represent, and the sort of innovated institution that it might help engender.

As we write this editorial, people around the world are apprehensive about their future; some are at home; some are thinking about the loved ones they cannot visit; some, unfortunately, are dying. We watch the graphs and listen to the daily news of new coronavirus cases, but be it just one or one thousand, for the those close of the ones affected, the impact is catastrophic. (...)

Where there is little trust, can there be self-transcendence? Can one strive for openness as well as closeness between tribes? Preference to trust own clan members is much higher among Mediterranean peoples than among Germanic ones. In both Germanic and Mediterranean clusters, trusting behaviours follow culturally determined kinship patterns that are slow to change, so much so that the different Mediterranean and Germanic trust patterns still show between Latin America and the USA. Germanic managerial techniques rest on Germanic trusting behaviours that are relatively lacking in the Mediterranean cluster, among whom Germanic managerial techniques lose efficacy and self-transcendence might be a riskier path to take. Clan-friendly management among Mediterranean peoples, including rewards more readily focused on needs, teamwork and citizenship behaviour, require less controls, bringing about faster alignment and more agile organizations. These reflections are relevant to manage North African migrants into Europe, as they are to manage Latin Americans into the USA.

Wisdom of the crowds, Technological capabilities and Functional alignment, which when recognised and utilised in innovation processes, can unlock the ability to source, develop and commercialise ideas at rapid pace. The phenomenon is known as technological convergence. By definition, technological convergence is described as the process by which Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) converge towards new and more unified markets. This convergence often leverages the three dimensions of innovation – economic, technical and functional. On the economic side, the focus of a focal firm is on maximising profits with minimal costs under resource constraints brought about in-part by liberalisation of markets. In this regard, open innovation which involves harnessing wisdom of the crowds at the fuzzy front-end of the innovation process has increasingly been promoted as a pragmatic mechanism for accessing widely distributed knowledge (Thanasopon, Papdopoulos & Vidgen, 2016), in large firms (Brunswicker & Chesbrough, 2018) and SMEs (Vanhaverbeke, Frattini, Roijakkers & Usman, 2018). On the technical side, the main driver has been the rise of enabling technologies, at times revolutioning social behaviour but mostly brought about through incremental shifts in technical abilities. Finally, convergence is realised through functional alignment, characterised by integration of computational, behaviour and communication factors in a unique value-proposition delivered through new product or new service (Canals, Torres & Borés, 2001). The growing prominence of technological convergence means firms can no longer afford to work in silos or rely on proprietory waterfall solutions to achieve competitive advantage and influence societal progress. Here, we build on our July 2018 editorial which emphasised the cumulative importance of management research and management practice working together for societal progress. W-T-F is offered here as the fundamental trilogy that both managers and researchers need to address to survive and thrive in an increasingly digitised and globally-connected world. (...)

A recent review of mobile payment research by Dahlberg et al. (2015) concludes that there is a need to synthesise this research area by studying contexts in which innovation is carried out and to integrate different aspects of research. This article aims to provide a proposal for how to achieve such integration and context orientation by building on previous studies and offering an additional review. Our systematic literature review of mobile payments research is focused on papers published during 2006–2016. The main objective is to examine how mobile payments research has been conducted from the methodological and theoretical perspectives. Our findings show that research on mobile payments is a multidisciplinary research. Three main themes in the research (in line with previous studies) are customer adoption, technological aspects, and business aspects. Moreover, research is mainly analytical based on a deductive approach. To meet the challenge formulated in the previous research, we propose and apply a socio-technical system framework to achieve synthesis and context-specific consideration in future research on mobile payments.

Design thinking in the management context has suffered from vague definition, gaps in literature, and lack of theoretical foundation. Research streams in absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities have reached a point of convergence with respect to design thinking and absorption of external knowledge. As such, this study draws on both absorptive capacity and dynamic capability theory to provide theoretical foundation for the strategic consideration of design thinking in strategy, organization design, and organizational learning. In doing so, this study extends seminal absorptive capacity theory providing empirical evidence of design thinking as a dynamic capability to enhance absorptive capacity. Additionally, this study extends dynamic capabilities theory by confirming design thinking as a means of integration, learning, and reconfiguring knowledge to build competitive advantage. Therefore, this study merges existing research streams to empirically validate design thinking as a dynamic capability which must be strategically considered.

