The impact of business innovation modes on SME innovation performance in post-Soviet transition economies: The case of Belarus

This study analyzes the most effective innovation modes (‘science and technology-based innovation’, STI, and ‘doing, using and interacting-based innovation’, DUI) for business innovation performance in the context of post-Soviet Transition Economies (PSTE). Their specificities are expected to influence both their business innovation modes and their impact on innovation output. In particular, we aim at identifying the specificities of PSTE in that the DUI mode alone (and its specific drivers) is more relevant than the STI mode alone (and its drivers). In our hypothesis, this outcome should be even stronger in the context of non-technological types of innovation (e.g. organizational innovation).     

Open search strategies and firm performance: The different moderating role of technological environmental dynamism

Mainly driven by the rapid progress of the ‘open innovation’ paradigm, previous research has devoted considerable efforts in investigating how the degree of openness to external knowledge influences firms׳ innovation performance. However, much less is known about its impact on performance at the firm level. Moreover, the question of which open search strategy is more suitable depending on environmental features is unresolved. We focus on breadth and depth as two distinct open search strategies and claim that, besides their different benefits in terms of learning and innovation, it is also necessary to consider their costs. Based on survey data of 248 high-technology manufacturing Spanish firms, this study extends recent research about the context dependency of openness effectiveness by showing that the effect of these two open search strategies on perceived firm performance is contingent with technological environmental dynamism in a reverse fashion. While search breadth is found to be positively associated with performance in less technologically dynamic environments, it seems to hurt performance in more dynamic contexts. On the contrary, while search depth is found to have a positive effect on performance in highly technologically dynamic environments, it appears to harm firm performance in more stable contexts.     

Successful eco‐innovators: Exploring the association between open inbound knowledge strategies and the performance of eco‐innovative firms

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the association between open inbound knowledge strategies and the performance of eco‐innovative firms in the food and beverage industry. We propose a mixed framework based on the eco‐innovation literature and the open innovation approach. We consider the characteristics in a traditional sector based upon a resource‐based perspective. Three types of firms are distinguished in terms of their sales growth in the Spanish food industry from the least to the most successful eco‐innovators. Using multinomial logistic regression models, it is shown that the diversity of collaborators (breadth of external sources of knowledge) and joint adoption of product and process eco‐innovations are positively associated with the probability of achieving high sales growth. Moreover, we find an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the breadth of the external search and firm performance, but only for the group of the most successful firms. Moreover, operational flexibility, knowledge‐based capabilities and company size are also positively related to the group of successful eco‐innovators.     

Formal and informal appropriation mechanisms: The role of openness and innovativeness

This paper analyses how firms’ degree of openness and innovativeness influence their use of formal and informal appropriation mechanisms. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and design rights are formal appropriation mechanisms. Secrecy, lead-time, and complexity are examples of informal appropriation mechanisms. Both external search breadth and depth are positively associated with firms’ use of informal appropriation mechanisms, while only external search breadth is positively associated with formal appropriation mechanisms. Firms’ degree of radical (incremental) innovation orientation is negatively (positively) associated with their use of formal appropriation mechanisms. Analysis of the joint impact of openness and innovativeness, suggests that for radical innovators it is external search breadth (rather than depth) that has a positive association with the use of informal appropriation mechanisms. In contrast, for radical innovators external search depth (rather than breadth) is associated with the use of formal appropriation mechanisms. For incremental innovators, external search breadth (rather than depth) is associated with the use of both formal and informal appropriation mechanisms.     

Is your open-innovation successful? The mediating role of a firm's organizational and social context

Open firms are not equally successful. This is because, in order to benefit from external sources of knowledge, firms must be able to absorb such knowledge. The paper outlines a firm's context as a set of organizational and social features, which may be considered absorptive capacity antecedents. It explores the mediating role of such antecedents in the relationship – hitherto insufficiently researched – between the degree of openness and innovative performance. The use of a methodology combining both direct interviews and survey of Italian firms has allowed us to confirm the supposed mediating role. We also identify different modes for companies to open up their innovation process and, for each of them, the antecedents that are consistent with choices regarding the degree of openness.     

