Rok 2008
Aage T, Belussi F (2008) From Fashion to Design: Creative Networks in Industrial Districts. Industry and
Innovation 15:475-491
Creative industries enjoy a great deal of attention in Western economies these
days. Creative industries can be identified in sectors producing new artistic artefacts, such as those occurring
in the film industry, or in the performing arts, etc., or in the manufacturing and service sectors, where the
implementation of novelties is at the heart of the productive capabilities of firms. Post-modern consumption
is strongly characterized by fashion, because it assists the fragmentation and an "aestheticization'' of daily
life. Fashion goods become symbolic relational goods, status symbols, means of communication of identity
and aesthetic satisfaction. Our research topics concern: firstly, a theoretical discussion on the evolution of
fashion, which has moved from a top-down model (as envisaged by the class-conscious approach of
Simmel) to a bottom-up model, as described in the post-modernist approach by Lipovetsky; secondly, a
theoretical reflection on the business model adopted by firms to deal with the issue of designing new
products, which is often related to the building of external-to-the-firm creative networks; thirdly, a
theoretical discussion on the model of an industrial district, seen here as an efficient organizational tool very
efficient to deal with the circulation and external absorption of knowledge and fashion trend information.
District firms, using a multiplicity of fashion sources, are able to increase their probability of selecting the
winning fashion trends, and to reduce their probability of "not-knowing'' the winning fashion trends. We
present some empirical evidence showing that a complex governance of several fashion sources is required
to intercept fashion trends. Fashion emerges in a chaotic environment, as a bottom-up recursive process,
partially controlled by fashion firms that scan external information sources and build some
interpretative/creative capability developed together with external-to-the-firm agents. Our work uses some
empirical data collected through a survey based in the industrial district of Montebelluna, localized in
northern Italy, in Treviso. In Montebelluna, several important international producers of sport shoes and
sport items are located. Qualitative interviews were conducted during 2004-2005 involving 13 final firms
(some of them are leading firms) and 11 designers.
Abdullah S, Muhammad A (2008) The Development of Entrepreneurship in Malaysia: State-led Initiatives.
Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:101-116
The aim of this paper is to explore the
entrepreneurship development in Malaysia and analyze the trends in the development of the field. It looks
into the economic and industrial activities from independence up to year 2005, which are categorized into
four phases according to Malaysia's first major government policy, the "New Economic Policy (NEP)". The
first phase refers to the period before the introduction of the NEP; the second is the first half of the NEP
period; the third is the second half of the NEP era; and the fourth is the period after the NEP era. From the
third phase onwards, entrepreneurship activities were carried out rather aggressively, particularly with the
initiation of the government-supported and government-protected national automotive industry. Many
enterprises were established as suppliers of parts and components to the national manufacturer under
government assistance programs. The following phase put emphasis on technology in most entrepreneurial
endeavors. The four phases had different foci of industrialization, but they were similar in terms of initiative,
which was to become state led. The initiation of Malaysia's pioneer industrial project, the automotive
industry, spurred the growth of firms and provided the gateway for the acquisition of relevant technological
knowledge, technical skills, and entrepreneurial talent. Thus, this paper postulates that a new trend has
emerged in the field of entrepreneurship in Malaysia as a result of the state-led industrialization effort.
Abecassis-Moedas C, Ben Mahmoud-Jouini S (2008) Absorptive capacity and source-recipient
complementarity in designing new products: An empirically derived framework. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:473-490 Numerous publications are dedicated to absorptive capacity and new
product development (NPD). Most are centered on the recipient team, and very few consider the effects of
the source team knowledge characteristics on the knowledge absorption and the NPD performance. This
paper analyzes the type of the external knowledge sourced from outside the organization and the process
through which it is used by the recipient firm and the effect on NPD performance. This is done through a
specific type of source team knowledge, the design, and through the NPD process in industries (clothing and
construction) where it plays a key role. NPD cases were analyzed and clustered in three categories of design
absorption processes. From these categories, a conceptual framework of the source-recipient knowledge
complementarity and its impact on the NPD performance is proposed. The main result is that the
complementarity between the recipient and the source knowledge is a critical aspect of the absorption
process and therefore of the NPD performance. From a managerial perspective, this research highlights the
role of design in the NPD process and how the combination of design knowledge with prior knowledge
(marketing or technological) is related to NPD performance.
Abrunhosa A, Sa PME (2008) Are TQM principles supporting innovation in the Portuguese footwear
industry? Technovation 28:208-221
The relationship between total quality management (TQM) and
innovation is complex. Literature suggests that conflicting arguments exist and that the impact of TQM on
innovation depends both on the specific quality management elements under consideration and on the type
of innovation. In this research, our goal is to analyse at what extent the introduction of TQM is indeed
supporting innovation in the Portuguese footwear industry. Since this is a mature industry, whose traditional
competitive base is disappearing and where familiar to medium units dominate, our emphasis is on the study
of the organisational requirements to adopt constant changes in process technology. This study is based on
empirical data collected from a set of firms by means of a survey instrument, especially developed with this
purpose, after an extended contact with the industry where case studies and interviews were conducted with
carefully selected organisations and sector experts. Findings give support to the view that in fact TQM
principles have a positive association with the adoption of technological innovation. Yet, both the
prevalence of features of the mechanistic model and the lack of maturity of most initiatives in the
Portuguese footwear firms restrains the role of TQM in supporting innovation.
Alegre J, Chiva R (2008) Assessing the impact of organizational learning capability on product innovation
performance: An empirical test. Technovation 28:315-326
This paper examines how organizational
learning capability affects product innovation performance. We define organizational learning capability
through five dimensions or mechanisms: experimentation, risk taking, interaction with the external
environment, dialogue and participative decision making. The impact of these mechanisms on product
innovation performance is also analyzed. We use structural equations modeling to test our research
hypotheses on a data set from the ceramic tile industry. Results support our conceptual model and underline
the importance that learning has for innovation performance. Implications of the findings for both academics
and practitioners are examined.
Almeida S, Fernando M (2008) Survival strategies and characteristics of start-ups: An empirical study from
the New Zealand IT industry. Technovation 28:161-169 The purpose of this paper is to report the findings
of an exploratory study on the characteristics of New Zealand start-up Information Technology (IT) firms
that survived the dot.com collapse. The paper is based on in-depth interviews of nine entrepreneurs of startup IT firms. The findings reveal core organizational characteristics that influence the realization of moderate
strategies enabling survival. The firms that survived, projected characteristics of holistic strategic balance,
mastering of resources, portrayed a unifying focus and made purposeful choices on resource allocations. In
contrast, firms that failed projected a general lack of strategic balance, mastering and trade-off. These firms'
organizational themes realized excessively complex strategies with no distinct focus.
Amara N, Landry R, Becheikh N, Ouimet M (2008) Learning and novelty of innovation in established
manufacturing SMEs. Technovation 28:450-463
For many firms, the challenge is less about whether or
not to innovate than about increasing the degree of novelty of their innovations in order to improve their
competitive advantage and create opportunities to access new markets. This paper contributes to advance
knowledge on the degree of novelty of innovation in established small and medium manufacturing firms by
using as dependent variables both innovation and the degree of novelty of innovation. This approach is
implemented in two stages. First, we study the presence/absence of product and process innovations.
Second, we adopt a firm's perspective to examine the degree of novelty of innovations of the sub-sample of
these SMEs that have developed product or process innovations. The results indicate that various types of
learning impact on the presence (or absence) of innovation as well as on the degree of novelty of innovation.
Overall, the results show that variables related to learning by doing, learning by training and learning by
interacting have the highest impact on the degree of novelty of innovation of established SMEs. The results
of the paper are also used to derive practical implications for owners and managers of established SMEs and
for policy makers.
Anbari FT, Carayannis EG, Voetsch RJ (2008) Post-project reviews as a key project management
competence. Technovation 28:633-643
There is a general belief that post-project reviews are beneficial.
However, such reviews are not conducted in a consistent manner, if at all, in many organizations. Therefore,
there is a need to discuss post-project reviews as part of effective project management. This paper explores
the nexus of knowledge management and project management. It addresses the role of post-project reviews
and their impact on the success of future projects, improvement of the overall performance of the
organization and its long-term competitive position, and development of its learning processes. It discusses
critical aspects and useful techniques in the implementation of post-project reviews. The data gathered from
post-project reviews provide the historical database from which future project teams can develop meaningful
project plans based on their organization's project learning cycle. This database can provide project
managers and teams with the information they need on specific staff skill set needs, and the profile of the
customer and operating environment that can impact the ultimate success of projects and project
management. The paper discusses where post-project reviews fit into the project life cycle and project
management processes. It assesses how such reviews can assist an organization in improving the manner in
which its projects are conceived, planned, implemented, reported, and evaluated.
Anderson TR, Daim TU, Kim J (2008) Technology forecasting for wireless communication. Technovation
28:602-614
Wireless communications technologies have undergone rapid changes over the last 30 years
from analog approaches to digital-based systems. These technologies have improved on many fronts
including bandwidth, range, and power requirements. Development of new telecommunications
technologies is critical. It requires many years of efforts. In order to be competitive, it is critical to establish
a roadmap of future technologies. This paper presents a framework to characterize, assess and forecast the
wireless communication technologies. A DEA-based methodology was used for predicting the state-of-theart in future wireless communications technologies.
Antioco M, Moenaert RK, Lindgreen A (2008) Reducing ongoing product design decision-making bias.
Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:528-545 The objective of this exploratory study is to add
to our understanding of ongoing product design decision-making to reduce eventual decision-making bias.
