Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship: A Canadian Study

In his study of 112 corporate innovations, Russell Knight describes how 100 large Canadian corporations identified innovative ideas, evaluated them, and allocated resources to support their development. These innovations ranged from new product introductions to new processes or systems within these firms. He conducted a series of interviews with managers to explore both the role of corporate entrepreneurs and top management in creating a favorable environment for innovation within the firms, examining the roles of marketing research, research and development, production planning and finance in the process. The article reports several general conclusions regarding the practices of the more successful firms and presents several recommendations concerning how firms should organize to explore, develop and produce new innovative ventures within the corporation. These results are also contrasted with those of an earlier article Knight published in this Journal.     

Protocol: New Tool for Product Innovation

The new product process is often plagued by delays, cost overruns, products which don't sell well, and a state of near battle between marketers and R&D groups. These problems are being attacked by a wide variety of new management practices today. For example, we have recently seen better statements of strategy, smaller less bureaucratic organization forms, mathematical models for economic evaluation, and post-launch tracking and control systems. One area of concern has been slow to respond—the communication of direction to R&D. This paper speaks to the communication problem by proposing a concept called "protocol." The concept is explained, and its usefulness and difficulties are discussed. This article tells why something like a protocol is needed, and points out the problems in its development and use.     

基于网络关系的公司治理

公司治理已由“股东至上”的产权治理演进为“利益相关者”的超产权治理,由单一企业的内部法人治理结构治理向网络关系的公司治理演进.企业价值评价也由财务指标逐渐转向非财务指标.在以网络关系为基础的公司治理中,企业当着力构建公司的价值网络关系、社会网络关系和顾客网络关系,并以利益相关者的公司治理理论为基点,根据不同的网络关系,实施分类治理,协调、维护好各种网络关系,使各类利益相关者协调发展.公司利用各种网络关系攫取企业发展所需的各类资源,致力于企业“Key Stone”角色的建设,保持企业的“常青基业”,以实现企业和社会效益的最大化.     

Social Networks for Innovation and New Product Development

In this article we first provide a brief introduction into social network analysis, focusing on the measures and approaches that are used in the empirical contributions in this special issue. Second, we discuss the role of social networks in new product development. Social networks are inherently multilevel; we consider four “levels”: networks inside a firm, networks that cross firm boundaries, networks between firms, and networks that reside outside of the firm. Third, we discuss these four levels and highlight some of the extant research. We summarize and position the eight papers in this special issue along these four levels. Together, we argue, these papers provide an interesting coverage of this burgeoning field.     

不连续创新的第四代研究开发--兼论跨越发展

根据国际上技术创新的演进趋势,本文分析了最新的第四代研究开发模式,并与前三代研究开发模式作了比较,文章认为,第四代研究开发模式对不连续的创新有更强的管理能力,这对于我国当前企业关心的跨越创新和研究开发的管理都有很强的借鉴意义。     

Actors' Heterogeneity in Innovation Networks

Several interpretations converge in defining innovation networks as formed by heterogeneous actors, mainly identified in universities, research centers, and business companies. While the issue of actors' heterogeneity has generated active debate in strategy and organization studies, there has been little discussion so far in exploring the role of this diversity in innovation networks.Drawn from previous literature, we identify six attributes of actors' heterogeneity which seem to matter for the development of collaborative innovation: goals, knowledge bases, capabilities and competences, perceptions, power and position, culture. This paper is aimed at pursuing issues in need of further investigation. In particular 1. how the interplay of diverse actors' attributes shapes the interaction process in the development of collaborative innovation; 2. if and how combinations of their attributes are more likely to generate certain consequences in interaction; and 3. the degree to which heterogeneity is preferable to homogeneity for the effectiveness of innovation networks. In a recursive relationship, we also call for more research on the mechanisms that lead actors' attributes to change as an effect of interaction as well as on the interaction capabilities actors apply to manage heterogeneity.     

A New Method for Identifying Recombinations of Existing Knowledge Associated with High‐Impact Innovation

How existing technologies and ideas are recombined into new innovations remains an important question, particularly as the store of prior technology, art, and work expands at an increasing rate. Yet, methodologies for identifying effective recombinations remain a nascent area of research. This paper extends our previous work, which developed a network methodology for assessing a scientific article's recombinations of prior work. The methodology uses information from the entire co‐citation network of all papers recorded in the Web of Science to identify combinations of prior work that are conventional or atypical and then identifies the virtuous mix of conventional and atypical pairings associated with high impact work. Here, we summarize our prior method and findings, present new findings, and perform a case study application to the field of management science. First, the results show that despite an ever‐increasing frontier of possible new combinations of prior work, atypical combinations of prior work are becoming increasingly rare with time, while the distribution of conventional pairings is increasing with time. Second, our analyses show that with time the atypical pairings found in hit papers have a relatively stable mean rate at which they become conventional pairing. Nevertheless, the variance around the mean is growing significantly, which indicates that there is a greater tendency over time for novel pairings either to be virtually never used again or to become conventional pairings.     