This article presents an exploratory study investigating the influence of an enterprise’s size on its perception and assessment of the benefits and risks expected from participating in open innovation projects. For this purpose an online survey was conducted in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The result of this paper is empirical evidence showing how the size of an enterprise affects its perception of potential benefits and risks expected within the context of open innovation project participation. Furthermore, the identified effects are discussed against the theory. Existing theory regarding the benefits and risks of open innovation is expanded by 1) finding that they are perceived mostly independently of enterprise size, 2) confirming their practical relevance, and 3) enabling a finer distinction between their degrees of relevance for small, medium, and large enterprises.

Many organizations find themselves at the "front end of innovation", that is, they know they need to do something, but they are not quite sure what to do. Through our research, we have learned much more about the practice and implementation of innovation. For example, we have discovered that innovation is most successful if there is leadership support for a culture of innovation combined with systematic approaches to embed and reinforce innovative behaviours. This article outlines a case study of an organization in the financial services industry who began their innovation journey a number of years ago, and reports on the progress of a sustained and deliberate approach. This research highlights the relationship between an innovation cultural assessment model and its utilization as a framework to manage the implementation of activities to support the development of an innovation approach in a context specific scenario. A case study methodology was adopted that utilized an innovation culture model as a measurement tool. By actively observing the organization, including two cultural assessments over a 4-year period, the findings indicate that an innovation assessment model is useful as an approach to advance the innovation agenda in the organization. In this sense, the research findings are of interest to academics looking to conceptualize a broader implementation framework that is closely associated to the innovation measure associated with the organization. As well, practitioners looking to advance their innovation platforms will find the framework useful as they plan initiatives aimed at advancing their innovation agendas.

Research studies of SME innovation practice observe some common themes, such as an orientation towards networking, and some differences that may seem activity-related (e.g. production or service). In this paper we suggest the kinds of innovation activity undertaken by an SME will depend on their dominant business model and owner/enterprise attitudes, each one being moderated by purposeful networking. This is illustrated in our review of data from 50 case studies, where combining a CEO narrative analysis with secondary data on the nature of the firm has identified seven generic manufacturing business models. We observe these may be adopted singly or in combination to pursue a competitive advantage, and the dominant business model may change over time as new capabilities are developed and/or in response to market changes.

Studies of diffusion have found conflicting patterns of inter-organizational innovation adoption. This paper uses the concept of middle-status conformity to propose a model of diffusion that helps to make sense of these conflicting results. This model is developed by combining the status-competition model (Podolny, 1993) with the audience-candidate interface model (Zuckerman, 1999). The integration of these models yields two distinct diffusion patterns characterized by status differences in originating and adopting organizations. Additionally, five empirically testable propositions are developed in order to lay the groundwork for testing this hybrid model.

Much of the existing literature on innovation intermediaries is focused on manufacturing, and limited scientific knowledge has been developed about the role of intermediaries in services. This paper aims to expand and test an existing framework on the roles and functions of intermediaries in services, focusing specifically on consultancies. Furthermore, it is investigated to what extent services and manufacturing are perceived as different clients, and what represents the added-value of consultancies. Using a case study approach, consultancies´ activities are analysed and compared within services and manufacturing contexts. Findings indicate that while consultancies do not consider manufacturing companies different from service companies, during the collaboration process several differences do exist in terms of their role in these two types of companies, mainly due to different degrees of development of the corresponding innovation strategies and to different perspectives regarding the use of technology.

End of Year Message (...)

