Publikationen

Zusammenfassung

Innovation labs play a critical role at the intersection of science, industry, and society, fostering collaborative efforts to drive knowledge exchange and innovation. Despite these labs' growing presence, our understanding of the strategic mechanisms guiding their development remains limited. This study addresses this gap by examining how the enactment of strategic intent influences the evolution of innovation labs. Through a multiple-case study of three university-based labs, we uncover two strategic intent stances—amalgam and shield—that shape lab trajectories in stable and changing contexts. Further, we identify the multifaceted functions of strategic intent, showing how it integrates diverse goals or preserves the lab's ethos under varying external pressures. Our findings offer a practical framework to help innovation lab managers, decision-makers, and other stakeholders navigate complex environments and guide strategic decision-making. This research also advances the understanding of intra-organizational processes in innovation labs, providing both theoretical and practical insights into their sustainability and long-term impact.

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Entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) research has contributed to reshaping entrepreneurial policy and practice. Despite significant translational efforts, the gap between theory and actionable policy seems to be widening. This paper adopts a collaborative approach and critically reflects on the alignment of EE research with practical policy needs, structured around an interactive round-robin brainstorming with 58 EE scholars (i.e., 12 authors and 46 additional experts). We examine policy adoption in the context of EE, discussing the challenges and evolution of research methods, data, and theory. We propose a future policy-oriented research agenda, validated and prioritized by European policymakers, to ensure that EE research effectively informs entrepreneurship policy.

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The role of incumbent firms in sustainability transitions is gaining more attention, with rapidly rising evidence of their proactive role in the change. Nevertheless, debates continue to focus on their defensive and resisting role. Studies that review the existing knowledge on incumbents' interaction with sustainability transitions are lacking. Therefore, this research applies a systematic literature review to introduce a synthesised approach to differentiate between incumbents' proactive and defensive strategies. Further, it examines these strategies more closely and proposes a level-based typology that includes organisational and management, technology development, industry and markets, and institutional. It argues that this classification has implications for scholarship, policymaking and management and highlights avoiding the sectoral bias in empirical evidence on proactive and defensive strategies and how addressing the four-level strategies by which incumbents interact with sustainability transitions contributes to creating policies and strategies that enforce an incumbent-led transition.

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In the context of open innovation, effectively integrating internal and external collaborative networks to leverage relevant knowledge is crucial for enhancing innovation capabilities. Current research has largely overlooked the potential non-linear effects of knowledge relatedness (similarity and complementarity) in external collaboration networks on firm innovation capability, particularly the risk of innovation suppression caused by excessive relatedness. Moreover, systematic investigation is still lacking regarding how internal inventor collaboration networks moderate this relationship. Using a sample of 189 publicly listed firms and employing social network analysis along with negative binomial regression modeling, this study addresses two key questions: (1) Does knowledge relatedness in external collaboration networks nonlinearly affect firm innovation capability? (2) How does the structure of internal collaboration networks influence this relationship? The findings reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between both knowledge similarity (the alignment of a firm's internal knowledge) and knowledge complementarity (differences between shared resources) and firm innovation capability. Moderate levels of knowledge similarity and complementarity are most conducive to enhancing innovation capability. Furthermore, transitivity within internal inventor collaboration networks strengthens the effect of knowledge relatedness on innovation, whereas network stability weakens it. These results extend the application of absorptive capacity theory in network innovation contexts and offer a theoretical basis for firms to optimize partner selection and improve internal collaboration mechanisms.

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The progression from Google's 2017 transformer architecture to OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022 marks a pivotal development in artificial intelligence (AI). Innovations, such as self-attention mechanisms and parallelization, significantly advanced natural language processing, enabling powerful generative models like GPT-3. ChatGPT's introduction democratized conversational AI, fueling rapid adoption across diverse industries. This article discusses AI's far-reaching impact beyond the software sector, highlights advancements in generative AI efficiency and accessibility, explores emerging architectures like Agentic and Multimodal AI, addresses implications for the workforce, and outlines critical challenges requiring attention.

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Cognitive biases within Artificial Intelligence are a common phenomenon. Before this background, we asked ChatGPT what the cognitive biases of AI are. In this article, we critically reflect on the response we got from Generative AI, and discuss cognitive biases in general. We then focus on concrete implications for handling cognitive biases. Such as Algorithms and techniques that can help AI systems identify and reduce bias could be implemented, and standardized techniques to check AI systems for bias before implementation. We also highlight the importance of realizing procedures for ongoing observation and input to identify and rectify prejudices in AI systems once they are put into use. We conclude that solving such biases calls for an allencompassing strategy that incorporates experts from other fields and places an emphasis on moral issues in addition to technological fixes. By doing this, we can encourage the creation of AI technologies that are not just advanced but also ethical, equitable, and beneficial to society as a whole.

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Creating new manufacturing systems or changing existing ones are both time-consuming and cost-sensitive. Errors in system development not only lead to financial losses and setbacks in market competition but also generate wasteful operations that are unsustainable. Digital twin technology offers a solution by replicating the behavior of complex systems in a virtual environment. This approach reduces the resources required for system development and enables the creation of a more efficient system in a shorter timeframe. This paper sheds light on the wasteful aspects of system development and introduces a digital twin-based agile system development life cycle (DT-Sustain).

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Sustainability and Industry 4.0 have been emerging topics in recent years, in theory as well as in practice. Related technological topics like 5G technology, blockchain, artificial intelligence and digital twins among others, are gaining importance. In addition, these themes are becoming increasingly merged with a discussion on I4.0 from societal and organizational perspectives. As a background to this paper, we discuss recent research in this area as covered in this Special Issue. We identify accepted submissions covering four conceptual themes and three methodological themes in the SI. Finally, we outline opportunities for future research: these include human interaction with I4.0 technology-enabled workspaces as well as societal aspects of I4.0 in relation to sustainability efforts. Last, but not least, interaction of I4.0 with other disciplines, such as sustainable manufacturing, reliability, maintenance and disaster management are proposed.

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Despite extensive research on academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial universities, this special issue challenges conventional beliefs by examining intrapreneurship in academia. It aims to investigate how faculty and staff can adopt entrepreneurial behaviors and cultivate an entrepreneurial approach within their roles as researchers and educators, in diverse academic contexts. The 11 papers included in this issue span various domains of intrapreneurial universities, broadening the original concept beyond initial expectations set forth in the call for papers. Exploring a spectrum of intrapreneurial initiatives, this issue seeks to enhance understanding and broaden perspectives on intrapreneurial behaviors within universities through various research approaches and methodologies. Based on the contributions received, we reflect on theoretical and practical implications and delineate future directions for academic intrapreneurship research.

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OVERVIEW: The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution in new product development (NPD) has reached a critical juncture, demanding decisive action from business leaders. Our comprehensive study of key AI applications in NPD reveals a startling lack of adoption across industries, particularly in the United States. Despite the potential benefits, businesses also demonstrate weak intentions to adopt AI and low readiness regarding AI integration into NPD processes. Despite the low adoption rate, the study’s results offer a compelling picture of AI’s potential, including substantial positive impacts of AI use in key areas like product design, prototyping, testing, digital twin simulations, market analysis, and new product ideation. Benefits include accelerated development and markedly improved decision-making.

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Open innovation requires the correct diagnosis of the situation, a differentiated value proposal, and a coherent, consistent action plan. In at least the first phases of this related funnel, open innovation can profit tremendously from artificial intelligence (AI) applications. How? Today, numerous sources of unstructured and scattered information, which may provide strategic insights, are accessible and can be automatically and systematically scanned and analyzed by AI algorithms. For example, the main sources of a company's strategic information are the evolving scientific research on its core competencies; the emergence of synergistic startups; the company's expansion decisions, new product launches, patents, and research and development investments; and its economic and financial results. While open innovation is subject to human cognitive biases, AI applications help overcome these biases and use metadata far beyond human respective ecosystems. This chapter explores the possibilities and limits of AI-enabled open innovation.

Zusammenfassung

Moments of crisis such as pandemics, hyperinflation, or natural disasters cause societies, governments, companies, and individuals to reflect on their priorities and essential needs. However, there is no concept or theory that links human needs to the consumption of goods and services. With this in mind, we introduce the product essentiality concept and a method to measure the essentiality level of a group of products. We used a survey questionnaire and quantitative methodology to illustrate the concept and propose that it can be reasonably approximated by a measure of perceived essentiality. Our analysis examined the influence of location, gender, and family income on the perceived essentiality of general goods and services. For this, a sample of Business and Management students in Brazil and the UK classified 81 products as ‘essential’ or ‘superfluous’. Our findings and analyses show that applying the essentiality concept and its measurement can be consistent and useful for reflecting on what is essential and what is not. This study provides preliminary insights on product portfolio essentiality measurements suggesting it is significantly affected by location rather than gender and income. The results can help organisations to rethink their product portfolios, designs, and assist sustainable development policies.

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The incompatibility between diverse responsible principles of science and technology (S&T) and multi-stakeholders' heterogeneous value assessments underscores the importance of coordinating normative principles of responsible research and innovation (RRI). In this context, this study adopts an ambidexterity lens to address this issue, conceptualizing two constructs—“generalized responsibility” and “specialized responsibility” of S&T (GRST and SRST)—to illustrate the trade-offs. It explores the antecedents of GRST and SRST from an agency perspective. Drawing from a dataset of 19,707 poll responses, the study employs a fractional logit regression model to examine the relationships between three types of agency (iterational agency, strategic agency, and ethical agency) and GRST and SRST. The results reveal a positive relationship between iterational agency and SRST, and between strategic agency and GRST, as well as U-shaped effects of iterational agency on GRST, strategic agency on SRST, and ethical agency on both GRST and SRST. Moreover, ethical agency is found to be more important for SRST than for GRST. The study offers theoretical and policy implications for a critical discussion about responsible innovation.

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Continuous innovation is the lifeblood of a competitive economy. Furthermore, and arguably, the existence of institutions of governance of quality can be a catalyst for emerging economies to transition up the universal innovation value chain. In this context, we investigate temporal causal interactions among institutional quality, innovation, and economic growth for developing countries (DCs) spanning the period of 2005–2020. Employing a vector error-correction model (VECM), we find that for each case and specification (49 instances), there is evidence of the long-run causality from institutional quality and innovation to economic growth. Stated another way, in the long run, institutional quality and innovation Granger-cause economic growth. However, the short-run causality results differ depending on the specific measures of innovation and institutional quality. The strongest short-run conclusion is support for the feedback hypothesis for economic growth and innovation where there is a strong endogenous relationship between innovation, institutional governance, and economic growth. The empirical analysis shows over 70\% of our observations support that economic growth and innovation jointly determine each other in the short run. The results suggest that DCs should develop and pursue long-term growth strategies that simultaneously develop innovation and improve institutional governance.

Zusammenfassung

The automotive industry is undergoing a profound transformation characterized by the transition from hardware-centric to software-driven vehicles. This results in a variety of challenges, such as the increasing complexity of components, shortened development cycles, and evolving regulatory requirements that need to be met. In this context, our article explores the impact of UNECE regulations R.155 and R.156 on the technical prototyping phase in the development of mechatronic systems. Furthermore, we use the findings as an objective and examine the implications for the current landscape of prototyping research. Using a comprehensive case study in the German automotive industry with four OEMs, we investigate the current state of prototyping in the German automotive industry. Our analysis shows that although previous research suggests prototyping processes, they reach their limits in complex systems and cannot cope with the challenges of the industry. At the center of the conclusions is the need to develop a prototyping framework that includes a taxonomy of projects and forms the basis for a testing strategy to shorten time-to-market. As part of this, we propose the introduction of the novel term “phygital prototype” to bridge the gap between physical and virtual prototypes. Furthermore, we argue that product compliance should not only be integrated methodically but also propose concrete procedural steps within the prototyping framework.

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This research aims to consider, in the context of smart objects, the interplay of motivated consumer innovativeness (MCI), satisfaction and word-of-mouth (WOM). Following earlier behavioural research through three phases of attitudes (cognition, affection and conation), the study proposes that functional, hedonic, and social MCI (cognition) are positively related to satisfaction (affection), thus positively influencing WOM engagement (conation). In addition, it is shown that functional and hedonic MCI moderate the relationship between social MCI and satisfaction. Two quantitative studies across two smart object categories (1,129 users of wearables and 511 users of smart home objects) highlight that both functional and hedonic MCI positively relate to satisfaction and WOM. Though the effect of social MCI on satisfaction is non-significant for smart home objects and very low for wearables, our findings confirmed that social MCI has an indirect impact on satisfaction through functional and hedonic MCI in both product categories.

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Crisis highlights conflicts but also helps disparate organisations rally around common objectives through forming ecosystemic relationships. To improve future crisis response, we study the influence of crisis-driven transitions on innovation in ecosystems. We illustrate the study with the dynamics of hydrogen innovation at Enel. Here, innovation caters to multiple value propositions; therefore, we define interecosystemic innovation as an innovation that addresses the value propositions of more than one ecosystem. The unexpected disruption caused by the energy crisis focuses attention on a single value proposition, thus fomenting the dynamic, temporal sequencing of interecosystemic innovation. This increases activity in the ecosystem core as well as interaction with the ecosystem periphery, allowing more rapid innovation iterations throughout the ecosystem. When operating in the intercept of ecosystems, firms need to consider the multiple value propositions of ecosystem participants to identify and mitigate tensions that may impede innovation.

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Overview Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming all aspects of business, including new product development (NPD). Early adopters of AI for NPD are reaping substantial rewards, witnessing remarkable reductions in development timelines, and experiencing a more rapid pace of innovation. But what about the more typical firm? This article presents the preliminary results of a study of US and Central European companies, shedding light on the current state of AI implementation across 13 key AI applications in NPD. We found that companies studied have not yet fully embraced AI across any of these applications; 75 percent have failed to adopt AI for a single application; and “intention to adopt” for all 13 applications is quite weak. European firms are only marginally ahead of US firms. We conclude with important messages for management and offer six recommendations firms can use in their efforts to integrate AI into NPD. A note of caution: Companies will need to act quickly in their AI adoption efforts; otherwise, they risk losing out.

Zusammenfassung

Digital platforms are changing economies and societies, challenging the fundamental institutions of democracy and requiring an understanding of the driving factors behind the development of such platforms. Therefore, we have investigated the impact of dominant platforms on standardization in innovation ecosystems on the level of technologies, firms, and societies. We have conducted a systematic review of the literature on standardization and ecosystems. We define ecosystem-based standardization as the development of a standard embodied in a dominant platform. Important innovation-related findings include that processes are embedded in the platform, allowing for complementary innovation using modular capabilities and, thus, requiring the traditional view of the relationship between product and process innovation to be revisited. Ecosystem-based standardization foments both technological and organizational modularity, which increases innovation speed as well as synergies within the ecosystem. However, the power asymmetry generated by ecosystem-based standardization favors value appropriation by platform sponsors, which has vast implications for the development of regulations and institutions.

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Traditionally, designers and engineers develop prototypes to visualize concepts and test features. People from other disciplines were less involved in this process. Nowadays, more interdisciplinary approaches are required to solve complex problems in new product development. The evidence showing the value of interdisciplinary approaches in prototyping practice is limited. This study designs a workshop to investigate the values and impacts of both the mono-disciplinary approaches and interdisciplinary approaches in prototyping practice. Technical skills are essential, but soft skills, e.g. communication and process management, can enhance significantly the prototype performance. Fixation effects are observed in both mono-disciplinary and interdisciplinary groups.

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Technological evolution in the field of robotics is emerging with major breakthroughs in recent years. This was especially fostered by revolutionary new software applications leading to humanoid robots. Humanoids are being envisioned for manufacturing applications to form human-robot teams. But their implication in manufacturing practices especially for industrial safety standards and lean manufacturing practices have been minimally addressed. Humanoids will also be competing with conventional robotic arms and effective methods to assess their return on investment are needed. To study the next generation of industrial automation, we used the case context of the Tesla humanoid robot. The company has recently unveiled its project on an intelligent humanoid robot named Optimus to achieve an increased level of manufacturing automation. This article proposes a framework to integrate humanoids for manufacturing automation and also presents the significance of safety standards of human-robot collaboration. A case of lean assembly cell for the manufacturing of an open-source medical ventilator was used for human-humanoid automation. Simulation results indicate that humanoids can increase the level of manufacturing automation. Managerial and research implications are presented.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging technological field with immense transformative potential. Within this context, we discuss the diverse ways AI is transforming innovation. We introduce a conceptual framework in which we argue AI plays the following two roles: originator and facilitator of innovation. Additionally, we discuss different applications and implications for innovation theory and practice using a reflection on the traditional innovation process and the front end of innovation perspective. For this, we use the perspectives of AI as technology push, AI as market pull, AI to advance steps in the innovation funnel as well as AI as a contributor to new product development. Finally, we discuss future directions for research in these fields.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are engaged in a harsh battle for market dominance. This article examines the emergence of a dominant design in terms of technology, service, and business model innovation. We conduct a theoretical synthesis of the literature on industrial organization, technology management, network economics, operations management, and strategic management—with the implications of each theory related to the dominant-design battle in AI. The findings indicate a dominant design for AI will be based on innovation concerning business models as much as on technology, and that the dominant business model will include AI as a service.

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The disruptive impact of digital technologies opens the opportunity to redefine the innovation ecosystems across (and between) several industries. To respond to this challenge, several initiatives were funded all over Germany. The Research Campus ARENA2036 at the University of Stuttgart oversees the platform for research and innovation on the topic of mobility and production of the future. This article describes the creation of ARENA2036, its organizing mechanisms, and its function as a catalyst for collaborative innovation. The article ends with a summary of the lessons learned in its first years of operation and an outlook on the future challenges.

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There is no doubt that the Covid pandemic had a lasting effect on people all over the world. It also gave rise to technological innovation as never before. Then how did these technologies change our lives during and beyond the pandemic? This article provides an overview of some of the key technological changes and of the situation in 2022. Our analysis is based on technologies directly related to the treatment of the virus, as well as on pandemic-born innovations influencing business and beyond. A final conceptual framework considers implications for the theory and practice of technological innovation. Specifically, we identify crisis innovation, defined as innovation carried out in response to a crisis, as a potential emerging line for future research efforts.

Zusammenfassung

The role of open or closed innovation (CI) strategies regarding the innovation or rather entrepreneurial success is not solved yet. Therefore, this simulation study examines by means of a multi-agent system the effects of open innovation (OI) on the entrepreneurial success of SMEs under differently parameterised market conditions. The simulation study shows that different market conditions and the characteristics of human resource allocation of a company have a relevant influence on the success of an innovation strategy. The experiments show that OI can mainly take advantage of more human resources, whereas CI lags behind OI in the financial aspect but exceeds OI in terms of market share. Furthermore, the simulation revealed that concrete company situations and market conditions have different effects on the examined innovation strategies. These findings help to stimulate further, even empirical, research efforts.

Zusammenfassung

Industry 4.0 is an important contributor to industrial innovation and sustainability. Nevertheless, few studies empirically analyse how it acts as a binding force of both business practices. This study examines 1501 sustainability reports using a mixed human-artificial intelligence method based on Python's text mining libraries. This method takes advantage of AI's capabilities to extract information from large samples of data and of human critical thinking to find patterns in those data. Specifically, the method is used to evaluate the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies, analyse how they are deployed worldwide, and investigate their sustainability outcomes. In terms of overall frequency, robots and cybersecurity are the most often reported technologies. Broken down by the firm's region, Asian firms have the highest rate of adoption, while African firms are lagging. Regarding the themes, Industry 4.0 is mainly adopted to improve production processes and customer experience. A small percentage of firms, particularly in Europe and North America, utilize Industry 4.0 to reduce the environmental footprint of their operations. Furthermore, results indicate that Industry 4.0 and sustainability are following two routes. Some firms have massively adopted Industry 4.0 to increase operational efficiency and reaped environmental gains as an indirect consequence of improved operations. Others have chosen to balance the adoption of technologies aimed to increase productivity with innovations whose explicit aim is the reduction of their operations' environmental footprint, such as additive manufacturing. Eastern firms tend to follow the first route while western firms the second. African and South American firms are still at a very early stage in their Industry 4.0 and sustainability journey. At the global level, Industry 4.0 is still far from being utilized as a catalyst to develop sustainability-driven business models.

Zusammenfassung

The pandemic challenged industries and entire social systems. Hence, investigating overarching innovation ecosystems in this context can uncover the intriguing effects of innovation and technological change. Based on an inductive case study of a water ecosystem in Catalonia, Spain, with eleven interviews and a follow-up focus group, we observe how an idle innovation ecosystem was crucial to rapid technological change. This finding demonstrates that common innovation objectives and urgency born from a crisis can activate seemingly idle ecosystems—a novel concept in the literature—and suggests that society benefits from the development of ecosystems even when there is no initial joint value proposition. This ecosystem exaptation, i.e., the alignment of an existing ecosystem to a new value proposition, extends the concept of technological exaptation. Thus, business model innovation is a result of, and not an antecedent to, the emergence of an innovation ecosystem.

Zusammenfassung

Overview: The extent of knowledge available to society may no longer be limited by human cognition or by refining algorithms. Instead, the interaction of the two may limit knowledge transfer and creation. We examine two behavioral paradoxes: Polanyi’s paradox, which has existed since 1966, and the Trust paradox, which we propose. We study four technology innovations—printing, digitalization, the Internet, and artificial intelligence (AI)—and assess how these paradoxes limit the use of knowledge created by each innovation. We found that while technology has largely overcome Polanyi’s paradox of limiting the transfer of tacit knowledge, the Trust paradox may limit the application of AI-generated knowledge. We identify five relevant drivers of trust—reliability, transparency, association, reciprocity, and accountability—and outline how each impacts and creates challenges for the application of AI.