Some immediate - but negative - effects of openness on product development performance

This paper charts an unnoticed theme in the current debate on open innovation, namely the foundational question whether increasing openness is beneficial? The paper approaches this question by conceptualising the degree of ‘openness’ and analyses the importance of increasing degrees of openness for NPD performance. Inter-organizational relationships in New Product Development lay the foundation for operationalising openness because these represent important sources of ideas and knowledge in purposive inbound open innovation. This exploratory paper finds that on immediate NPD performance measures the single firm strategy is performing better than the collaborative strategy. However, we also find that the use of internal and external relationships is highly correlated and that these interact with each other. Finally, with increasing degrees of openness the product development projects are slower than the norm in the industry, slower than what is usual for the firm’s projects and had higher cost than the norm in the industry and the firm’s usual projects. These results offer a more critical perspective on openness and NPD performance than the literature on the open innovation paradigm suggests. The paper discusses these results and offers some challenges for management and research of open innovation.     

The more the merrier? Network portfolio size and innovation performance in Nigerian firms

A positive relationship between firms' networking activities and innovativeness has been consistently established in the literature on innovation. However, studies considering different innovation types, and on developing countries are scarce. This paper addresses questions concerning the relationship between networking strategies and innovativeness of firms, using innovation survey data on Nigerian firms. Quantile regression is applied to trace the link between portfolio size and innovation at different levels of innovative success. The results show a positive relationship between a firm's innovation performance and the size of its networking portfolio. This relationship varies across different innovation types and with increasing innovation performance. The findings suggest that the widely accepted portfolio approach to external search for knowledge is not necessarily always the best—its utility depends on the firm's current level of innovative success. This poses a challenge for open innovation.     

In and Out of Balance: Industry Relatedness,Learning Capabilities and Post-Acquisition Innovative Performance

The existence of an inverted U-shaped effect of the relatedness between acquirer and acquired firm on the innovative performance subsequent to an acquisition is normally regarded as indicative of the existence of a trade-off between exploration and exploitation in external innovation search. We argue that acquirers endowed with heterogeneous learning capabilities can alter the shape of the trade-off to their favour. In particular, we focus on a notion of industry relatedness that captures the coherence between the domains of operation of the acquirer and the acquired firm. Using a longitudinal dataset of 1,736 domestic acquisitions in the Netherlands, we show that the heterogeneous learning capabilities of the acquirers alter the shape of the inverted-U relationship, according to first- and second-order moderating effects. Our results confirm that learning capabilities by internal R&D and by acquisition experience both improve what acquirers can achieve in innovative performance when industry relatedness is at the point of balance between exploration and exploitation. In contrast, they have opposite implications on the potential losses in innovative performance when industry relatedness is outside the point of balance: internal R&D increases the tolerance of the trade-off, smoothing out potential innovation losses, whereas acquisition experience reduces it.     

跨界搜寻策略、知识异质度与企业技术创新绩效

以我国106家高科技企业为研究样本,探讨跨界搜寻广度、深度与平衡对企业技术创新绩效的影响,以及内外部知识异质度在其中起到的中介作用。结果表明：跨界搜寻广度、深度与企业技术创新绩效之间存在倒U形关系,而跨界搜寻平衡正向影响企业技术创新绩效,内外部知识异质度在跨界搜寻策略与企业技术创新绩效关系中起到中介作用。     

Listen to the market: Do its complexity and signals make companies more innovative?

