Exploring the Role of IT in the Front-End of Innovation: An Empirical Study of IT-Enabled Creative Behavior

The front-end of innovation (FEI) is critical for successful innovation in contemporary organizations. Employee creativity, or creative behavior, is at the heart of the FEI and it encompasses three activities: idea generation, idea elaboration, and idea championing. Information technology (IT) can play an important role in enabling these activities but extant research has focused primarily on IT-enabled idea generation. This paper complements the extant research by examining the entire set of activities that compose FEI. Specifically, we develop a model that examines IT-enabled idea generation, IT-enabled elaboration and IT-enabled championing, and that, grounded in the componential theory of creativity, analyzes their key drivers. An empirical study establishes the applicability of the model. The paper contributes to IS research and practice by shedding light on the tripartite role that organizational IT can play in employee creativity, and it serves as a springboard for future research.     

Determinants of corporate adoption of e-Marketplace: an innovation theory perspective

Despite the growing interest and attention from IT researchers and practitioners, empirical research on the adoption of e-Marketplaces has been limited. This study identifies the factors influencing e-Marketplace adoption from an IT innovation perspective. Innovation, environment, and organization characteristics were tested as determinants of the adoption of an e-Marketplace based on a survey of 39 manufacturing firms. The findings indicate that external pressure and organizational size have positive relationships with organizational adoption of e-Marketplaces. Contrary to the prior innovation research, however, relative advantages did not have a significant impact on the organizational adoption of an e-Marketplace.     

The effects of retail channel integration through the use of information technologies on firm performance

The ability of information technologies (ITs) to integrate activities and offerings across multiple channels offers a promising opportunity for retail firms to enhance their relationship with their customers and firm performance. Consumers value the flexibility to learn about the available offerings, complete their orders and obtain customer service across different channels in a convenient and integrated manner. Therefore, the retail industry has begun to use IT extensively to automate and integrate business processes across their traditional and online channels. This study examines the impacts of the use of IT by retail firms in integrating channel activities for selling to customers. Our research model argues that retail channel integration through IT should enhance the efficiency and innovation of a retail firm. In turn, these improvements should enhance their overall performance. We also propose that the environmental dynamism would moderate the effects of improvements in efficiency and innovation on firm performance. We draw upon recent theories in organizational resource integration and organizational learning to develop our research model and hypotheses. Based on survey data from 125 multichannel retailers in Singapore, we find that retail channel integration through the use of IT allows firms to not only be efficient in delivering the current offerings, but also be innovative in creating future offerings. Further, we find that environmental dynamism does positively moderate the effects of innovation ability on performance. Our results provide managerial insights for firms involved in digital integration not only in the retail sector but also in other service industries. These findings could also serve as a foundation for further research on service operations management for firms with both physical and online operations.     

Launching professional services automation: Institutional entrepreneurship for information technology innovations

Why do some information technology innovations come to be adopted widely while others do not? One promising research stream has begun to investigate how institutional factors shape the diffusion of IT innovations. Here we examine how these institutional factors themselves are shaped. Specifically, we explore how interested actors termed institutional entrepreneurs develop institutional arrangements to launch an IT innovation toward widespread adoption. Undertaking a contemporary case study of a new class of enterprise software, professional services automation (PSA), we found that to launch PSA, institutional entrepreneurs sought to mobilize an organizational community by developing and recognizing leaders and facilitating members’ focus on PSA. They further struggled to legitimate PSA by developing a coherent organizing vision that incorporated compelling success stories. We tie these findings together in a model that usefully shifts the focus of IT innovation research from assessing institutional effects to understanding institution-building. This new focus suggests an alternative IT diffusion theory with several practical implications.     

How Does Cooperation and Competition Foster or Inhibit Creativity and Innovation?

The current article provides a brief insight into the relationship between cooperation and competition in organizational settings as they relate to the origination and proliferation of new ideas. Does cooperation stifle creativity? Does competition promote innovation? Or is it likely the answer resides in a more complex process somewhere in the middle? With a vested interest in organizational productivity, leadership should pay special attention to what social processes give rise to these phenomena.     

The role of openness in the fuzzy front-end of service innovation

The early stages of innovation involve high levels of uncertainty, leading to it being labelled as the “fuzzy-front end” (FFE). Although openness has been identified as pivotal to innovation performance in the open innovation literature, little effort has been put into exploring its role in the FFE. Specifically, this study examines ‘openness competence’ within the FFE–i.e., the ability of a FFE team to explore, gather and assimilate operant resources from external sources by means of external searches and inter-organisational partnerships. The aim is to investigate the impact of openness competence on front-end uncertainty reduction and service innovation success. Data were obtained from a survey of 122 IT-based service innovation projects implemented by IT service provider firms in Thailand. The results suggest that openness competence positively influences both the degree of uncertainty being reduced during the FFE and the overall success of service innovations. These findings offer several implications for research on open innovation and the FFE as well as encouragement to managers to apply a more open approach to the FFE of their service innovation projects.     

The moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between real options and technological innovation in high-tech firms

In the past decade, management scholars have applied aspects of real options theory to organizational settings, considering it an approach to enhancing strategic flexibility in the firm. They have also recognized that technological innovation is a critical mechanism through which high-tech firms try to secure a place in the competitive world of the future. Uncertainty about the environment makes it very important to analyze both factors, since the use of real options obligates managers to reflect constantly on future scenarios for which they will have to propose innovative solutions. This paper attempts to apply the theory of real options to innovation theory to propose a model in which real options reasoning improves the level of product/process technological innovation. We argue that this improvement will increase when the environment's level of uncertainty is higher. The proposal is supported empirically by a study performed on a sample of technology firms from different countries in the European Union.     

Examining the relations between open innovation climate and job satisfaction with a PLS path model

The paper studies the relations between open innovation climate and job satisfaction, in particular the causal effects of the various dimensions of open innovation climate on different facets of job satisfaction. We assume firms which pursuing open innovation climate will result in higher level of employee job satisfaction. Both open innovation climate and job satisfaction are assumed to be multidimensional constructs (second-order model). Meanwhile the difference caused by employees’ organizational level was also investigated. A partial least squares path model was developed, in which significant effects were discovered. This study provides valuable materials for hoteliers who want to promote open innovation climate in their organizations.     

Pattern of information technology use: The impact on buyer–suppler coordination and performance

The use of information technologies between supply chain organizations has been shown to promote organizational coordination and have a positive impact on performance. Drawing from organizational theories of learning, we build on this research by proposing a model that relates the pattern of supplier use of IT to specific types of supply chain coordination activities and a comprehensive set of organizational benefits. Specifically, we evaluate how two patterns of IT use by suppliers (exploitation and exploration) relate to two specific types of coordination activities with their buyers (operational and strategic coordination), which in turn are posited to promote specific organizational benefits. Using data from 241 first-tier OEM suppliers in the computer industry, our findings show that each pattern of IT use directly promotes a specific type of coordination activity. Although both types of coordination activities are needed to achieve both strategic and operational benefits, we find each coordination activity to be uniquely promoted by a specific pattern of IT use. IT use for exploitation is found to be an antecedent to operational coordination; IT use for exploration is found to be an antecedent to strategic coordination. No crossover between pattern of use and coordination activities is found. Our findings show that to achieve a complete set of benefits, suppliers must ultimately use IT for both exploration and exploitation. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the mechanism of how the pattern of IT use can result in a comprehensive set of organizational benefits for supplier firms.     

Open innovation in SMEs: Trends,motives and management challenges

Open innovation has so far been studied mainly in high-tech, multinational enterprises. This exploratory paper investigates if open innovation practices are also applied by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on a database collected from 605 innovative SMEs in the Netherlands, we explore the incidence of and apparent trend towards open innovation. The survey furthermore focuses on the motives and perceived challenges when SMEs adopt open innovation practices. Within the survey, open innovation is measured with eight innovation practices reflecting technology exploration and exploitation in SMEs. We find that the responding SMEs engage in many open innovation practices and have increasingly adopted such practices during the past 7 years. In addition, we find no major differences between manufacturing and services industries, but medium-sized firms are on average more heavily involved in open innovation than their smaller counterparts. We furthermore find that SMEs pursue open innovation primarily for market-related motives such as meeting customer demands, or keeping up with competitors. Their most important challenges relate to organizational and cultural issues as a consequence of dealing with increased external contacts.     

A multi-level understanding of trust development in contexts of blurred organizational boundaries: the case of crowdfunding

Are trust development processes in settings of blurred organizational boundaries different from those in conventional organizational settings, and if so, how? Taking the crowdfunding campaigns of the Fin-Tech Monzo as examples of settings of blurred organizational boundaries, we analyze how the three main trust forms (individual, organizational, and institutional trust) emerge and interact in the campaigns’ online discourse and develop a process model that captures distinct trust development dynamics. We contribute to the trust literature by highlighting increased dynamics and co-existence of trust forms, and by showing that the validation of extra-organizational boundary spanners is crucial to compensate for a missing personal interaction in settings of blurred organizational boundaries. We also contribute to the crowdfunding literature and derive managerial implications.     

我国IT行业人员招聘外包的可行性分析

由于信息技术的飞速发展,IT行业对于专业人才的需求量越来越大。本文在分析了IT行业人力资源管理的特点以及招聘存在的问题基础上,从经济方面、组织方面、技术方面进行了可行性分析,得出IT行业的招聘工作外包因具有降低企业在招聘人才过程中的成本、把人力资源管理人员从繁琐的事务性工作中解放出来等优点而适合在IT行业推广的结论。     

王村煤矿全员创新实现模式案例研究

近些年来,全员创新成为了企业研究的热点问题,许多企业也将全员创新作为加强自身竞争力的有效途径而推行。然而在实践中真正能够实现全员创新的企业并不多见。本文主要采用文献查阅和实地调研的方式,通过剖析王村煤矿创新历程,分析其全员创新的实现案例,总结全员创新实现模式。王村煤矿立足岗位的创新项目分类,＂个人创意＋组织后援＂的流程...     