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The growing dynamics of innovation and productivity are challenges that are met by companies with the constant development of new technologies and business models-the logic with which they create and capture value. Especially in the face of the grand challenge of climate change, looking for energy efficient solutions offers opportunities not only for big companies in metropolitan areas, but also for small and medium sized companies in rural areas. This study therefore investigates similarities and differences of SMEs in an energy intensive industry that are situated in a specific, geographic border region regarding dependencies between networks, energy efficiency, and success. These three dimensions are analyzed in a qualitative study leading to implications for energy efficient solutions. This study contributes to existing research on sustainable collaborative business models by suggesting the inclusion of cross border networking and circular economy aspects.

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Digitalization is transforming the industrial landscape. Smarter products, data-based services, and new business models promise to reshape the whole manufacturing industry. However, below the visible excitement, unexpected tensions and challenges make the digital transformation an excruciating journey for industrial companies. In this article, we decipher the digital transformation strategy choices of leading industrial firms in a highly innovative country. Using their insights, we identify four dominant tensions that managers need to sort out. We provide guiding principles to select a digital transformation strategy that has the adequate configuration to overcome each of the identified tensions.

Zusammenfassung

Certain technologies have the potential to spawn an entrepreneurial ecosystem, but this potential is not always realized. Some of these technologies that could enable prosperous and sustainable ecosystems struggle at the threshold of ecosystem emergence. In this paper, we use an in-depth case study of an emergent entrepreneurial ecosystem based on an enabling technology—synthetic biology—to identify the structural, societal, and ethical barriers to ecosystem growth. The structural barriers mainly relate to the lack of an ecosystem framework to manage intellectual property in complex interactions. The societal barriers concern the clock speed conflict between parts of the quintuple helix entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the ethical barriers arise from the widespread impact of enabling technologies in combination with the diffusion of ethical responsibility throughout the ecosystem. We also discuss both the theoretical and managerial implications of these barriers.

Zusammenfassung

Digitalization is transforming the industrial landscape. Smarter products, data-based services, and new business models promise to reshape the whole manufacturing industry. But just below the visible excitement lurk unexpected tensions and challenges that can make digital transformation an excruciating journey for industrial companies. In this article, we decipher the digital transformation strategy choices of leading industrial firms in a highly innovative country. We then identify four dominant tensions that managers need to sort out. We also provide guiding principles for selecting a digital transformation strategy capable of overcoming each of the identified tensions.

Zusammenfassung

For better or worse, digital technologies are reshaping everything, from customer behaviors and expectations to organizational and manufacturing systems, business models, markets, and ultimately society. To understand this overarching transformation, this paper extends the previous literature which has focused mostly on the organizational level by developing a multi-level research agenda for digital transformation (DT). In this regard, we propose an extended definition of DT as ?a socioeconomic change across individuals, organizations, ecosystems, and societies that are shaped by the adoption and utilization of digital technologies.? We suggest four lenses to interpret the DT phenomenon: individuals (utilizing and adopting digital technologies), organizations (strategizing and coordinating both internal and external transformation), ecosystems (harnessing digital technologies in governance and co-producing value propositions), and geopolitical frameworks (regulating the environments in which individuals and organizations are embedded). Based on these lenses, we build a multi-level research agenda at the intersection between the bright and dark sides of DT and introduce the PIAI framework, which captures a process of perception, interpretation, and action that ultimately leads to possible impact. The PIAI framework identifies a critical research agenda consisting of a non-exhaustive list of topics that can assist researchers to deepen their understanding of the DT phenomenon and provide guidance to managers and policymakers when making strategic decisions that seek to shape and guide the DT.

Zusammenfassung

This article aims to understand the influence of strategic posture of a firm on its decision-making orientation related to competitors and partners, and evaluates if such decision-making orientation of firms mediate the relationship between a firm's strategic posture and digitalization. The article uses partial least squares based structural equation modeling technique on primary data from 100 enterprises belonging to manufacturing and electronics sector operating from India. Based on the analysis, the article empirically establishes the linkage between a firm's strategic posture and its decision-making preferences in the contexts related to engaging with competitors and partners, taking digitalization as context. Next, it extends available knowledge on firms’ decision-making literature by establishing that a firm's decision-making orientation related to its competitors and partners has direct influence on its degree of digitalization. Finally, it empirically deduces that in the context of digitalization of firms, market-based analysis is the dominant decision-making paradigm as against obtaining stakeholder partnerships or precommitments.

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It is widely regarded that employees are an important source of creativity. Hence, many companies offer specific programs to foster creative outputs. For this, employees are granted time to work on creative ideas, beyond Research and Development departments, called corporate innovation programs. How does one organize this time? Our research indicates that schedule autonomy is very important and that it has a high impact on creative results. Innovation programs can be implemented by a spontaneous time model with free time allocation, or by a predetermined version with fixed timeslots. We discuss the advantages of both models, as well as the implications of how to implement this in a company context.

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Global warming is no longer a trend, but reality, which calls for the development of new technologies. In this paper, we thus identify antecedents of enabling technologies and study the patterns of emergence of new fields of eco-innovation. For this, we suggest a conceptual framework focusing on environmental technologies, specifically on their emergence as enabling technologies in innovation ecosystems. We test this framework using data of 136,059 citations to 13,510 patents of climate change mitigation technologies. Complex and complementary technologies tend to be more enabling for subsequent innovation, and this effect is amplified for environmental technologies that constitute dominant designs. Dominant designs generated through a collaborative process, on the other hand, rarely become enabling technologies. We also contribute to climate action by allowing governmental bodies and other investors to direct funding to those innovations that are most likely to make a lasting impact on global warming. In addition, managers and policy makers can foment the antecedents that are most important to incite the development of climate change mitigation technologies.

Zusammenfassung

To date, one of the most prominent methods to integrate users into the innovation process is the lead user method. However, due to its high resource intensity, it is less used than its potential would allow. In times of the internet and especially social media, this is changing since methods like netnography allow to efficiently identify potential lead users. Hence, based on a case study in the aviation industry, targeted screening and pyramiding are combined to identify lead users. Three users with sufficient characteristics to be lead users were included based on their degree-centrality and relevant contribution on Twitter. This study proposes the combination of these methods and Twitter as a suitable approach for lead user identification.

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Given the rapid popularity of smart wearable products, users' continuance intentions are increasingly important. Research concerning the continuance intentions to adopt smart wearable products has received some attention from scholars, but previous studies were more “technology-driven” rather than “consumer-driven” and largely neglected how different configurations (specific combinations of variables) affect users' intentions to continue adopting smart wearable products. This research, which is based on the means-end chain theory, tests the factors affecting the continuance intentions to adopt smart wearable products. Through an analysis of the survey results of 249 smartwatch and fitness wristband users by Mplus and fsQCA, the findings reveal that face consciousness was a strong predictor of users’ perceived value. Three dimensions of social capital had a different positive effect on perceived value. Social, utilitarian, and hedonic value positively affected continuance intention. Furthermore, different configurations of individual characteristics can explain the impact of the continued adoption of smart wearable products.

Zusammenfassung

For better or worse, digital technologies are reshaping everything, from customer behaviors and expectations to organizational and manufacturing systems, business models, markets, and ultimately society. To understand this overarching transformation, this paper extends the previous literature which has focused mostly on the organizational level by developing a multi-level research agenda for digital transformation (DT). In this regard, we propose an extended definition of DT as “a socioeconomic change across individuals, organizations, ecosystems, and societies that are shaped by the adoption and utilization of digital technologies.” We suggest four lenses to interpret the DT phenomenon: individuals (utilizing and adopting digital technologies), organizations (strategizing and coordinating both internal and external transformation), ecosystems (harnessing digital technologies in governance and co-producing value propositions), and geopolitical frameworks (regulating the environments in which individuals and organizations are embedded). Based on these lenses, we build a multi-level research agenda at the intersection between the bright and dark sides of DT and introduce the PIAI framework, which captures a process of perception, interpretation, and action that ultimately leads to possible impact. The PIAI framework identifies a critical research agenda consisting of a non-exhaustive list of topics that can assist researchers to deepen their understanding of the DT phenomenon and provide guidance to managers and policymakers when making strategic decisions that seek to shape and guide the DT.

Zusammenfassung

The dominant design life cycle shows that standardization leads to stability and increased technology development. However, the breakneck speed of innovation means standards now require more frequent renewal. Therefore, this article conceptualizes standard inertia to include the factors impeding the emergence of a new standard. New standards must overcome the standard inertia generated by accumulated investments in knowledge, capabilities, and other resources, including identity and legitimacy. Multinational and small and medium-sized enterprises face complementary obstacles, and standard inertia is, thus, an ecosystem-level mechanism. Dominant designs may embed subsets of underlying dominant designs, meaning the emergence of a new design may overthrow an entire technology ecosystem. Therefore, inertial factors protecting the prior design also emanate from all ecosystem levels. Ecosystem platforms may consequently enable new forms of interaction required to break established patterns.

Zusammenfassung

To provide further knowledge and technology transfer to society, universities are exploring new collaborative models. These new models are regarded as promising alternatives to the patent-centric linear model. However, their implementation requires revising the roles of the actors in the technology transfer process and their relationships. While collaborative models could indeed be an attractive option for universities, there is limited evidence on how these collaboration processes could be effectively introduced. We use a longitudinal embedded multiple case study to explore the contribution of knowledge interactions between scientists and students in the preliminary steps of the technology transfer process. We investigate the learning dynamics between the focal actor, i.e., the scientist, and the students in a university setting to decipher how the introduction of such collaborative processes can contribute to knowledge and technology transfer. Our results suggest that students enrolled in an educational program can contribute to the scientist’s interest and engagement in technology transfer. However, we find out that the extent of the students’ contribution depends on the shared consensus over the technology function and the openness of the scientist to reconsider the technology’s meaning. We contribute to the ongoing exploration of alternative models for technology transfer and the identification of additional roles that students can take in entrepreneurial university ecosystems.

Zusammenfassung

Digital means of creating and transferring knowledge have been thought to reduce the importance of firm location. Still, there is evidence that the urbanisation of entrepreneurship and innovation is accelerating in the digital era. We review the theory that explains how and why entrepreneurial activity moves towards city centers. Schumpeterian dynamics may affect urban entrepreneurial ecosystems more than others, and cities are thus more susceptible to external shocks. We therefore expect urban entrepreneurial activity to exhibit rapid but discontinuous growth. With data from 88 entrepreneurial ecosystems over 15 years, a panel regression analysis not only finds support for the urbanisation of entrepreneurial activity but also for how and when it happens. Urban entrepreneurial ecosystems appear to better support entrepreneurship under the current circumstances. Possible explanations and implications include the rise of digital platforms upon which business-model innovations prosper.

Zusammenfassung

Innovation ecosystems evolve and adapt to crises, but what are the factors that stimulate ecosystem growth in spite of dire circumstances? We study the arduous path forward of the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem and analyse in depth those factors that influence ecosystem growth in general and during the pandemic in particular. For the EV ecosystem, growth implies outcompeting the less sustainable internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, thus achieving a transition towards sustainable transportation. New mobility patterns provide a strategic opportunity for such a shift to green mobility and for EV ecosystem growth. For innovation ecosystems in general, we suggest that a crisis can serve as an opportunity for new innovations to break through by disrupting prior behavioural patterns. For the EV ecosystem in particular, it remains to be seen if the ecosystem will be able to capitalize on the opportunity provided by the unfortunate disruption generated by the pandemic.

Zusammenfassung

While thinking in constraints is a key element of frugal innovation, it remains underexplored in the context of developing frugal innovations. Based on insights from the literature and two cases from the medical device industry, this article introduces the concept of constraint-based thinking to drive the frugal product development process based on constraints. This approach is operationalized through a systematic and iterative process to investigate the visible and underlying symptoms of different types of constraints, which are then mapped to specific product features and requirements. It consists of a problem space and a solution space, which are based on the idea that constraints are opportunities to develop innovative solutions. The main components of the constraint-based thinking approach are as follows: first, the identification of constraints or existing limitations, hindrances behind the current status quo that need to be changed; second, a root-cause analysis to understand the underlying causes for each of the identified constraints; third, a mapping of each of those causes to specific product characteristics or requirements; and, fourth, development of a minimal viable product or a prototype. This approach can be used both by companies to develop frugal innovations and by researchers to further develop the link between constraints and new products and services.

Zusammenfassung

The number of women entrepreneurs has increased significantly over the past years. However, literature suggests that women from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are inadequately represented in this growing trend. Meanwhile, the circumstances which cause this underrepresentation have not yet been sufficiently analysed. To help fill this gap, this paper focuses on women's entrepreneurship in specific educational and country contexts, acknowledging that relations between these factors play a crucial role in entrepreneurship. By means of an explorative approach, 21 interviews with seven STEM educated women entrepreneurs from Denmark, Latvia and Turkey have been conducted and analysed with a qualitative content analysis. The results show the main motivations, challenges, and support sources for the women entrepreneurs, and provide important advice for future women entrepreneurs as well as for policy makers to increase the number of STEM educated women on the national level.

Zusammenfassung

The synonymic use of sustainable innovation types obstructs the impact of increasingly disperse research on sustainable innovation, environmental innovation, eco-innovation, and green innovation. To identify the meaning and contributions of each innovation type over time, we apply co-word analysis as a bibliometric technique to 1,985 papers, analysing the evolution of motor, emergent and basic themes for each type. For environmental innovation, the focus has shifted from environmental regulations and policies to patents and inventions with an environmental impact, while in sustainable innovations the societal impact of technology adoption has become a driver. Green innovation increasingly concerns environmental technology and its management, whereas eco-innovation studies aspects related to efficiency and decision making. Clear distinctions among sustainable innovation types will increase the impact of this expanding body of research and make it more available to managers and policymakers.

Zusammenfassung

Firms increasingly use ideas from online innovation communities to solve problems or to better address customer needs. However, in many cases the number of submitted ideas has exploded, it leads to an information overload that firms hardly can handle considering their limited cognitive resources. Therefore, we use the Elaboration Likelihood Model to distinguish between the quick and lean idea preselection process as a peripheral route of information processing and the subsequent idea review process as a central route of information processing. In our empirical study with a sample of more than 163,000 ideas collected from the Xiaomi MIUI community, we analyse influencing factors that increase the likelihood of ideas being preselected or reviewed. Results show that user status, user initiative contribution, and community recognition have a significantly positive influence on idea preselction, whereas user response contribution has no influence. Idea presentation characteristics have an inverted U-curve relationship with idea adoption. Community absorptive capacity has a moderate effect on the curvilinear relationship between idea description length and idea adoption.

Zusammenfassung

Working with an open corporate accelerator program allows Mercedes to more quickly incorporate new technologies from startups.

Zusammenfassung

This book discusses several product development strategies and tools employed by organizations around the world to implement frugal innovations. Over the past decade, frugal innovations have caught the attention of countless management scholars. This book comes at the right time for academics and practitioners alike, as it explores how the concept of frugal innovation has evolved over the past several years and is shifting its focus from merely featuring ‘cost’ driven innovations to being more ‘resourceful’ and ‘sustainable’ at its core. Furthermore, in light of the ongoing digital revolution and emergence of new business models such as sharing economy and circular economy, the book highlights recent and upcoming trends and their impacts on frugal innovation strategies.

Zusammenfassung

To provide further knowledge and technology transfer to society, universities are exploring new collaborative models. These new models are regarded as promising alternatives to the patent-centric linear model. However, their implementation requires revising the roles of the actors in the technology transfer process and their relationships. While collaborative models could indeed be an attractive option for universities, there is limited evidence on how these collaboration processes could be effectively introduced. We use a longitudinal embedded multiple case study to explore the contribution of knowledge interactions between scientists and students in the preliminary steps of the technology transfer process. We investigate the learning dynamics between the focal actor, i.e., the scientist, and the students in a university setting to decipher how the introduction of such collaborative processes can contribute to knowledge and technology transfer. Our results suggest that students enrolled in an educational program can contribute to the scientist’s interest and engagement in technology transfer. However, we find out that the extent of the students’ contribution depends on the shared consensus over the technology function and the openness of the scientist to reconsider the technology’s meaning. We contribute to the ongoing exploration of alternative models for technology transfer and the identification of additional roles that students can take in entrepreneurial university ecosystems.

Zusammenfassung

Purpose: Retail networks present new challenges in the business-to-business (B2B) collaboration between technology-based spinoffs and traditional businesses. This study aims to explore a public–private partnership (PPP) that leverages advanced digital technologies via spinoffs to tackle the key challenge of showrooming that retail shops are facing. Showrooming is the phenomenon in which shoppers go to the physical stores to gather in-depth product information, and later on, decide to buy the product from online retail competitors. Design/methodology/approach: This research draws on a longitudinal qualitative study of a social context in which digital entrepreneurs are embedded. The empirical setting is a retail network in Italy, Germany and Finland with a particular focus on the process in which a PPP delivers innovation via spinoffs in the context of brick and mortar shops (B&M). The research design enables an understanding of the complexity of the phenomenon from a business and a social perspective. Findings: New technology to tackle showrooming enables the creation of substantial hybrid value in retail partnerships. Spinoffs are key actors in leveraging digital technologies to create value faster and more tailored compared with large software companies. Spinoff entrepreneurs leverage on specific technologies (e.g. virtual reality and artificial intelligence) available inside organizations’ network (i.e. PPPs). Spinoffs are found to be a fundamental actor in the process of dealing with showrooming because of their time to market. Large software companies usually are not interested in approaching B&M shops because of the high operational costs of product customization for B&M shops. Practical implications: Managers could use the success factors of the spinoffs in helping their B&M shops to improve both shopper experience and salesperson performance. For managers of B2B retail network, the results are useful towards increasing the involvement of shoppers while they are visiting physical stores, and it also improves salesperson performance. It also leads to the observation that cross-selling is one of the most effective responses to the phenomenon of showrooming. As practical implications for policymakers, the current research supports the view that PPPs should support the creation of spinoffs as a result of longitudinal innovation projects. Social implications: Retail technologies leveraged from a PPP and commercialized by spinoffs are powerful tools to enable a better quality of salespeople’s life in the working place. At the same time, these new technologies help shop owners increase the retention rates, conversion rates and reduce short-term loss, increasing the likelihood of B&M shops to survive in the condition of extreme competition caused by the showrooming phenomenon. Originality/value: This research proposes a model of hybrid value creation from networks in digital retail. The model indicates that PPPs create spinoffs to explore showrooming and deliver substantial hybrid value (i.e. business and social) for physical retail shops, mainly because it influences the companies’ growth, employee performance and customer satisfaction. This model expands the field of B2B marketing by identifying factors that enable spinoff creation from retail networks and proposes success factors and research propositions in retail networks.

Zusammenfassung

Das Management von Forschung und Entwicklung ist eine der wichtigsten unternehmerischen Funktionen, insbesondere in technologierorientierten Branchen. Vor diesem Hintergrund bietet dieses Buch einen umfassenden Überblick aller strategischen, operativen und taktischen Maßnahmen, die für ein erfolgreiches F&E Management notwendig sind. Darüber hinaus werden bewährte Tools und Best Practices vorgestellt, welche im F&E Management eingesetzt werden.

Zusammenfassung

Meeting the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) will require breakthrough innovations in a number of areas. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can contribute to these goals by fomenting innovation considering the coevolution of responsible research and innovation (RRI) with the maturity of innovation ecosystems. Therefore, a conceptual model of the roles of multinational enterprises contingent on the evolutionary phases of a firm and the ecosystem in which it is embedded is derived. These MNE roles and RRI activities in SDG-oriented innovation ecosystems are explored through case examples of specific multinationals. Based on different archetypes of innovation ecosystems and RRI maturity levels, the identified roles include secretive innovators, builders, theater directors, platform leaders, dominators, and amplifiers. More responsible enterprises are found to support the SDGs through platform leadership and by amplifying the sustainable innovations of other ecosystem participants, whereas less responsible firms innovate internally and achieve less sustainable results.

Zusammenfassung

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging technological field with immense transformative potential. Within this context, we discuss the diverse ways AI is transforming innovation. We introduce a conceptual framework in which we argue AI plays the following two roles: originator and facilitator of innovation. Additionally, we discuss different applications and implications for innovation theory and practice using a reflection on the traditional innovation process and the front end of innovation perspective. For this, we use the perspectives of AI as technology push, AI as market pull, AI to advance steps in the innovation funnel as well as AI as a contributor to new product development. Finally, we discuss future directions for research in these fields.

Zusammenfassung

Attaining competitive advantage is especially crucial for innovative firms. Due to increased competition, firms employ various types of innovation activities to position themselves against their competitors. Ambidexterity and strategic agility have been found to strengthen this position. Whereas scholars analyzed strategic agility's and ambidexterity's impact on organizational performance, ambidexterity's impact on the competitive advantage of organizations remains largely unexplored. Tensions between exploration and exploitation within an ambidextrous strategy make it difficult to reap benefits in establishing competitive advantage. Contrary, strategic agility centers on organization's capacities to quickly respond to shifting demand, hence, increasing its competitive advantage. Through a mixed-method approach, comprising of a literature review and quantitative analyses of 150 German mid-sized firms in the engineering industry, it is demonstrated how ambidexterity, exploration and exploitation, in conjunction with strategic agility, affect the competitive advantage of firms. In order to sustain, firms should either favor an exploration strategy of innovation processes to come up with radically new knowledge, products and services, or combine an exploitation strategy with strategic agility. A strategy of sole exploitation is not beneficial towards increased competitive advantage, while an ambidextrous strategy seems to even negatively influence the competitive advantage of a firm.

Zusammenfassung

Cognitive and behavioral factors are becoming increasingly relevant in research on the emergence of entrepreneurial action. To date, little research has examined whether an entrepreneurial mindset can be affected by targeted entrepreneurial priming interventions, even though the activation of specific mental concepts possesses the power to stimulate entrepreneurial self-concepts. Such a mechanism is also inherent in certain academic teaching methods like use-case application and storytelling. We developed and applied an entrepreneurial priming intervention, aimed at increasing the level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the attitude towards starting a new business of the priming receivers. Therefore, an experimental study with entrepreneurship students, randomly assigned to either the trial group (n = 47) or the active control group (n = 51), was conducted. Both our hypotheses are supported, as our findings show a higher level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and a more positive attitude toward launching a business venture for receivers of a semantical, entrepreneurial prime than for members of the non-primed active control group. These results provide insights into the triggering of students’ entrepreneurial cognition, and help to develop a more profound understanding of the effectiveness of common teaching methods like use-case application and storytelling, both within and beyond an entrepreneurial educational setting.