Six research questions are formulated with the aim to establish if and how functional membership and
informal patterns of communication within an organization influence whether and why employees are
willing to engage in product design modifications. We selected as a field site for our study an industrial
company that had an internal research and product development operations and where the employees were
located on the same site. A three-step approach within the manufacturing case company was designed: (1)
In-depth interviews were carried out with managers and employees; (2) a survey questionnaire was sent out
to all employees involved with a specific product that is subject to potential design modifications; and (3) a
post hoc group feedback session was organized to further discuss our findings with the management. First,
analysis of the nine in-depth interviews establishes a taxonomy of product design decisions involving four
types of criteria; product-related, service-related, market-related, and feasibility-related criteria explain why
employees would engage or not in product design modifications. Second, it is demonstrated that functional
membership has a significant influence on the concern for these decision-making criteria as well as on the
decision to proceed or not with product design modifications. In other words, functional membership
influences whether and why employees are more or less willing to make product design modifications. In
this manufacturing company, a global industrial player, the differences in concern appear especially for
service- and market-related criteria and pertain particularly to the research and development (R&D) and
service function. Overall, even though the perceived performance of the specific product under study did not
differ significantly among the different departments, it is observed that R&D employees were significantly
less in favor of proceeding with product design modifications than other employees were. Third, using
UCINET VI software, we provide some explanations for this finding. It is shown that informal patterns of
communication (i.e., employee degree centrality) operate a situational opportunity to make modifications to
an existing product and a cognitive opportunity influencing the decision to modify product design following
an inverted U-shaped function. Ultimately, we derive practical guidelines for an ideal product-team
composition to reduce product design decision-making bias.
Antoncic B, Prodan I (2008) Alliances, corporate technological entrepreneurship and firm performance:
Testing a model on manufacturing firms. Technovation 28:257-265
Corporate entrepreneurship can be
considered important for organisational performance. While being recognised as being important for the
development of innovations and technologies of small- and medium-sized firms and for the
innovation/technology strategies of large firms, inter-organisational relationships in terms of networks and
alliances have received inadequate research attention in the context of corporate entrepreneurship in general
and in corporate technological entrepreneurship in particular. This study developed and tested a model of
alliance-driven corporate technological entrepreneurship activities that impact on organisational
performance. The model was tested on 226 usable responses from mail survey data from a sample of
manufacturing firms from Slovenia. The model indicates the value of engagement in strategic alliances for
the development of corporate technological entrepreneurship activities and consequential performance
improvements.
Aoki R, Schiff A (2008) Promoting access to intellectual property: patent pools, copyright collectives, and
clearinghouses. R & D Management 38:189-204
This paper reviews and compares patent pools,
intellectual property (IP) clearinghouses, and copyright collectives as systems for promoting efficient access
to licensable IP in a 'market for technology'. These systems promote downstream use of innovations by
economizing on search and transaction costs in licensing, as well as potentially mitigating the conditions that
lead to the 'tragedy of the anti-commons' and other coordination problems in multilateral licensing. We
compare and classify different systems in terms of their features, review some existing systems, and discuss
their economic characteristics.
Aramand M (2008) Software products and services are high tech? New product development strategy for
software products and services. Technovation 28:154-160
High-tech products and services are
characterized as having short life cycles and being state-of-the-art. The life cycles of software products and
services are affected by the changes in the hardware and software industries; and the changes in the needs
and requirements of software users in variety of industries. To survive in the marketplace, software products
and services ought to be responsive to these changes. To be so, they must have cutting-edge features and
functionalities, associated with the users' unmet needs and requirements. Unlike hardware devices, cuttingedge technologies in software products and services are not exogenous to the system design and
development-they are built into the software systems during the design and development processes. The
cutting-edge technologies enable the developer to improve the software product and service in cost and time
effective ways. Therefore, software products and services in order to succeed in the marketplace must be
high tech. In other words, being high tech is not a product or service characteristic of software products and
services-it is a new product development strategy.
Armbruster H, Bikfalvi A, Kinkel S, Lay G (2008) Organizational innovation: The challenge of measuring
non-technical innovation in large-scale surveys. Technovation 28:644-657
Although the implementation
of innovative organizational concepts is considered to be highly important for a company's competitiveness,
so far there has been little research on possible approaches to measure and monitor organizational
innovations in large-scale surveys. Based on an item-oriented typology of organizational innovations which
serves as the precondition for a common understanding, we describe and compare how organizational
innovations have been measured through existing surveys in Europe. Using it large-scale survey comprising
data of 1450 German manufacturing companies, we show how these different approaches lead to
significantly different results regarding the organizational innovativeness of companies within one and the
same sample. We derive four implications for the future measurement and monitoring of organizational
innovations. Our findings contribute to the further development of an adequate methodology for an
organizational innovation monitoring system.
Arranz N, de Arroyabe JCF (2008) The choice of partners in R&D cooperation: An empirical analysis of
Spanish firms. Technovation 28:88-100
This article develops a framework to examine the determinants
for the choice of partners among firms that cooperate in R&D. This framework is used to predict the relative
efficiency of cooperation with different types of partners in innovation. We employed the resource-based
perspective to shed light on who firms cooperate with. The empirical work is based on the Spanish CIS-2
survey conducted in 1997 by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The sample of 1652 Spanish firms
gives a reliable image of the behaviour of manufacturing firms as regards cooperation in innovation. Our
results have revealed several distinctions between vertical and horizontal cooperation, and the role of public
institutions as partners in R&D cooperation. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the objectives of
cooperation with national or European Union (EU) partners is different, from a strategic point of view, than
cooperation with US firms in terms of efficiency, that is, the expected results of R&D cooperation are based
on the type of partner in the agreement. These findings and their implications are discussed.
Athey G, Nathan M, Webber C, Mahroum S (2008) Innovation and the city. Innovation-Management Policy
& Practice 10:156-169
Innovation is an increasingly globalised phenomenon but the highest rates of
visible innovation are found in and around cities. This paper explores the urban factors' that support
innovative activity, focusing on English cities. Agglomeration economies can help explain both cities'
resilience and the characteristics of urban markets, assets, networks and institutions that help innovation to
take place. A high-level explanatory framework is set out, using the concepts of urban hubs' and 'local links'
to draw together these ideas. The framework is then explored using five case studies from the UK and
abroad. The findings suggest a number of different innovation trajectories' for different city types.
Innovation policymakers should pay more attention to improving urban infrastructure, skills and critical
mass, and should devolve strategy-making towards pan-regional and sub-regional actors.
Augsdorfer P (2008) Managing the unmanageable. Research-Technology Management 51:41-47
The
lesson from this research into covert research-also known as "bootlegging "-is clear: do not even try to
organize the early stages of innovation through formal processes. Interviews at 70 European companies
reveal that organizing for creativity is impossible to tackle without contravening one or another
organizational protocol. Consequently, it is recommended that managers abandon the arguments over
control versus freedom to leave creativity and early innovation where it belongs: in the chaotic, messy and
wild terrain of the corporate underground. Management should accept that innovative output emerges from
the hidden life of corporations and, moreover, that it is more often than not in line with overall corporate
strategy. The research shows that both organizational bureaucracy and the underground world co-exist and
interact positively; hence, the long-running debate about how to integrate creativity into the formal
organization becomes moot.
Bader MA (2008) Managing intellectual property in the financial services industry sector: Learning from
Swiss Re. Technovation 28:196-207
Legal protection strategies are still a relatively new phenomenon in
emerging business fields like the service industry sector. Especially patents are considered novel as
intellectual property means for protecting service innovations, which particularly accounts for the
Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) sector. This contribution focuses on the opportunities and
risks of managing intellectual property in the financial services industry sector by empirically analysing the
leading reinsurance company Swiss Re. Swiss Re is considered to be one of the first (re-) insurance
organizations worldwide that created its own patent department and today carries out a consistent legal
protection strategy. The in-depth single-case study design is based on a triple iterative research process. The
paper concludes with a success factor model for managing intellectual property to protect service
innovations in the financial services industry sector.
Balsano TJ, Goodrich NE, Leek RK, Miley JW, Morse TF, Roberts DA (2008) Identify Your Innovation
Enablers and Inhibitors. Research-Technology Management 51:23-33
Alcan Global Pharmaceutical
Packaging, Milliken & Co. and Solvay Advanced Polymers have used the Value Innovation Potential
Assessment Tool to identify their Value Innovation enablers and inhibitors. Value Innovation is defined as
delivering exceptional value to the most important customer in the value chain. The information obtained
from this assessment tool allows managers to understand the cultural drivers for innovation within their
organization and guide the creation of a more effective Value Innovation culture.
Banuls VA, Salmeron JL (2008) Foresighting key areas in the Information Technology industry.
Technovation 28:103-111
In this paper, a foresight model for detecting key areas in the Information
Technology (IT) industry is proposed. This model aims at being a useful tool to assist firms, policy makers,
and researchers whose IT assessment is in the long term. As a methodological support of the foresight
model, group communication techniques are mixed with multicriteria methods. This paper analyzes an
application of the proposed model to a technology foresight process.
Barczak G, Hultink EJ, Sultan F (2008) Antecedents and consequences of information technology usage in
NPD: A comparison of Dutch and US companies. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:620-631
This study examines information technology (IT) usage for new product development (NPD) in a global
context. Specifically, this research seeks to ascertain the factors that influence IT usage and the relationship
between IT usage and new product performance in two different countries-the United States and the
Netherlands. The interest here is in discovering if, and how, these relationships may be different depending
on the country within which the NPD effort is undertaken. Employing a mail survey methodology, the
present study uses data from a sample of U.S. practitioner members from the Product Development &
Management Association (PDMA) and new product managers from Dutch manufacturing companies to
examine the effect of IT infrastructure, IT embeddedness, NPD process formalization, colocation,
outsourcing of NPD projects, and length of time on the job on the extent of IT usage. The data are also used
to explore the impact of IT usage on speed to market and market performance. The results indicate that IT
embeddedness and NPD process formalization positively influence IT usage in both the United States and
the Netherlands. Colocation and length of time on the job are negatively associated with IT usage only in
Dutch firms. Similarly, outsourcing of NPD projects is positively related to IT usage only in U.S. firms.
