BIE lauds Expo Shanghai＇s virtual innovation

Officials with the Bureau of International Expositions （BIE） hailed Expo Shanghai Online as a ＂revolutionary landmark practice＂ at the 146th BIE conference in Paris on November 24.Thumbs up for the virtual version of the real Expo also came from representatives present at the conference after the organizer delivered a report and broadcast a video on the program.     

Are there barriers to innovation in retailing?

Recent data from the Community Innovation Survey challenge some of the conventional arguments that retailing is inherently less innovative than other sectors within developed economies. According to the data, firms in the UK retail sector are now converging on the all-sector average. Drawing on qualitative research undertaken within retail firms, this article begins by examining some of the implications of this and the reasons why survey data may still underestimate the extent of innovation in the sector. One of the potential contributory factors to an increase in reported levels of innovation may be a reduction in barriers to innovation. In a new analysis of the data, the article explores the nature and incidence of such barriers in the UK. It judges that, although barriers were already perceived to be low, further reductions may have played a part in stimulating innovation. However, amongst other factors, it also notes that the sector still lacks any reliance upon universities and HEIs to assist with strategic innovation. The article further concludes that present economic conditions are likely to detrimentally affect a number of the cost and market factors, which are the most significant barriers to innovation in the sector.     

Do innovation spillovers impact employment and skill upgrading?

So far, the research on impact of innovation on employment and skills focused on effects within firms and sectors. Little attention was paid to the influence of interlinkages between sectors as a source of employment change. The main contribution of this paper to the field refers to broadening the analysis of innovation impacts to innovation spillovers from vertically linked sectors on firms' employment and skill change in user industries. The empirical analysis conclusively demonstrates an important role of innovation spillovers in the economy. Firms' employment growth is shown to benefit significantly from spillovers of product innovations in manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services. Similarly, firms that are subject to increased spillovers of product innovations as well as marketing and organisational innovations are more likely to upgrade their skill composition. Conversely, employment growth and skill composition of firms seem to be negatively affected by spillovers of process innovations in vertically linked sectors.     

How transformational leadership fuels employees’ service innovation behavior

Although there is a consensus that transformational leadership (TFL) is critical to successful service innovation behavior, the relationship between the two remains inconclusive. This study adopts a dual perspective approach that considers both motivational and social-political perspectives to further elicit the influence of TFL on the service innovation behavior of frontline employees. Using multiphase and multisource data from 269 employees and 1396 customers of hair salons, the results show that the perceived organizational climate for innovation, creative self-efficacy, and expected image gains fully mediate the relationship between TFL and employees’ service innovation behavior. TFL positively influences employees’ perceived organizational climate for innovation, which in turn enhances the service innovation behavior of employees through both motivational (i.e. creative self-efficacy) and social-political (i.e. expected image gains) mediating mechanisms. Surprisingly, expected image risks are found to have a non-significant relationship with service innovation behavior. We discuss implications of these findings with respect to innovation literature and management practice, as well as offer suggestions for further research.     

Does ownership type matter for innovation? Evidence from China

According to the institution-based view, ownership type is a key variable affecting environment-strategy configurations. This study configures the mechanism in which ownership types (as an institutional factor) moderate the effect of innovation strategies on firms' innovation performance. An empirical analysis was conducted on Chinese hi-tech manufacturing firms, using information related to the innovation activities of 303 firms. The empirical results suggest that ownership type affects the positive relationship between three sources of innovation (internal R&D activities, partnering with alliance partners, and partnering with universities) and innovation performance, as well as the negative relationship between external contracting and innovation performance (product or process innovation). The results imply that organizations doing business in China must be aware of the business environment that they intend to enter, especially if the intention is to develop new products or innovate current business processes.     

China＇s anricuiturai hi-tech fair opens, highlighting innovation

On Nov.4, China＇s Tropical Agricultural Sciences Cooperation and Innovation Seminar, sponsored by Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences （CATAS） was held in Hainan Province in order to implement the spirit of Premier Wen Jiabao＇s instruction to support the development of tropical agriculture and technological innovation, give full play to science and technology in developing tropical agricultural industry, and speed up technological progress of tropical agriculture.     