Zusammenfassung

Recent digital transformation initiatives facilitate the access to platform-based business models on the demand side as well as enabling the necessary proximity to potential customers on the supply side. Due to this network connectivity between people, organizations, resources and entire industries, value and economic growth can be generated within the interactive ecosystem of digital platforms. The special feature of this business model is that competitive advantages, contrary to dominant paradigms, do not primarily rely on the physical infrastructure or the control over scarce and valuable resources. Despite the high practical relevance, little systematic knowledge exists on why platform-based business models often outperform traditional pipeline businesses in many respects. We contribute to this research gap by exploring the critical success factors of platform business models. Based on a qualitative analysis on digital platforms in the metal and steel industry, we identify six key success factors of platform-based business models: We relate these success factors to the design of the three dimensions of business models as described in the literature: (1) value creation, (2) value delivery, and (3) value capture dimensions. Furthermore, our analysis could extend these and design features of the business model by three additional success factors (4) the promotion and sensitization of digital transformation, (5) a suitable platform architecture and strategic judgement of platform providers, as well as (6) the promotion of a start-up culture as central success factors.

Zusammenfassung

Research on the lead user method has been conducted for more than thirty years and has shown that the method is more likely to generate breakthrough innovation than traditional market research tools. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper shows a detailed view on the broad variety of research on lead user characteristics, lead user processes, lead user identification and application, and success factors. The main challenge of the lead user method as identified in literature is the resource issue regarding time, manpower, and costs. Also, internal acceptance and the processing of the method have been spotted in literature, as well as the intellectual property protection issue. From the starting point of the initial lead user method process introduced by Lüthje and Herstatt (2004), results are integrated into a revisited view on the lead user method process. In addition, concrete suggestions for corporate realization options are given. The article closes with limitations and future research suggestions.

Zusammenfassung

The innovation of products, services, and business models is key to firm survival, performance, and growth in today's turbulent business environments. However, accelerating environmental dynamics also require speeding up the innovation process. A suitable solution may be the use of agility, especially at the front end of innovation. In this study, we aim to identify agility enablers in this first stage of the innovation process. We follow a two-step procedure. First, we review existing agility frameworks and find that several agility enablers are already discussed, but no holistic framework exists yet. Second, we conduct qualitative expert interviews to obtain a better understanding of additional enablers and enabler attributes. By comparing the theoretical and managerial sources, we find gaps in each side's attention. As a result, we introduce a novel, agile front end of innovation framework that helps firms pay attention to agility enablers that can speed up the innovation process.

Zusammenfassung

People can now monitor and quantify their daily life activities through quantified-self products, such as self-tracking devices. These types of products are invading the market, and the reasons for their adoption must be understood. Word of mouth (WOM) plays a crucial role in the adoption of disruptive innovations. In line with the literature, this article demonstrates that quantified-self products are disruptive innovations that have distinct antecedents explaining why individuals use WOM. Hence, this article examines the need for uniqueness (NFU) and perceived values as drivers of satisfaction that in turn impact WOM. Data from a sample of 496 actual users of self-tracking devices were collected through an online survey. The results emphasize the positive impact of the NFU on satisfaction through utilitarian and hedonic values. We propose theoretical and managerial insights and suggest that companies must adopt a new perspective on disruptive innovations, particularly related to satisfaction and WOM, by considering the variables proposed in the research model.

Zusammenfassung

In coherence with the progressive digitalization of all areas of life, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a flourishing concept in both research and practice. Due to the increasing scholarly attention, the literature landscape has become scattered and fragmented. With a focus on the commercial application of the IoT and corresponding research, we employ a co-citation analysis and literature review to structure the field. We find and describe 19 research themes. To consolidate the extant research, we propose a research framework, which is based on a theoretical implementation process of IoT as a concept, specific IoT applications, or architectures integrated in an adapted input–process– output model. The main variables of the model are an initial definition and conceptualization of an IoT concept (input), which goes through an evaluation process (process), before it is implemented and can have an impact in practice (output). The paper contributes to interdisciplinary research relating to a business and management perspective on IoT by providing a holistic overview of predominant research themes and an integrative research framework.

Zusammenfassung

The value of existent firm's resources in uncertain and dynamic contexts is unclear. It is difficult to determine whether starting a new firm with a strong resource position will give an advantage in technology-intense contexts. We propose a revision of the role of resources in new tech-based ventures. We adopt a mixed-method approach. We use the cases of 21 new technology firms to build propositions on what factors (resources) play a role in new venture emergence. We then test to what extent those resources make an effect on the new venture emergence using a longitudinal dataset of 400 new technology-based firms. The results show that not all resources matter equally in the early-stages of a new technology-based firm. We identify that specific combinations of entrepreneurial experience and industry knowledge has a positive impact, while other resources such as technology assets, surprisingly, do not generate a clear impact.

Zusammenfassung

The major concern of employees during times of war and conflict is apparently physical survival. But how are top managers of small‐sized companies enhancing the generation of novel and useful ideas by their employees in such physically dangerous business environments? In Afghanistan, as a war‐torn country, this research examined for the first time how getting closer to employees—which is conceptualized as internal marketing orientation culture in our study—directly affects the generation of novel and useful ideas by employees in the workplace. Our analysis is based on survey data from 81 newly established small‐sized companies in Afghanistan. Results indicate a mediating role of employees' perceived psychological safety on the relationship between internal market orientation culture and employees' creative work involvement. Moreover, we discuss the impact of employees' creative work involvement on small‐sized firm competitiveness improvement in general. Finally, we extend our implications in the context of the componential theory model of creativity, which might also serve as a framework for future research.

Zusammenfassung

Prospective surveys are a common research mode used to establish a profound decision base for R&D investments, technological innovation, and policy making. The challenge faced by participants of such surveys, particularly if conducted via impersonal survey modes (e.g., mail or online surveys), is the limited ability to clarify contextual issues. Related research in socio‐psychology refers to language vagueness as abstractness, cautioning that abstract language and the way people interpret information are related. We apply Construal Level Theory and the Linguistic Category Model from linguistic sciences to the context of prospective surveys and examine the effects of abstract language and its related amount of information on panelists' response behavior. Based upon 32,000 observations, our research reveals that higher abstractness and greater amount of information reduce the clarity of the respondents' assessments of survey questions. In particular, abstract language and lengthy questions lead to less extreme assessments and a reduced response variance of panelists.

Zusammenfassung

This study focuses on the dilemmas that social entrepreneurs encounter, and the practices used to manage dilemmas over time. Using a multi-method approach involving event structure analysis and an inductive multiple case study, we find four key organizational practices—asset multiplication, leveraging human capital, social embeddedness and affordable quality —that embody jugaad elements of frugality and inclusivity. Adding to social entrepreneurship literature, this study demonstrates that the jugaad approach is conceptually distinct from bricolage and relevant to study resource mobilization processes of social enterprises.

Zusammenfassung

Digitalization plays a major role in contributing towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Without transformation of existing businesses, both economic and environmental challenges of the future cannot be solved sustainably. However, there is much confusion on interrelationships and terms dealing with digitization or digitalization: Digital business model, digital transformation, digital entrepreneurship. How do these terms interrelate with and to digitalization, and how do they support firms to grow sustainably? To answer this question, we identified seven core digital-related terms based on a structured literature search within the management and economics domain, namely: Digital, Business Model, Digital Business Model, Digital Technology, Digital Innovation, Digital Transformation, and Digital Entrepreneurship. Thereafter, we analyzed prior literature for deriving a common understanding and definition as a basis for interrelations within a conceptual framework. Definitions were presented in a case study setup with twelve innovation and research and development (R&D) managers from various business units of a German high-tech company. Based on these insights, we propose a conceptual framework on how Digital Readiness, Digital Technology, and Digital Business Models might sustainably relate to Innovation, moderated by a Digital Transformation Process. With this approach, we aim to equip practitioners and researchers alike in handling and addressing change through digitalization sustainably.

Zusammenfassung

The rising use of crowdfunding makes it important for project initiators to know how they can increase the likelihood of success of their crowdfunding campaign. The effects of using social media, although relatively easy to do via most crowdfunding platforms, have not yet been analysed in greater detail in scientific research. We address this research gap by investigating the effects of social media reach and utilisation on measures of reward-based crowdfunding success, based on an analysis of 230 projects from the crowdfunding platform wemakeit. Our results show that social media reach via the number of social media accounts that belong to the project and the number of accounts that belong to the project initiator increases the number of investors and the percentage of the funding goal that is obtained. Furthermore, social media reach via the size of the projects’ and the individuals’ social networks has not been found to be important for crowdfunding success. Social media utilisation in regard to the amount of content shared is found to be positively associated with crowdfunding success.

Zusammenfassung

Research on R&D performance measures applied in firms is still scarce. Based on the established “R&D laboratory as a system” thinking, systematically derive and identify R&D department level key performance measures. Through a mixed‐method approach, grounded in (1) literature and (2) text analysis, 154 R&D performance measures were developed. Amongst those, an (3) online expert survey, as well as (4) three independent focus group workshops with >40 industry experts from more than ten industries identified and validated ten key R&D performance measures. All industry experts involved are members of an innovation network, additionally accounting for innovation network effects. In contrast to earlier research, some of the measures like degree of anticipation of internal customer needs were perceived both by the survey respondents and the focus groups as key measures, indicating that behavioral measures should not be excluded per se. However, the importance of external validity of R&D performance or indicators to measure performance in relation to activities outside the R&D department were not confirmed. Hence, we partly confirm the relevance of the original “R&D Lab” measures, contributing a more granular level, thereby drawing implications for future research and practice.

Zusammenfassung

Technologies like computer vision, advanced sensors, internet of things, 3D printing, big data, or artificial intelligence are penetrating all facets of the industrial value chains. Hence, industry is engaged in an accelerated automation race where industrial automation converts value chains into intelligent, data-driven systems. This generates new business models and spurs firm competitiveness in general. Companies thus pay attention to the development, acquisition, and incorporation of related technologies to profit from these developments in specific. For this, they must incorporate external flows of knowledge to succeed in innovation. Yet, there is a dearth of research that links open innovation to the incorporation of industrial automation, and to firm performance. Hence, this paper takes a knowledge-based view of the firm and sheds light on the moderating role of the processes of open innovation on the economic results of firms’ subject to automation. In order to do so, we estimate the impact of the interaction of open innovation and automation on firm turnover using panel data for 5287 Spanish firms from a variety of manufacture and service industries. We separate the effects for different open-innovation partners and find that turnover is increased for those automating firms that engage in open innovation with suppliers. These results indicate that suppliers possess the knowledge required for successful automation, and firms that innovate together with suppliers fare better at leveraging investments in automation. In addition, automating firms should exercise caution when choosing collaboration partners from the same country.

Zusammenfassung

Prior literature analysed why incubators exist and how to differentiate the various incubator types. However, measures that lead incubators to run as independent, self-sufficient incubation ecosystems (i.e. without the dependence on subsidies) remain largely absent. Based on a survey with 71 incubators, our results implied differences between the two groups in regard to their business models, with indications of significant differences in the customer value proposition, the profit formula, as well as the key resources and processes provided. The findings support previous claims regarding the need for a profit driven nature, regardless of business profit orientation, as well as generating diverse income streams to cover operational costs. Moreover, new insights on key elements of incubators’ business models within start-up incubation ecosystems are presented. With this chapter, practitioners as well as researchers will gain a further understanding of the success factors of self-sufficient incubators that contribute to functioning incubation ecosystem

Zusammenfassung

This paper uses horizon scanning as a foresight methodology to investigate the opportunities, challenges and futures of ICT for health and ageing, particularly focusing on identifying the ethical and social issues associated with this sector. It uses empirical evidence gained from the analysis of interviews, literature reviews, and policy documents to identify the primary signals within the areas of future technologies, future environments, future companies, and future older people. In addition, we build on contemporary internet-based discussions amongst the general public and the ICT start-up sector to identify weak signals regarding ethical and social issues, based on and around these areas. Our findings show that the key ethical and social issues identified are concerned with the issue of the elderly being seen as collections of diseases, the human face of ICT, privacy and informed consent, autonomy, stereotyping of older people, and general anxieties around ICTs. We conclude our paper with recommendations for addressing these ethical and social concerns, specifically through the adoption of responsible research and innovation practices.

Zusammenfassung

What drives entrepreneurial action to create a lasting impact? The creation of new ventures that aim at having an impact beyond their financial performance face additional challenges: achieving economic sustainability and at the same time addressing social or environmental issues. Little is known on how these new hybrid organizations, aiming for multiple impact dimensions, organize and prioritize for their social, environmental, and financial goals. A dataset of 4,125 early-stage ventures is used to gain insights into how blended values are converted into financial, social and environmental impacts, giving shape to different types of hybrid organizations. Our findings suggest new hybrid organizations might opt to sacrifice financial impact to achieve social impact, yet this is not the case when they aim to generate environmental or sustainable impact. Therefore, the tensions and sacrifices related to holding blended values are not homogeneous across all types of new hybrid organizations.

Zusammenfassung

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on innovation, as measured by the emergence of dominant designs. A negative impact is substantiated theoretically and empirically, based on longitudinal patent data from the OECD. This study also finds evidence for the moderating impact of globalization on the relationship between innovative performance and the emergence of dominant design. Thus, globalization is more important with regard to the establishment of dominant designs than it was before the financial crisis of 2008. Further, it is found that following the crisis, science-based industries tend to have more dominant designs than other industries.

Zusammenfassung

A plethora of research has examined the concept of frugal innovation from an ex-post perspective, by analyzing the finished product and its distinctive features, business models and ecosystems, as well as their impact. While this approach has led to valuable insights and has been important to further develop the research field, it provides little information on how to develop frugal innovations. This paper addresses this issue and contributes with an empirical ex-ante examination. This is done by analyzing the design and construction of a frugal technical equipment for Brazilian waste pickers. This newly developed cart was examined to assess its frugality and to derive success factors of the process. Frugality was achieved by decreased product costs of 60\%, increased income of the waste pickers by 20\% and improved social acceptance of the new equipment. Besides delivering a step-by-step manual on how frugal innovations can be developed, the study contrasted frugal New Product Development (fNPD) with conventional NPD, reconfirmed critical success factors of fNPD from prior research and extends these findings by three aspects: To consider both need identification and need integration in fNPD; To work with tools that allow the frugal reconfiguration of systems on a deep functional level to uncouple fNPD from traditional product notions, and to check cultural impact and societal desirability when organizing the innovation activities. The paper offers theoretical contributions to the research field of frugal innovation by enhancing its understanding as a process and its critical success factors for fNPD.

Zusammenfassung

In recent years, frugal innovation and its antecedents have gained significant attention in both theory and practice. However, the vast majority of research focuses mainly on China and India and their bottom of the pyramid (BoP) customers. Against this background, our research investigates frugal innovation and its reception in Brazil. We analyse six Brazilian company cases (three multinational corporations and three small and medium-sized enterprises) in terms of frugal product development, product characteristics, and commercialisation approaches, as well as compare these organisations with findings from Asian lead markets. Our results confirm that the principal dimensions of frugal innovation are cost-effectiveness and ease of use. However, the findings also contradict the paradigm that frugal innovation must be essentially low-cost. Based on these results, we propose a twofold approach to the cost criterion that differentiates between the company's and the customer's perspective and focuses on value-based pricing. Further, distinctive product features, branding, and specific marketing activities are crucial for successful frugal innovation in Brazil. This research extends the classification of frugal innovation in prior literature and suggests understanding frugal dimensions as a set of building blocks that can be flexibly applied to frugal product development depending on the context and regional requirements.

Zusammenfassung

Even though the number of working women has steadily increased over the last few years, women are still significantly under-represented in STEM activities (i.e. mathematics, informatics, science and technology). In order to eliminate this under-representation, numerous education policies and corporate initiatives, particularly in the recent past, have been aimed at increasing women's enthusiasm for STEM activities and professions. According to the latest surveys, however, it is clear that these efforts have not yet led to the desired success. Compared to their male counterparts, women continue to do fewer STEM activities. One possible reason for this is that relatively little is yet known about the concrete impact of the above education policies on working with innovation and technology: What are the gender differences between women and men? Is it enough to recognize these differences, or should these differences ideally not only be recognized, but also treated appropriately or even encouraged? This anthology deals with current topics in technology and innovation management against the background of these and other gender-relevant aspects. Empirical analyses and experiments in collaboration with companies from various sectors provide a sound scientific basis on which new results and findings are presented: How do women and men deal with creativity and competition? How are technologies applied and how can differences in access to technology be deduced? Answers to these and other questions help decision-makers in politics and business to proactively use the differences between women and men to motivate women to work in the STEM field and to strengthen them by acknowledging existing differences.

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With regards to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the domain of entrepreneurship, we offer research-based evidence and associated insights focused on three perspectives (i.e., business planning, frugality, and emotional support) regarding entrepreneurial action under an exogenous shock. Beyond the initial emergency response that countries around the world have taken, we argue that it is time to revise entrepreneurial action guidance in such a context. Our aim is to highlight ways that entrepreneurs can take action in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic. We position our insights to be relevant to both researchers and practitioners coping with an unprecedented situation that has catastrophic consequences both economically and socially.

Zusammenfassung

Today epidemics of infectious diseases occur more often and spread both faster and further due to globalization and changes in our lifestyle. One way to meet these biological threats are so-called “Frugal Innovations”, which focus on the development of affordable, rapid, and easy-to-use diagnostics with widespread use. In this context, point-of-care-tests (POCTs), performed at the patient’s bedside, reduce extensive waiting times and unnecessary treatments and enable effective containment measures. This Perspective covers advances in POCT diagnostics on the basis of frugal innovation characteristics that will enable a faster, less expensive, and more convenient reaction to upcoming epidemics. Established POCT systems on the health care market, as well as currently evolving technological advancements in that sector are discussed. Progress in POCT technology and insights on how to most effectively use them allows the handling of more patients in a shorter time frame and consequently improves clinical outcomes at lower cost.

Zusammenfassung

More and more, established companies try to cooperate with start-ups, build their own, or try to imitate their mindsets. But, do they make decisions like expert entrepreneurs?Effectuation theory describes entrepreneurial decision-making, it has been popular in entrepreneurship research for the last two decades, but still underexplored in contexts such as established company’s decision-making. Therefore, this study answers the question of which factors affect the use of effectuation in established companies. Furthermore, the current use of the start-up decision-making principle is investigated.The research results show a higher use of effectuation over causation (alternativemechanism) in established companies. However, decision-making principles like“Mean orientation” and “Contingency orientation” are still dominated by causation.Identified factors for implementing effectuation in established companies are divided into six categories. In particular, effectuation requires a high flexibility and willingness to change goals. Using the already available means and resources of a company to pursue new goals, is another argument for using effectuation. Additionally, a more open and transparent culture, encouraging the identification and admittance of mistakes, also supports the use of effectuation. Based on this research, established companies should be able to understand better on which factors the implementation of effectuation depends and where it makes sense to use it.

Zusammenfassung

Phonetic research on the prosodic sources of perceived charisma has taken a big step towards making a speaker’s tone-of-voice a tangible, quantifiable, and trainable matter. However, the tone-of-voice includes a complex bundle of acoustic features, and a lot of parameters have not even been looked at so far. Moreover, all previous studies focused on political or religious leaders and left aside the large field of managers and CEOs in the world of business. These are the two research gaps addressed in the present study. An acoustic analysis of about 1,350 prosodic phrases from keynotes given by a more charismatic CEO (Steve Jobs) and a less charismatic CEO (Mark Zuckerberg) suggests that the same tone-of-voice settings that make political or religious leaders sound more charismatic also work for business speakers. In addition, results point to further charisma-relevant acoustic parameters related to rhythm, emphasis, pausing, and voice quality - as well as to audience type as a significant context factor. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for future perception oriented studies and perspectives for a computer-based measurement, assessment, and training of a charismatic tone of voice.

Zusammenfassung

Cognitive and behavioral factors are becoming increasingly relevant in research on the emergence of entrepreneurial action. To date, little research has examined whether an entrepreneurial mindset can be affected by targeted entrepreneurial priming interventions, even though the activation of specific mental concepts possesses the power to stimulate entrepreneurial self-concepts. Such a mechanism is also inherent in certain academic teaching methods like use-case application and storytelling. We developed and applied an entrepreneurial priming intervention, aimed at increasing the level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the attitude towards starting a new business of the priming receivers. Therefore, an experimental study with entrepreneurship students, randomly assigned to either the trial group (n = 47) or the active control group (n = 51), was conducted. Both our hypotheses are supported, as our findings show a higher level of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and a more positive attitude toward launching a business venture for receivers of a semantical, entrepreneurial prime than for members of the non-primed active control group. These results provide insights into the triggering of students’ entrepreneurial cognition, and help to develop a more profound understanding of the effectiveness of common teaching methods like use-case application and storytelling, both within and beyond an entrepreneurial educational setting.

Zusammenfassung

User Experience (UX) describes the holistic experience of a user before, during, and after interaction with a platform, product, or service. UX adds value and attraction to their sole functionality and is therefore highly relevant for firms. The increased interest in UX has produced a vast amount of scholarly research since 1983. The research field is, therefore, complex and scattered. Conducting a bibliometric analysis, we aim at structuring the field quantitatively and rather abstractly. We employed citation analyses, co-citation analyses, and content analyses to evaluate productivity and impact of extant research. We suggest that future research should focus more on business and management related topics.

Zusammenfassung

We examine the impact of social entrepreneurship orientation (SEO), a behavioral measure of the social entrepreneurship of the organization, on the social and financial performance of a sample of Austrian firms. Despite growing research interests in social entrepreneurship, the field remains fragmented and this has led to calls for a careful examination of the implications of social entrepreneurship for firms. We draw on stakeholder theory and hybrid organizing to hypothesize that social performance mediates the SEO-financial performance relationship. By analyzing a sample of 1,156 companies, we find that the SEO-financial performance relationship is partially positively mediated by social performance even though the direct effect is negative. Our results show that social performance compensates for the otherwise negative effect SEO has directly with financial performance. We contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms by which an SEO affects firm performance and provide richer insights into the various aspects of performance. We discuss the future implications of our study and suggest promising avenues for further research on the SEO construct.