Finally, IT usage has a positive relationship with speed to market in the Netherlands and with market
performance in the United States. An important implication of the present study is that IT usage does impact
speed to market and market performance, confirming anecdotal evidence. However, these relationships are
not the same in each country. Moreover, the antecedents to IT usage also vary by country. Thus, the
precursors and consequences of IT usage in NPD are context specific. Another implication of this research is
that unless IT is embedded into the NPD process, it is unlikely that the benefits of IT will come to fruition.
Finally, this study suggests that as firms use more globally dispersed teams for NPD and outsource more of
their development activities, IT usage is likely to increase to facilitate communication and cooperation.
Barnard H, Tuomi K (2008) How Demand Sophistication (De-)limits Economic Upgrading: Comparing the
Film Industries of South Africa and Nigeria (Nollywood). Industry and Innovation 15:647-668
More
sophisticated demand is typically seen as an enabler of economic upgrading. This study questions this
linearity and extends demand theory through a case analysis of the film industry in two developing
countries. When unsophisticated local demand results in well-matched supply- and demand-side elements,
benefits do accrue. Low exposure to technically superior products in Nigeria allowed a fully fledged film
value chain to develop, as consumers were willing to support lower quality output. Although the Industry is
too weak to seriously threaten incumbents from the developed world on the global stage, it has substantial
impact in its home country. In contrast, if demand is far more sophisticated than supply, local industry will
struggle to respond to broad-based demand signals and will achieve accelerated learning only in niche areas.
South Africa has become a niche producer in the global film industry rather than film producer in its own
right partly because the widespread demand for Hollywood-quality products could not be met by local
supply capabilities.
Belussi F, Sedita SR (2008) Managing Situated Creativity in Cultural Industries. Industry and Innovation
15:457-458
Ben Rejeb H, Morel-Guimaraes L, Boly V, Assielou NG (2008) Measuring innovation best practices:
Improvement of an innovation index integrating threshold and synergy effects. Technovation 28:838-854
Innovation, as a competitive economic factor, is a process that requires a continuous, evolving and mastered
management. Therefore innovative companies need to measure their innovation capacity. Literature attests
of research in the field of innovation measurement or the innovation abilities evaluation. One major
theoretical problem consists in elaborating mathematical models that consider the threshold effect and
synergy between innovation practices and verify their validity. In this article, mathematical approaches
supplementing multi-criteria models are suggested.
Bergek A, Norrman C (2008) Incubator best practice: A framework. Technovation 28:20-28
Incubators
have become a ubiquitous phenomenon in many parts of the world and are viewed as a tool for promoting
the development of technology-based growth firms. Considering the large faith and the considerable
amounts of money invested in incubators, the identification of best practice incubator models is of
importance. Previous incubator assessment literature has tended to emphasise the measurement of incubator
outcomes. In this paper, we argue that best practice identification requires a holistic approach, where the
goals of the incubators are taken into account and the performance of different incubators are put in relation
to their incubator models. In this context, the aim of this paper is to develop a framework that can serve as a
basis for identifying best practice incubator models and for more rigorous evaluations of incubator
performance. The framework suggested includes three distinguishing model components: selection, business
support and mediation. We distinguish between idea-focused selection and entrepreneur-focused selection as
well as between "picking-the-winners" and "survival-of-the-fittest" selection. Business support is seen as a
continuum from "laissez-faire" to "strong intervention". Mediation strategies vary in terms of the type of
innovation system in focus: technological, regional or cluster. The framework is applied to 16 Swedish
incubators.
Bergmann I, Butzke D, Walter L, Fuerste JP, Moehrle MG, Erdmann VA (2008) Evaluating the risk of
patent infringement by means of semantic patent analysis: the case of DNA chips. R & D Management
38:550-562 In this paper, we are going to present a method for detecting the risks of patent infringement
by evaluating similarities between patent documents on the basis of semantic patent analysis. This approach
enables the user to visualize similarities in the contents on a semantic patent map by means of multidimensional scaling. The effectiveness of the semantic patent map has already been demonstrated by
Dressler (2006) with regard to patents of seal technology, in which documents are commonly kept short and
the extracted contents are concise. This paper will open out to the field of biotechnology, where patents can
easily comprise several hundreds of pages. The method presented here conveys an interdisciplinary
approach and combines computer-aided natural language processing with domain-specific expertise of
biochemical processes. This is illustrated by an authentic case of infringement involving two manufacturers
of DNA chips. Our experiment will show how the infringement case is visualized on a patent map based on
semantic patent analysis. This experiment can be compared with the search for a needle in a haystack, the
two competitive patents representing significantly conflicting 'needles.' From an approximate number of
4,000 patents in the current US Class 435/6, a set of patents was selected that included the 'needles'
mentioned. This paper will point out how such mutual interference can be detected by way of semantic
patent analysis, and what advice may be given to R&D managers who are faced with the risk of patent
infringement.
Blau J (2008) Finland To Implement New Innovation Strategy. Research-Technology Management 51:2-3
Blau J (2008) Europe Rival to MIT advances. Research-Technology Management 51:5-6
Blau J (2008) Silicon valley outpost among 350 initiatives to boost Denmark's tech competitiveness.
Research-Technology Management 51:2-3
Blau J (2008) Research cluster aims to boost Germany's production technology. Research-Technology
Management 51:8-9
Boardman PC (2008) Beyond the stars: The impact of affiliation with university biotechnology centers on
the industrial involvement of university scientists. Technovation 28:291-297
Most study of universityindustry interactions in biotechnology emphasizes the productivity (e.g., patents, spin-off firms) of a relative
few number of "star" university scientists. This study uses a national survey of university scientists to assess
the industry involvement of university scientists who affiliate with university research centers focused on
biotechnology. The results demonstrate such affiliation to correlate positively with informal interactions
with industry, such as knowledge exchange, but not with reports of the production of economic and
bibliometric outputs. Implications for policy and centers programs are discussed.
Boland M (2008) Innovation in the food industry: Personalised nutrition and mass customisation.
Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:53-60
Human beings are not created equal, at least not in
terms of nutritional needs. Nutritional needs are dictated by a mixture of genetics, epigenetics, personal
history and lifestyle. Obvious cases of genetically-based or genetically-predisposed special nutritional needs
are well known; insulin-dependent (Type 1) diabetes mellitus and phenylketonuria being good examples.
Other special dietary needs are of less clear origin, but disorders such as coeliac disease, irritable bowel
disease and lactose intolerance are becoming widely recognised as having strong genetic components.
Additionally, there is emerging evidence of individually different responses in fat metabolism in individuals,
leading to differences in lipoprotein profiles (HDL and LDL - indicators of heart health) in response to diet.
Some lifestyles also give rise to special dietary requirements. This is particularly noted for athletes, who
often have very specific nutritional advice. All of these examples are exceptional, relating to specific
metabolic disorders or extreme lifestyle needs, with quite specific goals. This paper is concerned with an
emerging trend towards personalised nutrition becoming mainstream in affluent society, with a goal of
general good health, and the potential for mass customisation to provide personalised nutrition on a wide
front.
Boutellier R, Ullman F, Schreiber J, Naef R (2008) Impact of office layout on communication in a sciencedriven business. R & D Management 38:372-391 Driving innovation and creativity has relied heavily on
new information technologies in the last decade. Human capital has certainly had its importance, but how to
coordinate human capital in order to push productivity in research and development without compromising
individual initiative is still not well understood. In this paper, we provide results showing that geometry of
workspace has indeed an impact on communication patterns and may thus be used as a means to drive both
innovation and efficient research. In order to be creative, new knowledge has to be created. Communication
facilitates knowledge creation. We try to close the bridge between areas of creation of tacit knowledge and
transfer of knowledge highlighted by authors like Nonaka, Takeuchi, Konno, von Krogh and von Hippel
with the area of communication patterns pioneered by Allen, Hatch, and Stryker, by considering face-to-face
(FTF) communication as a first step for socialization, socialization as a means for knowledge creation. In
this article, we compare two different office environments within the same site, same activity, same
hierarchical level and same company: a traditional cell office area and a new multi-space office, used by
people who used to work in cell offices. We observed FTF communication patterns during 120 h in two
areas and measured over 2,000 communication events. We found that people communicate three times more
often in a multi-space area than in a cell-space area. We also found that the mean duration of communication
events decreased from 9 to 3 min when transferring collaborators from a cell-space to a multi-space. Finally
time spent without communication increased from 5% to 29% when going from cell-offices to multi-space
areas - leaving more time for people to work and think on their own. And we found that most
communication events during work time in the multi-space took place at the work place and seldom or never
in soft sitting areas installed for the purpose of communication.
Braunerhjelm P (2008) Specialization of Regions and Universities: The New Versus the Old. Industry and
Innovation 15:253-275
This paper analyzes whether there is a correspondence between a university's
research specialization and industrial specialization in the region hosting the university, and to what extent
universities influence regional productivity. Moreover, the analysis seeks to answer if a difference can be
detected between the influences of old and new universities on regional performance. To achieve this end
we utilize a unique data set on spatially disaggregated data for Sweden in the period 1975-99. A two-step
Heckman regression analysis is implemented to examine whether universities' research specialization
matches regional specialization in production as compared to the average region. The results suggest a
correspondence in specialization, as well as positive productivity effects. However, there are also
considerable differences across regions, albeit primarily unrelated to the age of the universities.
Brockhoff K (2008) Technology, knowledge and the firm. Implications for strategy and industrial change. R
& D Management 38:231-232
Brown S (2008) Enterprise: Entrepreneurship and innovation. R & D Management 38:352-353
Bruhn CM (2008) Consumer acceptance of food innovations. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice
10:91-95
An innovation's success is dependent upon successfully responding to consumer needs and
communicating benefits in a believable persuasive manner. Consumers respond to good taste, convenience,
and health enhancing properties. The magnitude of any risk the innovation or technology imposes including
impact on the environment is also of concern. While people rely on mass media and advertisement their
communication network is complex and the opinion of family and friends is a powerful influence. Public
acceptance is influenced by perceived credibility of data, rigour of regulatory policy, impartial action of
regulators, and demonstrated responsibility of industry.