Which companies should implement management innovation? A commentary essay

This commentary essay explores the joint effects of internal context and external search for knowledge on new management practices. Mol and Birkinshaw's (Mol, M.J., Birkinshaw, J., The sources of management: when firms introduce new management practices. Journal of Business Research; forthcoming.) research provides an interesting discussion regarding management innovation studies and will likely create promising future research opportunities.     

When are strategic orientations beneficial for collaborative service innovation?

Despite the importance of collaborative innovation, the existing literature tends to be somewhat vague in identifying when strategic orientations are beneficial for service innovation between a focal firm and its business partners. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative effects of four strategic orientations (market, service, interaction, and learning) on collaborative service innovation performance, while considering the contextual factor of service offerings (basic installed base, maintenance, operational, and professional). Results based on survey data from 362 paired B2B firms show that learning orientation has the strongest effect on collaborative service innovation performance, and is the most effective for basic installed base services and maintenance services. In contrast, interaction orientation best supports those firms with operational services, while market and service orientations are more effective for professional services. Managers are advised to consider alternative strategic orientations individually aligned with service offerings to achieve desired collaborative service innovation outcomes.     

Patterns of innovation in tourism ‘Small and Medium-size Enterprises’

This study aims to explore the different types of tourism innovation and to display distinctive innovation patterns by tourism small business. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to identify those non-technological factors of innovation that are specifically applicable to tourism small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Following a quantitative research approach, the empirical analysis carries out a logistic regression in order to determine the best predictors for different types of innovation. Data set consists on a survey conducted among 125 Andalusian hotel SMEs. Although the results indicate that the diverse categories of innovation – product, process, marketing and organizational – are explained by different sets of variables, it is possible to outline the results related to a number of firm's characteristics, such as dependency on tour-operator, geographic localization or co-operation.     

On tap: Foodservice operators’ perceptions of a wine innovation

An online survey explored foodservice operators’ (N = 57) perceptions of wine-on-tap, a recent trend in the United States. Adopters (39.1%) considered themselves more innovative, willing to take risks, and influential on others’ opinions than nonadopters (60.9%). Foodservice operators who currently offer wine-on-tap utilized interpersonal information sources (e.g., distributors) more frequently than nonadopters. Additionally, adopters perceived wine-on-tap’s characteristics more positively than nonadopters, indicating wine-on-tap was significantly easier to use than bottled wine. Among other implications, networking stood out as an important driver of innovative behavior in the foodservice industry.     

Is innovation in pricing your next source of competitive advantage?

Few companies treat innovation in pricing as seriously as product innovation or business model innovation. However, after interviews with 50 executives and the analysis of pricing practices of 70 companies worldwide, our research suggests that innovation in pricing may be a company's most powerful—and, in many cases, least explored—source of competitive advantage. Innovation in pricing brings new-to-the-industry approaches to pricing strategies, to pricing tactics, and to the organization of pricing with the objective of increasing customer satisfaction and company profits; too many companies today see pricing as a win/lose proposition between themselves and their customers. Innovation in pricing breaks this deadlock and shows how to increase profits and customer satisfaction conjointly. As a result of our research, we present a canvas laying out more than 20 possible avenues for innovation in pricing, offering to any organization—regardless of size, industry, or nationality—a few key ideas on how to increase both profits and customer satisfaction.     

Ross Chowles：创新（innovation）VS创意（creativity）

Ross Chowles创立了南非最著名的Jupiter Drawing Room独立公司，在2004年12月的One show(中国)上与会者都听到了他精彩的演讲。我在会后和他一起探讨了很多广告创意的优势和存在的弊病。在2005年，我们持续了去年未尽兴的话题。     

The entrepreneur–environment nexus: Uncertainty,innovation, and allocation

We build upon a recent stream of research that has proposed entrepreneurship as a solution to, rather than a cause of, environmental degradation. Our proposition is that under certain conditions entrepreneurs are likely to supplement, or surpass, the efforts of governments, NGOs and existing firms to achieve environmental sustainability. Entrepreneurs can contribute to solving environmental problems through helping extant institutions in achieving their goals and by creating new, more environmentally sustainable products, services and institutions. Our model illustrates how entrepreneurs 1) address environmental uncertainty, 2) provide innovation and 3) engage in resource allocation to address environmental degradation.     

Stock option taxation: a missing piece in European innovation policy?

