Organizing the purchasing department for innovation

Innovation is by far one of the most important competitive priorities in the current business context. Companies increasingly rely on their supply base to support their innovation potential. As a consequence, the purchasing department might dramatically affect the firm??s innovation capability. This paper aims to investigate??using a multiple case study approach??how the organizational design of the purchasing department could determine a firm??s capability to foster and manage innovation. Seven highly innovative companies were visited and the structures of their purchasing departments were analyzed. Three different configurations for the purchasing department were identified and described.     

以标准化工作流程推进岩滩公司物资管理出效益

水电企业物资供应质量、供货速度及水平如何,不仅影响到企业的效益,而且将直接影响到生产设备运行和人身安全。大唐岩滩水力发电有限责任公司(以下简称岩滩水电公司)地处偏远山区,物资供应工作难度大。为此,该公司全面推行物资供应工作流程标准化,对物资供应工作流程各环节和相应责任人、工作岗位间的配合机制进行统一规范,形成科学、高效并能保证工作质量、促进管理、创造效益的良好工作流程。物资供应工作流程标准化实施以来,岩滩水电公司物资管理工作取得了良好的经济效益和管理效益,提高了管理水平,并为生产发电提供了强有力的物资保障。     

What drives environmental innovation? A meta-analysis

To clarify the drivers of environmental innovation, this study selected 50 independent samples from 49 publications to investigate the effects of four major factors—policy, market, resource capacity, and organizational characteristics—on environmental innovation using a meta-analysis, as well as demonstrating the moderating role of cultural background and industrial diversity. The results show that both environmental regulations and government subsidies positively promote environmental innovation and that cultural background and industrial diversity do play moderating roles in how environmental regulations impact environmental innovation. Furthermore, customer demand is also shown to have a positive impact on environmental innovation and is moderated by industrial diversity. However, market concentration is not shown to significantly affect environmental innovation. The results also show that knowledge sources, technological capabilities, organization's performance, and environmental management systems positively influence environmental innovation. Additionally, cultural background plays a moderating role between an organization's performance and environmental innovation, and industrial diversity can moderate technological capability and environmental innovation. Finally, the size of an organization is shown to positively affect environmental innovation and is also moderated by cultural background.     

Innovation speed under uncertainty and competition

Innovation speed is widely considered to be a key factor for a firm's ability to maintain competitive advantage. Primarily, empirical evidence has found contradictory interdependencies regarding the role of innovation speed. The prevailing proposition of “the faster the better” has been challenged by results of empirical studies heavily depending on the methodological setup used. In contrast, we propose a model of the complete innovation process to study innovation speed under uncertainty and competition. We find that higher market uncertainty speeds up innovation and encourages firms to innovate incrementally. Strong competition tends to reduce innovation speed and encourages rather radical innovation.     

重庆市区域创新能力与人力资源的关系——基于四个直辖市的对比研究

人力资源在区域创新体系中发挥着重要作用,是决定区域创新能力的决定性因素。文章首先对四个直辖市的区域创新能力进行了量化,然后用人均受教育年限来衡量人力资源综合素质,进而研究了人力资源综合素质与区域创新能力的关系,通过实证分析的结果,从人力资源受教育年限的角度给出了如何提升区域创新能力的建议。     

以标准化工作流程推进岩滩公司物资管理出效益

水电企业物资供应质量、供货速度及水平如何,不仅影响到企业的效益,而且将直接影响到生产设备运行和人身安全。大唐岩滩水力发电有限责任公司（以下简称岩滩水电公司）地处偏远山区,物资供应工作难度大。为此,该公司全面推行物资供应工作流程标准化,对物资供应工作流程各环节和相应责任人、工作岗位间的配合机制进行统一规范,形成科学、高效并能保证工作质量、促进管理、创造效益的良好工作流程。物资供应工作流程标准化实施以来,岩滩水电公司物资管理工作取得了良好的经济效益和管理效益,提高了管理水平,并为生产发电提供了强有力的物资保障。     

中小企业产品创新策略研究

设计是企业在市场竞争中持续成长与创造利润的核心竞争力。设计创新策略的主要内容有:多元化创新策略、原型创新策略、科技化创新策略,制造的创新策略及快速反应策略等。     

Energy eco‐innovations for sustainable development: Exploring organizational strategic capabilities through an energy cultures framework

This article reports on research on energy eco‐innovation using case studies of firms. Positioning energy efficiency changes in an organization as “eco‐innovations,” the paper examines the firm‐level resources involved for these to be successful. To identify these resources, the energy cultures (EC) framework, an organizing tool to understand energy behaviour, is drawn on. From an analysis of 142 case studies of successful business and energy change, three models are developed. It is found that the EC framework (consisting of norms, material culture, and practices) makes explicit key resources involved in developing energy eco‐innovations. The findings show that for an eco‐innovation capability, there is a need to align the physical resources with intangible resources to lead to learning and knowledge that, in turn, needs to be aligned with the firm strategies. This research has implications for developing company strategy and practice to drive energy eco‐innovations.     