Brunitz SM, O'Shea RP, Allen TJ (2008) University commercialization strategies in the development of
regional bioclusters. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:129-142
To analyze university
contribution to economic development, the present study examines universities' technology transfer policies
and their associated economic development impact. The article examines how a university defines itself as
part of a region as well as what activities, if any, do university commercialization strategies in context of
their regional environment affect spin-off activity. Furthermore, this study explores the ways universities
contribute to regional economic development by examining existing theories and analyzing universities'
relationships with both government and industry in two regions. This study draws from Roberts and
Malone's (1996) selectivity-support typology and highlights this article's argument by comparing the
commercialization strategies of world-class universities strategies in the development of regional
biotechnology clusters in Massachusetts and in Connecticut. This article investigates the notion of whether
universities can differently influence the economic development processes of the while still having
successful commercial outcomes. These findings build on previous research (Clarysse et al., 2005; Degroof
and Roberts, 2004; Powers and McDougall, 2005), which argues that low support-low selectivity policies
may be more suitable to entrepreneurially developed environments, whereas high support-high selectivity
policies are more efficient in entrepreneurially underdeveloped environments. Masachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) is located in a strong technopole region, whereby many of its support structures for spinoff formation are provided by the regional infrastructure of the Cambridge-Boston region. In contrast, Yale
University, which has an underdeveloped entrepreneurial context, has had to take a more proactive role in
providing incubation capabilities to their spin-off projects. This finding supports a contingent based
perspective of academic entrepreneurship, whereby low support-low selectivity policies are more fitted to
entrepreneurially developed environments, whereas high support. high selectivity policies are more efficient
in entrepreneurially underdeveloped environments.
Burnside B, Witkin L (2008) Forging successful university-industry collaborations. Research-Technology
Management 51:26-30
In an increasingly global, networked market for R&D it is more important than
ever to collaborate. In the past, intellectual property negotiations have been formidable barriers to forming
effective col laborative university-industry arrangements. Experience has shown that it is possible to reduce
negotiation from 20-26 to 1-2 months by using a model to build a team, agreeing on a pre-determined
process, and being committed to finding creative ways to reach agreement. Hewlett-Packard's experience in
using such a model with the University of California at Berkeley and the (California) Bay Area Science and
Innovation Consortium has shown how creativity and insight are essential to achieving convergence and also
helps explain why standard agreements cannot effectively address the situational challenges.
Buys A (2008) The strategy of managing innovation and technology. R & D Management 38:446-447
Cabrales AL, Medina CC, Lavado AC, Cabrera RV (2008) Managing functional diversity, risk taking and
incentives for teams to achieve radical innovations. R & D Management 38:35-50
In this study we
analyse the effect of team diversity, encouragement to take risks and team incentives on the degree of
radicalness of innovation. Empirical research has been conducted with a sample of 95 companies from four
innovative industries according to their high number of patents. The results indicate that team diversity and
the combined use of long- and short-term incentives are associated with incremental innovation, whereas the
development of risk-taking attitudes within the team is associated with radical innovation.
Caerteling JS, Halman JIM, Doree AG (2008) Technology commercialization in road infrastructure: How
government affects the variation and appropriability of technology. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:143-161 Successful technology commercialization is important for business profitability,
and government policies can help or hinder firms' success. As a regulator, government affects standard
setting and the nature and scope of property rights. As a sponsor, government can empower technology
commercialization by its financial support of new technology. As a first user, government can significantly
enhance the chances of successful technology commercialization. And as a buyer, government accounts for
a substantial part of the world economy. Previous research on government's roles in technology
commercialization. mainly addressed the effects of specific roles. How,ever, there is little understanding
about the combined impact of these roles on technology commercialization. This article develops a
conceptual model to analyze the combined effect of these roles on technology development projects. This
model is based on a review of the literature on large technical systems, technological regimes, and
technology policy that enabled this study on government's diverse roles in technology commercialization.
To refine the conceptual model, an in-depth analysis of three technology development projects was
conducted. The empirical findings are drawn from. road infrastructure. In that sector, government is the
dominant customer and first user of most new technologies. Therefore, government has to create a market
for those technologies and strongly affects affects their viability. This research has produced several major
results. First, the developed model is the first to conceptualize the relevant relationships between the various
roles of government in technology commercialization. Second, this study has shown that government's
behavior as a regulator and sponsor conflicts with its preferences as a buyer and user. Consequently, the
support of and demand for new technology is inconsistent and uncoordinated, leaving firms with significant
uncertainties in assessing market opportunities. Third, the dominant position of government as a buyer in
road infrastructure weakens the effectiveness of intellectual property rights. Fourth, existing studies on
technology for partially public goods are mainly historical accounts, and only a few are empirical studies on
innovation processes. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the development and commercialization of
technology for partially public goods. This article concludes with policy implications and suggestions for
future research. An important policy implication is that government could improve technology
commercialization by either stimulating the commercialization of various competing technologies or
developing various competing products based on the same technology. A central issue for future research is
how firms can involve government in its diverse roles in technology commercialization. Most of the existing
research on customer involvement deals with consumer and business-to-business markets. A better
understanding of government involvement could help firms to overcome the impediments they face in
dealing with government.
Campbell DFJ (2008) Science and innovation: Rethinking the rationales for funding and governance. R & D
Management 38:107-108
Campbell-Kelly M, Garcia-Swartz DD, Layne-Farrar A (2008) The Evolution of Network Industries:
Lessons from the Conquest of the Online Frontier, 1979-95. Industry and Innovation 15:435-455
In this
paper we dissect the competitive dynamics of a network industry that has not been systematically studied in
the past-the consumer-oriented online networks of the pre- 1995 era. After briefly reconstructing the
historical evolution of the industry we focus on a number of issues at the intersection of theory and data: the
importance of direct and indirect network effects, tipping to a dominant player and the entry strategies
adopted by two different waves of entrants. We also analyse price wars and the displacement of the leader in
the first half of the 1990s. In the final section we focus on some remaining puzzles that suggest directions
for further theoretical and empirical research.
Candi M, Saemundsson R (2008) Oil in water? Explaining differences in aesthetic design emphasis in new
technology-based firms. Technovation 28:464-471
The purpose of this research is to investigate how
differences in aesthetic design emphasis among new technology-based firms (NTBFs) can be explained.
Four hypotheses are developed based on a synthesis of existing research in the fields of design, strategy and
entrepreneurship. The hypotheses are tested based on a survey of 103 NTBFs. The results of the research
indicate that aesthetic design emphasis is significantly related with the importance of aesthetic design in a
firm's chosen sector, which can be classified as a positioning factor. Aesthetic design emphasis is also
significantly related with founder characteristics, which are resources factors, namely founders' technical
education and founders' experience of sales and marketing, respectively. The results of the research lend
some support to the anecdotal notion that engineers do not appreciate the value of aesthetic design and
suggest that the source of this lack of appreciation is their education.
Castellion G (2008) Do it wrong quickly: How the Web changes the old marketing rules. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:633-635
Castellion G (2008) Invisible engines: How software platforms drive innovation and transform industries.
Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:410-411
Castellion G (2008) Catalyst code: The strategies behind the world's most dynamic companies. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 25:410-411
Castellion G (2008) Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:103-105
Ceci F, Prencipe A (2008) Configuring Capabilities for Integrated Solutions: Evidence from the IT Sector.
Industry and Innovation 15:277-296 This paper investigates the way that firms' environmental context and
organizational structure influence their strategic choices and lead to different capabilities configurations.
Drawing on contingency theory and the resource-based view, we explore integrated solutions-an emerging
business model in which firms bundle products and services-in the IT sector, which is a particularly
appropriate context due to its novelty, high-technology characteristics and implications for capabilities
development. This study contributes to research and practice by identifying how organizational and
environmental/market factors co-evolve with firms' strategy and how firms' distinct strategic decisions lead
to differences in capabilities configurations.
Cerf VG (2008) Innovation and the Internet. Research-Technology Management 51:30-33 OVERVIEW:
There are some identifiable conditions that seem to nurture creativity and innovation, and the development
of the Internet illustrates them. Stable interfaces that allow for substantial change within the layers of the
Internet's protocol architecture and which create platforms on which new applications may be built, without
changing the layers below, are key elements that have encouraged invention. Management environments
that allow employees freedom to explore new ideas also contribute to conditions for creativity. Finally,
dramatic changes in the economics of products and services can also create conditions for radical invention.
Chang HH (2008) Intelligent agent's technology characteristics applied to online auctions' task: A combined
model of TTF and TAM. Technovation 28:564-577 This study investigates the employment of intelligent
agents in a web-based auction process, from the appropriate perspectives of the intelligent agent software,
the consumer perception of its value, and the effect of this consumer perception on the intention to use
information technology. The investigation established that consumer familiarity with the intelligent agent's
technology characteristics were positively associated with six dimensions: technology characteristics, task
characteristics, task-technology fit, technology acceptance, perceived intention to use information
technology, and negatively associated with perceived risk. From the analysis of responses to a web-based
survey of online auction users, a consumer's assessment of the importance of different attributes of agent
technology depends on his/her view of the online auction task. Consumers primarily concerned with price
negotiation considered learning ability and continuity to be the most important technology attributes, while
for those concerned with item acquisition, goal-oriented and adaptive behaviors were considered the most
important. The development of task-technology fit should seek to reassure users by minimizing risk, with
mechanisms such as enhanced user reputation evaluation and secure payment systems.
Chang YC, Yang PY (2008) The impacts of academic patenting and licensing on knowledge production and
diffusion: a test of the anti-commons effect in Taiwan. R & D Management 38:321-334
This paper
empirically examines the emerging anti-commons effect of academic patenting and licensing on knowledge
production and diffusion in Taiwan. Through a dataset of 229 Taiwanese academic patent inventors, the
results reveal that the anti-commons effect is not significant as expected. However, this effect has becomes
more vivid in application-oriented research and disclosure delay while academic patent inventors have
involved more in licensing activities. Programs to encourage academic licensing should be aware of the side
effects on academic knowledge production and diffusion.