Zusammenfassung

Frugal innovation is emerging as a growing trend in both the developing and developed parts of the world. In developing countries, such cost-effective and accessible frugal innovations are necessary to overcome extreme conditions and existing resource constraints. In developed countries, however, companies are engaging in frugal innovations due to the growing awareness of eco-friendly and sustainable consumption (Kroll, Gabriel, Braun, & Engasser, 2017). Hence, companies are increasingly adopting new technologies to get on the wave of frugal innovation and are successfully developing more accessible and resourceful solutions (Weill & Woerner, 2013). Leading technologies such as mobile services, cloud technologies, 3D printing, and machine learning, are consistently being used to develop frugal innovations on a global scale. Recent literature has emphasised the role of new technologies as enablers of frugal innovation. However, insight on such innovations is limited (Ahuja & Chan, 2014; Agarwal & Brem 2017b). Prior research has rather focused on exploring the unique conditions of emerging markets as well as understanding the needs of bottom-of-the-pyramid customer segments (Radjou & Prabhu, 2016). Thus, the question of how new technologies can be utilised to address specific requirements of resource-constrained customers is still unanswered. Therefore, this chapter investigates multiple cases of technology-enabled frugal innovation across the globe. The aim is to understand how the new technologies are being used to develop frugal innovations that meet the needs of resource-constrained customers. For this purpose, six cases of technology-enabled frugal innovations from different industries are investigated.

Zusammenfassung

Das Ideenmanagement und dessen Vorläufer, das Betriebliche Vorschlagswesen, gelten mit Fug und Recht als eine Keimzelle der Betriebswirtschaftslehre, denn bereits im 19. Jahrhundert haben sich Bürger, Politiker und Unternehmer Gedanken gemacht, wie die Ideen der Mitarbeitenden in der sich beginnenden Industrialisierung bestmöglich genutzt werden können. Vor diesem Hintergrund haben wir uns als zwei Generationen von Forschern zu einem wissenschaftlichen Gespräch verabredet, um Ein- und Ausblicke auf das Ideenmanagement zu geben: Norbert Thom (NT), geboren 1946, und Alexander Brem (AB), geboren 197

Zusammenfassung

Das Management von Forschung und Entwicklung ist eine der wichtigsten unternehmerischen Funktionen, insbesondere in technologierorientierten Branchen. Vor diesem Hintergrund bietet dieses Buch einen umfassenden Überblick aller strategischen, operativen und taktischen Maßnahmen, die für ein erfolgreiches F&E Management notwendig sind. Darüber hinaus werden bewährte Tools und Best Practices vorgestellt, welche im F&E Management eingesetzt werden.

Zusammenfassung

We report the experience of the FucoSan InterReg project that had the ambition to generate commercialization opportunities for biotechnology research in a marine environment. Fucoidan, a promising biomarine polysaccharide extracted from seaweed, offers a broad array of potential applications; however, the supporting innovation value chain is still under development. We explore how the use of business modelling tools can contribute to building a shared understanding of commercialization opportunities across a diverse range of research and development actors. We analyze data (interviews, workshops, and surveys) from a German-Danish network of actors involved in the FucoSan InterReg project to identify how the tools contribute to setting up a base to support future activities across a potential innovation value chain. The results point towards the direct and indirect positive effects of engaging in the co-creation of a shared understanding of the functionality and possibilities of promising biomarine products. The findings support the idea that interdisciplinary and multilateral interactions help actors to identify the necessary connections and interdependencies to build a sustainability-driven innovation value chain.

Zusammenfassung

In contrast to developed nations, where the crowdfunding system is well established, in developing regions of Asia and especially Africa, this system is still in its infancy. As a step to address this discrepancy, two crowdfunding systems from the North African region are analyzed through the specific translation phases of the actor-network theory. This study identifies nine key actors in the crowdfunding system within a North African context and also dichotomizes them into primary and secondary actors based on their role in the development of the network. The study also highlights different technical and regulatory challenges, such as the establishment of legal regulatory framework, restrictions on capital access, and business investment associated with North African crowdfunding systems.

Zusammenfassung

Today, firms pursuing a pioneering strategy are often engaged in supply chain relationships to benefit from external resources and to improve their innovation. However, this effort can be impeded by power asymmetries in such relationships and especially by the execution of coercive power by their partner firm. Contracts could potentially reduce this risk of opportunistic behavior. Our survey study on 778 small to medium-sized enterprises in the European packaging and medical equipment industries examines how coercive power of the partner and the contractual arrangement between firms moderate the pioneering strategy's innovation outcomes in the short and long run. Our results confirm the negative effect of coercive power on innovation performance in both the short and long term. However, the compensating effect of rather complete contracts differs temporally. Whereas, contract completeness protects against higher dependence at the beginning of the collaboration, their effect diminishes over time. In contrast, rather incomplete contracts enhance the innovation performance in the long term, possibly complemented with trust.

Zusammenfassung

Understanding charismatic speech becomes a highly relevant issue in times of globalized markets and mobile on-demand mass media that strengthen the influence of individuals. Pushing phonetic research further into the realm of non-lexical charisma triggers, the present study is the first to investigate the combined effects of variation in attire and prosody on the perception of male and female speaker charisma. A perception experiment was carried out with Attire and Prosody as independent variables, each with two manipulation steps and embedded in a 2 × 2 orthogonal design. A total of 53 participants took part in the experiment and rated eight senior business leaders of well-known US American companies, four males and four females, on three approved charisma-related scales: convincing, passionate, charming. The audio-visual stimuli consisted of a keynote-speech excerpt of a speaker in combination with a matching photograph. Results clearly show that both Attire and Prosody had significant effects on the speakers’ perceived charisma. The charisma effects of Attire and Prosody are additive, but in gender-specific ways and with gender-specific effect sizes. A bipartite results pattern among the female speakers further suggests that it depends on their physical attractiveness whether Attire and Prosody conditions have a charisma-supporting or charisma-reducing effect. The results are discussed in terms of their practical implications for the daily business life of men and women.

Zusammenfassung

The present study investigates acoustic features of charismatic speech using a case study. There is an ongoing myth regarding the first ever televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960, between John F. Kennedy (who emerged as the winner of the debate) and Richard M. Nixon. The myth states that while Kennedy clearly won amongst the TV audience, Nixon was actually the winner among radio listeners. The question that appears is if the debate had only been broadcast over the radio (as in previous years), would Nixon’s tone of voice have helped him to victory over Kennedy? In a nutshell, based on current research on speaker charisma, this myth turns out to be plausible with certain reservations: Our results indicate that Nixon’s tone of voice corresponds more closely to what is nowadays known about charismatic voices as opposed to Kennedy’s tone of voice.

Zusammenfassung

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on innovation, as measured by the emergence of dominant designs. A negative impact is substantiated theoretically and empirically, based on longitudinal patent data from the OECD. This study also finds evidence for the moderating impact of globalization on the relationship between innovative performance and the emergence of dominant design. Thus, globalization is more important with regard to the establishment of dominant designs than it was before the financial crisis of 2008. Further, it is found that following the crisis, science-based industries tend to have more dominant designs than other industries.

Zusammenfassung

The present study investigates acoustic features of charismatic speech using a case study. There is an ongoing myth regarding the first ever televised presidential debate on September 26, 1960, between John F. Kennedy (who emerged as the winner of the debate) and Richard M. Nixon. The myth states that while Kennedy clearly won amongst the TV audience, Nixon was actually the winner among radio listeners. The question that appears is if the debate had only been broadcast over the radio (as in previous years), would Nixon’s tone of voice have helped him to victory over Kennedy? In a nutshell, based on current research on speaker charisma, this myth turns out to be plausible with certain reservations: Our results indicate that Nixon’s tone of voice corresponds more closely to what is nowadays known about charismatic voices as opposed to Kennedy’s tone of voice.

Zusammenfassung

Most of the firms currently in the S&P 500 probably will not be there in 15 years. In times of great uncertainty, managers are called upon to make the right strategic choices, preserve core businesses, and prepare their organizations for the future. How can managers make these choices when the industry is under transformation? In this article, we explore how the popular VUCA framework can help to make sense of turbulent contexts and drive the decision making of managers. We study the case of the energy industry, in which traditional business models eroded quickly and dominant players lost their positions. Based on personal interviews with the CEOs of RWE (Germany) and NRG Energy (U.S.), we analyze how these executives led transformation of their organizations. We get immersed in their decision-making processes and depict how the VUCA framework helps them to identify, map, and prepare their organizations to respond to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in their industry. We propose a guide for executive managers to navigate through VUCA contexts, taking into account the necessity to introduce short- and long-term responses that prepare organizations and stakeholders for an uncertain future. (C) 2018 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Zusammenfassung

Ideen auf Knopfdruck: Kreativworkshops und Kreativitätstechniken   •             Was bei der Planung und Durchführung von Kreativitäts-Workshops zu beachten ist •             50 Kreativtechniken: intuitiv-kreative und systematisch-analytische Techniken •             Toolbox für Unternehmen und Start-ups   Innovative Ideen, die Kunden und Menschen überzeugen, sind in Unternehmen immer wieder aufs Neue gefragt. Aber Ideen auf Knopfdruck zu produzieren, ist nicht einfach. Was tun, wenn der zündende Gedanke fehlt? Verschiedene Methoden können helfen, in den Kreativmodus zu gelangen. Die Toolbox fasst das grundlegende Know-how zusammen, das zur Planung und Durchführung von Kreativworkshops notwendig ist, und stellt 50 klassische und neue Kreativitätstechniken vor, die kreatives Denken erfolgreich fördern

Zusammenfassung

The innovation of products, services, and business models is key to firm survival, performance, and growth in today’s turbulent business environments. However, accelerating environmental dynamics also require speeding up the innovation process. A suitable solution may be the use of agility, especially at the front end of innovation. In this study, we aim to identify agility enablers in this first stage of the innovation process. We follow a two-step procedure. First, we review existing agility frameworks and find that several agility enablers are already discussed, but no holistic framework exists yet. Second, we conduct qualitative expert interviews to obtain a better understanding of additional enablers and enabler attributes. By comparing the theoretical and managerial sources, we find gaps in each side’s attention. As a result, we introduce a novel, agile front end of innovation framework that helps firms pay attention to agility enablers that can speed up the innovation process.

Zusammenfassung

Managing Innovation is a three-part series covering contemporary technology and innovation management research areas. Each volume comprises key articles from both the International Journal of Innovation Management and the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management and provides an international, disciplinary approach across its broad coverage of topics. Relevant for both academics and practitioners, this volume looks at the international aspects of innovation with case studies from China, Germany, India and Russi

Zusammenfassung

We examined the relationships between perceived environmental uncertainty and firm strategies (innovation vs. imitation) with a sample of 143 Iranian entrepreneurs. By using longitudinal data, we hypothesized that perceived environmental state uncertainty increases the possibility of pursuing innovative strategies and that the perceived effect and response of uncertainty increases the possibility of pursuing imitative strategies by Iranian entrepreneurs during the post-sanction period. Our results extend previous research by not only highlighting the importance of perceived environmental uncertainty in shaping firms’ strategic behavior, but also indicating how each dimension of perceived environmental uncertainty either enhances or inhibits the innovation/imitation strategy. Since perceived environmental uncertainty is a multidimensional and broad concept that usually stems from different sources, ignoring the exact types of uncertainty faced by entrepreneurs during strategy formulation could lead to unproductive investments and higher costs that may hurt firm performance in the long term. Our findings are in general consistent with the predictions of upper echelons theory and confirm that the strategy of a firm varies according to the types of uncertainty perceived by entrepreneurs.

Zusammenfassung

Managing Innovation is a three-part series covering contemporary technology and innovation management research areas. Each volume comprises key articles from both the International Journal of Innovation Management and the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management and provides an international, disciplinary approach across its broad coverage of topics. Relevant for both academics and practitioners, this volume focuses on key aspects of crowd innovation including motivations, challenges and benefits of this approac

Zusammenfassung

Crowdfunding is a remarkable phenomenon in the field of financing, as it is evolving in theory and practice. However, most research is focused on non-equity based campaigns. Hence, we shed light on a yet under researched aspect: B2B and B2C-companies reaching for equity-based crowdfunding. We chose an empirical approach and conducted a quantitative study among almost 300 participants to reveal the difference between the funding decisions for startups located in either B2B or B2C-markets. Our results show that differences in investments between B2B and B2C firms do exist, revealing that other success factors are necessary in those cases. Moreover, we find that the involvement of the investor as lead user has relevance for the decision to invest in both cases. We conclude with implications for theory and practice, and give suggestions for future researc

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Managers need to actively drive the growth of innovation ecosystems. This paper describes the obstacles companies face when commercializing innovations and identifies strategies for overcoming these barriers through activating innovation ecosystems. We explore three ecosystems at different stages of maturity, namely San Francisco, Barcelona, and Nairobi, and derive a taxonomy of strategies for activating innovation ecosystems with regard to the maturity of the ecosystem. The paper thus contributes to the wealth of knowledge concerning the commercialization of innovations in general and within innovation ecosystems in particular. We fill a gap in the understanding of the stages of maturity of innovation ecosystems, and the corresponding actions required by managers and policy makers. Policy makers and other actors can incentivize ecosystem development through adapting initiatives to the maturity of the ecosystem in question.

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The engagement with industry actors is a key element in the transition towards an entrepreneurial university model. The purpose of this paper is to explore the university-industry collaboration (UIC) drivers from the industry side. It analyses how, and to what extent, policy interventions could increase the engagement of industry actors in UICs. An experimental research design involving a feasibility and pilot study (January to June 2018) with 36 firms. In a non-urban region context, with a satellite university campus. The pilot explores a randomized control trial (RCT) design, with a training intervention to a randomized group of participants in the pilot. Firms involved in universities' students (academic forms of UICs) might not necessarily consider the university as a research partner, even in a geographic proximity setting. In addition, there is a potential “dark-side” to proximity, when industry participants build their perceptions using second-hand experiences or indirect information. A training intervention facilitates to overcome pre-existing biases but does not trigger a substantial change in the UIC's behaviour of the firms in the short-term. The pilot study provides valuable insights for researchers interested in a larger randomized control trial. It also provides insights for university managers that want to understand the motivations of industry participants in UICs. The experimental approach of the research generates evidence on the feasibility to intervene in the activation of UICs from an industry perspective, a central aspect in transition towards an entrepreneurial university model.

Zusammenfassung

These days, crowdfunding has become an established tool for entrepreneurial financing. Beyond that, it also established a new way of innovation marketing, especially for high-tech products: using crowdfunding to find out if there is a market for the product. Without the goal of collecting money for the start-up, this approach makes a new strategic approach necessary how to setup entrepreneurial commercialization strategies. This chapter offers insights into such crowdfunding behavior, and how technology entrepreneurs can make use of it. For this, a market theory perspective is taken on crowdfunding platforms, with implications for theory and practice.

Zusammenfassung

Contemporary organizations develop porous structures and permeable boundaries to employ external knowledge and resources. On the one hand, permeability in organizations engenders fluidity which increases organizational capabilities through adaptability, diversity, and speed. On the other hand, organizations continuously redefine and reinvent their boundaries to remain stable and to exhibit self-identity. These two competing demands of organizations to simultaneously become fluid as well as stable are evident in modern shared workplaces where organizations share offices with other organizations and professionals. The purpose of this research is to analyze how permeability in shared office spaces influence the internal work structures and processes of members’ organizations who have relatively fixed memberships, stable structures, and steep hierarchies. We collected qualitative data based on an inductive research methodology from the providers and users of a coworking-space. Our study concludes that participational autonomy, spatial and virtual connectivity and interrelational heterogeneity determine the level of permeability in a coworking-space. The space level permeability influences the work structures and task processes of members’ organizations. Changeability in organizational processes engenders structural differentiation, decentralization, and ad-hoc work processes, which provide autonomy to the organizational employees or independent users to define their work structures, task processes, and work routines. Organizations though maintain their rudimentary structures and permeable boundaries through self-regulatory resources. In this way, permeability enables organizations to leverage the differentiated capabilities of members within and outside of the space and facilitates knowledge exchange across boundaries and hierarchical levels that lead to innovative outcomes.

Zusammenfassung

Innovation contributes to corporate competitiveness, economic performance, and environmental sustainability. In the Internet era, innovation intelligence is transferred across borders and languages at an unprecedented rate, yet the ability to benefit from it seems to become more divergent among different corporations and countries. How much an organization can benefit from innovation largely depends on how well innovation is managed in it. Thus, there is a discernible increase in interest in the study of innovation management. This handbook provides a comprehensive guide to this subject.  The handbook introduces the basic framework of innovation and innovation management. It also presents innovation management from the perspectives of strategy, organization, resource, as well as institution and culture. The book's comprehensive coverage on all areas of innovation management makes this a very useful reference for anyone interested in the subjec

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An increase in the number of companies that publish corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements, and a rise in their ‘sustainability’ research, reflects a growing acceptance that broad ethical considerations are key for any type of company. However, little is known about how companies consider moral objectives for their research and development (R&D) activities, or the basis upon which these activities are chosen. This research involves qualitative investigation into Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, comprising 30 in-depth, pan-European interviews with key personnel in the industry, and focus groups with employees at 14 different companies. Through investigation of the ‘responsible’ activities these companies currently undertake, we shed light on the types of moral goals they set and their underlying ethical standpoints. By reviewing both the responsible innovation and sustainability discourses, and presenting phenomenological evidence, we demonstrate that companies have adopted some aspects of RRI, even though it might not be recognised as such. Our findings indicate that these innovators recognise some of the ethical and societal concerns associated with their activities but their approach is often piecemeal; primary focus is upon the most immediate issues and on legal compliance, to the detriment of broader societal issues and wider challenges. We recommend explicit mechanisms that draw upon established ethical thought and practical academic work to improve companies’ abilities to carry out their sustainability activities, and incorporate them into a responsible business strategy. We conclude with recommendations for innovators, corporate research and development, and policy

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Customer capital has attracted a great deal of attention among marketing scholars in recent years. This study explores at first the links between customer capital with firm innovativeness (i.e., the ability to generate new ideas and actions within firms) and customer response speed (i.e., the ability to respond to the customers’ needs immediately). Furthermore, it is analysed how firms’ marketing capability mediates these relationships. For this, a unique environment in post-sanctions Iran is chosen. By using the original survey data from 107 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), our results confirm that durable relationships that a company builds with its customers over the time enhance the market information within firms. This, in turn, enables firms to respond faster to market changes with innovative products and services. Furthermore, the lifetime relationship with the customers enhances the awareness of firms about customers’ needs and demands in a timely manner. Accordingly, it accelerates the process of responding the customers’ requirements before competitors can catch up.

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Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of "Born Globals" is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiencycentered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global's business model.

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This book addresses the issue of managing modern medical innovations through an inductive approach of looking into cases before putting forward solutions in terms of strategies and tools. It provides a model for the designing and implementation of effective healthcare technology management (HTM) systems in hospitals and healthcare provider settings, as well as promotes a new method of analysis of hospital organization for decision-making regarding technology to deliver better medical technological innovations. Given that medical innovations are mostly driven by technology (bottom-up) rather than top-down desires from the medical profession, the authors propose a strategy to manage medical technological innovations by finding a balance between bottom-up innovations (taking into consideration constraints, or standard for conformity, such as HL7) and what medical professionals want and need. In this book, the authors evaluate the issues of innovation strategies and present survey tools available to implement good designs. Case studies are used to demonstrate some of the applications areas of concepts and ideas outlined in the book. Managing Medical Technological Innovations is organized in three parts. Part 1 covers innovation strategies, laying the groundwork and concepts in design thinking. Part 2 follows by presenting the tools available for implementation. And finally, Part 3 uses the case studies of pharmaceutical firms in China and Holland's hospital medical record management system to illustrate how these ideas and methodologies have been applie

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Purpose Successful innovation requires a significant financial commitment. We therefore investigate the relation between internal and external financing and the degree of innovation in European firms. Methodology We carry out an empirical investigation using a longitudinal data set including 146 large, quoted, European firms over ten years, resulting in 1460 firm years. Findings We find that only firms in the energy sector will be more innovative when they are profitable. For the sectors of basic materials, manufacture, and construction, services, financial and property services, and technology and telecommunications, profitability is negatively related to innovation. External financing in the form of debt reduces the focus on innovation in profitable firms. Research Implication We analyze the findings through the lens of evolutionary economics. The model is not valid for firms in the consumer goods sector, which indicates a need for adapting the model to each sector. We conclude that the impact of profitability on innovation varies across sectors, with debt financing as a moderating factor. Originality To best of our knowledge, this is the first study analyzing internal and external financing and the degree of innovation in European firms on a longitudinal basis.

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We use a longitudinal dataset on new ventures to assess the effects of human capital factors (education, work experience, and entrepreneurial experience) on new ventures’ performance. Our results show how the influence of human capital factors are dependent on the context (high vs. non-high technology industries) and illustrate the different effects of general and specific human capital factors. The findings help to clarify the existing debate on the influence of human capital where we introduce a longitudinal perspective that contributes to uncover the influence of factors such as prior experience, in particular if in the same industry, as a positive influence on new ventures’ future performance.

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Companies have long used various approaches for organizing employees’ time related to creative and routine tasks as a means to improve their innovative performance. In this paper, we examine how work schedule autonomy affects individuals’ creative and routine performance. We then evaluate noncommissioned time models. Results of laboratory experiments with in total 233 participants reveal that while average routine performance is not affected by schedule autonomy, the effect of schedule autonomy on creative performance depends on the subject’s impulsiveness. There is evidence for an inverse relationship between schedule autonomy and creative performance among subjects of low impulsiveness. Hence, our results indicate that the optimal management policy depends on the manager’s focus on creative or routine performance and the types of employees the manager supervises. For routine performance, the creativity time model has no significant impact. But for creative tasks, creative performance goes down – only highly impulsive people do not have this effect. We found that the performance of lowly impulsive subjects in the spontaneous time model (compared to the predetermined time model) suffers more than performance of highly impulsive subjects. For all levels of impulsiveness, routine performance does not differ across treatments.