This paper analyzes four modes of innovation that differ in their scope of newness (innovation generation and adoption) and in their degree of change (radical and incremental). Building a theoretical model based on the market orientation (MO) and contingency theory literature and using a sample of innovative firms, we find that MO positively influences the numbers of incremental generation and adoption of innovations. We also find that environmental complexity moderates the relationship between MO and radical and incremental innovation generation and the number of incremental innovation adoption. That is, we have found that highly complex environments enhance the introduction of radical and incremental internally generated innovations and harm the adoption of incremental innovation for market-oriented firms. These findings add to the innovation and MO literatures. Our results also have important implications for both the commercial activities and R&D policies of firms.     

Innovation and de facto standardization: The influence of dominant design on innovative performance,radical innovation,and process innovation

Setting technology standards is the route to market growth and to potentially influencing the performance of a whole industry. When a market accepts a particular technology as one that defines the specifications for products in the entire industry, a dominant design is set. In this article, we investigate how the existence of a dominant design affects subsequent innovation in an industry. In particular, we study the influence on innovative performance, radical innovation, and process innovation. Analyzing longitudinal, cross-sectional patent data for more than 2.6 million patents filed from 1978 to 2013, we find support for our hypotheses that an industry's innovative performance and degree of radical innovation are negatively influenced by dominant design in that industry, and that process innovation is fostered by the occurrence of a dominant design. We discuss the findings in the light of the increasing speed of technological development and standardization. Additionally, results from a sensitivity analysis for different threshold values of dominant design call for adjusting a binary definition of dominant design with different threshold values depending on the effects under study.     

How do Scientists Contribute to the Performance of Innovative Start‐ups? An Imprinting Perspective on Open Innovation

Our study illustrates how scientists contribute to the performance of innovative start‐ups through an analysis of 211 Italian start‐ups with and without scientist founders. Building upon imprinting theory, we hypothesize and find that scientists provide an advantage to innovative start‐ups to the extent that they stimulate open innovation (i.e., search breadth and depth). However, for this to effectively occur, the involvement of multiple scientist founders is needed, so that their career imprints internalized in the lab are successfully transferred to the start‐up. Moreover, if the start‐up embraces business practices (i.e., strategic planning) or departs from scientific logics (i.e., pursuing non‐commercial goals), scientists’ contribution is further increased. Therefore, our study illustrates how the scientist career imprint can provide an advantage to innovative start‐ups with multiple scientists, but also how it can act as a rigidity if the start‐up does not pursue strategic planning or emphasizes non‐commercial goals.     

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.     

信任视角下协同创新网络组织合作伙伴选择与评价

创新协同网络组织通过优势互补协作创新,能加速科技成果的产出和转化。其产出和转化的绩效很大程度上决定于共享网络组织成员间知识共享和知识溢出。在这个过程中,网络组织合作伙伴之间的信任至关重要。基于信任的视角下,合作伙伴关系能缩减成本、增加收益,并加强彼此之间的长期伙伴关系。研究结果表明:声誉、兼容性、品牌影响力、结构保证、开放程度和学习心态是影响创新协同网络组织成员间信任的主要因素。在进行合作伙伴的选择时,则可以从组织环境、知识产出质量系统、业务结构和创新能力等几个方面进行评价。     

The impact of technological relatedness, prior ties, and geographical distance on university-industry collaborations: A joint-patent analysis

Empirical studies on R&D collaborations between universities and firms have mainly centered their attention on universities and firms' characteristics that favor the establishment of collaborative agreements. In this paper, I extend the current research framework investigating the role that specific technological and relational attributes may play on the relevance of such collaborations. Specifically, I focus on the effects exerted by three relevant factors, namely technological relatedness, prior collaboration ties, and geographical distance, on university-industry joint innovation value. I develop testable hypotheses about their impact on the innovative performance of R&D university-industry collaborations, and test them on a sample of 796 university-industry joint patents, developed by 33 universities located in 12 different European countries. Our results suggest that partners' technological relatedness has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation value. In addition, prior ties and geographical distance between universities and firms are both positively related to the achievement of higher innovative outcomes.     