Charalambous C, Gittins J (2008) Factors influencing the profitability of pharmaceutical research. R & D
Management 38:221-230
The output from a pharmaceutical research project is a stream of candidate
drugs which may be submitted to clinical trials. The value of this output depends on the characteristics of the
stochastic process generating this stream, and on the extent to which the candidate drugs are chemically
similar to each other. This paper explores the impact of these factors on profitability, and on the policy
which should be followed for selecting candidate drugs.
Chen MH, Chang YC, Hung SC (2008) Social capital and creativity in R&D project teams. R & D
Management 38:21-34
The existing research contributes to our understanding about the value of social
capital in a wide range of social science disciplines; however, it does not well address the role of social
capital in creativity for research and development (R&D) project teams in a given context. Using a sample
of 54 R&D project teams in high-technology firms of Taiwan, we examined the impacts of social capital on
creativity of R&D project teams from an intra-team perspective. Results of factor analysis revealed four
factors extracted from the concept of social capital, namely social interaction, network ties, mutual trust, and
shared goals. Findings suggested that social interaction and network ties had significant and positive impacts
on creativity of R&D project teams, but mutual trust and shared goals did not. Managerial implications for
managing social capital in R&D project teams are discussed.
Chen MH, Wang MC (2008) Social networks and a new venture's innovative capability: the role of trust
within entrepreneurial teams. R & D Management 38:253-264
This paper examines the effects of social
networks and trust on a new venture's innovative capability. The concept of social networks is studied as the
configuration of internal and external social networks for entrepreneurial team members. This study
collected information about 112 technology-based entrepreneurial teams from the 65 research-based
incubators in Taiwan. The results indicate that both internal and external social networks have marginally
positive impacts on a new venture's innovative capability, and trust within the entrepreneurial teams is found
to be as important a moderator for the relationship between external social networks and innovative
capability. Moreover, results reveal that a higher level of trust between entrepreneurial team members can
reduce the external social networks spanning the boundaries of the new venture and therefore may cause a
'not invented here' syndrome which will reduce its innovative capability.
Chen S, Karwan K (2008) Innovative cities in China: Lessons from Pudong New District, Zhangjiang Hightech Park and SMIC Village. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:247-256 Although the pace of
development in Chinese cities over the past decade has been unprecedented, future economic progress in
China may be increasingly constrained by limitations in the social structures that serve to attract skilled
labor. To frame this contention, we present a model of economic development that describes what has
happened in Shanghai and that we refer to as the Innovative City Development Life Cycle (CDLC) model.
The model and issues are highlighted by a case study of the Pudong New District (PND) in Shanghai and
our observations about one particular area of PND, the Zhanjiang High-Tech Park (ZHTP). Although much
of what has been seen in Shanghai and Pudong is consistent with recent theories of city innovation, central
control of the CDLC leaves open the question of whether the Shanghai model is a sustainable one. In
particular, the influence of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in recognizing and supporting social
innovations is likely to be essential to future success in Shanghai. The question is whether these innovations
will be allowed to continue or if they will be controlled by central authorities in a way that will derail
attempts to attract the necessary high-tech human capital.
Cheng CJ, Shiu ECC (2008) Re-innovation: The construct, measurement, and validation. Technovation
28:658-666
There has been substantial research in the area of innovation, which is widely regarded as a
powerful weapon to create competitive advantage. One important reason of the substantial research in
innovation is the presence of valid and reliable measures of key innovation characteristics, such as radical,
incremental, or disruptiveness innovation. Re-innovation, an extension of innovation, is renowned for its
potential in creating competitive advantage with reduced cost and time implications. Unfortunately, very
little research in re-innovation has been conducted, possibly because to date it still lacks a psychometrically
valid measure. There is also a lack of research on convergent and discriminant validities of the re-innovation
construct, resulting in the impossibility to discriminate re-innovation characteristics from radical or
incremental innovation characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to develop a valid and reliable scale for
measuring the construct of re-innovation. To test its reliability and discriminant and convergent validities,
we used data collected from 294 general managers of SBUs in 89 electronics-related companies in Taiwan
and performed a series of analyses. The reliability measures, exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor
analyses, and convergent and discriminant validity tests strongly support our scale. In addition. nomological
validity is demonstrated. Hence, this study distinguishes the re-innovation from radical and incremental
innovation constructs. Finally, discussion, limitations, and future research are presented.
Cho SP, Lim K, Kwon GJ, Sung YH (2008) R&D Investment and Performance in Korea: Korean R&D
Scoreboard 2005. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:143-160
This study develops a
parsimonious model demonstrating the association between R&D expenditure and firm performance
according to previous theoretical models. We call the model the "Korean R&D Scoreboard." This model
extensively analyzes R&D investment in the 2004 financial statements of 550 selected firms in Korea. The
Scoreboard purports to identify the characteristics of industrial R&D investments and the relationship
between the R&D investments and firm performance. The Scoreboard shows that the industrial R&D
investments of Korean firms heavily leaned toward a few number of industries and a limited number of very
large firms. Compared to the previous years, the electric and electronics industry and automobile and
transportation industry have intensified their R&D investments further while other industries with low R&D
intensity decreased in 2004. The "polarization phenomenon" of R&D investments shows the trend of "the
rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer." The Scoreboard also shows that industrial R&D investments
have a strong positive relationship with the firm performances measured in terms of productivity, profits,
growth rates, number of patent applications, and market value in price earnings ratio (PER) of firms. The
more intensive a firm's R&D investment, the higher the performance realized. Some policy implications
based on these findings are suggested as follows: Policy measures to encourage medium-large firms to
invest in R&D are urgently needed to alleviate R&D concentration problems at the firm level as well as at
the industrial level. Providing incentives and environments for them to invest more in R&D activities shall
most effectively lead the Korean knowledge-based economy to be more balanced in both the industrial and
firm level. However, these policy measures should avoid traditional R&D subsidy and carefully examine
some critical issues including balances 'among industries, services sector innovation, incentive mechanism
at firm level.
Coates JF (2008) Forget about Internet as systems model! Research-Technology Management 51:5-8
Coates JF (2008) Tomorrow's engineer. Research-Technology Management 51:7-8
Coccia M, Rolfo S (2008) Strategic change of public research units in their scientific activity. Technovation
28:485-494
The current debate oil public sector research in modern economics has generated an
increasing interest regarding the scientific activity of research units for external users. The purpose of this
paper is to investigate the relationship between production of basic research and applied activity of public
research units, focusing Italian case-study. The results show an increasing crowding-out effect between
applied activity vs. basic research. This effect is due to cuts in research unit budgets and increased push by
governments that have obliged the researchers to collaborate with firms and external institutions for getting
funds more and more necessary to the economic survival of public research institutes. In addition, to cope
with consequential environmental threats, Italian research organizations have been facing a strategic change.
In fact, public research institutes now operate as research units market-oriented and researchers focus oil
applied activity and consultancy, rather than basic research. This strategic change of public research
institutions is also present in several countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, and so
on. Because of this worldwide tendency, there is the threat, in public research organizations, of less
discovery-based research around longer term needs centred on public welfare that also affect, negatively,
long-run economic growth.
Collins L (2008) UK R&D collaboration venture takes innovation challenge to China. Research-Technology
Management 51:2-3
Collins L (2008) Firms ride innovation's emotional rollercoaster. Research-Technology Management 51:4-6
Collinson S (2008) Growth of new technology ventures in China's emerging market. Technovation 28:101101
Consoli D (2008) Systems of Innovation and Industry Evolution: The Case of Retail Banking in the UK.
Industry and Innovation 15:579-600 This paper presents a longitudinal study on the evolution of the retail
banking sector in the UK following the adoption of automated payments in the 1970s. The analysis is cast in
the context of innovation studies and articulates how changing configurations of the knowledge base
combined with the emergence and adaptation of institutional structures stirred a paradigm of service
innovation in an information-intensive industry like banking. The cases of the Automated Teller Machine
(ATM) and of the Electronic Fund Transfer at Point of Sale (EFTPOS) provide evidence on the subtleties of
a dual evolutionary process underpinning the development of a system of innovation: the growing ecology
of actors and the emergence of new forms of coordination across them.
Cooper RG (2008) Perspective: The Stage-Gate (R) idea-to-launch process-update, what's new, and NexGen
systems. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:213-232
Stage-Gate has become a popular
system for driving new products to market, and the benefits of using such a robust idea-to-launch system
have been well documented. However, there are many misconceptions and challenges in using Stage-Gate.
First, Stage-Gate is briefly outlined, noting how the system should work and the structure of both stages and
gates. Next, some of the misconceptions about Stage-Gate-it is not a linear process, nor is it a rigid systemare debunked, and explanations of what Stage-Gate is and is not are provided. The challenges faced in
employing Stage-Gate are identified, including governance issues, overbureaucratizing the process, and
misapplying cost-cutting systems such as Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing to product innovation.
Solutions are offered, including better governance methods such as "gates with teeth," clearly defined
gatekeepers, and gatekeeper rules of engagement, as well as ways to deal with bureaucracy, including leaner
gates. Next-generation versions of Stage-Gate are introduced, notably a scalable system (to handle many
different types and sizes of projects), as well as even more flexible and adaptable versions of Stage-Gate
achieved via spiral development and simultaneous execution. Additionally, Stage-Gate now incorporates
better decision-making practices including scorecards, success criteria, self-managed gates, electronic and
virtual gates, and integration with portfolio management. Improved accountability and continuous
improvement are now built into Stage-Gate via a rigorous postlaunch review. Finally, progressive
companies are reinventing Stage-Gate for use with "open innovation," whereas others are applying the
principles of value stream analysis to yield a leaner version of Stage-Gate.