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In recent years, there has been a shift in the epicenter of innovation from developed to emerging markets. Western multinationals are increasingly harnessing the potential of emerging markets by setting up local subsidiaries and developing frugal and reverse innovations. This study is an attempt to explore this shift and investigate the process of development of these innovations using a case study analysis approach. The study analyzes the case of a technology-based Danish multinational (MNC) and explores how frugal innovations in India and China are developed. Based on nine interviews with leading R&D experts, the results provide evidence for the ongoing innovation shift and offer insights into the development of frugal products in local R&D projects. Growing traction towards reverse innovation, where MNCs are developing frugal products for global markets is also an important finding. <

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When implementing social media strategies on Facebook brand pages, companies focus on factors that prompt electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWoM) about brand contents. This study examines individual and collective factors that lead to brand content sharing behaviors. The research conducts a field study of a real brand on its Facebook fan page to gather actual behavioral data. Both declarative and behavioral data are used to explain brand eWoM, based on 250 participants. Empirical results show that the Facebook activity has a positive influence on brand content sharing for active users (posters) but not for nonactive users (lurkers), while brand engagement positively affects brand content sharing for both active and nonactive users. Furthermore, brand community involvement does not have an influence on brand content sharing. Findings offer companies useful recommendations for using the determinants included in our research design to understand and analyze the sharing behaviors of users.

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Digital technologies have become a new economic and social force, reshaping traditional business models, strategies, structures, and processes. Digital entrepreneurship, which focuses on creating new ventures and transforming existing businesses by developing novel digital technologies or their novel usage, is seen as a critical pillar for economic growth, job creation, and innovation by many countries. Further, digital technologies have also enabled the growth of the sharing economy, linking owners and users and disrupting the previous dualism of businesses and customers.This volume discusses the management of new technology-based firms and technology projects initiated in academic or industrial contexts. The contributions feature new theoretical concepts, ethical considerations, empirical data analysis (qualitative and quantitative), archival and historical methods, design science approaches, action and field research, as well as management science methods, informatics and cybernetics.

Zusammenfassung

With growing interaction among firms in the innovation process, the need for efficient protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) also increases. The high costs and lengthy processes associated with patenting call for firms to use other methods of protecting their intellectual property (IP). The low costs and high revenues associated with the use of trademarks entice the adoption of this measure. For SMEs however, recent evidence questions the long-term benefits of trademarks, and suggests that industrial designs may be a more efficient form of IP protection. There is little evidence for or against using copyright, possibly due to difficulties in measuring this IPR. As product cycles are shortening, firms increasingly protect IP through speed-to-market and secrecy. However, more research is needed as to how secrecy relates to more formal methods of IP protection.

Zusammenfassung

There is a limited understanding of the antecedents and consequences of employee vitality during war zone exposure. The current study is one of the first ones to investigate the direct effects of perceived danger on employee vitality by collecting data from Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Furthermore, it was investigated how employee vitality affects sustainable behavior at the workplace. The hypotheses of the study have been tested by using data from two surveys collected from 192 employees working in small-sized private businesses in Afghanistan. The results indicate that high levels of perceived danger negatively impact employee vitality at work. In addition, we found that employees with vitality engage in more pro-environmental behavior in the workplace. The engagement of vital employees in pro-environmental behavior is higher among those employees who have a high level of environmental awareness. This paper concludes by presenting the limitations and implications of this study, as well as highlighting potential avenues for future research.

Zusammenfassung

Technological innovations open opportunities for new entrants (techno-entrepreneurs) to transform and recreate industries, as they come as so called “innovation shocks”. These shocks can change technology trajectories and make irrelevant existing regulatory frameworks. It is unclear, however, what is the interplay between technology evolution, entrepreneurship, and regulation. We explore the case of the drone industry emergence to extract insights on how different profiles of new entrants respond to distinct regulatory frameworks, aiming to decipher the effect that those have on the exploration and development of new tech-based innovation opportunities. Our findings suggest that more attention should be given to the impact that regulatory responses can have on the short and long term development of emerging technological fields. We propose a process framework to make sense of the possible outcomes of distinct regulatory responses, elaborating on the consequences it has on entrepreneurial activity and overall market growth.

Zusammenfassung

We use a longitudinal dataset on new ventures to assess the effects of human capital factors (education, work experience, and entrepreneurial experience) on new ventures' performance. Our results show how the influence of human capital factors are dependent on the context (high vs. non-high technology industries) and illustrate the different effects of general and specific human capital factors. The findings help to clarify the existing debate on the influence of human capital where we introduce a longitudinal perspective that contributes to uncover the influence of factors such as prior experience, in particular if in the same industry, as a positive influence on new ventures' future performance.

Zusammenfassung

Digitalization is transforming the industrial landscape. Smarter products, data services, and new business models promise to reshape all types of manufacturing industries. However, the excitement on the potential outcomes of industrial players’ digitalization is proportionate to the number of unexpected tensions and uncertainty that it generates. Much has been written on the potential benefits, but much less on the navigation strategies that could guide the transition for such types of firms. In our research, we draw from a multiple-case study with Danish industrial firms (Danfoss, Linak and Grundfos). The result is a nuanced description of the dimensions that associate industrial digitalization approaches with organizational characteristics and technological trajectories

Zusammenfassung

Managing Innovation is a three-part series covering contemporary technology and innovation management research areas. Each volume comprises key articles from both the International Journal of Innovation Management and the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management and provides an international, disciplinary approach across its broad coverage of topics. Relevant for both academics and practitioners, this volume answers how organisations can develop innovative approaches from a perspective that encompasses technological advances, changes in the market and individual entrepreneur

Zusammenfassung

The rising use of crowdfunding makes it important for project initiators to know how they can increase the likelihood of success of their crowdfunding campaign. The effects of using social media, although relatively easy to do via most crowdfunding platforms, have not yet been analyzed in greater detail in scientific research. We address this research gap by investigating the effects of social media reach and utilization on measures of reward-based crowdfunding success, based on an analysis of 230 projects from the crowdfunding platform wemakeit. Our results show that social media reach via the number of social media accounts that belong to the project and the number of accounts that belong to the project initiator increases the number of investors and the percentage of the funding goal that is obtained. Furthermore, social media reach via the size of the projects’ and the individuals’ social networks has not been found to be important for crowdfunding success. Social media utilization in regard to the amount of content shared is found to be positively associated with crowdfunding success.

Zusammenfassung

This research is an approach to connect creativity and multicultural experiences (MCEs): we give insights into how and what type of MCE influences people’s perceptive abilities such as creativity. We offer one of the first empirical examinations that links the perception of creativity concept to strategy of acculturation. This study addresses an often-mentioned research gap by examining laypersons’ ability to perceive different levels of creativity. For this, a sample of 195 participants from 26 countries with and without MCE was researched. Findings indicate that attitudes as well as personal and professional goals apparently influence people’s creativity perception. The acculturation strategy integration seems to be a determining factor in this respect. As MCE has become a firm part of many people’s CV, the present paper adds to an omnipresent phenomenon in today’s society, which is worth studying.

Zusammenfassung

Syndication or co-investment is a potent way of pooling resources among peer Venture Capital (VC) firms. This is even more vital for Foreign VC firms (FVCFs) when investing in destinations that are geographically distant from their countries of origin. Although FVCFs are relatively abundantly endowed in terms of financial capital, they are distinctly disadvantaged in terms of their social capital when investing in geographies that are distinctly different in terms of their institutions, norms, and culture from their own. One of the ways in which FVCFs overcome this impediment is by investing in human resources that serve as a bridge between their financial and social capital. Accordingly, the primary aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the resources of FVCFs and their syndication intensity. Using the technique of logistic regression, we arrive at several interesting findings. FVCFs with a greater proportion of investment executives with prior founding experience in India and those with lower proportions of professionals of Indian origin demonstrate lower syndication intensity. Similarly, the syndication intensity diminishes with the increase in size of the investing team. FVCFs with greater fund size demonstrate a lower need for syndication. Greater endowment of social capital as proxied by the age of the VC firm is seen to enhance the syndication intensity.

Zusammenfassung

Understanding how a new digital technology can translate into a valuable innovation is a challenge for established players and new entrants. For industrial players in an ecosystem, it can be both a threat and an opportunity. Furthermore, the new technologies open collaboration opportunities between corporates and start-ups. But it remains unclear what are the consequences of opening up and whether it has an impact on the innovation dynamics in the industrial ecosystem. We use the case of the wind industry in Denmark, as a maturing industrial ecosystem, to study when and how the new entrants (technology entrepreneurs) have had an impact on the innovation dynamics. We first combine archival data with interviews to build a historical account of the evolution of the industrial ecosystem; then we incorporate data from the new entrants in the industry to specify the types of innovations that the most recent digital technology entrepreneurs have triggered. The results suggest differences in the innovation dynamics depending on the value chain position. While some activities have remained rather closed (for instance, the technological development of the core elements in the wind turbines), the operations and maintenance activities have profited from digital technologies introduced by new entrants. Using these insights, we present and discuss suggestions to institutional actors interested in protecting the innovation leadership of their regional industrial ecosystems.

Zusammenfassung

This book captures recent research on managing mobile technologies. It provides a handbook-style reference to professionals in different industries to help them manage the very latest technologies that have become a part of every business today. The book reviews multiple perspectives of the challenges brought by the introduction of mobile technologies into our lives. The technical perspective covers major constructs at play; the organizational perspective reviews international cases; and the personal perspective investigates the adoption of emerging applications and their impact. By reviewing multiple perspectives, readers will be able to adopt a tool to manage the complexities and challenges brought by the mobile technologies.

Zusammenfassung

Qualitative Forschung in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre – ein nach wie vor oft vernachlässigtes Thema. Denn schwerpunktmäßig werden qualitative Verfahren vorwiegend in soziologischen Bereichen angewandt, obwohl in vielen Lehrbüchern zur empirischen Forschung die Zusammengehörigkeit von quantitativen und qualitativen Verfahren – auch in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre – beschworen wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt vorliegender Beitrag die historische Entwicklung der Wissenschaftsziele in der Betriebswirtschaft dar, um über die Mischform der angewandten Forschung auf die Rahmenbedingungen für anwendungsorientierte, qualitativ-empirische Forschung in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre zu sprechen zu kommen. Nach der Definition elementarer Begrifflichkeiten wie Bezugsrahmen, Modell und Theorie und der Abgrenzung quantitativer zu qualitativer Forschung schließt der Beitrag mit dem Vorschlag einer theoriegenerierenden Forschungsstrategie für qualitative Untersuchungen im betriebswirtschaftlichen Kontext.

Zusammenfassung

Technologies like computer vision, advanced sensors, internet of things, 3D printing, big data, or artificial intelligence are penetrating all facets of the industrial value chains. Hence, industry is engaged in an accelerated automation race where industrial automation converts value chains into intelligent, data-driven systems. This generates new business models and spurs firm competitiveness in general. Companies thus pay attention to the development, acquisition, and incorporation of related technologies to profit from these developments in specific. For this, they must incorporate external flows of knowledge to succeed in innovation. Yet, there is a dearth of research that links open innovation to the incorporation of industrial automation, and to firm performance. Hence, this paper takes a knowledge-based view of the firm and sheds light on the moderating role of the processes of open innovation on the economic results of firms’ subject to automation. In order to do so, we estimate the impact of the interaction of open innovation and automation on firm turnover using panel data for 5287 Spanish firms from a variety of manufacture and service industries. We separate the effects for different open-innovation partners and find that turnover is increased for those automating firms that engage in open innovation with suppliers. These results indicate that suppliers possess the knowledge required for successful automation, and firms that innovate together with suppliers fare better at leveraging investments in automation. In addition, automating firms should exercise caution when choosing collaboration partners from the same country.

Zusammenfassung

More and more, established companies try to cooperate with start-ups, build their own, or try to imitate their mindsets. But, do they make decisions like expert entrepreneurs? Effectuation theory describes entrepreneurial decision-making, it has been popular in entrepreneurship research for the last two decades, but still underexplored in contexts such as established company’s decision-making. Therefore, this study answers the question of which factors affect the use of effectuation in established companies. Furthermore, the current use of the start-up decision-making principle is investigated. The research results show a higher use of effectuation over causation (alternative mechanism) in established companies. However, decision-making principles like “Mean orientation” and “Contingency orientation” are still dominated by causation. Identified factors for implementing effectuation in established companies are divided into six categories. In particular, effectuation requires a high flexibility and willingness to change goals. Using the already available means and resources of a company to pursue new goals, is another argument for using effectuation. Additionally, a more open and transparent culture, encouraging the identification and admittance of mistakes, also supports the use of effectuation. Based on this research, established companies should be able to understand better on which factors the implementation of effectuation depends and where it makes sense to use it.

Zusammenfassung

A rich body of literature has emerged from research on Western new product development (NPD). However, the impact of country- and culture-specific influences on these processes has not been examined in detail yet. Hence, this study identifies the differences in NPD practices between the Indian and German research and development (R & D) subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs). Data have been generated by interviews with R & D executives in both countries across multiple cases. The study samples strategic, organisational, and operational aspects and indicates differences in process coordination, reward systems, NPD creativity techniques, market orientation, and the average age of NPD teams. Other aspects, such as top management support, the use of structured NPD processes, and the use of heterogeneous NPD teams, show no substantial differences between the countries. Our findings suggest that, while some aspects are universally applicable across cultural frontiers, Western companies must understand Indias different expectations regarding NPD and adjust their practices accordingly.

Zusammenfassung

Creativity workshops are a common way of involving employees and other stakeholders in innovative endeavors. However, not much is known about how to successfully plan and execute such innovation workshops, especially for people with no specific expertise in this field. This paper introduces a creativity workshop setup, which can serve as a blueprint for different kinds of workshops where the creation of novel ideas is the goal. In order to achieve this, a basic distinction of creativity techniques is provided, as well as a structured overview of a creativity workshop implementation structure and time plan. The paper closes by identifying typical mental barriers for decision makers that should be taken into consideration when planning such workshops.

Zusammenfassung

Die Betriebswirtschaft erfindet sich immer wieder neu. Sie entwickelt regelmäßig Theorien und Methoden und verfängt sich nicht in den methodischen Fehlschluss, die Wirtschaftswissenschaften müssten nach naturwissenschaftlichen-mathematischen Gesetzmäßigkeiten in der Wirtschaft suchen. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die neue Betriebswirtschaft ein Ansatz, die klassische Betriebswirtschaft mit aktuellen Fragestellungen zu verbinden. Dieses Buch stellt deshalb klassische Themen wie Buchhaltung, Kosten-, Erfolgs- und Umsatzrechnung, Finanzierung dar, aber auch explizit Statistik zur Datengewinnung und Datenauswertung. All diese Themen werden stets im Lichte der aktuellen Entwicklungen von Digitalisierung, Internationalisierung und innovativen Geschäftsmodellen behandelt. Die Autoren wenden sich klassischen Funktionen des Betriebes zu, aber auch Themen wie Security, Compliance, Nachhaltigkeit, Online-Marketing, Innovationsmarketing, Strategisches Controlling, Cross-Mergers and Acquisitions, u.a. in Verbindung mit der Unternehmensbewertung, sowie Risk-Management. Das Buch richtet sich an Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften sowie an Unternehmer und Manager, die sich mit betriebswirtschaftlichen Themen in Theorie und Praxis auseinandersetzen.

Zusammenfassung

This book addresses the issue of modern medical innovations management through an inductive approach by looking into cases before putting forward solutions in terms of strategies and tools. It provides a model for the designing and implementation of effective healthcare technology management (HTM) systems in hospitals and healthcare provider settings, as well as promotes a new method of analysis of hospital organization for decision-making regarding technology to show how systematic management using a strategy that balances bottom-up and top-down driven innovations, can deliver better medical technological advances. Managing Medical Technological Innovations is organized in three parts. Part 1 covers innovation strategies, laying the groundwork and concepts in design thinking. Part 2 follows by presenting the tools available for implementation. And finally, Part 3 uses the case studies of pharmaceutical firms in China and hospital medical record management in Holland to illustrate how these ideas and methodologies have been applied. This book is suitable for healthcare administrators, management, and IT personnel involved in the planning, expansion and maintaining of healthcare technology management and organisation seeking a reference with most recent approaches and cases from an international context; researchers seeking new approaches to apply to emerging medical technologies in different regions; and graduate students who are either doing their research or taking introductory as well as advanced courses in engineering and technology management in different parts of the world.

Zusammenfassung

Innovation contributes to corporate competitiveness, economic performance and environmental sustainability. In the Internet era, innovation intelligence is transferred across borders and languages at an unprecedented rate, yet the ability to benefit from it seems to become more divergent among different corporations and countries. How much an organization can benefit from innovation largely depends on how well innovation is managed in it. Thus, there is a discernible increase in interest in the study of innovation management. This handbook provides a comprehensive guide to this subject. The handbook introduces the basic framework of innovation and innovation management. It also presents innovation management from the perspectives of strategy, organization and resource, as well as institution and culture. The book’s comprehensive coverage on all areas of innovation management makes this a very useful reference for anyone interested in the subject.

Zusammenfassung

Understanding how a new digital technology can translate into a valuable innovation is a challenge for established players and new entrants. For industrial players in an ecosystem it can be both a threat or an opportunity. Furthermore, the new technologies open collaboration opportunities between corporates and startups. But, it is remains unclear what are the consequences of opening up, and whether it has an impact on the innovation dynamics in the industrial ecosystem. We use the case of the Wind Industry in Denmark, as a maturing industrial ecosystem, to study when and how the new entrants (technology entrepreneurs) have had an impact on the innovation dynamics. We first combine archival data with interviews to build an historical account of the evolution of the industrial ecosystem, then we incorporate data from the new entrants in the industry to specify the types of innovations that the most recent digital technology entrepreneurs have triggered. The results suggest differences in the innovation dynamics depending on the value chain position. While some activities have remained rather closed (for instance the technological development of the core elements in the wind turbines), the operations and maintenance activities have profited from digital technologies introduced by new entrants. Using these insights, we present and discuss suggestions to institutional actors interested in protecting the innovation leadership of their regional industrial ecosystems.

Zusammenfassung

Emerging markets are considered to have huge economic potential, both for entrepreneurs and established firms. To foster innovation in these markets, it is important that customers and companies use the same terminology, with the same understanding of key terms. But is this really the case? Based on eight product requirements, this research empirically analyzes the perception of emerging market innovation terminologies. For this, we use the case of the Indian healthcare sector. On the one hand Voice of Customer method was used to gather the product requirements from the customers. On the other hand, Analytic Hierarchy Process technique was employed to identify the preferences for both product managers and customers. Our results confirm the high level of importance of ‘affordable value innovations’ and ‘ease of use functionality’ for new products introduced in emerging markets. Interestingly, the category ‘products with low or no maintenance or consumables’ comes high on the preference map for the customers but seems to be a blind spot from the manufacturers' perspective. This result opens opportunities for entrepreneurs focusing on new customer bases in emerging markets and also for various corporate entrepreneurship activities.

Zusammenfassung

Earlier research on the lead user method is focused on individual case studies and how the method was applied in a specific context. In this paper, we take a broader approach, analyzing  sample of 24 lead user projects, which included working with 188 lead users. These projects were analyzed regarding their specific processes, resources, challenges, and success factors, using the data of an open innovation intermediary. The key fnding is that a refinement and elaboration phase and the integration of designers are crucial success factors which, to date, have not been included in the literature. Moreover, crowdsourcing contests and netnography proved to be of significant value for the need, trend, and lead user identication phases. This paper concludes by discussing theoretical and practical implications, the limitations of this study, and recommendations for future studies.