企业管理现代化走向多层创新

改革开放二十多年来,中国企业管理现代化水平已经有了质的飞跃,这正是多年实践带给中国企业的进步。去年,我们对全国企业管理创新近20年来的800多项成果进行了分析和研究,以下重点值得关注:企业管理现代化的特点后发效应明显。这一点和我国经济、社会发展总体进程一致。我国企业管理的现代化水平起点低但是进步快,前期带有明显的仿效色彩,近期开始致力于自主创新。区域差异性大。我国经济发展水平和管理水平总体呈现出区域差异性大的特点。一方面是东、中、西部企业的管理水平有明显层次。另一方面,不同管理层次的经验都闪烁着光辉:有追随国…     

Technology and Corporate Scope: Firm and Rival Innovation as Antecedents of Corporate Transactions

This paper studies the role of technological innovation as an antecedent of changes in corporate scope. It argues that technological innovations prompt the firm to reconfigure its corporate portfolio—to redeploy resources to areas of new opportunity while it divests out of marginal businesses. Results from a cross‐industry sample of U.S. manufacturing firms show successful innovation by a firm is followed by both expansion into new areas through complementary resource seeking acquisitions and divestment out of existing noncore businesses. This relationship is found to be moderated by the level of investible resources available to the firm, and supports the notion of scarce resources as a constraint on firm scope. In addition, firms are found to change their corporate scope in response to rival innovation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

专利执行保险、技术创新与企业绩效

作为知识产权保护重要制度之一,专利执行保险通过降低技术溢出损失和外部融资约束提升企业技术创新,进而对企业绩效产生深远影响。本文基于沪深A股2012~2019年上市公司微观数据,实证研究专利执行保险实施背景下专利保护对企业技术创新和财务绩效的影响。研究发现:专利执行保险对企业技术创新存在显著的“创新激励”效应,特别是对创新投入和创新产出的提升作用明显,在考虑控制内生性问题后,上述结论仍成立;技术溢出损失效应和外部融资约束是影响专利执行保险创新激励效应的重要机制和渠道;专利执行保险和企业技术创新对企业财务绩效影响显著,其中对滞后5期内的企业财务绩效提升最为明显。研究为完善知识产权保护对创新激励作用探讨,加快专利执行保险试点推广以及如何激发企业创新提供理论价值和政策启示。     

Perspective: The Green Innovation Value Chain: A Tool for Evaluating the Diffusion Prospects of Green Products

Although green products and technologies are heavily promoted by those worried about global climate change and sustainable development, they are frequently unsuccessful in displacing conventional “brown” products in numbers large enough to create meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and natural resource use. This paper introduces the green innovation value chain (GIVC) as a tool for analyzing the financial viability of green products using a multi‐stakeholder perspective that includes manufacturers, distribution channels, consumers, the environment, and governments as separate links in the chain. Hybrid vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius, are used as an illustrative case and are found to be financially unattractive compared with conventional vehicles across the entire GIVC.     

担保网络对企业创新的影响研究

本文选取2008~2020年A股上市公司的面板数据,采用普通最小二乘回归、Heckman两阶段回归、倾向得分匹配等方法系统检验担保网络对企业创新投入和产出的影响。研究发现:担保网络显著抑制企业创新投入与创新产出,且这一影响的具体路径是担保网络的“风险效应”;进一步检验发现,企业加入担保网络的平均最短路径越短、节点数越多,企业创新水平越低。研究结论揭示了担保网络对企业创新的影响机理,为促进担保网络内企业的创新活动提供了参考依据。     

模块生产网络价值创新的整合架构研究

本文建立了一个决定模块生产网络价值创新的整合性架构，认为模块生产网络价值创新的基本逻辑．就是网络内部的适应性主体通过组织柔性的专业化分工、互补性合作以实现协同效应．这些协同效应就是模块生产网络价值创新的主要来源。协同效应的实现还有赖于模块生产网络有效的自我治理．主要包括设计规则的可行性、系统竞争策略的有效性和标准竞争策略的合理性。这些治理活动镶嵌在既定的制度背景中，模块生产网络受到不同制度环境的限制．就会有不同的治理行为和不同的价值创新绩效。     

Adaptation and Organizational Connectedness in Corporate Radical Innovation Programs*