Cooper RG, Edgett SJ (2008) Maximizing productivity in product innovation. Research-Technology
Management 51:47-58 Recent evidence suggests that productivity in new product development (NPD) is
declining; that is, we are seeing less output (measured in terms of impact on the business) for the same
relative spending level. This article outlines seven practices or principles which, according to studies of
NPD practices and performance, will increase NPD productivity after they are embraced. These principles
include familiar concepts such as building in the voice of the customer, front-end loading projects, and
taking a more holistic approach to product innovation. However, while they are familiar, it is surprising how
many firms have yet to embrace them. Other, less familiar, principles include: relying on spiral rather than
linear development; building in metrics, team accountability and continuous improvement; and portfolio
management techniques to yield higher value projects. Finally, a number of best performers are redesigning
their idea-to-launch processes, moving to the next-generation Stage-Gate((R)) system; they employ methods
borrowed from lean manufacturing to remove waste from their development processes, and they also make
their processes scalable, flexible, adaptable, and more open to the external environment.
Couchman PK, McLoughlin I, Charles DR (2008) Lost in translation? Building science and innovation city
strategies in Australia and the UK. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:211-223
With the
development of the knowledge economy' in many advanced industrial nations, there has been a growing
interest in regional innovation systems and the role that universities might play in these. One result has been
the demarcation by government actors of specific spaces for the creation, transfer and transformation of
knowledge. Such spaces have been given various names, such as 'smart regions; 'science cities' and
'innovation corridors: Whilst the associated policy rhetoric has much in common with the earlier interest in
science and technology parks there are also clear distinguishing differences. More recent policy initiatives
have sought to foster industry clusters within these spaces to contribute to economic development and
diversification and link this to economic, social and cultural regeneration. This paper explores policy-driven
creation of 'innovation areas' by focusing on two contrasting examples: Newcastle Science City in the North
East of England and the Gold Coast Pacific Innovation Corridor in Queensland, Australia. The paper
compares the rhetoric of university-industry-government policies with the realities.
Cutler WG (2008) Hank attempts to delegate. Research-Technology Management 51:59-61
Dahlander L, Frederiksen L, Rullani F (2008) Online Communities and Open Innovation: Governance and
Symbolic Value Creation. Industry and Innovation 15:115-123
de Assuncao JB (2008) From the special issue editor: Bridging marketing and operations in new product
development. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:414-417
De Jong G, Woolthuis RK (2008) The Institutional Arrangements of Innovation: Antecedents and
Performance Effects of Trust in High-Tech Alliances. Industry and Innovation 15:45-67 In this study we
investigate the institutional arrangements of innovation processes in high-tech alliances, focusing on the role
of trust. A major strength of the research is the opportunity to address antecedents as well as performance
effects of trust. The antecedents of interorganizational trust include a shared past, detailed interfirm
contracts, relational openness and mutual dependence. We control for the size and cooperative culture of the
focal firm and the knowledge value of the partner firm. Data from a field study of 391 Dutch firms in hightech industries generally support the research model. The results provide convincing evidence to support the
value of interorganizational trust in durable business relationships that strive for the development of new
technological knowledge.
Deck MJ (2008) Open business models: How to thrive in the new innovation landscape. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:406-408
Den Besten M, Dalle JM (2008) Keep it Simple: A Companion for Simple Wikipedia? Industry and
Innovation 15:169-178 In this paper, we inquire about some of the ways in which the community around
Simple Wikipedia-an offspring of Wikipedia, the notorious free online encyclopedia-manages the online
collaborative production of reliable knowledge. We focus on how it keeps its collection of articles "simple"
and easy to read. We find that the labeling of pages as "unsimple" by core members of the community plays
a significant but seemingly insufficient role. We suggest that the nature of this mode of decentralized
knowledge production and the structure of Wiki-technology might call for the implementation of an editorial
companion to the community.
Dercole F, Dieckmann U, Obersteiner M, Rinaldi S (2008) Adaptive dynamics and technological change.
Technovation 28:335-348 This paper is about the emergence of technological variety arising from market
interaction and technological innovation. Existing products in the market compete with innovative ones
resulting in a slow and continuous evolution of the underlying technological characteristics of successful
products. When technological evolution reaches an equilibrium, it can either be an evolutionarily stable
strategy (ESS), where marginally innovative products do not penetrate the market, or a branching point,
where new products coexist along with established ones. Thus, technological branching can give rise to
product variety. In the paper we first introduce adaptive dynamics (AD), a recently proposed theory of
evolutionary processes, aiming at modeling various features of technological change. By separating the
timescale typical of market competition processes from that on which marginal innovations drive
technological change, AD formally describes products coevolution by means of ordinary differential
equations. Then, a first application of AD in economics is presented and discussed in detail. The problem we
discuss is intentionally very simple, in order to clearly exemplify all the steps of the analysis, but allows to
draw the following intuitive conclusion: product variety is expected in market sectors characterized by a
wide capacity to absorb different technologies and by competition-safe niches even for relatively similar
products. The limitations of the AD approach, as well as some promising further applications in economics
and social sciences, are briefly discussed at the concluding section.
Desmarchelier PM, Szabo EA (2008) Innovation, food safety and regulation. Innovation-Management
Policy & Practice 10:121-131
The food chain from producer, processor, retailer and consumer is highly
interconnected and dynamic. In the midst of this environment, cooperative linkages between government,
industry and the consumer are critical to ensure the delivery of safe, healthy and nutritious food. Robust
safety assessment of products is a proven system that helps keep our foods safe and enhances international
trade. While advances in science and technology offer food production many potential benefits,
developments must be guided by appropriate safety assessments and regulation (as appropriate) if risks are
to be minimised and technologies developed in a socially acceptable way.
Desouza KC et al. (2008) Customer-driven innovation. Research-Technology Management 51:35-44
Involving customers in the innovation process entails a host of new concerns, concepts and managerial
decisions. Transitioning from older models of no or low customer involvement requires attention to the
different types of customer innovation, organizational mission and organizational structure. This article
provides a typology for customer innovation, describes how to involve customers in the innovation process,
and offers guidelines for shifting organizational structure and emphasis toward customer-driven innovation
in order to enable continual, sustainable innovation.
Di Benedetto CA (2008) Special issue from the PDMA and EIASM International Research Conference on
New Product Development, Porto, Portugal, June 2007. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:527527
Di Benedetto CA (2008) Untitled. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:211-212
Di Benedetto CA (2008) Special issue on technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, part I.
Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:1-1
Di Maria E, Finotto V (2008) Communities of Consumption and Made in Italy. Industry and Innovation
15:179-197
The interest towards the role of user communities in innovation has grown among scholars
and practitioners. Research has explored the role of communities in high-tech and medium-tech industries
with a focus on innovation in the functional dimension of products. Less attention has been devoted to user
communities' contribution in industries such as fashion, where innovation is much more related to
communication and aesthetics. This paper provides a preliminary set of concepts and working hypotheses
regarding the contribution of communities to the non-functional dimension of product innovation in lowtech industries and to the relationship between user involvement in brand communities and their incentives
to contribute to innovation both tangible and intangible. The paper discusses two case studies of Made in
Italy enterprises that refer to communities for their innovation strategies.
Doloreux D, Mattsson H (2008) To What Extent do Sectors "Socialize'' Innovation Differently? Mapping
Cooperative Linkages in Knowledge-Intensive Industries in the Ottawa Region. Industry and Innovation
15:351-370 This paper investigates the relative significance of local vs. distant forms of cooperation and
knowledge sourcing in different knowledge-intensive sectors of the Ottawa region. Based on a recently
completed survey of 172 firms, we address specifically the respective contribution of local, national and
international cooperation in supplying firms with ideas, information and knowledge. Explanations for
different collaborative patterns between high- and medium-tech manufacturing firms and knowledgeintensive business services are drawn out.
Doloreux D, Melancon Y (2008) On the dynamics of innovation in Quebec's coastal maritime industry.
Technovation 28:231-243
Most studies of the maritime industry focus mainly on its structure and its
economic impacts on national economies, without providing detailed insights into the economic and
technological activities of the industry itself at the regional level. This study explores the nature of
innovation activities in the maritime industry and identifies the extent to which these activities differ
according to the size of the firms, knowledge intensity, and location within a cluster, and suggests in the
conclusion possible action strategies that could help the maritime industry to be more competitive.
Donovan J, Kilfeather E, Buggy FM (2008) eGovernment for innovative cities of the next generation: The
ICING Project. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:293-302
People cart act as collectors of
knowledge about the environments in which they find themselves. This knowledge is a valuable resource
from which city administrations and other urban stakeholders would benefit if they were able to access it.
However, citizens normally do not interact with their city other than to access basic information and to
conduct financial transactions. In order to harness this unused, and often tacit, knowledge and make it
explicit and available, the ICING (Innovative Cities for the Next Generation) project developed software
and services to link citizens to their cities, using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The result is the
ICING platform that allows people to use many different communication devices to both contribute
information to and access services from their city and from their fellow citizens. A range of ICING services
(which are delivered using the ICING platform) was developed in consultation with end users - both
ordinary people and city councils themselves(1).
Droge C, Calantone R, Harmancioglu N (2008) New product success: Is it really controllable by managers
in highly turbulent environments? Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:272-286
This research
proposes and tests a model of direct and indirect effects linking four antecedents to new product success: (1)
a proactive strategic orientation along with enabling (2) organic organizational structures should lead to
more (3) innovativeness and (4) market intelligence. Innovativeness and market intelligence should in turn
lead to greater new product success. The relationships among the four antecedents are not hypothesized to
be moderated by environmental turbulence because their domain is intraorganizational. However, the
relationships from intraorganizational constructs to new product success are hypothesized to be moderated
by environmental turbulence because success depends in part on the environment in which the new product
must compete. The model was tested using a sample composed of 202 small business units of manufacturers
on the Fortune 500. The sample was heavily involved in new product development: Their average annual
research and development budget was $360.4 million, and approximately 8.2% of sales came from products
introduced in the last five years. A two-group structural equation model analysis supports the moderation
model overall and reveals the pattern of direct, indirect, and total effects. The results show that
innovativeness (but not market intelligence) directly predicts new product success when turbulence is high,
whereas market intelligence (but not innovativeness) directly engenders new product success in low
turbulence. Environmental turbulence also affects the total indirect impact of strategy proactiveness and
organizational organicity on new product success. These indirect effects operate through innovativeness and
market intelligence as complete mediators.