Zusammenfassung

To date, scholarly understanding of external dimensions of market driving for the purposes of ‘societal change’ is largely unexplored in both developed and emerging market contexts. This paper uses a multiple case study approach to understand how market driving social enterprises (across the hybrid spectrum) create societal change in emerging markets. By drawing on Scott's (1995) three-part conceptualization of institutional legitimacy, this study explores how regulative, normative and cognitive legitimacies are invoked by market driving social enterprises at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). Key contributions of the study show that all three dimensions of legitimacy are relevant but they need to be invoked in a specific order based on necessary and optional conditions. An implication of the study is that market driving through societal change can lead to the construction of new and more inclusive healthcare market

Zusammenfassung

Purpose The approach of Western companies to internationalise their R&D by establishing R&D sites in emerging markets (EMs) has led to a discussion about the role of R&D in home markets and host markets. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the evolution of foreign R&D sites of Western companies in EMs and their role using China as the empirical context. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the State Intellectual Property Office database, and investigates about 2,000 patent families of the top 14 Western patent applicants in China. Findings The results indicate a gradual shift from an exploitative to an exploratory role of R&D sites in China. The study also shows evident learning effects on Western R&D from local counterparts. Research limitations/implications The paper motivates further research of R&D internationalisation approaches within EMs, and explores the changing role of local subsidiaries. While the study is only focussed on China, the applicability of the results is limited in context of other countries, due to cultural, economic and legislative differences. Practical implications This study shows the increasing importance of EMs such as China and how these markets, known for imitations and cheap resources, are gradually moving towards innovations and creating new technologies locally. Originality/value Based on the patent analysis, this study shows the growing importance of the local R&D subsidiaries of Western multinationals in Chin

Zusammenfassung

Qualitative Forschung in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre – ein nach wie vor oft vernachlässigtes Thema. Denn schwerpunktmäßig werden qualitative Verfahren vorwiegend in soziologischen Bereichen angewandt, obwohl in vielen Lehrbüchern zur empirischen Forschung die Zusammengehörigkeit von quantitativen und qualitativen Verfahren – auch in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre – beschworen wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt vorliegender Beitrag die historische Entwicklung der Wissenschaftsziele in der Betriebswirtschaft dar, um über die Mischform der angewandten Forschung auf die Rahmenbedingungen für anwendungsorientierte, qualitativ-empirische Forschung in der Betriebswirtschaftslehre zu sprechen zu kommen. Nach der Definition elementarer Begrifflichkeiten wie Bezugsrahmen, Modell und Theorie und der Abgrenzung quantitativer zu qualitativer Forschung schließt der Beitrag mit dem Vorschlag einer theoriegenerierenden Forschungsstrategie für qualitative Untersuchungen im betriebswirtschaftlichen Kontext. <

Zusammenfassung

Styles of thinking set different paths for an entrepreneur’s perception and strategic action. In order to understand the environmental consequences of a thinking style, we investigated the relations between entrepreneurs’ linear and nonlinear styles of thinking with their perception of environmental uncertainty in their businesses. Furthermore, we tested the effect of the entrepreneurs’ linear and nonlinear style of thinking on their newly established firms’ orientation towards preserving the surrounding internal and external environment. Entrepreneurs with linear or rational thinking styles prefer more tangible data, information, facts, and analytical tools, and entrepreneurs with nonlinear or non-rational thinking styles rely more on internal feelings, impressions, imagination, creativity, and sensations when making important organizational decisions. By using cross-sectional survey data from 144 entrepreneurs in post-sanction Iran (2016–2017), we found that entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking, in comparison to entrepreneurs with a nonlinear style of thinking, perceive a higher level of environmental state, effect, and response uncertainty in their business context. Furthermore, our survey results reveal that newly established firms by entrepreneurs with nonlinear styles of thinking have a more external environmental orientation, while newly established firms by entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking have a more internal environmental orientation. Recognizing this contingency advances our understanding of how entrepreneurs perceive and enact their environment

Zusammenfassung

Capturing experts knowledge when evaluating new venture proposals in investment decisions is an active and ongoing area of research. Determining the agreement among experts on the importance of the variables involved in these decisions is crucial.This study presents a new approach to better under-standing the multi-criteria decision making process of expert investors that is based on a combination of the Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution method (TOPSIS) and a measure of consensus. A real case has been conducted among 28 experts to understand the relevant variables by obtaining their opinions by means of hesitant linguistic terms. Results provide not only a ranked list of variables obtained from the opinions of the group of experts and a measure of the consensus reached on their importance

Zusammenfassung

Make-or-buy decisions on technology-intensive components represent a key task in the management of technologies. Against this background, this paper presents an analysis of a technology company which gave key insights into their make-or-buy decisions on the strategic and operative level. The results show two kinds of make-or-buy decisions, called type 1 and type 2. In contrast to type 1 make-or-buy decisions whose scope is mostly limited to the production and quality function, type 2 decisions are strongly linked to engineering and R&D activities. Moreover, two new decision matrices are introduced: a ‘product/subsystem aggregation’ scheme and a ‘make-or-buy controlling’ matrix. In an environment in which companies move towards greater use of outsourcing, the framework ensures that company strategy and core competencies are followed in the long run despite short-range deviations of make-or-buy analysis results. These findings might be helpful and suitable to other manufacturing companies that deal with technology-intensive components on a strategic and operative level.

Zusammenfassung

Universities all over Europe invest in entrepreneurship education through offering structured programmes. Moreover, incubators and accelerators arise to support and complement fast growing global economy through entrepreneurial activities. Since entrepreneurship education seems to be important for economic development, the development of entrepreneurship education and effective teaching methods are discussed. For this, one university in Germany and one university in Denmark were chosen and researched with ten interviews. The structured comparison of teaching activities and methods indicates several interesting insights. Differences in organisation, structure and teaching methods between both universities could be identified, as well as similar developments concerning entrepreneurship education in general. Both universities do research in the field of entrepreneurship, offer related programmes for bachelor and master students and focus the study programmes on practical experiences, experimental teaching and the involvement of guest lecturers. In addition to that, they offer cross-faculty electives and extra-curricular activities to connect students from different faculties and provide the opportunity to network with investors, support organisations and participate in a business plan competition. 

Zusammenfassung

Convergent technologies, like biotechnology, rely on the contribution of multiple scientific disciplines and are applied to distant needs and markets. As such, the development of technologies and related applications fields require the evolution of ecosystems that involve multidisciplinary, previously unrelated, actors in collaborative exploration and exploitation processes. We know little on how these processes unfold, in particular in the early stages of the ecosystem development. Previous research suggests that human and social capital 1, patents and VC funding 2, or market orientation 3 among other factors, influence the development of biotechnology firms. But less is known on the earlier stages how application fields emerge from laboratory research 4 and how they shape technology commercialization opportunities 5. We address this gap exploring the antecedents and consequences of the loose connection between research and applications fields in an emerging biotechnology.The article aims to determine the nature of the co-evolution of the converging technology and the ecosystems requirements, including the analysis of key actors and their interactions over time. This helps us to generate an understanding of the pattern of technology convergence as well as of the drivers and barriers that affect the innovation process. In order to develop a holistic framework of the interplay between technology exploration and exploitation and the relevant ecosystem, we perform an explorative study using a case from marine biotechnology.

Zusammenfassung

We study the process of international diffusion, global contestation, and local deinstitutionalization of a controversial practice, identifying the mechanisms used by proponents and opponents of the practice across multiple institutional environments and constituents. We draw on international diffusion, deinstitutionalization, and power theory to study the emergence and diffusion of the third-party ownership practice in the soccer industry. We use an inductive case study combining archival and interview data to study the determinants of the international diffusion of the practice, the changes in the power structure in the market as the practice was adopted at a global scale, and finally the contestation and deinstitutionalization process that resulted from the ban of the practice. We find that the opacity of the practice can be a diffusion driver, locally and at the international level, nevertheless as the practice transforms the market structure and allows new actors to gain power, a global contestation is triggered through problematization and emotional resonance by insiders with institutional power positions in the market. This article advances in our understanding of the multilevel governance mechanisms and power dynamics that might support international diffusion but also contestation and eventual deinstitutionalization of a practice.

Zusammenfassung

Innovation processes increasingly rely on the collaboration between different stakeholders across various boundaries, including functional, hierarchical and organizational boundaries. Such boundary-crossing interactions can rely on different types of mechanisms, activities and boundary objects. Humor might act as an appropriate managerial tool to shape such interactions as it affects the social positions of and relationships between individuals. In this article, we present a case study of how humor is employed at the micro-level of collaborative innovation processes. Based on data from workshops in which participants work together to construct new business models for a particular company, we employ the method of conversation analysis to find that humor (laughter in particular) can be an important condition for the acceptance of proposals at the interactional micro-level of innovation processes. A key finding is that company-internal representatives’ use of humor differs from company-external participants in terms of their orientation to having different rights and responsibilities in the innovation process. 

Zusammenfassung

Die Betriebswirtschaft erfindet sich immer wieder neu. Sie entwickelt regelmäßig Theorien und Methoden und verfängt sich nicht in den methodischen Fehlschluss, die Wirtschaftswissenschaften müssten nach naturwissenschaftlichen-mathematischen Gesetzmäßigkeiten in der Wirtschaft suchen. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist die neue Betriebswirtschaft ein Ansatz, die klassische Betriebswirtschaft mit aktuellen Fragestellungen zu verbinden. Dieses Buch stellt deshalb klassische Themen wie Buchhaltung, Kosten-, Erfolgs- und Umsatzrechnung, Finanzierung dar, aber auch explizit Statistik zur Datengewinnung und Datenauswertung. All diese Themen werden stets im Lichte der aktuellen Entwicklungen von Digitalisierung, Internationalisierung und innovativen Geschäftsmodellen behandelt. Die Autoren wenden sich klassischen Funktionen des Betriebes zu, aber auch Themen wie Security, Compliance, Nachhaltigkeit, Online-Marketing, Innovationsmarketing, Strategisches Controlling, Cross-Mergers and Acquisitions, u.a. in Verbindung mit der Unternehmensbewertung, sowie Risk-Management. Das Buch richtet sich an Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften sowie an Unternehmer und Manager, die sich mit betriebswirtschaftlichen Themen in Theorie und Praxis auseinandersetzen.

Zusammenfassung

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly important phenomenon that is fundamentally changing how companies create and capture value. There are still important questions with respect to how crowdsourcing works and can be applied in practice, especially in business practice. In this chapter, we focus on prediction markets as a mechanism and tool to tap into a crowd in the early stages of an innovation process. In line with the growing interest in open innovation, we also investigate the difference between using internal or external sources in the context of prediction markets. We apply one example of a prediction market, a virtual stock market, to open innovation through an online platform, and show that using mechanisms of internal crowdsourcing with prediction markets can outperform the use of external crowds under certain conditions.

Zusammenfassung

Although technology entrepreneurship has recently received increased attention, the link between entrepreneurship education and the transfer and commercialization of technology has not been explored sufficiently so far. In this chapter the authors apply an explorative approach to investigate two cases of science and technology entrepreneurship education (STEE) by analysing documents and interviews regarding similarities and differences of the two educational programmes. Their findings suggest that open and problem-based pedagogical approaches are more applied in STEE-related courses compared to regular engineering courses. Additionally, STEE benefits greatly from taking place in a practical context with access to support structures that assist in developing technical and business aspects of start-ups. The findings hold implications for research, educational programmes, policy makers and entrepreneurs.

Zusammenfassung

The responsibility of industry towards society and the environment is a much discussed topic, both in academia and in business. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has recently emerged as a new concept with the potential to advance this discourse in light of two major challenges industry is facing today. The first relates to the accelerating race to innovate in order to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. The second concerns the need to maintain public trust in industry through innovations that generate social value in addition to economic returns. This Special Issue provides empirical and conceptual contributions that explore corporate motivations to adopt RRI, the state of implementation of concrete RRI practices, the role of stakeholders in responsible innovation processes, as well as drivers and barriers to the further diffusion of RRI in industry. Overall, these contributions highlight the relevance of RRI for firms of different sizes and sectors. They also provide insights and suggestions for managers, policymakers and researchers wishing to engage with responsibility in innovation. This editorial summarizes the most pertinent conclusions across the individual articles published in this Special Issue and concludes by outlining some fruitful avenues for future research in this spac

Zusammenfassung

Business incubators have been developed as a key component of entrepreneurial activities in countries all over Europe. These incubators have a non-profit or a for-profit profile, with one-third located in Germany. The increased engagement of private business in what was a public-dominated incubation landscape may influence established theoretical frameworks. Within this context, this paper analyses 11 German business incubators to look at the most common types of for-profit business incubators in Germany and their main characteristics. Moreover, it introduces classification criteria for these incubators. Another aspect of the analysis is the effect of the triple helix dimensions of the different incubation types. The results show that two additional types of incubators can be identified in addition to the traditional public business incubator model, namely ‘company builders’ and ‘accelerators’. Implications for research and practice, as well as directions for future research, are also discussed.   

Zusammenfassung

Despite being an established topic in research and practice for many years, the literature on idea management lacks a general model for corporate idea management programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop such a conceptual framework based on the findings of an extensive literature review. In addition, this paper presents an idea management guide that addresses important aspects of an idea management program. To simplify the guide's application for idea managers, it is summarized in a checklist. This paper can serve researchers with a state-of-the-art review and idea managers with a tool for building new idea management programs or reviewing existing ones in companies of different sizes and industries.

Zusammenfassung

Crowdfunding plays an important role as an alternative funding source for technology ventures. No earlier studies particularly investigated the importance of social interactions during such crowdfunding campaigns. Hence, we particularly take the interaction between the project owner and the community as well as among community members into account. We empirically investigated potential success factors for crowdfunding projects of entrepreneurs on the base of 430 projects from the German crowdfunding platform Visionbakery. Our results show that social interaction during a crowdfunding campaign indeed increases the likelihood of its success. As comments from crowd members on particular projects might be positive or negative and can also provide additional argumentation or raise questions, comments can cause a dialog among crowd members. This shows that herding might not only be related to the number of contributors but also to their shared attributes and perceptions. Our discussion of theoretical and managerial implications closes with recommendations for future research on this evolving topic.

Zusammenfassung

The means with which entrepreneurs create and capture value can be difficult to get a comprehensive picture of. Looking at the tools they use can offer insights, and in this context, the book “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries has received a tremendous amount of attention. Supposedly, many entrepreneurs have read the book and may have followed his advice. Hence, we investigate the merits and characteristics of the methods detailed by Ries through a comparison with leading theories and empirical evidence found in the scientific literature. The results indicate that overall the methods find considerable backing and can in parts be recognized under already established constructs. Heavy use of effectuation-logic is evident throughout the book, with a clear and explicit emphasis on experimentation over long-term planning. The paper closes with a discussion of the possible broader implications of the methods and effectuation, including the potential impact on corporate strategy.

Zusammenfassung

Literature on the champion theory proposes the informal character of the champion’s role and also notes difficulties in institutionalizing it. Nevertheless, formally institutionalized roles that seem to fit the description of a champion can be recognized in organizations, especially as enablers of open innovation activities. However, research cannot answer how this institutionalization occurs and which factors influence it. To answer these questions, we investigate a unique single case in which a champion role was institutionalized in the purchasing department of a multinational company. The new role’s task is to identify, select, and integrate supplier innovations. Our results indicate that the informal role of the champion can be successfully institutionalized when certain success factors are considered, which are management commitment, use of success stories, and matching of champions with research and development teams. We contribute to innovation management literature by using the well-established champion theory to explain how and why large multinational companies formally establish the role of the innovation champion. Our research offers pathways for further research about both, the antecedents and the consequences of role formalization. Practitioners can build on the success factors derived in this study when formally implementing innovation champions as enablers of open innovation activities.

Zusammenfassung

From research on Western new product development (NPD) practices a rich body of literature has emerged. However, the impact of country specific and cultural influences has not been examined in this context yet. This study is a first attempt to identify differences in NPD practices between Research and Development (R&D) subsidiaries in Germany, China and India within multinational companies. Data has been generated by qualitative interviews with R&D executives in those countries across multiple cases. The study samples strategic, organizational and operational aspects indicates definite differences in process coordination, rewarding systems, market orientation and the average age of NPD teams. Other aspects like strategic targets, the management involvement, etc. show rather slight differences across the countries. Hence, findings suggest that while some aspects are universally applicable across cultural frontiers, Western companies have to understand different expectations regarding NPD in India and China by adjusting practices accordingl

Zusammenfassung

Constraint-based innovations are innovations that are conceived under conditions of scarcity for resource-constrained markets, often referred to as Bottom of pyramid (BoP) marketplace. One such type of constraint-based innovation, frugal innovation (also the focus of this study) has played an impor- tant role in providing affordable and accessible products and services to the customers at BoP.This study examines one of the successful frugal innovations from the Indian financial sector called Vortex solar based transaction systems (commonly known as rural ATMs) and offers a comprehensive analysis on the incorporated bottom-up product development process and innovation drivers. Study highlights the nine specific innovative design features of these machines that were mainly designed based on core customer requirements and unique challenges. Analysis reveals the importance of cost effective, easy to operate and sustainable solutions for customers at BoP and also showcase how frugal innovations are also facilitating solutions to address larger societal problems. 

Zusammenfassung

This paper explores telecare as one of the practical applications in the field of e-health. Using 11 expert interviews the study evaluates development of cross-national analogies between the different institutional contexts of health systems in Germany, Austria, and Denmark. Telecare is treated as a set of ideas regarding future processes in health and home care services, involving technological solutions, starting to change stakeholders' behaviour, work practices, and social roles. A system-centric framework is proposed to evaluate the interdependencies between telecare, the changing relationships, and the institutional context. Complexity and documentation requirements were identified as major hindrances to the improvement of efficiency and quality of health outcomes in Austria and Germany. On the contrary, in Denmark, governmental guidance supporting patient-centered approaches was found to be driving socially innovative solutions. Implications for research and practice, as well as future research directions, are elaborate

Zusammenfassung

Um systematisch an neue und originelle Ideen zu kommen, sind Kreativitätstechniken ein wichtiger Bestandteil im Innovationsmanagement. Doch welche Techniken werden von Unternehmen in der Praxis eingesetzt, und für welche Arten von Fragestellungen? In der vorliegenden Studie wurde mittels einer quantitativen Erhebung untersucht, welche Techniken Unternehmen im deutschsprachigen Raum zu welchem Zweck nutzen und wie diese in den Arbeitsalltag eingebunden sind. Insgesamt nahmen 90 Mitarbeiter und Führungskräfte aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz an der Umfrage teil. Diese zielte insbesondere auf die Unterschiede zwischen kleinen, mittleren und großen Unternehmen ab. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Kreativitätstechniken in vielen Unternehmen einen festen Platz im Alltag haben, jedoch nur die Hälfte der Befragten schreibt dabei seinem Unternehmen viele Ideen und kreative Mitarbeiter zu. Die große Auswahl an Kreativitätstechniken führt offenbar zu Auswahlproblemen, weshalb klassische Techniken wie das Brainstorming oder das Brainwriting bei den Befragten am meisten und am regelmäßigsten genutzt werden. Dabei ist es bemerkenswert, dass die vorgestellten Kreativitätstechniken von allen befragten Abteilungen gleichermaßen eingesetzt werden. Der Artikel schließt mit Implikationen für Forschung und Praxis, sowie mit einem Ausblick auf zukünftige Forschung.   

Zusammenfassung

Why another book on innovation, and why use the big word “revolution”? The simple answer to this question is the fact that we believe the time is right to explore what could be the next phase of innovation management not only in corporate practice, but also in the academic fiel

Zusammenfassung

Entrepreneurial behavior research has used intention models to explain how an individual's beliefs shape the attitudes and motivations that influence entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, as entrepreneurship promotion initiatives become global, it becomes relevant to explore the consequences of being engaged in entrepreneurial behavior on entrepreneurial intention. We aim to shed light on whether the direct experience reinforces an individual's entrepreneurial intention or reduces it. Building on an extended version of the planned behavior theory, we use the behavioral reasoning theory to propose a research design to study the influence of being currently engaged in entrepreneurial behavior on entrepreneurial intention. We introduce individual's age as an additional moderator of the effects of directly experiencing entrepreneurial behavior. We use PLS-MGA to complete a multi-group SEM analysis for different groups of individuals (from a sample of 430), comparing groups based on their entrepreneurial activity and age group. Results of this research work evidence that current engagement in entrepreneurship activities produces significant differences in the intention to start a new venture between older and younger participants. The results suggest that engagement in entrepreneurial activity modifies entrepreneurial intention and that these effects are contingent to the individual's age. This research work contributes to the extant call to explore reverse causality between actual behavior and an individual's intention by introducing behavioral reasoning theory. These results provide support to initiatives to adapt entrepreneurship promotion efforts to the specific characteristics of the participants.

Zusammenfassung

What a change in the last three years in the realm of innovation Management! Three years ago, we concluded our book about “Evolution of Innovation Management” (Brem and Viardot 2013) by underlining some essential trends in the management of innovation. Most specifically, we stressed the importance of ambidexterity, which we defined as the ability of companies to realize exploration and exploitation simultaneously in their innovation management process. Some contributions in the book also emphasized the necessity to adopt a more collaborative process with external stakeholders and to move to more “open innovation” (Brau et al. 2013). Other authors underscored the burgeoning importance of platforms (Gawer 2014) and the nurturing of an innovation ecosystem (Thomas and Wind 2013) that federates and coordinates constitutive agents who can innovate and compete. The book had also singled out some key capabilities that innovative companies had to develop in order to be more successful, including the role of communication, culture, leadership, structure, and key performance indicator

Zusammenfassung

There is undoubtedly hype around drones and their applications for private and professional users. Based on a brief overview of the development of the drone industry in recent years, this article examines the co-evolution of drone technology and the entrepreneurial activity linked to it. Our results highlight the industry emergence described as concept validation, including product as well as market growth with different phases of technological meaning change. We argue that further steps are needed to develop drones from nice toys to professional tools—from photography and filming applications to inspection services and large cargo logistics. For innovation managers and entrepreneurs, we describe what triggers the emergence of a technology and attracts the needed actors to unleash its transformative potential. Our research is based on industry reports, news, and market studies as well as interviews with four industry actors.

Zusammenfassung

In recent decades, the developments of new media have revolutionized individuals’ behaviors tremendously. Mobile devices, in particular, have developed an ‘always and everywhere online’ mentality. But what comes next? Recent developments emphasize the rise of a new technology that is termed ‘Wearable Augmented Reality Devices’, where Augmented Reality Smart Glasses (such as Microsoft HoloLens or Google Glass) represent prominent examples. These technologies offer huge innovation potential for companies and societies, which are discussed in this article. By doing so, this paper provides managers and researchers an applied description of the technology and a discussion of how it differs from existing mobile and augmented reality technologies. Finally, insights are given into how these technologies may increase firm value and further change the behaviors of consumers and adopter

Zusammenfassung

Technology entrepreneurship is an established concept in academia. However, recent developments in the context of digital entrepreneurship call for revision and advance- ment. The multiple possible combinations of technology and entrepreneurship have resulted in a diversity of phenomena with significantly different characteristics and socio-economic impact. This article is focused on the identification and description of technology entrepreneurship in times of digitization. Based on current examples, we identify and describe characterizations of technology entrepreneurship, digital techno- logy entrepreneurship, and digital entrepreneurship. With this new delineation of terms, we would like to foster discussion between researchers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers on the impact of digitization on entrepreneurship, and set a future research agenda.

Zusammenfassung

In this paper, we study the commercialization choices of new firms entering in high-tech industries. Research on technology commercialization differentiates between the market for products and the market for ideas. We explore the determinants and consequences of the commercialization choice for these different markets. We test our hypotheses on longitudinal dataset of 453 new firms started in 2004 in different high-tech industries in the US. We find that that technology and human capital resources favor the adoption of alternative commercialization strategies; nevertheless, we do not observe significant differences in the venture emergence or survival likelihood. Our findings offer a closer view of the venture emergence process of new firms, clarifying the causes and consequences of the technology commercialization choices.

