The bounds of entrepreneurship: Inter-organizational relationships in the process of industrial innovation

This paper examines the links between entrepreneurship and innovation in modern business corporations. It extends Alford's idea of ‘diffused entrepreneurship’ to the interrelationships between firms. By drawing upon the literatures of business policy and marketing, it draws attention to the ‘porous’ boundaries of industrial organizations as open systems, and to the need to examine the balance between the part played by individuals within such organizations and that played by innovative organizational processes themselves.     

制造业企业对产品创新与流程创新的资源分配

制造业企业进行技术创新有产品创新和流程创新两个方向,企业应将有限的资源合理分配到这两种创新形式中,以提高企业的持续创新能力。针对制造业企业的实际情况出发,文章用系统动力学的思想和工具,建立制造业企业创新系统模型。通过改变产品创新与流程创新资源分配的比例,并比较在不同情况下的模拟输出结果,得到优化产品创新与流程创新资源分配比例的结论。     

The role of human capital in identifying the drivers of product and process innovation: empirical investigation from Italy

Quality & Quantity - Economists recognize that the local availability of higher human capital represents significant knowledge spillovers, especially for innovation process. This research...     

Health status indexes: The trade-off between quantity and quality of life

In the last decade many attempts have been made to combine mortality and morbidity statistics in a single, overall health index. In this paper all of these indexes are shown to involve the same general trade-off between quantity and quality of life. All of them allow increases in the quantity of life to offset decreases in average health status. A formally identical trade-off between population size and average happiness has long been debased in utilitarian ethics, with a marked tendency among modern philosophers to decide in favor of average happiness, that is, precisely contrary to recent health-index researchers. Other considerations also suggest that the trade-off implicit in recent health status indexes may not have general support. The paper concludes with a discussion of various ways of proceeding from this point.     

面向工业产品外型概念设计系统的研究

为了实现一个基于手绘草图且具备友好交互界面支持概念的设计系统,文章根据该系统需要完成设计不同的功能,采用分不同模块进行系统分析与设计,包括草绘设计环境的设计模块、二维笔画识别与草图规整模块、图形显示模块。本系统克服传统CAD设计工具的特点,结合现有的草图设计技术,构建二维草图技术体系。     

RJVs in product innovation and cartel stability

Abstract. We characterise the interplay between firms' decision in product development undertaken through a research joint venture (RJV), and the nature of their ensuing market behaviour. Participant firms in an RJV face a trade-off between saving the costs of product innovation by developing similar products to one another, e.g., by sharing most of the basic components of their products, and investing higher initial efforts in product innovation in order to develop more distinct products. We prove that the more the firms' products are distinct and thus less substitutable, the easier their collusion is to sustain in the marketing supergame, either in prices (Bertrand) or in quantities (Cournot). This gives rise to a non-monotone dependence of firms' product portfolio upon their intertemporal preferences. Received: 1 October 1998 / Accepted: 14 December 2002 We thank the seminar audience at Centre for Industrial Economics, University of Copenhagen, where all three authors were affiliated at the time we presented the first draft of this paper, and also the two anonymous referees for Review of Economic Design for their detailed comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Knowledge processing and ecosystem co-creation for process innovation: Managing joint knowledge processing in process innovation projects

Process innovation drives industrial competitiveness and sustainability but remains elusive since it requires co-creation and the sharing of idiosyncratic design knowledge in ecosystems of providers and customers of process equipment. This paper investigates how firms can manage knowledge processing through co-creation in joint process innovation projects. Analysis of cross-comparative case studies –including nine industrial ecosystem actors – identifies three types of technological challenge (complexity, novelty and customization) that creates knowledge-processing requirements (uncertainty, equivocality) during the value co-creation process. To manage these knowledge-processing requirements, this paper explains how three joint knowledge-processing strategies (joint problem solving, open communication and end-user involvement) help ecosystem partners make sense of the requirements and demands in process innovation. In this context, the procurement approach (such as contracting and relationship development) helps to facilitate higher levels of joint knowledge processing, drawing on the diverse knowledge of ecosystem actors to secure successful process-innovation outcomes. The present study contributes to the emerging literature on co-creation in process innovation by developing a framework that highlights the knowledge-processing dynamics in ecosystem relationships for process innovation. The implications for management extends to a practical tool that guides project managers in ensuring appropriate levels of joint knowledge processing among ecosystem actors.