Du J, Li HP, Wu XB (2008) Empirical Analysis on the Negative Technology Spillover Effect of Foreign
Direct Investment in China. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:133-151
Drawing upon data
collected in 37 industries in China between 1998 and 2003, this empirical study examines the degree to
which three factors-size of technological gap, absorptive capability, and technological intensivenessinfluence a "negative spillover effect" in reaction to foreign direct investment. The results of our study
demonstrate that the size of the technological gap between the local industry and the foreign invested
companies does not affect the foreign direct investment's capability to produce a "negative spillover effect."
However, there is a significant correlation between each of the other two factors, namely, absorptive
capacity and technological intensiveness, and the negative spillover effect. That a large absorptive capacity
of local firms in a technologically intensive industry can have a moderating effect on any negative spillover
effect is obvious. However, as the absorptive capacity of the local industry and the technological
intensiveness of the industry decline, this moderating effect becomes statistically insignificant. This study
then demonstrates that the ability for local industries to catch up depends on the domestic firm's
participation in the process of technological innovation and improvement. To overcome technological
dependence in high-technology industries, domestic firms have to strengthen their technological absorptive
capacity and their own innovative capabilities.
Durmusoglu SS, McNally RC, Calantone RJ, Harmancioglu N (2008) How elephants learn the new dance
when headquarters changes the music: Three case studies on innovation strategy change. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:386-403 Does a product innovation strategy change at company headquarters
resonate the same way at different strategic business units (SBUs)? What factors play a role in differing
implementation of new innovation strategies? A collective case study was conducted at three SBUs of an
international conglomerate to investigate why the SBUs implement the same corporate innovation charter in
vastly different manners, both in strategic processes and in organizing for new product development (NPD).
This study's contribution to the literature is twofold. First, it develops initial insights into how three SBUs
implement diverse SBU-level innovation strategies in response to the same product innovation charter.
Second, it extends the findings of previous studies on NPD strategy by presenting how three SBUs reshape
their structure and resource allocation, changing various dimensions of their innovation strategy while also
fitting the competitive structure in their individual, non-high-tech, traditional manufacturing industries as
they respond to the corporate mandate. In this study, several factors were observed to influence a firm when
formulating a new product innovation strategy. First, past performance and strategic typology constrain the
innovation paths available. Poor past performance limits available resources whereas the strategic typology
managers use limits their ability to recognize other opportunities. Next, capacity constraints provide a
catalyst in moving toward process improvements. Third, management involvement in the day-to-day
implementation of change is necessary to ensure that the new processes are implemented. Finally, corporate
performance metrics are quite influential in how SBUs adapt to change. This study identifies that even with
the immense power corporate has over these SBUs, some still dance to their own tune, ignorant of their
deviation from the corporate mandate because the metric is not sufficient to detect these deviations. This
study suggests the use of multiple types of metrics to minimize the likelihood of nearsighted responses to
innovation charter changes.
Edralin DM (2008) Innovative Human Resource Management (HRM) Practices as Predictors of Employee
Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:67-81
This paper aims to investigate the innovative human resource management (HRM) practices that
significantly influence employee job involvement and organizational commitment in selected large
companies belonging to the Top 1000 corporations in the Philippines. The findings reveal that the subject
companies are extensively implementing various innovative practices related to HRM functions that enhance
employee job involvement and organizational commitment. HRM functions related to employee relations,
training and development, and recruitment and selection are found to be significant determinants of job
involvement. On the other hand, HRM functions related to employee relations, recruitment and selection,
performance management, and compensation are found to be significant factors of organizational
commitment. Employee relations proved to be the most significant predictor of employee job involvement
and organizational commitment.
Eom J (2008) Modularity and Technological Change : A Primer and Synthesis. Asian Journal of Technology
Innovation 16:1-24
Two of the major issues in social sciences, as well as in engineering studies, are the
design and coordination of a number of functions and activities in complex systems, such as industries,
organizations, products, and processes. In his early essay, "Architecture of Complexity," Simon (1962)
argues that hierarchy is the organizing principle for complex systems which are composed of inter-related
subsystems that also have their own subsystems, and so on. Recently, the concepts of system architecture
and modularity have caught the attention of innovation theorists and led them to study and develop Simon's
early ideas. This overview explores modularity in the context of technological change and provides answers
to the following questions: What is modularity?; What are the benefits and costs of modularity?; How is the
system architecture related with technological change?; What are the means to understand the interplay
between technology, knowledge, and organizations?; What can we improve in modeling technological
change? This paper is divided into four parts. The first part, Section 1, reviews current ideas about system
modularity and its benefits. Section 2 reviews technological change in the context of modularity. Section 3
discusses the implications of modularity in knowledge and organization. Finally, Section 4 contains
concluding remarks about the modeling implications of modularity.
Essegbey GO (2008) SMEs and new technologies: Learning e-business and development. R & D
Management 38:356-357
Ettlie JE, Kubarek M (2008) Design reuse in manufacturing and services. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:457-472
Most professionals, actively engaged in design, live in a world of trade-offs.
The most typical compromise is that reducing the cost of design causes quality to suffer, but there are many
others as well. This paper summarizes current use of one of the most popular approaches to improving the
new offering development process: design reuse. In the present study 42 companies were surveyed, of which
23 were in manufacturing and 19 were in services-but all were actively engaged in technology and design
reuse in new offerings. It was hypothesized that policies for design reuse and internal sourcing would
promote the complexity and breadth of reuse (here the combination of modular and architectural
substitution), which, in turn would dampen the percentage of substitution and reduce the negative impact on
innovativeness of new offerings. These predictions were generally supported. Adoption of policies for
encouragement or to mandate design reuse were significantly correlated with the extent of reuse (application
of both architectural and modular design vs. just one or the other) among manufacturers but not services
firms in the sample. Internal sourcing of ideas for design reuse was significantly correlated with extent of
reuse for the total sample, and especially for services. Design reuse percentage and extent of design reuse
were significantly and inversely associated for manufacturing, as predicted, but not for services. Novelty of
new offerings was significantly and inversely related to percentage of reuse, as predicted, for manufacturing,
but not for services. It was found that sector also makes a difference in likelihood of adopting higher levels
of reuse with service company respondents reporting significantly higher levels (average of 42% reuse for
services and 28% for manufacturing applications). Perhaps one of the most interesting preliminary findings
to emerge was that the tipping point of negative impact from design reuse percentage on innovativeness for
all firms in the sample of new offerings was 43%, beyond which novelty suffers. For manufacturing, the
tipping point was lower: Novelty begins to suffer after 33% design reuse, which has important management
implications. The conclusion was drawn, based on these preliminary results, that much can be done to
relieve some of the negative consequences of the typical trade-offs commonly encountered in development
programs for new offerings, especially when cost, timing, and innovation are the target goals. However,
services and manufacturing are quite different in their approach to design reuse and substitution. Further
development of the concept of design reuse strategy appears to be warranted based on these preliminary
findings. The findings raise the distinct possibility that mesolevel strategic aggregation issues might lead
research into areas that help explain how complex systems realize their full self-organizing potential and
why corporate strategy considerations, alone, have failed to explain the success and failure of organizations
coping in rugged landscapes.
Fathian M, Akhavan P, Hoorali M (2008) E-readiness assessment of non-profit ICT SMEs in a developing
country: The case of Iran. Technovation 28:578-590 We are experiencing a new kind of commerce in the
recent era, known as e-commerce, which considers information and communication technology (ICT) as the
main enabler of commerce. Considering small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as micro elements of society
and part of macro economy, ICT becomes crucial for e-commerce companies to attain sustainable
competitiveness. Towards this, organizations must re-evaluate every aspect of their strategies and quickly
adapt their working models to incorporate e-commerce as an essential factor for their success. SMEs are
critical to the economies of all countries, and specially the developing ones. They cannot be left behind and
many of them are already demonstrating their entrepreneurship strength by grasping the opportunities
offered by ICT. E-readiness assessment is an evaluation tool that can be used for measuring the diffusion
rate of ICT. However, critical issues for e-readiness assessment of SMEs have not been systematically
investigated for developing countries. Some existing studies have derived their critical factors from macro
perspectives at country level and have not considered the important factors at micro level for SMEs in an
integrated way, This paper aims to bridge this gap. This research paper first reviews the e-readiness
assessment models proposed for countries at macro scale and then identifies the critical factors for SMEs ereadiness assessment. This is achieved through factor analysis at the micro perspective of some Iranian nonprofit ICT SMEs. The extracted factors are organizational features, ICT infrastructures, ICT availability and
security and legal environment. This study is probably the first to provide a perspective of critical issues for
e-readiness assessment in SMEs based on macro models in a developing country. It gives valuable insight
and guidelines which hopefully will help the managers in developing countries to consider the critical issues
for e-readiness assessment of their organization in an effective way.
Feiereisen S, Wong V, Broderick AJ (2008) Analogies and mental simulations in learning for really new
products: The role of visual attention. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:593-607 Really new
products (RNPs) create new product categories or at least significantly expand existing ones. The
development of RNPs is a strategic priority for most companies. However, 40% to 90% of new products fail,
often due to consumers' lack of understanding of product features and benefits. Learning strategies, such as
analogical learning and mental simulation, can help consumers understand the benefits of RNPs and thus
may contribute to the successful development of marketing campaigns. Moreover, the presentation format of
marketing communications is likely to influence consumers' understanding of the product. Pictorials have
the potential to convey novel information without overloading the decision maker and thus may be a more
efficient way to present information about RNPs than words. This paper contributes to a better
understanding of consumer information processing in learning for RNPs. Study 1 examined the impact of (1)
learning strategies (analogical learning vs. mental simulation) and (2) presentation formats (words vs.
pictures) on product comprehension. Study 2 used an eye-tracking experiment to assess how respondents'
visual attention patterns may affect product comprehension. Study 1 showed that the use of words in
marketing communications for RNPs is generally more effective to enhance product comprehension than the
use of pictorials. However, the video glasses were a notable exception as the combination of mental
simulation and pictures yielded a high comprehension level for this product. This suggests that the use of
pictorials may be appropriate to convey information for products of a more hedonic as opposed to utilitarian
nature. Study 2 used a combination of eye-tracking measures and self-reports to help illuminate the
cognitive processes at work when consumers learn new product information. The results suggest that an
increase in attention to an element of the advert can account for one of two underlying processes: (1) an
increase in comprehension; or (2) a difficulty to understand product information which may result in
consumer confusion. This study adds evidence to a growing body of literature that demonstrates the power
of learning strategies such as mental simulation and analogical learning in preparing consumers for new
product acceptance. The use of visual stimuli contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of words versus
pictures, seldom applied in a new product development (NPD) context. These findings are integrated into a
discussion of the managerial implications and the potential avenues for future research in the area.