Zusammenfassung

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how relationships between different actors are being shaped to allow industry to come to acceptable and desirable uses of research and innovation (R&I) that address societal challenges. Design/methodology/approach: Building on existing notions of responsibility proposed in the literature, the paper develops a theoretical account of “networks of responsibility” which capture the interlinked nature of responsibility relationships. The usefulness of the approach is evaluated by exploring two cases of R&I in industry deploying a qualitative research approach that involves interviewing and document analysis. For this, a multinational company from Germany was involved, as well as a small- and medium-sized company from Denmark. Findings: The study surfaced 68 responsibility relationships involving a range of different objects, subjects, authorities and norms. By describing overlaps in objects, subjects and other aspects across relationships, the theoretical model proved adequate in untangling and displaying interrelatedness of responsibilities. Furthermore, the analysis surfaced characteristics of responsible research and innovation (RRI) that are already in place in the R&I processes of two innovative companies, such as anticipation, foresight and stakeholder engagement. Not all aspects of responsibility outlined in the theoretical model could be extracted from the interview data for every responsibility relationship, pointing to the need for further research. Practical implications: The paper is practically relevant because it supports policy development on an organisational, as well as societal level. Moreover, the networks of responsibility model offer a fine-grained assessment of responsibilities in R&I practice by mapping existing responsibilities which supports translating RRI principles into everyday organisational practices. Social implications: RRI sets an ambitious agenda to ensure a more social and ethical R&I. Much work is still needed to bridge the gap between these theoretical and political aspirations and daily R&I practice, especially in non-academic contexts such as industry. By offering a way to understand and untangle the complexity of responsibility relationships, the networks of responsibility model seem to offer a promising approach that can support this endeavour. Originality/value: The paper offers a novel theoretical approach to understanding and analysing responsibility allocations in R&I in industry. It demonstrates the reliability of this theoretical position empirically. It is practically important because it supports policy development on an organisational as well as societal leve

Zusammenfassung

Entrepreneurs aim at introducing innovations into the market, e.g., in the form of new products or services. However, innovations always mean changes, and people tend react reluctantly to changes. Moreover, introducing the innovations into the market is often linked with a higher investment risk. Thus, before ideas can become tangible reality, they first of all need to be "sold", for example, to supervisors, potential investors, and, finally, customers. For these reasons, it is particularly critical for entrepreneurs to have a charismatic way of speaking with which they can persuade others of their ideas. Against this background, we motivate and outline in this concept paper a new interdisciplinary line of research that focuses on the speaker's tone of voice. The new line of research builds upon traditional rhetorical descriptions of a speaker's charismatic tone of voice and is meant to extend and eventually replace this descriptive terminology by an objective acoustically based and perceptually informed tone-of-voice analysis, evaluation, and learning. We outline initial promising findings we have made within this new line of research, also in comparison to the established Charismatic Leadership Tactics (CLTs) whose focus is on the verbal aspects of charismatic speec

Zusammenfassung

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between open innovation and the use of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors consider patents, industrial designs (i.e. design patents in the USA), trademarks, and copyrights. Design/methodology/approach – The relationships between open innovation, IPRs, and profitability are tested with random-effects panel regressions on data from the Spanish Community Innovation Survey for 2,873 firms spanning the years 2008-2013. Findings – A key result is that SMEs do not benefit from open innovation or from patenting in the same way as larger firms. Furthermore, the results show that SMEs profit in different ways from IPR, depending on their size and the corresponding IPR. Research limitations/implications – The different impact of IPRs on the efficiency of open innovation in firms of varying sizes highlights the importance of further investigation into IP strategies and into open innovation in SMEs. Practical implications – Industrial designs are currently the most efficient IPR for SMEs to protect their intellectual property in open innovation collaborations. Depending on the company size, the use of different IPRs is recommended. Moreover, firms should seek to increase the efficiency of open innovation and the use of IPRs. Social implications – The high impact of SMEs on employment highlights the importance of fomenting efficient innovation processes in such firms. Originality/value – This paper opens the black box of IPR in relation to open innovation in SMEs, and draws distinctive conclusions with regards to patents, industrial designs, trademarks, and copyrights.

Zusammenfassung

Most academics and practitioner agree that design and business are interdependent and complementing. But in its application, differences appear. Hence, this article describes the frictions between design and business philosophy in practice by describing and discussing different approaches to creativity workshops, which usually are design's and business' starting and meeting point for intentional innovation. For this, seven distinctive areas for the planning and execution of creativity workshops are compared and discussed. Finally, our conclusion sums the potential of both views up for further research.

Zusammenfassung

We examine the relationships between entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs and orientations with their firms’ engagement in sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial actions, using a sample of 352 newly established businesses from two Asian countries (Bangladesh and Iran). Our results reveal a dual role of entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs and orientations when taking sustainability-oriented actions. We confirm that individual differences in the set of values, beliefs and orientations can foster or hinder the sustainability-oriented actions across organizations. Our paper contributes to the growing literature of sustainable entrepreneurship, by providing answers for recent calls for better understanding which entrepreneurial ventures engage more in sustainability-oriented action

Zusammenfassung

Prototyping can be seen as the heart of the innovation process. Typically, engineers and designers both work on prototyping activities, but their diverse backgrounds make for different perspectives on prototyping. Based on earlier literature, this study investigates commonalities and differences in the prototyping behavior of engineers and designers. For this study, semi-structured interviews and workshops with different experiments were conducted. Using low-fidelity prototypes, our results indicated that there are differences in the early phase of prototyping. Engineers focused on the features and functions of a prototype and needed to meet specific goals in order to push the process forward. Designers, on the other hand, used prototypes to investigate the design space for new possibilities, and were more open to a variety of prototyping materials and tools, especially for low-fidelity prototypes. In the later prototyping phases, the prototyping behaviors of engineers and designers became similar. Our study contributes to the understanding of prototyping purposes, activities, and processes across disciplines, and supports the management of prototyping in new product development processe

Zusammenfassung

Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model. Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model.vInternationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model. Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919617500050 Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model. Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919617500050 Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model. Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919617500050 Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model. Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919617500050 Internationalization is a hot topic in innovation management, whereby the phenomenon of “Born Globals” is still limited to research in the domains of Entrepreneurship and International Management. As business model design plays a key role for Born Globals, we link these two concepts. For this, we propose hypotheses about the influence of efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model design on international firm performance. To test these hypotheses, we performed a quantitative survey with 252 founders of international companies in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Additionally, we gained further insights through a case study analysis of 11 Born Globals. The results show that business model design matters to international firm performance and the business model design of Born Globals tends to be more efficiency-centered. Based on a multiple case study, we analyzed business models in a more sophisticated way and derived propositions that yielded in an archetype of a Born Global’s business model. Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1363919617500050

Zusammenfassung

Research on exploitation and exploration in firms has attracted a lot of attention in recent years; however, it seems to have an uneven spread because when it comes to the entrepreneur on an individual level, less research has been undertaken so far. This paper is based on an extensive literature review with a bibliographic analysis approach, in combination with a systematic content analysis. The results give an overview of research streams from an organisational and an individual level of analysis. Based on that, a conceptual framework is presented which links entrepreneurial orientation with entrepreneurial behaviour through a strategic learning process, facilitated through 'opening' and 'closing' behaviours in different organisational setups. This framework offers several avenues for further research, which seems so far to be quite segmented and macro-level oriented.

Zusammenfassung

We study the deinstitutionalization of a controversial practice that had previously reached a level of international diffusion. We draw on international diffusion and deinstitutionalization theory to study the emergence and diffusion of the third-party ownership practice in the soccer industry. We use an inductive case study combining archival and interview data to study the determinants of the international diffusion of a controversial practice at a global scale, the contestation, and finally the deinstitutionalization process that resulted from the ban of the practice. We find that the opacity of the practice can be a diffusion driver, locally and at the international level, nevertheless the opacity also may lead to different meaning creation attempts and potential discursive battles between actors, and eventually to deinstitutionalization of the practice. This article advances our understanding of how controversial practices fare in different institutional environments.

Zusammenfassung

New entrants in technology-intense industries are in a race to build legitimacy in order to compete with established players. Legitimacy has been identified as a driver of venture survival and growth; it helps mitigate third-party uncertainty and so facilitates access to resources, engagement with customers and other stakeholders. Nevertheless, we know little about how legitimacy is built and how new entrants build legitimacy in complex technology-intensive industries. In this research we explore how Norwegian cleantech firms use signaling and strategic actions to build legitimacy. We analyze five cases while investigating their actions in different phases of the venture's evolution. The results suggest that, contrary to signaling theory expectations, young clean-tech firms do not always build legitimacy by conveying information on their strengths. Instead, we observe that they use signaling strategies to address the specific concerns of different stakeholders. This is very much contingent upon the evolutionary stage of the venture and the firm's current weaknesses.

Zusammenfassung

Entrepreneurs often struggle to find sufficient funding for their start-ups. A relatively new way for companies to attract capital is via an internet platform, locating investors who in return receive something in return for their ventures. Equity crowdfunding is one of several types of crowdfunding, and is also known as crowdinvesting in the German-speaking realm. This article predominantly advances the scientific knowledge regarding the success factors of equity crowdfunding for German start-ups. The study conducted nine qualitative interviews with start-ups and crowdinvesting platforms. Its first result is that German start-ups select crowdinvesting because (1) it is a funding opportunity and (2) it has an expected marketing effect. To organize the results of relevant success factors, the Crowdinvesting Success Model was designed by the researchers. This supports German entrepreneurs by presenting 20 important success elements that help to increase the capital collected during a campaign. The key finding is that an attractive business model, an appropriate preparation in the pre-campaign period, ongoing activities during the campaign, and corresponding advertising activities have a positive impact on a German start-up's crowdinvesting campaign's chances of success. The article closes with implications for theory and practice, as well as further research suggestion

Zusammenfassung

An important and frequently researched concept in the field of open innovation is the integration of lead users into the process for developing innovative product concepts. Social media has offered promising new possibilities for companies in terms of supporting lead user integration. This paper provides an overview of relevant aspects of lead user research, as well as the identification of lead users. Furthermore, we connect lead user theory with social media and discuss possible ways to identify lead users. Based on the conclusion that existing research does not yet sufficiently provide a detailed understanding on identifying lead users in social media, we conducted an empirical study to gain deeper insights in the social media habits of lead users; this involved a case study comprising 20 interviews. This study’s findings present a rather ambivalent picture, concluding that identifying lead users via social media may work with some limitations. Social media can contribute complementary with established approaches like pyramiding to the identification of lead users, but it is not a standalone solution. It strongly depends on the content of the project and on the group of individuals where lead users should be originated. Based on these findings, we derive theoretical and managerial implications and show how companies can utilize social media in addition to established methods for identifying lead users. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of study limitations and recommendations for areas of further researc

Zusammenfassung

We examine the relationships between entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs and orientations with their firms’ engagement in sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial actions, using a sample of 352 newly established businesses from two Asian countries (Bangladesh and Iran). Our results reveal a dual role of entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs and orientations when taking sustainability-oriented actions. We confirm that individual differences in the set of values, beliefs and orientations can foster or hinder the sustainability-oriented actions across organizations. Our paper contributes to the growing literature of sustainable entrepreneurship, by providing answers for recent calls for better understanding which entrepreneurial ventures engage more in sustainability-oriented actions.

Zusammenfassung

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between open innovation and the use of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors consider patents, industrial designs (i.e. design patents in the USA), trademarks, and copyrights. Design/methodology/approach -- The relationships between open innovation, IPRs, and profitability are tested with random-effects panel regressions on data from the Spanish Community Innovation Survey for 2,873 firms spanning the years 2008-2013. Findings -- A key result is that SMEs do not benefit from open innovation or from patenting in the same way as larger firms. Furthermore, the results show that SMEs profit in different ways from IPR, depending on their size and the corresponding IPR. Research limitations/implications -- The different impact of IPRs on the efficiency of open innovation in firms of varying sizes highlights the importance of further investigation into IP strategies and into open innovation in SMEs. Practical implications -- Industrial designs are currently the most efficient IPR for SMEs to protect their intellectual property in open innovation collaborations. Depending on the company size, the use of different IPRs is recommended. Moreover, firms should seek to increase the efficiency of open innovation and the use of IPRs. Social implications -- The high impact of SMEs on employment highlights the importance of fomenting efficient innovation processes in such firms. Originality/value -- This paper opens the black box of IPR in relation to open innovation in SMEs, and draws distinctive conclusions with regards to patents, industrial designs, trademarks, and copyrights.

Zusammenfassung

Academic Spin-Offs (ASOs) are born with the mission to bring to market science and technology innovations. Nevertheless, their relative weak financial performance has been a focus of discussion. Prior research has explored factors that explain part of the performance diversity, including aspects related to the academic entrepreneur (e.g. human capital), organizational (e.g. team characteristics, board composition, network of partners), and institutional factors (e.g. university context, support mechanisms). We argue that the diversity of technologies that these firms are based on is an additional source of performance heterogeneity. Academic spin-offs transition from a research to a market context is complex. The technology novelty in ASOs generates a staged challenge for the academic entrepreneur. First, identifying a market and activating the first sale; second, generating a sustainable revenue stream that brings growth to the ASO. However, we have still a limited knowledge on the relationship between technology innovativeness and firm performance in the ASOs context. This study tests the relationship between innovativeness dimensions, across different industries, and the observed firm (ASOs) performance. A longitudinal sample, between 2000 and 2012, of 125 academic spin-offs of Norway provides valuable insights on how the origin and characteristics of the technology relates to differences in market performance. The results show how different dimensions of innovativeness have a different impact on ASOs’ market performance, offering a nuanced view of the relationship between innovativeness and performance in this context. The findings provide insights for policy makers and university managers interested in understanding the effects of their policy choices on academic spin-offs.

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Much has been discussed on the changing role of universities in society, in particular when examining the contribution of universities in the economic growth and societal development (Audretsch 2012). The transition from universities as research centers to universities as innovation drivers has left many co-existing models in place (Schmitz et al. 2016), making it difficult to identify and articulate valid response mechanisms to new societal challenges.The demand to respond to societal challenges contrasts with the research-focused nature of most of the universities, that has traditionally left the role of technology innovation and entrepreneurship to other agents. Thus, the function of science and technology commercialization has often required the activation of specific actors such as Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) linked to the government, universities, or research centers (Fitzgerald and Cunningham 2015). Prior research has identified the existent constraints to activate academic engagement, highlighting the distance between science and technology research activities with industry related innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives (Perkmann et al. 2013).An alternative path to respond to the divergence between the new demands imposed by the societal challenges and the existing science and technology development focus of universities is to transform the educational programs being offered. Instead of aiming to transform consolidated structures through directed interventions, such as entrepreneurship incentives for established researchers; the attention would be given on building the student’s skills and capabilities for technology entrepreneurship and innovation.To study this alternative path, we explore the case of two European universities. Prior research has observed, compared to the USA, that in the European context there have been additional challenges and difficulties for successful academic entrepreneurship in the form of university spin-offs (Fini et al. 2016). Therefore, the exploration of alternative paths or mechanisms to promote technology entrepreneurship could be particularly relevant. We identified the engineering programs of two universities based in France and Denmark, these two cases serve the purpose of identifying responses to the demand of activating science and technology education with a focus on activating science-based entrepreneurial activity.The two cases of science and technology entrepreneurship education (STEE) share common elements, for instance there are similarities on the overall design, content, pedagogical methods, learning environment, and intended learning outcomes. Nevertheless, each program has specific elements related to outcomes assessment and to their integration processes with the regional actors. A comparative analysis of the two cases provides insights on potential guidelines to structure programs that foster technology entrepreneurship through education and training.Both programs, one at Lorraine University (UL) in France and the other at University of Southern Denmark (SDU) in Denmark, were developed as a response to a strong demand in their region for professionals with an entrepreneurial mindset and engineering capacities. The regional actors see the universities as a collaborative partner for research and education in the field of science and technology. The strong connection with the region’s industry becomes an influencing factor on the design and implementation of the STEE. The overall theme for the pedagogical model in UL and SDU is organized around the student-subject-project triangle. Supporting problem-based learning is the preferred approach. In more detail, the DSMI model (acronym for Den Syddanske Model for Igeniøruddlannelser) used at SDU requires that students work on problems proposed by companies in the region during their studies, introducing company visits and participation of company employees as guest lectures as part of the regular course activities.The development of attitudes towards entrepreneurial behavior is also activated through internal projects. For instance, as part of a master program, engineering students enroll in a business venturing course (the course receives different names in each institution), where researchers from the university pitch their ongoing projects, involving the TTO if necessary, to the students. The course offers a safe environment to put in practice technology commercialization practices through a real case exercise; although the learning outcomes of the course are focused on analyzing and applying methods, the real-life outcomes have been the creation of student-lead start-ups in the region.A significant catalyzer of the technology entrepreneurship education for both programs has been the creation of a specific learning environment. In the case of UL it has been the creation of Lorraine Fab Living Lab, and at SDU the Innovation Lab facility. These innovation spaces become a centerpiece of the training programs as they have different properties compared to other engineering or research labs. Instead of replicating industry labs at a smaller scale, they are a tangible representation of the often-abstract entrepreneurship process. The intense use of these facilities in the educational programs aim to modify the self-efficacy perception of the students regarding the entrepreneurial behavior.The aim of this paper is to provide illustrative examples that can be used as a guide to propose alternative paths to activate technology entrepreneurship. The cases of the engineering programs at two European universities are used to identify the common and specific elements that configure a response to the societal demands to the universities.

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Collaboration between universities and their local stakeholders is becoming a key success factor for the growth of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. Efficient energy solutions are often facing challenges in innovation diffusion, which is in contrast to the growing demand for providing answers to key ecological problems. In order to present how an efficient Triple Helix collaboration could foster and support niche innovations, an applied research project is introduced. This unique university-industry-government cooperation brings a students' idea to a proof-of-concept project thus covers the entire innovation process. The selected case offers insights of how and why such initiative could emerge, as well as discusses its implications for future technological innovations and in particular those that are about to emerge in regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. Networking, win-win-situations as well as a strong problem orientation were identified as key success factors which may accelerate efficient future Triple Helix collaboration and cooperation for ensuring a higher innovation diffusion succes

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Purpose Networking and being a part of an established business network supports the process of translating new ideas into marketable solutions and acquiring customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how aspiring entrepreneurs in a Danish rural area setting manage to get embedded into relevant business networks. Before the literature background on social capital and regional development, the authors use the embeddedness approach in explaining whether weak or strong ties are most beneficial to get the business started and how lacking strong ties can be compensated. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes an economic sociology perspective on social capital and is empirically based on a case study. The sample consists of a group of young aspiring entrepreneurs, living in the rural area of Southern Jutland, who are all committed to an organization which supports regional start-ups. Findings The authors found that aspiring entrepreneurs have different needs depending on their development status and type of innovation. Founders, who are developing or have developed new product innovations, seem to have an increased need for “strong ties” with consultants and those with knowledge about building up a professional network. Founders, who are developing or have developed a significantly improved service, have strong ties with former fellow students and researchers at the university. Originality/value This study illustrates that aspiring entrepreneurs connected to a regional entrepreneurship center gained access to a wider relevant network. Depending on their level of embeddedness, they could build new strong relationships and exploit information stemming from new “weak ties” and as such harness more benefits. The study shows that less privileged start-ups can substitute strong ties, especially through the support of professional managers of startup-supporting organizations. Finally, a model explaining the impact of social capital on the entrepreneurial sphere of regional business networks and on its innovativeness is deduced.  

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What drives entrepreneurial action to create a lasting impact? The creation of new ventures that aim at having an impact beyond their financial performance face additional challenges: achieving economic sustainability and at the same time addressing social or environmental issues (Dean & McMullen 2007). These so-called hybrid organizations try to be congruent with their blended values, despite being under external pressure in the process of maturing the new venture (Mcmullen & Warnick 2016). This research explores not only the initial motivations of the entrepreneur as potential influence on the ventures’ blended values, but also the source of finance. A dataset of 4,125 early-stage ventures (Entrepreneurship Database Program; Emory University) has been explored to gain insights into how entrepreneurs' motives and external financing sources could influence on the impact dimensions being addressed. Social motives were found to go along with social impact targets. The results seem to support a resource dependence perspective (Drees & Heugens 2013): the more early-stage ventures rely on philanthropic support as an external funding source, the stronger they appear oriented towards social or environmental impact dimensions – thus they may have been willing to adapt their initial goals to match with different donors’ expectations. In the case of social impact ambitions, increasing profit margin targets and venture age have a negative effect on the prevalence of blended values. The research results hold implications for entrepreneurs and institutions interested in promoting new ventures with blended values.

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The key question of this paper is which components have to be considered when transforming an organisation into a learning organisation that attracts and retains the new generation of employees. To answer this question, a conceptual framework is developed, based on an extensive literature review. Additionally, the authors introduce how Adidas, as one of the world's top sports brands, is managing such a transformation. Data were gained from direct observations of the project on-site and expert meetings, as well as from analysis of internal company documents. This results in an extension of the conceptual framework by adding case specific characteristics. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to deliver a model that can be used as an orientation in today's corporate environment to follow all steps of the learning transformation in proper sequence and to consider all relevant elements. One finding is that companies have to be aware of the demands of new learners, which needs to be a leading principle for companies that implement a learning transformation. In subsequent processes, the organisation has to create clear objectives, implement a suitable corporate culture and establish learning spaces, followed by launching and promoting all the various ways of learnin

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Academic Spin-Offs are given the mission to bring to society science and technology innovations. Nevertheless, the relative weak financial performance of these firms has recently been a focus of discussion. Prior research has explored factors that might explain the performance diversity, including aspects related to the academic entrepreneur (e.g. human capital), organizational (e.g. team characteristics, board composition, network of partners) and institutional factors (e.g. university context, support mechanisms). An under studied potential source of heterogeneity is the diversity of technologies that these firms are based on. Research has established that academic spin-offs exhibit a wide range of technologies, that novel technologies lead to the creation of new firms and that these firms are more innovative compared to their corporate counterparts. However, there is limited knowledge testing the relationship between innovativeness and firm performance. This study tests the relationship between innovativeness across different industries and future firm performance. This paper uses several market performance indicators to observe the variety of firm sales of academic spin-offs. A longitudinal sample, between 2000 and 2012, of 125 academic spin-offs of Norway provides valuable insights on how the origin of the technology impact differences in market performance. The results show how specific elements related to the ASOs’ product innovativeness contribute to its market performance. The findings provide insights for policy makers and university managers interested in understanding the effects of their policy choices on the underlying technological nature of academic spin-offs.