This review consolidates research on innovation enablers for innovation teams, defined within this research as factors that enable a cross-functional team within an organization to conduct innovation work, to provide a deeper understanding of what factors enable innovation teams to conduct innovation work, which means that this research involves three areas to provide a holistic picture: the organizational context, the team itself, and the individuals within the innovation team. A systematic database search was conducted in which 208 relevant articles were identified and analyzed thematically way. Twenty innovation enablers related to innovation teams were identified: awareness, capabilities, climate, collaboration, culture, dedication, economy, education, empowerment, entre- / intrapreneurship, human resources, incentives, knowledge, knowledge management, management, mind-set, need, processes, strategy, and time. This review contributes to prior research a deeper understanding of what key factors enable innovative work for innovation teams. Suggestions of both academic and practical use for the identified innovation enablers are included in this review, and direction for future research is suggested.

The ability to develop a work environment climate supporting technological innovation does not occur suddenly or unexpectedly. The objectives of this paper is to assess the technological innovation climate in one of the largest oil and gas company in the world, to compare the results with published standards, and to suggest recommendations to improve the innovation climate in the company. The study used the situational outlook questionnaire to assess nine key dimensions of innovation climate. The results showed that the extent to which each of the nine dimensions is applied were: debate (70%); idea support (67%); challenge/involvement (67%); trust and openness (59%); freedom (57%); idea time (56%); playfulness/humor (52%); risk taking (50%) and conflict (46%). These results were compared with published norms and the results revealed that the company is categorized as innovative in debate, idea time, idea support and trust; categorized as average in challenge and risk taking; and as stagnated in freedom, playfulness and conflict. The comparison using the t-test confirmed the results. Recommendations and details of the actions required for improvement were outlined.

AI is being marketed as a panacea solution or a complex “black box” by the PR spin doctors. How to profit from AI in business applications is still unclear. The lack of understanding of knowledge representation, data structures and feature engineering, are a few of the core underlying problems, devoid of easy solutions. This short guide is a note on strategy with respect to the use of AI tool kits. What is necessary for rational use and integration of AI tools with business are humans.

Many works in innovation research use path dependencies to explain the fact that change is often difficult to achieve. With regard to a transition to a green economy specific path dependencies are identified in the sectors of energy, mobility, housing and food in Germany. The paper looks into technological, economical, organizational, user-specific and legal path dependencies. For a successful transition to a green economy, the role of the state seems to be central. In many areas of transition, transitional regulation is full of loopholes and does not work. Activity of lobby groups prevents society from setting path-changing regulation.

Creativity, technical knowledge and financial resources, whether public or private, are three very important subjects to encourage technological innovation. Public policies on fiscal incentives fostering the increase of investment of financial resources for RD&I projects are particularly needed in developing countries. Therefore, this article aims to inform about the legal and bureaucratic procedures for the execution of research projects developed by partnerships between a company and an Institute of Science and Technology (i.e. ICT) applying the incentives of Brazilian Federal Law No. 11,196/2005 - Law of Good. This letter describes all the legislation that supports such incentives and outlines the needed accounting procedures to be performed. As a result, a demonstration on research expenditures and the impact on the reduction of income taxes is performed regarding to the following Brazilian income taxes: Income Tax (i.e. IRPJ) and Contribution on Net Income (i.e. CSLL), levied to the Brazilian taxpayers.

It was predicted by experts. The DDoS attack using an internet device on October 21, 2016, generated a flurry of suggestions from vast number of pundits. What if the attacks were not limited to social media sites but instead targeted heart monitors to deliver shocks to patients with cardiac arrhythmia? In this article the potential of personal security agents (PSA) is suggested as a modular tool to model people, process, bits and atoms (objects) with layers to address trust, privacy and security. Can we explore the potential of creating wrappers within these layers to include cognitive firewalls?

A growing range of public, private and civic organisations, from Unicef through Nesta to NHS, now run units known as “innovation labs”. The hopeful assumption they share is that labs, by building on openness among other features, can generate promising solutions to grand challenges of systemic nature. Despite their seeming proliferation and popularisation, the underlying innovation principles embodied by labs have, however, received scant academic attention. This is a missed opportunity, because innovation labs appear to leverage openness for radical innovation in an unusual fashion. Indeed, in this exploratory paper we draw on original interview data and online self-descriptions to illustrate that, beyond convening “uncommon partners” across organisational boundaries, labs apply the principle of openness throughout the innovation process, including the experimentation and development phases. While the emergence of labs clearly forms part of a broader trend towards openness, we show how it transcends established conceptualisations of open innovation (Chesbrough, 2006), open science (David, 1998) or open government (Janssen et al., 2012).