企业创新与创新管理

本文探讨了企业创新的方式、速度和深度问题；从管理学的视角归纳了创新管理的八项基本原则；介绍了如何打造企业创新能力以及构建创新架构等创新实践内容。     

Putting policy into practice: an exploratory study of SME innovation support in a peripheral UK region

Abstract

Focussing on a regional Government sponsored support programme for technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the aim of this paper is to conduct a multi-level exploration of the relationships between policy interpretation and support programme design and the development of innovation capability among participant SMEs within a U.K peripheral region. The Innovplus programme was designed and implemented in Northern Ireland to help nascent high technology companies become more competitive and to contribute to the goals of the Regional Innovation Strategy. A knowledge-based absorptive capacity framework is used as the theoretical lens to explore the relationships between policy interpretation and programme design and the development of innovation capability within participant SMEs. The findings show that the design of the Innovplus programme, while linked to a coherent Regional Innovation Strategy, lacks consistency in relation to the policy and practical interpretation of knowledge and innovation. This inconsistency is reflected in the practical design of the programme, limiting its effectiveness as a result. In terms of the development of innovation capability, it was found that recognition and development of nascent absorptive capacity drivers in potential form was essential before participant SMEs could transition to realised absorptive capacity.     

Innovation processes in small and medium-size companies

Innovation in small manufacturing companies often proceeds in an unstructured way. For the most part there is no previous well-defined plan. Small companies manage to introduce product and process innovations in a great variety of ways. The activities involved in the innovation process vary from one company to another, as does the total duration of the process.

With product innovations, the market to which the companies orient largely determines how the innovation evolves. With process innovations, it is the novelty of the innovation that determines the mode of evolution.

Next to the know-how invested in the company, sources of information in the business sector are particularly intensively used, such as customers and suppliers. The use of other sources depends strongly on the stage in the innovation process.

These are the most important conclusions from an investigation that has been carried out under commission from the Dutch government. Its objective was to establish how innovation is accomplished in small companies and which sources of information are used at the successive stages of the innovation process.     

Coupling between financing and innovation in a startup: embedded in networks with investors and researchers

Innovation may be a basis for starting a business, and financing is typically needed for starting. Innovation and financing may conceivably be negatively related, or be unrelated, or plausibly be beneficially related. These possible scenarios frame the questions: What is the coupling between innovation and financing at inception, and what is the embeddedness of coupling in networks around the entrepreneur, specifically networks with investors and researchers? These questions are addressed with a globally representative sample of entrepreneurs interviewed at inception of their business. Innovation and financing are found to be decoupled, typically; less frequently to be loosely coupled, and rarely to be tightly coupled. Coupling is promoted by networking with both investors and researchers, with additive effects and with a synergy effect. By ascertaining coupling and its embeddedness in networks as a way for building capability in a startup, the study contributes to empirically supported theorizing about capability building.

     

The Organizational Innovation System: A systemic framework for radical innovation at the organizational level

Most research on innovation management at the organizational level has typically been focused on one specific innovation project phase or innovation management concept. This has resulted in many valuable insights, though scattered in different (innovation) research fields and studies. With the development of the Organizational Innovation System (OIS), we bring together important insights from the Innovation Systems, Open Innovation and other related fields into a guiding concept useful for both innovation managers developing (radical) innovations and innovation scholars. In this paper, we define the OIS and its key structural components, and discuss the identified functions and categories of potential imperfections. With the OIS, we provide a holistic, hands-on concept currently lacking in the open innovation approach. From the conceptualization, a framework for analysis is put forward which provides structure to the study of ongoing and finished innovation processes. Additionally, the development of the OIS is a first step in the development of a currently underdeveloped micro-level within the innovation systems perspective. The insights in OISs and the future insights derived from analytical efforts, will not only be beneficial for the performance of innovating organizations and organizational innovation systems but also for the performance of the higher, interconnected system levels.     