     

Integrated risk management and product innovation in China: The moderating role of board of directors

This study explored the role of the board of directors in the relationship between integrated risk management and product innovation. We focused on a board's direct involvement in risk oversight and its use of external audit in risk oversight, and examined their moderating effects on the relationship between integrated risk management and product innovation. Panel data from a survey of 1178 Chinese firms was analyzed to test the hypotheses. A board's direct involvement in risk oversight was found to negatively moderate the positive relationship between integrated risk management and product innovation success. The use of external audit in risk oversight similarly weakens the relationship. These results show how an effective board contributes to the innovation benefits associated with risk management in product innovation. They also have important implications for emerging economy firms pursuing an integrated approach to risk management in product innovation.     

Geographical and cognitive proximity effects on innovation performance in SMEs: a way through knowledge acquisition

This study explores the relative influence of geographical and cognitive proximity to explain innovation performance. This paper deepens the controversy between the significance of both types of proximity, contributing to a better understand their interconnections. The study further analyzes to what extent knowledge acquisition provides a congruent explanation of the effectiveness of innovation in proximity contexts. The paper has tested a structural model based on a sample of 224 Spanish footwear firms. Footwear industry is a mature and traditional industry with a significant presence of the territorial agglomeration of firms all over Spain. Findings suggest both a direct and indirect effect of cognitive proximity on innovation performance. However, an excess of geographical proximity produces spatial lock-in, thus limiting the access to new knowledge and lowering innovations. By contrast, proximity in terms of goals and culture leads firms belonging to a territorial cluster to achieve knowledge acquisition resulting in relevant innovation. Findings suggest that although transferable valuable knowledge exists in clustered contexts firms should adopt a proactive behavior to have access common knowledge and in order to generate effective innovations.     

New firm creation and innovation: industrial patterns and inter-sectoral linkages

This article analyzes the linkages between entrepreneurship and innovation behaviour at an industrial level. The research question refers to the extent that the industrial pattern of generation/absorption of knowledge affects the industrial ability to create new firms. An embodied knowledge approach has been applied, by combining the input–output framework with innovation and new firm creation data. As a result, four industrial patterns of innovation/new firm creation have been identified, taking into account the firm size and the model of generation and absorption of knowledge.     

资源枯竭型城市产业转型的风险规避与产业创新

资源型城市产业结构单一,随着自然资源的枯竭,陷入矿竭城衰的境地.实现产业转型,逐步脱离矿产资源采掘与加工,发展接续产业和替代产业,是资源枯竭型城市的出路,但产业在转型中存在着不确定的风险.规避产业转型的风险,可通过产业结构创新、产业技术创新、产业组织创新、管理创新,培育新的竞争优势,增强产业优势,改变历史形成的不合理的产业结构,并向具有特色功能的或综合性的城市演变,最终实现可持续发展.     

The financing of small firm product innovation within the UK

This paper investigates the funding environment facing product innovating small manufacturing firms and both supports and contradicts a number of “stylised facts” which have emerged over the last decade. Amongst the key findings it appears that, whilst innovators were no more nor less likely to have sought external funds, they were significantly less likely to have successfully accessed bank finance. This finding is of particular gravity since bank debt remains the primary source of external finance employed. Further, the paper notes the low use of genuine risk capital to fund product innovation and raises the question as to what extent this reflects supply or demand side deficiencies. The role of public subsidies, in the form of grant funding, is also investigated with some tentative evidence pointing to the role grants play in validating technology or as leverage to access further funds.     