Company value creation is considered a significant metric to measure corporate success. One possible method is the launch of innovative products that potentially attract new customers and capture a reasonable market share. This discussion highlights examples wherein heightening innovation activities through incremental increases in Research and Development spending, the number of innovative products in the sales funnel, as well as those innovative products in the marketplace impact company value. Yet, another company value driver, worthy of consideration, is the effective management of innovation processes. The Stage Gate Control Process embodies a recognized framework for effective innovation process management. Central to this manuscript is the case of PharmaComm, a pharmaceutical company that developed a customized version of the Stage Gate Control Process. By this way PharmaComm accelerated new products development and shortened time to launch. In adapting this methodology, it multiplied company value during the acquisition process.

2016 has brought us new learnings about ecosystem dynamics and the transformation of design thinking and agile development methods. What most of these methods have in common is a divergent and a convergent phase that allows to think boldly and broadly on the one hand, and to recognize priorities and enable speed on the other hand. But industry logics are very different from theoretical settings as there are complex organizational factors at play which encompass diverse cultural and sub-cultural behaviors. The challenge for the young Swarovski Open Innovation Networks approach is to find ways to manage diversified networks of connections which blur boundaries, collaboration, and interdependence, thus characterizing the real logics of modern innovation ecosystems. The tremendous potential that has been recognized and captured from different R&D efforts of big industry players and research institutes through structured Open Innovation efforts - and how this new value may be transformed into the company’s markets - is the central topic of this article.

Mapping technological innovation in organizations is one of the important activities that help companies to identify where organizations are clustering their innovation efforts, and where their unexplored innovation spaces are. Current published innovation mapping models do not take into consideration the comparison and benchmarking between organizations in one model. The objectives of this paper are to map innovation in three international petrochemical companies: Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC), Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), and Dow Chemical; compare and benchmark the results; and explore the possible areas for their innovation opportunities. An innovation mapping model was developed. Innovation data covering three years (2010-2012), were collected, analyzed and mapped on the model. The results showed that the three companies introduced a total of 194 innovations; 53% by Dow Chemical, 38% by SABIC and 9% by GPIC. Product innovations were the dominant type as they presented 57% of total innovations, where 54% of these were introduced by Dow Chemical, 46% by SABIC, and none by GPIC. Position and paradigm innovations were the least innovation type produced, where only 3% of the total innovations were in position and 1% in paradigm. The results also showed that multi-dimensional innovation represented 23.7% of total innovations, where 67.5% of these were produced by Dow Chemical, 28% by SABIC, and only 4.5% by GPIC. Product-process innovations represented 50% of the total multi-dimensional innovations. During this period only 5.7% of the total innovations were radical innovations; these were all introduced by Dow Chemical. The benchmarking results showed that product innovation was the strength in SABIC; process innovation was the strength in GPIC; and product, radical, product-position, process-position and product-paradigm were the strengths in Dow Chemical. For GPIC there are possible innovation opportunities in product, product-process and process-position innovations; for Dow Chemical and SABIC, in the process area. There are possible opportunities in radical innovation in GPIC and SABIC and plenty of innovation opportunities in the position and paradigm areas for the three companies.

Digital diffusion in healthcare is poised to usher delivery of care in integration with software as a service to the edge. Time compression due to the latter may catalyze the convergence between "sense and response" in a manner which may enhance quality of service (QoS) or quality of care at the point of contact (PoC). Digital transformation is likely to influence the broad spectrum of instances ranging from high acuity patients to preventive care scenarios. Access to healthcare for individuals before they become patients may eventually lead to improved health and reduced healthcare cost.

