Beyond high tech: early adopters of open innovation in other industries

Companies have historically invested in large research and development departments to drive innovation and provide sustainable growth. This model, however, is eroding due to a number of factors. What is emerging is a more open model, where companies recognize that not all good ideas will come from inside the organization and not all good ideas created within the organization can be successfully marketed internally. To date, Open Innovation concepts have been regarded as relevant primarily to 'high-technology' industries, with examples that include Lucent, 3Com, IBM, Intel and Millenium Pharmaceuticals. In this article, we identify organizations in industries outside 'high technology' that are early adopters of the concept. Our findings demonstrate that many Open Innovation concepts are already in use in a wide range of industries. We document practices that appear to assist organizations adopting these concepts, and discover that Open Innovation is not ipso facto a recipe for outsourcing R&D. We conclude that Open Innovation has utility as a paradigm for industrial innovation beyond high tech to more traditional and mature industries.     

Trends in innovation and productivity: The case of chemical and textile industries in the U.S.

This paper attempts to investigate an empirical linkage between technological innovation and productivity in two industries in the United States. During the period 1967—82, the chemical and textile industries experienced different rates of productivity growth. In spite of stiff competition from foreign manufacturers, American textile firms maintained a steady growth in productivity. This industry benefitted from major technological innovations occurring in industries supplying to it. The chemical industry faced crisis due to sudden changes in petroleum prices. Changes in regulatory requirements also imposed a different set of constraints on the chemical industry. Rate of innovation decreased quite severely in this industry during this time period.
Innovation indicators were developed by obtaining data on new product/process announcements in the technical literature. Panels of technical experts from the industries and academia evaluated the data for their technical novelty. The data indicate a relationship between innovation and productivity growth.     

2008年世界和中国石化工业综述

2008年,世界乙烯产能达到1.3亿吨,同比增加605万吨;乙烯需求量1．1亿吨,同比下降2．8％;乙烯平均开工率87％,同比下降5．5个百分点。聚烯烃需求量1．13亿吨,同比下降1．6％;合成纤维需求量3682万吨,同比下降3．0％;合成橡胶需求量1351万吨,同比下降4．0％。在经济危机的影响下,全球石化行业景气周期自2008年9月开始从高增长转入下行通道。第四李度石化产品价格大幅下跌;石化工业开工率普遍下降;全球主要石化企业全年利润与年初预算相比差距较大;新建装置集中投产,市场风险增加。2008年国内石化行业同样呈现前高后低走势,后期市场需求大幅萎缩,利润大幅度下降。全国全年生产乙烯1025万吨,同比下降2．1％;生产合成树脂3130万吨,同比增长1．5％;生产合成橡胶238万吨,同比增长9．2％。在产品结构上,部分石化产品呈现供过于求的态势。重点在建石化工程基本按进度计划进行,预计2009—2011年进入投产高峰。煤化工产业无序、过度发展势头出现。为解决石化产业生产运行和产业布局中存在的问题,国家研究制定了《石化产业调整和振兴规划》。在刚性需求长期存在与政府一系列“扩内需、保增长、调结构”政策出台的情况下,预计2009年我国石化产品市场将逐步止跌反弹,实现稳定增长。     

The possibility of price umbrellas in Canadian manufacturing industries

The paper looks for evidence of ‘price umbrelias’ within Canadian manufacturing industries. Price umbrellas occur when relatively low-cost firms, trading-off market share against profit margins, set a price high enough to allow relatively high-cost firms to remain in business (the latter have an ‘umbrella’ held over them). The disaggregated data appear to show (1) that there are significant differences in average costs between the plants within an industry, (2) that the marginal costs of the low-cost plants are non-increasing with output. Together, these findings imply that output could be transferred from high- to low-cost plants with a reduction in total-industry costs, consistent with the existence of price umbrellas. The numbers are quite large.     

The logic of innovation in construction

The paper investigates the logic of innovation in construction by addressing four questions: What is actually being renewed in construction? How is it being done? Who is involved? and Why do or do not the companies innovate? The paper draws on a combination of an industrial network perspective and the exploration–exploitation dichotomy to analyze data from a study of innovation in the Norwegian and Swedish construction industries. The findings show that construction companies are increasingly working more systematically to turn project-level ideas into company-wide knowledge. This indicates an innovation logic that is oriented towards exploitation of new combinations through the internal network. The companies are also increasingly concerned with establishing closer connections to customers and users, which have traditionally been weak. This has led to an orientation towards exploitation through the external network, at least on the customer side. In turn, this may lead to more innovative behavior and renewal in the industry as a whole. However, it requires that not only the customer relationships, but also the relationships on the supply side must change. Companies in the construction industry should be conscious about their innovation logic, in terms of whether they base their innovation behavior on a biased orientation towards exploitation or exploration or towards the internal or external network. A balance is needed.     