Europe continues to lag behind the USA in venture capital (VC) activity and in the creation of successful startups, and has recently been surpassed by China. This is despite the fact that many European countries have deep financial markets, strong legal institutions, and high R&D spending. We point to the tax treatment of employee stock options as an explanation for the stronger growth of the US VC sector. As a response to high uncertainty and transaction costs, VC financiers have developed a model in which founders and key recruitments are compensated with stock options under complex contracts. Low tax rates on employee stock options further raise the relative returns of working and investing in innovative entrepreneurial firms, and shift financial capital and talent to that sector. We measure the effective tax on stock options in VC-backed entrepreneurial firms in a number of developed economies. Countries with lower stock option taxation have higher VC activity and more high-growth expectation entrepreneurial activity. Based on these associations and the theoretical and empirical literature, we argue that more lenient taxation of gains on employee stock options can be a strategy for European countries to catch up in entrepreneurial finance. This tax policy would narrowly target entrepreneurial startups without requiring broad tax cuts. The favorable tax treatment of stock options allows the state to promote firms that rely on entrepreneurial finance and make use of these types of contracts without lowering taxes for other sectors of the economy.     

What factors determine innovation performance in emerging economies? Evidence from China

Although the literatures on international trade, FDI and R&D have assisted significantly in improving our understanding regarding the determinants of innovation performance, there has been little research concerning the way in which each informs the other. Integrating theoretical developments from all three literatures, we propose and test a multidimensional conceptual framework that allows us to explain more fully what determines innovation performance in emerging economies. Testing the framework against a recently constructed industry-level dataset for China, the empirical analysis indicates that it has significant power in explaining variations in innovation performance. Nevertheless, our findings also show that factors such as international trade, FDI and R&D do not always have positive consequences. Rather, they indicate that their effects are moderated by technological opportunities and the level of foreign presence, implying that previous mixed findings regarding the role of international trade, FDI and R&D may be the result of incomplete theorizing about the factors that moderate the relationship between innovation performance and these factors.     

The effect of innovation policy on SMEs’ employment and wages in Argentina

This article evaluates the effect of the Argentinean Support Program for Organizational Change on employment and wages. The program aimed at increasing small and medium-sized enterprises’ competitiveness by co-financing technical assistance to support process and product innovation activities. Although employment is not usually the main objective of these types of programs, they are always implemented assuming that they create—or at least do not destroy—employment opportunities. We use a unique data set with information for the population of firms in Argentina from 1996 to 2008 to test this important assumption. Using a combination of fixed effects and matching, we find that both process and product innovation support increased employment and wages, with a higher impact on employment. In addition, we find that product innovation support had a larger effect on wages than process innovation support.     

Virtual customer environment design and organizational innovation: An exploration–exploitation perspective

ABSTRACT

Many firms are developing virtual customer environments (VCEs) that provide customers the opportunity to submit, discuss, and vote for new ideas. Some studies show that VCEs promote the development of incremental improvements in existing products and services (i.e., exploitative innovation). However, other studies find that customers working in VCEs will often suggest radical ideas for brand new products and services (i.e., exploratory innovation). Exploration and exploitation are often incompatible; thus, we address this paradox by investigating whether the design of a firm’s VCE architecture is related to the firm’s exploratory innovation activity and exploitative innovation activity. Using matched data collected from VCEs and managers, we show that two-way information exchange VCE tools facilitate exploratory innovation, and one-way information exchange VCE tools enhance exploitative innovation. We also find that absorptive capacity positively moderates the latter relationship. Our findings have implications for research and practice in VCEs, organizational innovation, and organizational learning.     

Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs’ involvement in internationalization and innovation: Three Canadian cases

In international entrepreneurship literature, entrepreneurs moving across borders have received less attention than other entrepreneurs. Also, only scant attention has been paid to immigrant entrepreneurs’ contributions to their organizations. This paper aims to contribute to the emerging international immigrant entrepreneurship literature by studying Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs’ roles in their firms’ international and innovative activities in Canada, China, and other countries. It is based on three cases of Chinese entrepreneurs who established businesses in Canada. We conclude that these immigrants’ experience of doing business in China and Canada, their network relationships and knowledge of these markets quickened their firms’ internationalization considerably. Moreover, these firms became active in product or service innovation as the case immigrants also involved other immigrants and locals. Consequently, immigrant entrepreneurs should actively use their connections both in their new country of residence and also in their previous home country, but to become even more successful, they should also reach beyond their ethnic ties.