How do firms achieve sustainability through green innovation under external pressures of environmental regulation and market turbulence?

Analyses in the fields of environmental and innovation research have hindered our understanding of the real effects of external drivers of firms' green innovation and sustainability behaviors on financial performance. This study compares the ways in which two different external factors drive firms to be green innovative: environmental regulation and market turbulence. By dividing green innovation into green process innovation and green product innovation, we propose that environmental regulation increases financial performance mainly through green process innovation rather than through green product innovation, and market turbulence affects financial performance mainly through green product innovation rather than through green process innovation. The results of an empirical analysis based on a mediation model and panel data on 472 Chinese listed firms for 2006–2017 lend support to our hypotheses. Our study contributes to the green innovation management and sustainability literature by offering a holistic framework for examining how firms pursue green innovation and sustainability in response to two different forms of external pressure.     

Relationships among open innovation,innovative performance,government support and firm size: Comparing Brazilian firms embracing different levels of radicalism in innovation

This work extends knowledge concerning the relationships among open innovation, innovative performance and government support for innovation within Brazilian firms. Data were obtained from two different firm samples (Sample A, on incremental innovation, and Sample B, on radical innovation). The main research results are as follows. First, in considering government support for innovation, Sample B, based on radical innovation, played a superior and stronger role than Sample A. Secondly, for both samples, the cooperation of external firms has a positive effect on firms’ innovative performance, which was positively controlled by the size of the firms. Thirdly, in general, radical innovation requires synergy and a more intense focus regarding the constructs considered therein. This work also adds value in methodological terms, as this is the first research to have tested different models of samples with different levels of radicalism in innovation.     

Environmental Innovations and Strategies for the Development of New Production Technologies: Empirical Evidence from Europe

This study empirically investigates whether firms' improvements in energy and material efficiency are related to the extent to which external partners are involved in the development of process innovations. In particular, we distinguish three different process innovation strategies: firms may follow an ‘in‐house strategy’ and develop their innovations mainly within the firm, they may opt for an ‘external strategy’ and let mainly external partners develop innovations, or they may opt for a ‘cooperation strategy’ and develop innovations jointly with external partners. Using data of manufacturing firms obtained from the fourth Community Innovation Survey covering 14 European countries, we conduct total sample as well as industry‐ and country‐specific regressions. Our results indicate that firms following the ‘external strategy’ tend to have a lower probability of introducing process innovations leading to a marked increase in energy and material efficiency. Moreover, in contrast to extant literature, none of our results suggests that companies following a ‘cooperation strategy’ experience greater environmental innovation performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Too many cooks in the kitchen? The contingent curvilinear effect of shared leadership on multidisciplinary healthcare team innovation

Shared leadership and multidisciplinary teams are advocated for their capacity to develop innovative solutions to important organisational challenges. However, research suggests that the impact of shared leadership is somewhat ambiguous, leading us to propose a curvilinear inverted U‐shaped effect on multidisciplinary team innovation. Furthermore, we posit that this curvilinearity is contingent on awareness of member profession, specifically the salience of professional identity. Using a sample of 60 multidisciplinary healthcare teams, we investigated a model in which shared leadership has a curvilinear effect on innovation contingent on professional salience. Support for our hypotheses attempts to account for ambiguities in the impact of shared leadership and provides guidance for human resource management strategies to enhance multidisciplinary team innovation.     

The combined impact of managerial and relational capabilities on innovation in firms

In this paper, a survey of more than 1600 firms in the five largest city regions of Norway is described in order to examine how a firm's innovative capacity is affected by three types of factors: factors related to the manager, the structure of the firm and the broader geographical location. By combining perspectives from the fields of management and economic geography in a logistic regression analysis, we find that the two key drivers of firm-level innovation in Norway are the presence of open-minded managers and evidence of collaboration with international partners. Moreover, these two factors are mutually reinforcing, as firms with open-minded managers also tend to engage more with international partners and vice versa.