Complexity in manufacturing systems appears under a variety of aspects, namely product, processes and operations and systems. Considering that the manufacturing environment is rapidly and constantly changing, with higher levels of customization and complexity, there is higher demand for flexibility and adaptability from companies. In this context, it seems essential to explore new approaches that can support decision-makers to take better decisions concerning the action plans that they need to launch to achieve the expected strategic and operational performance and alignment goals. Companies should become able to analyse their performance drivers, understand their meaning and the feedback loops that affect them. Therefore, decision makers can look into the future, and act even before these causes affect the transformation systems efficiency and effectiveness. This paper presents an approach oriented to multi-performance measurement in complex manufacturing environments. With this approach it is expected to overcome the gap between the operational and strategic layers of a manufacturing system, in order to reduce time when measuring performance and reacting to unexpected behaviours, as well as reduce errors when taking decisions. Moreover, it is expected to decrease the time necessary to calculate an indicator or to introduce a new one into performance management process, reducing the operational costs.

This research explores the impact of the firm’s internal and external attributes on its degree of implementation of quality management according to the ISO 9000 standard. This econometric study, based on the data gathered from a sample of Tunisian companies certified or in the course of certification in ISO 9001: 2000, reveals that the application of quality management depends on the organizational and environmental context of the company: a motivation rather internal than external to be certified, the application of ISO 9004 standard recommendations, the adhesion of the company to the leveling program, size, investment in new technologies of information and communication and in technologies of analysis and measurement and the importance of innovation and quality criterion for customers.

Innovation can be viewed as a adoption and dissemination of something new in a given context. E-commerce is thus an innovation when it is introduced to a new environment in an emerging market or when adopted by a new class of user industries. As a techno-managerial innovation, it requires business adaption, organizational learning, and supportive environment that could lead to wide diffusion and transformational impact. Several global forces drive the adoption of e-commerce such as global competition, trade liberalization, and increasingly, ICT advances and Internet diffusion. National factors, such as governance, education, and infrastructure, then shape and differentiate the speed of adoption across enterprises within a country, the breadth and depth of use within an enterprise, and ultimately the impact on the firm and the nation. Understanding the national environment, the policy, technological and infrastructural contexts, and the common drivers and barriers to adoption and effective use within firms should provide a guide to promoting e-commerce as a techno-managerial innovation, and realizing its full potential for the nation.

As traditionally measured, services, which include everything from transportation to retail to healthcare to entertainment to hospitality and more, account for most economic activity. Taking a more modern view, we define service as value creation that occurs within systems of interacting economic actors. Service systems have been getting smarter over time, as big data analytics have been used to generate information and automate operations that create ever more value for people in the service systems. In this short letter, we describe some of our perspective on the use of big data analytics in smart service systems, suggesting one framework for thinking about big data in this context and outlining a set of research issues.

It is common knowledge that history repeats itself! Maybe not literally, but patterns of behaviour likely dependent of the human nature, are probably prone to repeat themselves. So, one may wonder if looking back could help us prepare for a better future. Moreover, by looking back at the history of people and societies, we should all be able to have a better understanding of why things happen the way they do. This seldom happens, and when it does, it is happening within very limited circle of the society such as scholars and some politician circles, rarely overflowing to the whole society.The point is that, what we see today is not very different from what has happened in the past. Let us go back to November 13, 1460, the day Prince Henry the Navigator, passed away in Sagres, leaving Portugal with an enormous debt. Despite that fact, Prince Henry was the “guiding force behind Portugal’s assimilation of nautical knowledge and its vast extension of maritime exploration for nearly four decades” (Kock, 2003, p.59). It is interesting that by that time intellectual property was already being managed. (...)

One of the most debated topics in actual global literature is Open Innovation. However, there are still many questions that have not been answered respecting the modern industry. One of them is the link between the corporate Open Innovation practices and the industrial structure of mature industries. Specifically, the food industry is a mature industry where its profit margins are thin and its R&D failure rate for new products is very high. Both facts indicate that a decent return on development investments cannot be provided and that the food industry still cannot rely on its traditional way of thinking and innovating. In addition, this sector recently perceived its end-users to be wary of radically new products and changes in consumption patterns. Hence, the main aim of that industry is to design new food products that consumers will buy and at the same time ensure that these products will reach them in time and at adequate quantity. Through a proposed conceptual framework which integrates a collaborative and shared knowledge framework based on “Open Innovation approaches”, we propose to work with both customers´ data and selected partners to design new food products that offer an integrated sensory experience of food and packaging, encompassing customization, healthy eating, and sustainability.