管理创新的动态适配力提升案例研究——基于领导者系统思考的视角

本文从领导者系统思考的视角,对某个省级合作金融机构的IT资源监控管理系统的建设过程进行深入分析,分析结果表明,领导者的系统思考行为和能力能够帮助发展落后的企业弥补资源能力和创新能力的不足,提高由Beer等人归纳的包括合作能力、竞争能力等在内的七大组织能力,从而提升企业的动态适配力,保证管理创新的成功。验证了Beer等人构建的组织适配力模型对于发展落后企业的适用性。     

Strategies for innovation and productivity in Japan and America

The purpose of this paper is to describe the types of organizational settings in the West that have been especially conducive for innovation and productivity. Then the same predictive factors are tested for a sample of 44 Japanese factories in order to investigate the extent to which similar relationships are found in both nations.The results suggest that R&D and the innovation function is handled somewhat differently in Japan, but that the consequences of the scale of operations for innovation and productivity are basically similar. In general, large scale operations are more productive, but less innovative in both nations. However, emphasis on specialized R&D seems to be more characteristic of U.S. industry. Many small firms in Japan achieve innovative performances with relatively little expenditure on R&D per se. However, to what extent the Japanese formula which has worked in the past will continue to work in the high technology era of the 1980s remains an open question.     

An integrated innovation process model based on practices of Australian biotechnology firms

An integrated approach to managing the innovation process is attractive for organizations for many reasons. However, there is a relative paucity of models that describe this approach. In this paper, an attempt is made to produce one such model. Based on a multiple case study design involving nine biotechnology companies and one peak industry body from Australia, a conceptual model is proposed that has the linear stage process model as the backbone. The twin mechanisms of market pull and technology push are incorporated within the model, with a set of key organizational constructs (management, communication, structure and control) embedded within these mechanisms. Overall, the results of this study improve our understanding of the innovation process by building a more comprehensive and integrated conceptual model.     

Outsourcing a satisfied and committed workforce: a trucking industry case study

The steady growth of R&;D costs and the increasingly widespread dissemination of information and communication technology over the past decade have resulted in the affirmation of the paradigm of open innovation, which consists in the continual expansion of access to sources of technological innovation outside the firm itself. Industrial companies are, in fact, turning more frequently to collaboration with university departments and other public and private research centers, and there is a notable increase in agreements regarding technological cooperation and the exchange of know-how between companies. In addition, recourse to highly specialized small research companies is on the rise. This is common, for example in the pharmaceutical sector and, more generally, in the area of biotechnological research. Furthermore, we are witnessing the development of the new role of innovation broker. These factors alter the traditional profile of company R&;D structures, within which the role of researchers and technologists often changes. In particular, matrix and network organizational models are on the increase, and the professional figures of ‘integrators of knowledge and expertise’ (T-men) are assuming major importance at the expense of traditional scientists. As a consequence, the model for training and managing scientific personnel tends to change. This model, as it moves away from the prevailing pattern adopted by firms in Anglophone countries, is continually drawing closer, even from a cultural standpoint, to the R&;D management approach found in the Japanese and German companies. The aim of this article is to investigate how the adoption of open innovation has changed the organizational structures of R&;D and altered the methods used in managing its personnel. The results of the study are based on the analysis of four case studies of Italian multinational firms operating in the pharmaceutical, food, specialty chemical, and aerospace industries.     

Category Divergence,Straddling, and Currency: Open Innovation and the Legitimation of Illegitimate Categories

The organizational literature is increasingly interested in the origins and consequences of category emergence. We examine the effects of being affiliated with categories initially considered illegitimate (‘divergence’), and of organizational attempts to blur the boundaries between categories (‘straddling’), on capital market reactions to firm announcements. We develop arguments for how these effects likely vary with increasing legitimation (‘currency’) of the category. We apply event study methodology to the complete population of firms' announcements of open source activities, an open innovation model for software development that is novel and defies the extant dominant logic of software production and valorization. Over a ten‐year period, we find negative effects of divergence, positive effects of straddling, and that the magnitude of both these effects diminishes with increasing category currency. The implications for theories of organization and open innovation in the context of category emergence are discussed.     

Exploring the impact of innovation strategy on R&D employees’ job satisfaction: A mathematical model and empirical research

This study develops a mathematical model to examine the effect of innovation strategy on R&D employee’s job satisfaction and to identify the optimal guidelines of innovation strategy, with conflict and organization performance being treated as the intermediary variables. The study further conducts an empirical survey to illustrate the contributions of this mathematical model. The results indicate that the product innovation has a greater influence on organizational performance, while the process innovation has a greater influence on conflict resolution among R&D employees. The mathematical and empirical results have provided an optimal guideline for determining the allocation of resources, which suggests that firms must focus on product innovation to gain the optimal R&D employee’s job satisfaction. In addition, the types of innovation policies along with rivals’ attitudes influence the advantages to be taken from a firm innovation strategy.