Exploring preconditions for open innovation: Value networks in industrial firms

The open innovation model embraces the purposive flow of internal and external ideas as a foundation for innovation and network formation. While the open innovation paradigm has been successfully applied in high-tech settings, there is a lack of research on adopters of open innovation in other settings. We describe a case study conducted in a process industry setting, focusing on the LKAB mineral group as it makes a transition from a closed to a more open innovation context by adopting remote diagnostics technology. This process has resulted in the creation of new value networks. By tracing the reasoning behind the organizational transformation and studying the technology used to carry it through, we seek to explore the preconditions for open innovation and provide insight into the role of IT in the process. Our findings show that adoption of the open innovation model is grounded in developing organizational environments that are conducive to innovation, including expertise in creating a culture for knowledge sharing, building a trustful environment, and a resourceful use of IT.     

Determinants of industrial innovation in China: Evidence from its recent economic census

This study examines the sources of technological innovation in Chinese industries using the 2004 economic census data. On the one hand, it analyzes the relationships between patent grants and new product sales. On the other hand, it analyzes the relationships among in-house R&D, technology transfer from foreign and Chinese domestic technology markets, spillover effects of foreign investment, as well as export. The study reveals that in-house R&D has become the most important source for industrial innovation in China. In-house technological efforts are critical for developing original innovations as well as for absorbing the technologies transferred from external agencies. However, neither technologies transferred from foreign countries nor those from the domestic technology market are playing significant roles in China’s industrial innovation. The spillover effect of foreign investment on patent grants is strong and significant, though its impact on new product sales is insignificant. Export shows negative, though insignificant, impact on patent grants, but positive, strong, and significant effects on new product development. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate the critical role of in-house R&D in China’s industrial innovation.     

The importance of diverse collaborative networks for the novelty of product innovation

Competition today is driving firms to introduce products with a higher degree of novelty. Consequently, there is a growing need to understand the critical success factors behind more novel product innovations. This paper theoretically and empirically analyzes the role of different types of collaborative networks in achieving product innovations and their degree of novelty. Using data from a longitudinal sample of Spanish manufacturing firms, our results show that technological collaborative networks are of crucial importance in achieving a higher degree of novelty in product innovation. Continuity of collaboration and the composition of the collaborative network are highly significant dimensions. Collaboration with suppliers, clients and research organizations—in this order—have a positive impact on the novelty of innovation, while collaboration with competitors has a negative impact. The greatest positive impact on the degree of innovation novelty comes from collaborative networks comprising different types of partners.     

Mapping the benefits and costs associated with process innovation: The case of RFID adoption

The successful implementation of any innovation requires an understanding of its benefits and costs. This study examines the changes in the magnitude of costs and benefits associated with technology process innovation adoption as the innovation diffuses across different industries. Using RFID as an exemplar technology, the study shows that the magnitude of benefits and costs associated with technological process innovation adoption within different industries varies as technology diffuses beyond early adopters to the early majority. During the early stages of technology evolution, the development cost, the cost of capital, ethical costs and simple direct implementation costs (in the form of the cost of tags) predominate. As a dominant design emerges the profile of costs changes with the emphasis on initiation costs, more holistic direct implementation costs and indirect implementation costs. A similar change in the emphasis of benefits is observed, with a shift from direct to indirect benefits being noticeable as the technology moves from early adopters to early majority adopters. Our findings help to explain the difficulties in consistently measuring innovation outcomes observed in the innovation implementation literature, and emphasize the need to take into consideration the stage of technology development as a significant factor that influences the realised outcomes from innovation implementation.     

Technological innovation and industrial organization in the Danish wind industry *

The origin of this article is the paradox that heavy US R&D funding to hi-tech aerospace industry in the seventies and eighties was not able to provide an appropriate industrial technology base in wind technology that could match the wind turbines from the much more low-tech Danish machine industry (agricultural sector), which received very limited public R&D funding. Nevertheless, the Danish manufacturers took the lion's share of the world market in the eighties, in casu the California home market for the American producers. A bottom-up learning based development strategy almost completely outperformed a science based top down development strategy for this re-introduced energy technology (top down failures were also seen in the UK, Denmark, W. Germany). The top-down and bottom-up strategies reflect two very different types of de facto entrepreneurial behaviour and industrial organization.