The Open Innovation Journey: How firms dynamically implement the emerging innovation management paradigm

Open Innovation is currently one of the most debated topics in management literature. Nevertheless, there are still many unanswered questions in Open Innovation research. Especially two issues require further investigation: (i) understanding the relevance of Open Innovation beyond high-tech industries and (ii) studying how firms implement Open Innovation in practice. The paper addresses these topics by studying, through an in-depth case study, the journey that the Italian leading cement manufacturer, has undergone to move from a Closed to an Open Innovation paradigm.The paper shows that the Open Innovation paradigm is implemented along a three-phase process that comprises the stages of unfreezing, moving and institutionalising. Moreover, it emerges that the changes through which Open Innovation has been implemented involve four major dimensions, i.e. networks, organisational structures, evaluation processes and knowledge management systems. They should be therefore conceived as the managerial and organisational levers an innovating firm can act upon to streamline its journey toward Open Innovation. Theoretical and managerial implications of using these levers for implementing Open Innovation are discussed at length.     

Exploring the differences in performance measurement between research and development: evidence from a multiple case study

Researchers and practitioners have recently paid great attention to research and development (R&D) performance measurement, although it is acknowledged to be a very challenging task because of R&D intrinsic uncertainty and complexity levels. In this paper, the problem of designing a performance measurement system (PMS) for R&D activities is addressed; specifically, we investigate if and how the design of the PMS is influenced by the type of activity it is applied to, namely Basic and Applied Research or new product development (NPD). We first develop a theoretical framework that comprises the main constitutive elements of a PMS for R&D. Then the framework is used for supporting a multiple case study analysis involving eight Italian technology-intensive firms. The research results show that the criteria for designing the constitutive elements of the PMS are radically different in Basic and Applied Research and NPD. The reasons behind the observed dissimilarities in the design criteria are widely discussed in the paper, as well as their implications for R&D managers.     

Assessing performance and value-creation capabilities in Lean healthcare: insights from a case study

ABSTRACT

Lean thinking is increasingly being applied worldwide. Yet its actual impact is still a puzzle, particularly when a ‘full-implementation approach’—which entails the adoption of a strategic approach to Lean dissemination on policy deployment procedures—is used. Focusing on the healthcare sector, this paper presents and tests a comprehensive measurement framework for Lean interventions. The paper explains how Lean testing can help decision-makers to solve managerial issues related to Lean initiatives.     

Financial Supervision: Integrated or Specialized?The case of Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper discusses the relative merits of the two approaches of financial regulation and supervision for the case of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In doing so, it reviews the main arguments advanced in the specialized literature in pro and against of each approach. All the theoretical arguments are contrasted with available country experiences from around the world and discussed with a focus on the Latin American and Caribbean countries. A methodology to analyze the efficacy and the efficiency of each approach in meeting the main objectives of financial regulation is also provided. The paper concludes that in the present circumstances, the net benefits of adopting an integrated approach probably exceed the net benefits stemming from the adoption of a specialized approach for most of the countries in the region.     

The effects of privatization on corporate R&D units: evidence from Italy and France

Over the last two decades privatization programmes in a variety of different countries have radically reduced the role of the state as a major owner of productive assets. While there is empirical evidence to show that the switch in ownership generally improves productive efficiency and profitability at company level, its effects on research and development (R&D) activities, which can impact strongly on long–term performance, have been largely ignored in the literature.
In this paper we address this issue by analyzing seven cases of privatization that have recently occurred in Italy and France in order to gauge how R&D activities may be affected by privatization in terms of objectives and organization. The organizations studied show that R&D units within privatized companies are subject to profound restructuring actions, generally designed to boost efficiency and to strengthen integration with the goals of the business units and of the final customers. A new role for R&D thus emerges: the aim is no longer to generate new knowledge in the broad national interest, but rather more directly to create value for the company and its clients, by emphasizing the assessment and integration of external knowledge.     

Vacancies, unemployment, and the Phillips curve

The canonical new Keynesian Phillips curve has become a standard component of models designed for monetary policy analysis. However, in the basic new Keynesian model, there is no unemployment, all variation in labor input occurs along the intensive hours margin, and the driving variable for inflation depends on workers’ marginal rates of substitution between leisure and consumption. In this paper, we incorporate a theory of unemployment into the new Keynesian theory of inflation and empirically test its implications for inflation dynamics. We show how a traditional Phillips curve linking inflation and unemployment can be derived and how the elasticity of inflation with respect to unemployment depends on structural characteristics of the labor market such as the matching technology that pairs vacancies with unemployed workers. We estimate on US data the Phillips curve generated by the model. While we can reject the baseline new Keynesian Phillips curve in favor of the search-frictions specification, we show it is still too stylized to fully describe the dynamics of firms’ marginal costs.     

Supply chain configurations in a global environment: A longitudinal perspective

In the last few years, companies have paid growing attention to the management of their supply chain at a global level. The need for better suppliers, international competition and research of specific competences have forced companies to improve their ability to cope with suppliers and customers located in different countries around the world. This paper aims to provide an overview of how manufacturing companies use global supply chains and how their behaviour changes over time. Longitudinal data from a sample of companies from the last two editions of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) are used. A contingent analysis of manufacturing localization and globalization is also considered in order to identify factors influencing supply chain globalization strategies. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Long-run risk-return trade-offs

Excess market returns are correlated with past market variance. This dependence is statistically mild at short horizons (thereby leading to a hard-to-detect risk-return trade-off, as in the existing literature) but increases with the horizon and is strong in the long run (i.e., between 6 and 10 years). From an econometric standpoint, we find that the long-run predictive power of past market variance is robust to the statistical properties of long-horizon stock-return predictive regressions. From an economic standpoint, we show that, when conditioning on past market variance, conditional versions of the traditional CAPM and consumption-CAPM yield considerably smaller cross-sectional pricing errors than their unconditional counterparts.     

Entry of painters in the Amsterdam market of the Golden Age

We analyze the evolution of the entry of painters and price of paintings in the XVII century Amsterdam art market. In line with evolutionary theory, demand-driven entry in the market was first associated with product innovations and a rapid increase in the number of painters. After reaching a peak, the number of painters started to decrease in parallel with a price decline and the introduction of process innovations. To test for the role of profitability in the art market as a determinant of endogenous entry of painters, we build a price index for the representative painting inventoried in Dutch houses. This is based on hedonic regressions controlling for characteristics of the paintings (size, genre, placement in the house), the owners (job, religion, value of the collection, size of the house) and the painters. After a peak at the beginning of the century, the real price of paintings decreased until the end of the century. We provide anecdotal evidence for which high initial prices attracted entry of innovators, and econometric evidence on the causal relation between price movements and entry.