The division of labour in innovation management

Abstract
The literature shows a plethora of roles in innovation management. These roles have not provided a systematic and unique pattern of relationship which can serve as an instrument of organization. An analysis of the empirical findings shows the existence of division of labour in innovation management in a multiple role concept. The concepts like 'product champion', 'gatekeeper', 'sponsor', 'business innovator', 'technical innovator', 'promoter' etc. have some elements of commonality and complementarity. Two underlying principles can be delineated: division of labour according to phases of the innovation process and according to sources of power of the incumbents. An interaction model and a process linkage model for innovation management are developed to explain the different findings. These models help to integrate these empirical concepts and serve as guidelines for possible organization of the innovation process.     

The influence of market structure on technological performance in the food-manufacturing industries

This paper tests the effect of firm and market structure variables on the rate of R&D investment by food processing firms. While the estimated relationship is consistent with the hypotheses of Schumpeter and Galbraith at small firm sizes and small-to-moderale concentration levels, above these critical values expected firm R&D increases at a decreasing rate with firm size and decreases with market concentration. The second part of this paper examines the origins of process patents closely related to six food industries. On average U.S. firms outside the industry, foreign firms, and individuals were each assigned more food-industry patents than were U.S. food processing firm. These findings place the public policy interpretation of observed relationships between market power and firm technological performance into a broader perspective. Even if a reduction in market concentrationn reduced R&D originating within a food industry, this decrease might bede minimus relative to technological changes, originating outside the industry.     

Changes in market concentration of manufacturing industries

The impact on concentration of advertising and other variables is examined in a multiple regression model. The findings indicate that the positive influence of advertising observed for earlier periods continued during 1972–1977. By testing hypotheses suggested by other researchers, this paper resolves most, if not all, of the seemingly conflicting findings of researchers examining changes in concentration since 1963. The findings also strongly suggest that lagged models provide little, if any, added insight into the causes of changes in concentration.     

The field of radical innovation: Making sense of organizational cultures and radical innovation

Organic organizational structures and cultures facilitate innovation because they allow organizations to shift their understanding of what a product, service or technology means. Yet, organic organizations may have to instill mechanistic structures and bureaucratic processes if they produce successful radical innovations. Thus, the basis of innovation can be undermined by its consequences. To explore this issue, this paper analyzes data from an ongoing longitudinal case study of a SME digital-design agency that developed a radical innovation for the market research industry. The paper observes that founders of the organization shifted their position to become managers as a result of their radical innovation and that other members of the organization have, consequently, re-evaluated their attitude toward the organization. To conceptualize our findings we turn to the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His notion of fields—which structure experiences and are, themselves, structured by experiences—offers a framework to understand the dynamics within an organization that occur as a result of a successful radical innovation. The contribution of our paper is: theoretically, we relate the discussion of innovation to wider social theories of practice and, thus, introduce temporal and cultural dynamics into the account of radical innovation; methodologically, we provide an example of a longitudinal study; and, in managerial terms, we indicate where divisions occur within an organization concerning the construction of meaning between managers and employees after a radical innovation.     

Supply chain environmental investments in dynamic industries: Comparing investment and performance differences with static industries

Research linking investments in environmental practices to firm performance has matured over the past years. However, empirical research is still ambiguous on how and whether investments in environmental practices improve a plant's performance. We believe that contingency factors, especially the industry in which plants act has a significant role in the success of environmental investments. Using empirical data collected across a wide range of industries our results indicate that plants competing in dynamic industries such as apparel do on average invest less in supply chain environmental practices compared to plants in static industries. In addition, these environmental investments do not significantly improve operational performance in dynamic industries in terms of cost, quality, delivery and flexibility. However, in static industries environmental investments do significantly improve a plant's operational performance in terms of cost, quality and flexibility.     

The sociology of innovation and new biotechnologies

Understanding the social processes that support innovations in new biotechnologies presents an interesting challenge. Evidence from the Australian bioindustry reveals how the development and integration of new biotechnologies is a dynamic social process. Our findings highlight how new technology acceptance and integration rested on the micro‐politics of sense‐making and relational networking.     

The dynamics of just-in-time

This article analyses the impact of just-in-time production on the three resources of machines, materials and people, and suggests that JIT entails a redistribution of slack between these resources. The impact of JIT on an organization's human resources is particularly problematical; pressures towards both increased variety and intensity of work are apparent.