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The emergence of cleantech industry offers a unique context to explore and developentrepreneurship theories. Cleantech ventures are important agents of environmental innovation,they exploit technological knowledge contribute to an increased use of energy from renewablesources or to a more environmentally friendly handling of waste. They represent an extreme case oftechnology entrepreneurship: combining a strong focus on capital-intensive technologies withcomplex industrial markets.Cleantech ventures face greater firm and industry-level legitimacy challenges while accessingexternal resources, compared to high-tech ventures operating in more established (legitimized)industries. Zimmermann and Zeitz (2002) suggested that achieving a legitimacy threshold is relatedto the emergence of a new venture. However, from the stage-based theory perspective, gaininglegitimacy is associated with overcoming critical junctures (Vohora et al. 2004). Instead of a uniquethreshold, cleantech ventures might have to build and sustain legitimacy across different stages,overcoming legitimacy thresholds (Fisher et al. 2016). Our study examines how cleantech venturespursue the process of signaling towards external parties to reach important entrepreneurialmilestones in different development stages. We address the following research questions: • Whyand how do the cleantech ventures signal to gain legitimacy, and • What signals do they send in thestart-up and growth (late) stages?MethodologyWe use a multiple case-study of five cleantech firms. The selected companies started in Norway,but operate internationally, as evidence of the global nature of this emerging industry. We havecarried out personal in-depth interviews with the CEOs of the five ventures (signal senders) using asemi-structured interview guide in the spring 2016, and collected secondary data on the firms.Results and ImplicationsOur findings describe the motivations and distinctive characteristics of the signaling actions.Cleantech ventures pursue several parallel signaling strategies, shifting from resources to customers’acquisition. Furthermore, as cleantech ventures issue multiple signals to external partiessimultaneously, consistency and complementarity between the signals amplifies the positive effecton the firm’s legitimacy. We identify direct signals that reveal qualities of the firm, and derivativesignals that help to conceal perceived weaknesses. For cleantech entrepreneurs, having a focus ondirect signaling on how the technology performs and its market potential seems to be a more fruitfulstrategy than signaling the environmental impact of technology in the early stage. While having anexperienced board helps to issue derivative signals to conceal the limited reputation of the foundingteam.

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Um systematisch an neue und originelle Ideen zu kommen, sind Kreativitätstechniken ein wichtiger Bestandteil im Innovationsmanagement. Doch welche Techniken werden von Unternehmen in der Praxis eingesetzt, und für welche Arten von Fragestellungen? In der vorliegenden Studie wurde mittels einer quantitativen Erhebung untersucht, welche Techniken Unternehmen im deutschsprachigen Raum zu welchem Zweck nutzen und wie diese in den Arbeitsalltag eingebunden sind. Insgesamt nahmen 90 Mitarbeiter und Führungskräfte aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz an der Umfrage teil. Diese zielte insbesondere auf die Unterschiede zwischen kleinen, mittleren und großen Unternehmen ab. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Kreativitätstechniken in vielen Unternehmen einen festen Platz im Alltag haben, jedoch nur die Hälfte der Befragten schreibt dabei seinem Unternehmen viele Ideen und kreative Mitarbeiter zu. Die große Auswahl an Kreativitätstechniken führt offenbar zu Auswahlproblemen, weshalb klassische Techniken wie das Brainstorming oder das Brainwriting bei den Befragten am meisten und am regelmäßigsten genutzt werden. Dabei ist es bemerkenswert, dass die vorgestellten Kreativitätstechniken von allen befragten Abteilungen gleichermaßen eingesetzt werden. Der Artikel schließt mit Implikationen für Forschung und Praxis, sowie mit einem Ausblick auf zukünftige Forschung.

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Crisis situations are special situations during the development process. They are characterized by time and handling pressure. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and apply a methodical problem solving approach to overcome these situations. Due to their prescriptive character, problem solving approaches reduce the problem identification time and increase the efficiency of crisis management. The goal of this research is to identify methods which are able to support the crisis management process successfully. Therefore, a literature-based analysis of developing methods, especially TRIZ is conducted. Regarding the main steps of problem solving, evaluation criteria are identified and considered. This bases on standardized method descriptions and is evaluated by criteria regarding training effort, usability, time, quality of solutions, required resources, and effort for application by 12 TRIZ users and experts. Result of this research is a situation specific approach for crises. The evaluated methods are clustered considering the main steps of problem solving. Results indicate that TRIZ methods support especially the idea generation process with structured and detailed approache

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This paper builds upon the widely-used resource- based approach to explaining survival of new technology-based firms (NTBFs). However, instead of looking at the NTBF's initial resource configuration, a process-oriented perspective is taken by focusing on the entrepreneur's ability to transform resources in response to triggers resulting from market interactions. Transaction relations reflect these interactions and are thus operationalized with a suggested method for measuring the status of venture emergence (VE) applicable to early-stage NTBFs. NTBFs' value network maturity is reflected in the number and strength of their transaction relations in the four market dimensions customer, investor, partner, and human resource. Business plans of NTBFs represent the artifact that contains this data in the form of transaction relation descriptions. Using content analysis, a multi-step combined human and computer coding process has been developed to annotate and classify transaction relations from business plans in order to empirically determine NTBFs' status of VE. Results of the business plan analysis suggest that the level of transaction relations allows to draw conclusions on the VE status. Moreover, applying the developed process, first analysis of a business plan coding test shows that the transaction relation based VE status significantly relates to NTBF survival capability

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We use international diffusion, deinstitutionalization, and power theory to explain the diffusion and ban of the third-party ownership (TPO) practice in the soccer industry. We use an inductive case study combining archival and interview data to identify the mechanisms that lead to the diffusion, but also to the contestation and deinstitutionalization of TPO. The results suggest that the practice evolution can be explained as a process of layered escalation. Regardless of the economic benefits for the stakeholders that supported the diffusion of the practice, their nested position restricts their access and influence to the dominant stakeholders on the later stages, explaining the deinstitutionalization of an internationally diffused practice.

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The former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was one of the most charismatic speakers of the past decades. However, there is, as yet, no detailed quantitative profile of his way of speaking. We used state-of-the-art computer techniques to acoustically analyze his speech behavior and relate it to reference samples. Our paper provides the first-ever acoustic profile of Steve Jobs, based on about 4000 syllables and 12,000 individual speech sounds from his two most outstanding and well-known product presentations: the introductions of the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. Our results show that Steve Jobs stands out against our reference samples in almost all key features of charisma, including melody, loudness, tempo and fluency, and he produced significant quantitative differences when addressing customers and investors in his speeches. Against this background, we provide specific advice on how to improve a speaker’s charismatic impact. We conclude with describing how further technological advances will move computers and behavioral characteristics like human speech even closer together.

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and innovation are common keywords in management research and practice. Both of them are understood in different ways. To discover the boundaries of CSR and innovation, this paper sheds light on the traditional view of CSR, with a focus on its (CSR) integration into the corporate strategy and its linkages to innovation. On the basis of a systematic literature review, a conceptual framework is developed. This framework categorises socio-political stakeholders and identifies other relevant stakeholders on the basis of a theoretical typology. Finally, dialogue strategies are examined regarding their fit within the corporate innovation process. In this regard, stakeholder collaboration is suggested as the appropriate strategy of engaging strategically significant stakeholders. The paper concludes with implications, limitations and further research suggestion

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University Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) have become a well-established tool for universities to manage the commercialization of scientific knowledge. An important task for many TTOs is to facilitate the creation and development of academic spin-off firms. Nevertheless, while university support mechanisms in general are positively related to the creation of new ventures (Fini et al. 2009), TTOs' contributions to commercialization and spin-off foundation seem to be marginal and indirect (Muscio 2010, Clarysse et al. 2011). This paper adds to the debate on TTOs' raison d'être by looking at the long term performance of spin-offs reported by Norwegian TTOs and considering the ‘additionality effect' and specific contribution of the TTO to each spin-off. Prior studies addressing this phenomenon have attempted to examine TTOs' influence with quantitative measures of technology-transfer success. For example, in the U.S. researchers have observed that TTOs could be positively associated with the number of disclosures, patents, licenses, royalties, and start-ups (Siegel et al. 2002, Carlsson and Fridh 2002, Friedman and Silberman 2003). Similarly, in Italy it has been observed that TTO's staff can have a positive effect on the valorization of research results (Piccaluga et al. 2007, Algieri et al. 2011). At the same time, another research stream, suggests that TTOs are just another administrative barrier (Hülsbeck et al. 2011), and negatively effect on technology commercialization efforts (Kenney and Patton 2009). Having limited capabilities to support entrepreneurship and business development activities (Link et al. 2014, Lockett and Wright 2005, Markman et al. 2004). This paper explores the expected additionality effect of Norwegian TTOs in technology commercialization, in terms of the quality of the spin-off firms they nurture. We propose that since Norwegian TTOs are still relatively young and inexperienced, they might not have a limited direct additionality on academic entrepreneurship. However, we expect that additionality effects would come from other specific competencies, such as entrepreneurial experience and active industry partners. Another contribution of our paper is to depict how the TTO has been contributing on key activities(e.g. business development, incubation, networking, funding, IP protection, etc.) related to the birth and development of firms. We suggest that both the degree and type of contribution differ depending on spin-offs characteristics. We answer the research questions by combining cross-sectional and panel data on a sample of 155 spin-off firms that have been established with support from TTOs connected to universities and research institutes in Norway. We analyze spin-off founders' perceptions about the degree and type of contribution of the TTO to firm creation in relation to the growth and market performance of the venture. Associations between TTOs' productivity (number of spinouts) and the performance of the firms they nurture are also tested. Our paper contributes to the stream of literature related to the role of TTOs in technology commercialization and economic development, with important implications to innovation and entrepreneurship policies as well.

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Understanding the influence of resources on the new firm's growth remains a difficult challenge for scholars. Prior research has suggested that the impact of human capital or technological resources is limited and does not provide an explanation on why some new firms grow faster than others. In this research we propose to explore the complementary and substitution effects between these resources using Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) Dataset. We also introduce market resources to further understand the influence dynamics of resources in early stage growth. We follow the evolution of a sample of firms in a high tech industry to test our hypotheses. The results show that besides the direct effects of human, technological and market resources, it is the complementary and substitution effects across them that provides additional valuable information to understand their impact on new firm's growth

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Recent developments in the global economy indicate that new product development (NPD) activities are not limited to any single country; rather, they have spread across nations and cultures. This study aims to increase the understanding of NPD through an intercultural analysis by comparing innovation processes in Germany and China. Our study relates NPD and Hofstede's cultural dimensions by identifying culture-based patterns of similarities and differences between German and Chinese practices related to strategic, organisational, and operational factors. The research subjects are five international companies with research and development sites of the same business section in Germany and China. The findings reveal both culture-dependent and culture-independent factors. Most of the strategic and organisational factors in the two countries are relatively similar because of site-spanning corporate cultures, but there are differences between the countries with regard to idea generation and managemen

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Based on the prosodic features of charisma that have been identified in previous prosodic studies, we provide the first-ever acoustic profiles of Steve Jobs' and Mark Zuckerberg's business speeches, . We analyzed a sample of about 45 minutes from iPhone/iPad or "F8" presentations. Our results show that Jobs and Zuckerberg both stand out against a reference sample of ordinary speakers from the prosodic literature. However, Jobs stands out even more and thus significantly differs from Zuckerberg in almost all prosodic parameters that are known from previous studies to be associated with charisma. In addition, both CEOs produced significant differences differed between the customer-oriented and investor-oriented sections of their speeches, albeit mostly in opposite directions. In summary, we show that the prosodic features of charisma in political speeches also apply to business speeches. Consistent with the public opinion, our findings are indicative of Steve Jobs being a more charismatic speaker than Mark Zuckerberg. Beyond previous studies, our data suggest that rhythm and emphatic accentuation are also involved in conveying charisma. Furthermore, the differences between Jobs and Zuckerberg and the investor- and customer-related sections of their speeches support the modern understanding of charisma as a gradual, multiparametric, and context-sensitive concept.

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The uptake of solutions that increase energy efficiency is significantly lower for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is due to several barriers, among which legislation, motivation, finance and other resources play a large role. In this paper, we describe a framework of market readiness and use it to assess the asymmetry between existing solutions and opportunities in the market. The aim is to identify which steps can be taken in order to introduce more energy optimizations into SMEs, and who should be taking those steps. More specifically, we explore how four Danish SMEs, in different parts of the value chain in the food processing industry, view energy efficiency improvements, focusing on the potential reuse of waste heat, along with what they consider important for taking on such projects. The findings show that while the companies operate very differently, they share common motivations and barriers when it comes to energy efficiency. Based on these findings, this paper argues that the biggest advancements are not to be made within the SMEs, but partly through the legislation that affects the financial benefits of energy improvement solutions, and through the marketing approach that solution suppliers take towards their potential customers when addressing the inherently individual needs of SME

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Firms around the world are eager to replicate the successes of enterprises that have established innovation labs in California's Silicon Valley. An analysis of four leading US companies that have set up idea incubators in the Valley—Xerox, Apple, Google, and Cisco—point to eight factors for success in establishing an innovative environment: carefully considering the decision to set up such a center, hiring the right people, designing a framework for effective output, creating a buffer from bureaucratic distractions, securing a leader to champion the effort, focusing on business outcomes, fostering disruptive over incremental innovation, and being patient. Regardless of where an innovation hub is established, the key to success lies in hiring creative, intrinsically motivated staff and then giving them the freedom to do what they do bes

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how Nespresso achieved competitive advantage through innovation by changing the rules of the game in its industry. Design/methodology/approach – Nespresso was analyzed based on public available secondary data, in combination with related academic concepts on innovation and competitive advantage. Findings – The company succeeded by the thorough application of a strategy that, through perfect alignment, allowed the company to reach a unique market position. However, as described in the case, it took a relatively long time and the company came close to failure several times. Before the current situation of the company, it remains challenging in the future as well. Hence, the Nespresso story provides interesting space for discussion and learning about what innovation is, how innovation emerges, and under which circumstances innovation can serve as a source for competitive advantage. Research limitations/implications – Especially given the current market situation, the case offers different starting points for discussion about innovation and long-term company success. Practical implications – Especially before the current market situation, the case offers different starting points for discussion about innovation and the success of a company on the long term. The case is designed to give practitioners a better understanding on what an innovation as, and how competitive advantages can be linked to innovation. Originality/value – This case of Nespresso is a unique combination of the concepts of innovation and competitive advantage. It serves as an example of an innovation, which was not successful from the scratch, but evolved over time and is still developing. As many innovations went through such a non-linear process, this case offers interesting lessons learned for academics as well as for practitioners.

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Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to describe how Nespresso achieved competitive advantage through innovation by changing the rules of the game in its industry. Design/methodology/approach -- Nespresso was analyzed based on public available secondary data, in combination with related academic concepts on innovation and competitive advantage. Findings -- The company succeeded by the thorough application of a strategy that, through perfect alignment, allowed the company to reach a unique market position. However, as described in the case, it took a relatively long time and the company came close to failure several times. Before the current situation of the company, it remains challenging in the future as well. Hence, the Nespresso story provides interesting space for discussion and learning about what innovation is, how innovation emerges, and under which circumstances innovation can serve as a source for competitive advantage. Research limitations/implications -- Especially given the current market situation, the case offers different starting points for discussion about innovation and long-term company success. Practical implications -- Especially before the current market situation, the case offers different starting points for discussion about innovation and the success of a company on the long term. The case is designed to give practitioners a better understanding on what an innovation as, and how competitive advantages can be linked to innovation. Originality/value -- This case of Nespresso is a unique combination of the concepts of innovation and competitive advantage. It serves as an example of an innovation, which was not successful from the scratch, but evolved over time and is still developing. As many innovations went through such a non-linear process, this case offers interesting lessons learned for academics as well as for practitioners.

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This paper broadens the resource-based approach to explaining survival of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) by focusing on the entrepreneur's ability to transform resources in response to triggers resulting from market interactions. Network theory is used to define a construct that allows determining the status of venture emergence (VE).The operationalization of the VE construct is built on the firm's value network maturity in the four market dimensions customer, investor, partner, and human resource. Business plans of NTBFs represent the artifact that contains this data in the form of transaction relation descriptions. Using content analysis, a multi-step combined human and computer coding process has been developed to empirically determine NTBFs' status of VE.Results of the business plan analysis suggests that the level of transaction relations allows to draw conclusions on the status of VE. Moreover, applying the developed process, a business plan coding test shows that the transaction relation based VE status significantly relates to NTBFs' survival capabilities.

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Setting technology standards is the route to market growth and to potentially influencing the performance of a whole industry. When a market accepts a particular technology as one that defines the specifications for products in the entire industry, a dominant design is set. In this article, we investigate how the existence of a dominant design affects subsequent innovation in an industry. In particular, we study the influence on innovative performance, radical innovation, and process innovation. Analyzing longitudinal, cross-sectional patent data for more than 2.6 million patents filed from 1978 to 2013, we find support for our hypotheses that an industry's innovative performance and degree of radical innovation are negatively influenced by dominant design in that industry, and that process innovation is fostered by the occurrence of a dominant design. We discuss the findings in the light of the increasing speed of technological development and standardization. Additionally, results from a sensitivity analysis for different threshold values of dominant design call for adjusting a binary definition of dominant design with different threshold values depending on the effects under stud

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Crowdfunding represents an alternative way of funding entrepreneurial ventures – and is attracting a high amount of interest in research as well as practice. Against this background, this paper analyzes reward-based crowdfunding campaign strategies and their communication tools. To do this, 446 crowdfunding projects were gathered and empirically analyzed. Three different paths of successful crowdfunding projects could be identified and are described in detail. Practical implications of crowdfunding strategies are derived, and are dependent on the required sales effort and the project added value. The terms communicator, networker and self-runner are created for this crowdfunding strategy and filled with practical examples. This paper contributes to the literature in different ways: first, it sheds more light on the developing concept of crowdfunding, with an overview of current academic discussions on crowdfunding. Furthermore, the analysis of success factors for crowdfunding initiatives adds to an emerging area of research and allows entrepreneurs to extract best practice examples for increasing the probability of successful crowdfunding projects under consideration of the key influencing factors of communicatio

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Three studies examined the influence of type of scale on self-relevant judgments and the moderating role of age, prevention, focus, and need for cognition. Participants were randomly assigned to a bipolar or a unipolar scale condition in all three studies. Results from study 1 with a representative sample of the adult population of Mexico showed that participants evaluated themselves more positively on a bipolar than a unipolar scale. Age did not moderate this relationship. Results from studies 2 and 3 also showed a significant influence of type of scale on self-relevant judgments. Prevention, focus and need for cognition did not moderate the relationship between type of scale and self-relevant judgments. The theoretical and applied implications of our results were discusse

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Setting technology standards is the route to market growth and to potentially influencing the performance of a whole industry. When a market accepts a particular technology as one that defines the specifications for products in the entire industry, a dominant design is set. In this article, we investigate how the existence of a dominant design affects subsequent innovation in an industry. In particular, we study the influence on innovative performance, radical innovation, and process innovation. Analyzing longitudinal, cross-sectional patent data for more than 2.6 million patents filed from 1978 to 2013, we find support for our hypotheses that an industry's innovative performance and degree of radical innovation are negatively influenced by dominant design in that industry, and that process innovation is fostered by the occurrence of a dominant design. We discuss the findings in the light of the increasing speed of technological development and standardization. Additionally, results from a sensitivity analysis for different threshold values of dominant design call for adjusting a binary definition of dominant design with different threshold values depending on the effects under stud

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Creativity is a vibrant field of scientific research with important applied implications for the management of innovation. In this article, we argue that the proliferation of creativity research has led to positive and less positive outcomes and discuss five relevant research themes. We first introduce our readers to the different proposed dimensions of a creative object. Next, we explain recent developments on the level of the creativity magnitude issue. Based on that, we review how researchers currently operationalize creativity. After discussing how creativity is conceptualized and operationalized, we outline how it might be enhanced. Finally, we present an overview of the wide variety of methodological approaches currently used in creativity research. We close by calling for more interdisciplinary research and offering other suggestions for future directions.

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Through a multiple case study based on interviews with radio editorial staff, this ar- ticle provides insights in the selection process for the use of new songs in German radio broadcasting. Radio editors learn about new songs through different chan- nels, the intensity of the information search depends on the station's size and re- sources. Several criteria for new song adoption have been identified, including: con- gruence with format, usage by competitive stations, evaluations by radio consul- tancy.

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Multi-cultural teams are seen as a wellspring of creativity and innovativeness. Yet, we still miss an in-depth study of their potential and challenges during the innovation process in firms. This is a serious omission as many international firms are in need of improving their global innovation position by the inclusion of insights from team members of different nationalities with knowledge about markets and culture. To derive first insights, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative study in a large global company with 70 personal interviews in five innovation teams over a period of two years. These data, based on semistructured interviews, provide us with rich information about effects of cultural diversity in teams in the innovation process. Data were analysed through a thematic network analysis and two coders inductively forming categories. Results indicate that cross-cultural teams have a high potential of creativity, but are confronted with difficulties arising from different working- and communication styles which have to be proactively managed from the beginning. While progressing, teams learn to cope with this diversity related to some more surface-level cultural dimensions and members even align. Yet, diversity of power distance induces conflicts that deeply impact the innovation process. Based on these findings, we develop a set of propositions, which lead into a conceptual model on the effects of multi-cultural team work on creativity and innovation. Finally, we discuss further implications for research and practice.