Sustainability Strategy and Eco‐Innovation: A Moderation Model

This study develops a moderation model to examine the role of a proactive environmental strategy on eco‐innovation. Drawing upon the perspectives of contingency theory, this study argues that the impacts of sustainability strategy on eco‐innovation depend on market demand, innovation intensity and government subsidy. The sample used to test the hypotheses is obtained from the Community Innovation Survey in Taiwan. A total of 2955 manufacturing firms are included in the final sample. A logit moderating regression is adopted to analyze the models. The results reveal that market demand and government subsidy positively moderate the relationship between environmental strategy and eco‐innovation. Specifically, firms are more likely to adopt a proactive environmental strategy to improve eco‐innovation under high levels of market demand and government subsidy. Furthermore, the results indicate that innovation intensity affects the effect of environmental strategy on eco‐innovation, but the direction of the influence varies with different categories of eco‐innovation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

通信基础设施、边界效应与区域创新能力——基于滇桂两省区地级市的实证研究

基于滇桂两省区2008—2017年地级市的面板数据,文章构建多元线性回归模型,实证研究通信基础设施和边界效应对区域创新能力的影响.研究结果发现:在未考虑通信基础设施情况下,省际边界地理区位对区域创新能力影响并不明显,国家边界地理区位对区域的创新能力产生了负向作用;引入通信基础设施与边界效应的交互项后,通信基础设施对区域...     

企业技术能力结构优化及其对产学研合作需求研究

企业技术能力是一个国家或地区创新系统的重要组成部分,企业技术能力结构是企业技术能力及创新水平的决定性因素。文中从企业技术能力结构优化的角度,探讨了企业对产学研合作的需求问题,并分析了产学研合作对于优化企业技术能力结构的内在机理。     

Top management team's vision and human resources management practices in innovative Spanish companies

The objective of the article is to analyse whether the strategic vision of the top management team (TMT) and the way employees working in teams are rewarded and assessed affect companies' innovation performance. The study was carried out on a sample of 97 Spanish companies belonging to the three most innovative sectors based on number of patents registered. The results indicate that the top management team's strategic vision alone does not explain a company's innovation performance. Innovation also requires the existence of compensation practices based on the ideas generated and developed by project teams. These results offer relevant implications for the TMT and the managers of the research and development (R&D) and human resources (HR) functions about the way teams should be rewarded and supported in order to improve the company's innovation efforts.     

Enhancing green product and process innovation: Towards an integrative framework of knowledge acquisition and environmental investment

Despite the increasing interest in green innovation literature, little is known on how and under what conditions firms' knowledge transfer activities affect green innovation. There is lack of research that on how particular organizational capabilities are seen more useful and how it influences on green innovation performance. To address this research gap, we examine a mediation model in which we explore whether a firm's knowledge acquisition capability and investment in environmental management mediate the impact of buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities on green product innovation and green process innovation. On the basis of an analysis of a sample of 239 manufacturing firms, we find that buyer-driven knowledge activities have a greater positive impact on green product innovation than green process innovation. Investment in environmental management fully mediates the relationship between buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities and green process innovation, and knowledge acquisition capability partially mediates the relationship between buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities and green product innovation. The current study provides evidence that internal competencies and the role of buyers in knowledge transfer are critical for explaining the green product innovation and green process innovation. Our results suggest that buyer involvement pushes firms to develop resource acquisition capability to enhance green product innovation. Our results also highlight the importance of investment in environmental management for overcoming the environmental challenges in the manufacturing firms.     

Standardization efforts: The relationship between knowledge dimensions,search processes and innovation outcomes

We explore how a standardization effort (i.e., when a firm pursues standards to further innovation) involves different search processes for knowledge and innovation outcomes. Using an inductive case study of Vanke, a leading Chinese property developer, we show how varying degrees of knowledge complexity and codification combine to produce a typology of four types of search process: active, integrative, decentralized and passive, resulting in four types of innovation outcome: modular, radical, incremental and architectural. We argue that when the standardization effort in a firm involves highly codified knowledge, incremental and architectural innovation outcomes are fostered, while modular and radical innovations are hindered. We discuss how standardization efforts can result in a second-order innovation capability, and conclude by calling for comparative research in other settings to understand how standardization efforts can be suited to different types of search process in different industry contexts.     

基于中国邮路问题的配送线路规划

烟草配送到户的特点是停留点分布分散,配送车辆需穿行于城市的每一条街道,与邮递员的工作特点非常相似。以运筹学上的中国邮路问题为模型,对某烟草配送公司的配送线路进行规划,用定量的方法提高行驶路线的精确性和标准化程度,争取以更少的车辆、人力和里程数完成更大的服务量。