This research examines how established companies organize programs for fostering technology‐based radical innovation. It addresses conflicts revealed in the innovation literature concerning the appropriate design of the strategic, structural, and process components of these programs. In developing innovation strategies, managers must balance the desire for strategic clarity with the need to allow for creativity and exploration. They must structure programs that ensure innovations benefit from the organization's resources while minimizing the numerous constraints that can impede these unconventional activities. Additionally, though they may favor management processes that provide accountability and effective resource allocation, managers must also ensure these do not restrict the flexibility required for successful innovation. The study is a longitudinal, comparative case analysis of interviews with managers involved in innovation programs in 12 industry‐leading multinational corporations. Site visits at each company were followed by biannual interviews with key managers in each company. A total of 81 follow‐up interviews were conducted over a three‐year period. These interviews were aimed at identifying the changes and progress in the programs over time and internal and external impacts on the organization's innovation activity. The analysis reveals (1) distinct but evolving objectives that maintain a logical strategic connection, (2) adaptive structures that shift and transform but preserve relationships with the broader organization, and (3) flexible processes that are understandable beyond the innovation program and are modifiable, both for the context and in response to learning over time. This suggests that programs introducing high uncertainty and risk into mature corporate environments are highly flexible systems that maintain organizational connectedness as they evolve. For academics, this implies a need to understand the evolution of innovation programs as an adaptive learning process that, regardless of form and purpose, preserves its connection to the traditional organization. For practitioners, it highlights the importance of considering the process, strategic, and structural connections to the broader organization when designing innovation programs and suggests the need for feedback mechanisms to help adapt these elements over time.     

企业所得税并轨与中小企业自主创新

新企业所得税法的实施为中小企业发展提供了良好机遇,也带来了很大的挑战。如何更好地抓住机遇,迎接挑战,更好地利用新企业所得税法是中小企业目前面临的一个关键问题。文章就此做一分析和探讨,提出一些建设性建议。     

The Long and Winding Road: Building Legitimacy for Complex Social Innovation in Networks

Social innovations, which increasingly take place in interorganizational networks, occur in environments characterized by resource scarcity. To secure access to resources, social innovators need to establish legitimacy for their initiatives. Yet, empirical work investigating the process of establishing legitimacy for social innovation—also known as legitimation—is absent. This research aims to uncover how legitimacy is established when social innovations are developed, over time, through interorganizational networks. To investigate this process, the research adopts a longitudinal case study of a network of five market‐leading organizations in the home care sector. A process‐based analysis of evidence from 33 meeting observations, 45 in‐depth interviews, and 249 documents reveals three novel findings. (1) The attainment of overall legitimacy depends on the establishment, over time, of three types of legitimacy targeted at different audiences. These are framed as building blocks oriented toward achieving interorganizational, multilevel, and external legitimacy. (2) The process of establishing legitimacy, across the building blocks, is underpinned by two dominant combinations of patterns—denoted as courting and demonstrating commitment. (3) Variation in two underlying mechanisms—conflicting tensions and role promotion—drives the enactment of these patterns across the different building blocks. The study's novelty lies in the extrication of critical types of legitimacy and dominant patterns and mechanisms which underpin the process of establishing legitimacy. It contributes to social innovation and innovation legitimation literature by providing a deep‐grained understanding of the process to establish legitimacy within social innovations carried out through interorganizational networks.     

计算机辅助机构分析综合工具的研制

自行研制的用于机械设计的计算机辅助机构分析综合设计工具,说明了其功能,讨论了用户需求,界面设计,并给出了运行实例。     

Open Innovation in Practice: Goal Complementarity and Closed NPD Networks to Explain Differences in Innovation Performance for SMEs in the Medical Devices Sector

Cooperation with other organizations increases the innovation performance of organization, especially for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) as they encounter liabilities of “smallness” (e.g., limited financial resources, and manpower). In the medical devices sector, collaboration with external partners for NPD becomes increasingly important due to the complexity of the products and the development process. About 80% of companies in this sector are SMEs. These companies operate in a highly regulated sector, which affects the organization of the external network required for the new product development (NPD) process. SMEs are practicing extensively open innovation activities, but in practice face a number of barriers in trying to apply open innovation. This paper examines multiple network characteristics simultaneously in relation to innovation performance and thereby aligns with and builds further on configuration theory. Configuration theory posits that for each set of network characteristics, there exists an ideal set of organizational characteristics that yields superior performance. In this research, the systems approach to fit is used. Fit is high to the extent that an organization is similar to an ideal profile along multiple dimensions. This ideal profile represents the network profile that the 15% highest performing companies use. It is argued that the smaller the distance between the ideal profile and the network profile that is used, the higher the performance. The objective of this research is (1) to examine the relation between the ideal profile and innovation performance and (2) to examine which organization of the network profile is related to high innovation performance. Quantitative survey data (n = 60, response rate 61.9%) form the core of this research. The quantitative results are clarified and have been triangulated with qualitative interview data (n = 50). Our findings suggest the presence of an “ideal” NPD network profile (in terms of goal complementarity, resource complementarity, fairness trust, reliability trust, and network position strength): the more a company's NPD network profile differs from this ideal profile, the lower the innovation performance. In addition, the results of our study indicate that the NPD network profiles of successful and less successful SMEs in the medical devices sector significantly differ in terms of “goal complementarity,” while this is less the case for trust and resource complementarity labeled distinctive by previous research. Finally, results show that a relatively closed, focused, and consistent “business‐like” NPD networking approach, which is characterized by result orientation and professionalism, is related to high innovation performance. It is recommended that SMEs in the medical devices sector aiming to distinguish themselves from competitors in terms of innovation performance focus on goal complementarity while adopting such a business‐like attitude toward their NPD network partners.