Recent science policy encourages the installation of Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) practices, which should help solve grand societal challenges and be more readily adopted by society. RRI may be implemented by setting up interdisciplinary innovation development teams, bringing together technical and non-technical experts from various disciplines and backgrounds, enabling engineers to let their work become inspired by – or even partly co-shaped by – societal insights and viewpoints, while societal actors get acquainted with techno-scientific context. We developed a Decision Support Tool to support interdisciplinary innovation teams, that visualizes innovation project performance and success chances. It supports communication and collaboration in interdisciplinary teams by proposing practical improvement areas, based on shared expertise, including socio-ethical, societal, economic and management related aspects. Still, further investigation is needed to learn how such a tool can be used to systematically integrate RRI in practice, to harness its full innovative potential.

This study presents the basic features and community structure of the US inventor mobility network between 1999 and 2010, based on an analysis of patent documents. Since mobile inventors have proved to be among the most effective knowledge mediator entities, this mobility network can be seen as a knowledge diffusion network among innovative companies. During the investigation, we identified the basic features of the network, such as short effective diameter and scale-free degree distributions, and we also demonstrated the central nodes, community structure, and hidden core of the network. Our results indicate that there is a small number of nodes that can effectively absorb knowledge from the network and pool it. We also find that this core mostly consists of IT and semiconductor companies as well as the largest universities in the USA.

Industry 4.0 dictates the end of traditional centralized applications for production control. Its vision of ecosystems of smart factories with intelligent and autonomous shop-floor entities is inherently decentralized. Responding to customer demands for tailored products, these plants fueled by technology enablers such as 3D printing, Internet of Things, Cloud computing, Mobile Devices and Big Data, among others create a totally new environment. The manufacturing systems of the future, including manufacturing execution systems (MES) will have to be built to support this paradigm shift.

Open innovation has been widely debated in management literature. However, little attention has been given to how small and medium sized enterprises manage to open up their innovation process. Consequently, various questions remain unanswered. In particular, we want to shed light on the following issue: how small and medium-sized enterprises manage organizational changes in their journey from closed to open innovation. A literature review examines how small and medium-sized enterprises open up their innovation process based on nine perspectives. Then, the reference framework addresses the organizational changes embedded in evolving from closed to open innovation. In this sense, we use acknowledged concepts on organizational change research to carry out an in depth-case study on a small and medium-sized enterprise evolving in the sports equipment industry. The results demonstrate that, in its journey from closed to open innovation, the small and medium-sized enterprise has to stimulate and to manage changes to four company’s dimensions i.e. corporate culture, networking, organizational structure and knowledge management systems. The paper concludes by highlighting the diverse organizational changes undertaken by the company on these four dimensions. Based on this paper’s conclusion, managerial implications and discussion for future research are drawn.

Low- and medium-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (LMT SMEs) constitute a large and important segment in European economies. Because of increasingly international competition, LMT SMEs must rely on innovation to strengthen their competitive position over time. In this study, we empirically analyze possible complementarity or substitutability between internal capabilities and external knowledge sourcing. Using a short panel of 142 Dutch LMT SMEs, we find empirical evidence that suggests a negative interplay between internal capabilities and external knowledge sourcing.

This paper addresses a major gap in reported research on open innovation (OI) literature: How do service firms adopt open innovation? This research focuses on data from eighteen service SMEs in Belgium from high-tech and knowledge-intensive service industries. Based on analysis, we find new insights regarding open innovation practices (i.e., inbound and outbound) and sub-practices (i.e., acquiring, sourcing, selling and revealing) for service firms. More specifically, the study showed that service SMEs are more inclined to use inbound practices due to reasons associated with firm size, industry, and knowledge intensity in the market, whereas the decision about which sub-practice to adopt seems to be strongly influenced by the type of actor, the firm’s vulnerability and internal managerial skills, and the existence of complementarities. Thus, we contribute to OI literature as well as capability literature through providing initial insights regarding the adoption of OI by service firms.