Understanding the disruptive business model innovation of E-business microcredit: a comparative case study in China

This paper uses an in-depth case study approach to compare and analyze e-business microcredit firms and traditional bank business models in China, employing a business model template redefined as an analytical tool. The results suggest that the EMF business model has typical disruptive innovation characteristics, shedding new light on the definition and criteria of disruptive business model innovation as little research has done on its systematic analysis. This study also presents a holistic conceptual framework for four triggers constituting their business model difference, inclusive of non-mainstream customer positioning, inclusive platform-based infrastructure, platform-based leveraged capability, and user experience-centered value proposition.     

Strategic networks and new product performance: the mediating role of ambidextrous innovation

In this study we examine the relationship between strategic networks and new product performance from the perspective of ambidextrous innovation (i.e. combining exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation) using a sample of 323 manufacturing firms in the transitional economy of China. Our empirical analyses present several interesting findings: (a) strategic networks are positively related to firms’ new product performance; (b) ambidextrous innovation has a positive effect on firms’ new product performance – that is, the combination of exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation positively affects the firm's new product performance, while the lack of balance between exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation negatively affects the firm's new product performance; and (c) ambidextrous innovation mediates the relationship between strategic networks and new product performance. Our findings provide scholars and managers with a better understanding of the key role played by the simultaneous adoption of exploratory and exploitative innovation in the relationship between strategic networks and new product performance.     

Product mix,transactions and cost behaviour: a study of South African bank branches

This paper utilizes microeconomic theory and a panel data set to assess the impact of product mix and transactions on cost behaviour of bank branches in South Africa over the short and long‐term. Estimates of properties of concavity and monotonocity indicate that the cost functions of typical bank branches in South Africa are neither consistent with short‐term nor long‐term cost‐minimizing behaviour. This corroborates earlier findings which indicate that South African banks have low production efficiency and high market power. In addition the cost functions and two production‐output type indices indicate that overall, the intermediation‐output type mix (foreign exchange and custodial services) has a more significant effect on cost behaviour than the production‐output type mix (cheque and deposit accounts). The variety of production‐output type services provided by a branch appears to have limited effect on costs. However the financial value of production‐output type transactions has an impact on costs while the financial value of intermediation type products does not. Branches that provide intermediation‐output type products tend to have higher variable costs – the key determinant of costs is the number of transactions.     

Unified economic ideas and their hybrid policies: the case of Swedish life science innovation work

Institutional theory describes organisations as being open to external influences, including policy-making. Policy-making is in turn based on normative ideas that inform how markets and economies unfold. Policies may include wide-ranging concerns and trade-offs (as in science and industry policy) or may be detailed and specific (as in the case of, e.g. procurement policies in the medical technologies sector), but they tend to play a role in shaping markets. A study of the Swedish life science innovation field suggests that the policy shift in life sciences governance to what Berman [2008. ‘Why Did Universities Start Patenting? Institution-building and the Road to the Bayh-Dole Act.’ Social Studies of Science 38: 835–871] names a market logic. In the present case, the market logic is not sufficiently supported by favourable market conditions, leading to a ‘hybrid logic’ enforcing an enterprising ethos but otherwise remains couched within a bureaucratic innovation system not providing critical resources conducive to life science innovation – venture capital funds and commercial human resources. The outcome is arguably case of ‘over-entrepreneurialisation’.     

Cultural legitimacy and framing struggles in innovation journeys: A cultural-performative perspective and a case study of Dutch nuclear energy (1945-1986)

This article contributes to the field of innovation studies by addressing the role of cultural legitimacy in technical innovation journeys. The article develops a new perspective that connects insights from discourse theory, interpretive approaches to culture, cultural sociology and social movement theory. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches (which tend to conceptualize culture in a top-down deterministic manner), our cultural-performative perspective emphasizes agency, collective sensemaking and framing struggles. Cultural change is a contested process, in which various groups perform on public stages to influence the attitudes and opinions of relevant audiences who provide financial resources, protection or support relevant for innovation journeys. We demonstrate the usefulness of this perspective with a longitudinal case study of nuclear energy in the Netherlands (1945-1986), which encompasses both the creation of legitimacy in the 1950s and 1960s, and its contestation by an anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s, which halted the innovation journey.