Feldman LP (2008) The global brain. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:632-633
Feldman LP (2008) Design-inspired innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:202-203
Feldman LP (2008) Think, play, do: Technology, innovation, and organization. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:105-106
Fenech M (2008) The human genome, nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics. Innovation-Management Policy &
Practice 10:43-52
The term nutrigenomics refers to the effect of diet on gene expression. The term
nutrigenetics refers to the impact of inherited traits on the response to a specific dietary pattern, functional
food or supplement on a specific health outcome. The specific fields of genome health nutrigenomics and
genome health nutrigenetics are emerging as important new research areas because it is becoming
increasingly evident that: (a) damage to genome is the most fundamental disease; (b) risk for developmental
and degenerative disease increases with DNA damage which in turn is dependent on nutritional status; and
(c) optimal dietary intake and tissue concentration of micronutrients for prevention of genome damage is
dependent on genetic polymorphisms that alter the function of genes involved directly or indirectly in uptake
and metabolism of micronutrients and those genes required for DNA repair and DNA replication.
Development of dietary patterns, functional foods and supplements-that are designed to improve genome
health maintenance in humans with specific genetic backgrounds-may provide an important contribution to a
new optimum health strategy, based on the diagnosis and individualised nutritional prevention of genome
instability - ie Genome Health Clinics. Although it is not yet possible to make distinct dietary
recommendations for prevention of DNA damage based solely on an individual's genetic background, it is
feasible to use current diagnostics to determine whether dietary pattern or supplement recommendations
actually cause benefit or harm to the genome of an individual.
Floricel S, Ibanescu M (2008) Using R&D portfolio management to deal with dynamic risk. R & D
Management 38:452-467 We develop a theoretical framework for understanding why firms adopt specific
approaches for the management of innovation project portfolios. Our theory focuses on a key contingency
factor for innovation, namely the dynamics of competitive environments. We use four dimensions to
characterize the patterns of environmental dynamics: velocity, turbulence, growth and instability. The paper
then proposes the concept of dynamic risk as a determinant of portfolio management processes. Dynamic
risk results from second-order learning by a firm confronted with a specific dynamic pattern in its
environment. This learning concerns the likely nature of threats and the required updating of cognitive
frameworks in such environments. Attempts to deal with dynamic risk enable various actors inside the firm
to understand what kind of dynamic capabilities are needed in their innovation portfolio management
processes. As a result of this diffuse learning, firms tend to favor certain common characteristics in their
concrete portfolio management activities. To advance the theorizing of these characteristics, the paper also
proposes four dimensions of portfolio management: structure, commitment, emergence and integration.
Based on arguments inspired by the dynamic capability and related literatures, we advance a series of
hypotheses, that relate environmental dynamics dimensions and portfolio management dimensions. These
hypotheses are tested based on a survey of 795 firms in a variety of sectors and on four continents, using
original scales and structural equation modeling methods. The results show, among other findings, that highvelocity environments favor structured as well as integrated portfolio management approaches, while highgrowth environments favor approaches that are structured but commit significant resources to each project
as well. Turbulent environments favor approaches that are emergent, but also, contrary to our expectations,
have high resource commitment levels. Finally, firms in unstable environments have a marginal preference
for emergent approaches. Results could help advance the dynamic contingency theoretical perspective on
dynamic capabilities, as well as improve the practice of innovation portfolio management.
Forbes N, Wield D (2008) Innovation Dynamics in Catch-Up Firms: Process, Product and Proprietary
Capabilities for Development. Industry and Innovation 15:69-92 This paper analyses how firms organize
for industrial innovation where they are significantly below being globally competitive. It investigates the
dynamics by which catch-up firms in developing countries (DCs) go beyond the boundaries assigned to
them by their national environments and by the world's leading technology-driven firms. The paper analyses
cases of how a range of successful firms managed to break these boundaries to increase competitiveness
through innovation. Our key argument concerns the innovation dynamics of catch-up firms. We argue that
aspirant firms approach the frontier differently to leaders. We construct and use a tool, based on resourcebased theory, to map the alternative approaches taken by firms to develop new capabilities. It focuses on the
relationship between process and product innovation and the nature of proprietary competencies. This allows
the development of approaches to build strategies for innovation in DC catch-up firms and thereby transform
development dynamics.
Franke N, Keinz P, Schreier M (2008) Complementing mass customization toolkits with user communities:
How peer input improves customer self-design. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:546-559
In this paper, the authors propose that the canonical customer-toolkit dyad in mass customization (MC)
should be complemented with user communities. Many companies in various industries have begun to offer
their customers the opportunity to design their own products online. The companies provide Web-based MC
toolkits that allow customers who prefer individualized products to tailor items such as sneakers, personal
computers (PCs), cars, kitchens, cereals, or skis to their specific preferences. Most existing MC toolkits are
based on the underlying concept of an isolated, dyadic interaction process between the individual customer
and the MC toolkit. Information from external sources is not provided. As a result, most academic research
on MC toolkits has focused on this dyadic perspective. The main premise of this paper is that novice MC
toolkit users in particular might largely benefit from information given by other customers. Pioneering
research shows that customers in the computer gaming and digital music instruments industries are willing
to support each other for the sake of efficient toolkit use (e.g., how certain toolkit functions work).
Expanding on their work, the present paper provides evidence that peer assistance appears also extremely
useful in the two other major phases of the customer's individual self-design process, namely, the
development of an initial idea and the evaluation of a preliminary design solution. Two controlled
experiments were conducted in which 191 subjects used an MC toolkit to design their own individual skis.
The authors found that during the phase of developing an initial idea, having access to other users' designs as
potential starting points stimulates the integration of existing solution chunks into the problem-solving
process, which indicates more systematic problem-solving behavior. Peer customer input also turned out to
have positive effects on the evaluation of preliminary design solutions. Providing other customers' opinions
on interim design solutions stimulated favorable problem-solving behavior, namely, the integration of
external feedback. The use of these two problem-solving heuristics in turn leads to an improved process
outcome-that is, self-designed products that meet the preferences of the customers more effectively
(measured in terms of perceived preference fit, purchase intention, and willingness to pay). These findings
have important theoretical and managerial implications.
Frederich MJ, Andrews P (2008) Driving Innovation into the Marketplace: Ibm's First-of-a-Kind Program.
Research-Technology Management 51:7-12
Freeman C (2008) International competitiveness and technological change. R & D Management 38:108-110
Friedman RS, Prusak L (2008) On heuristics, narrative and knowledge management. Technovation 28:812817 This article is based on comments delivered by Laurence Pruzak at a meeting of the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development at the University of Ottawa in November, 2007. We discuss
heuristics of knowledge management and how they close the gap between the theories that drive the
academic activity of knowledge management-Prof. de la Mothe's discipline-and the work of practitioners in
the field. We do this by providing narrative examples of these basic practices in order to demonstrate the
value of narrative itself to the practice of knowledge management. We find that there is trans-disciplinary
pedagogic value in narrative form, which enhances our understanding of knowledge management and shapes
our approaches to future research in the discipline. On a practical level, these comments rehearse how a
historical approach to rhetoric informs contemporary group dynamics and organizational hierarchy; how
rhetoric and narrative become factors in the management of information flow and systems, organizational
strategy, and leadership; and how they affect our understanding of space, time and emotional investment in
work. As knowledge management increases in importance in terms of business processes and advantage, we
are increasingly reliant on proxies for measurement and non-empirical skills and behaviors such as
judgment, creativity and imagination.
Friga PN, Chapas RB (2008) Make better business decisions. Research-Technology Management 51:8-16
Fryer PJ, Versteeg C (2008) Processing technology innovation in the food industry. Innovation-Management
Policy & Practice 10:74-90
Fuller J, Matzler K, Hoppe M (2008) Brand community members as a source of innovation. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 25:608-619
Brand community members have a strong interest in the
product and in the brand. They usually have extensive product knowledge and engage in product-related
discussions; they support each other in solving problems and generating new product ideas. Therefore, brand
communities can be a valuable source of innovation. So far, little is known about the member's ability and
willingness to participate in a company's innovation process. How does passion for the brand, affiliation to
the brand community, and trust in the brand affect the willingness to engage in a company's innovation
process? What is the effect of brand passion on brand knowledge and on domain-specific skills, which are
considered important prerequisites for qualified and creative contributions to new product development?
What is the effect of personality traits on the willingness and ability to engage in new product development?
This research addresses these questions, which are interesting for managers who are thinking about opening
up their innovation process and collaborating with brand communities and for academics exploring the
opportunities of online communities for new product development and trying to develop promising new
forms of open innovation networks. Drawing on brand community literature, relationship theory, creativity
theory, and personality traits research, this paper introduces a comprehensive set of antecedents affecting
brand community members' willingness to engage in new product development. It is argued that consumer
creativity, identification with the brand community, and brand-specific emotions and attitudes (passion and
trust) as well as brand knowledge are important determinants of consumers' willingness to share their
knowledge with producers. The paper also identifies two personality traits (i.e., extraversion and openness)
that have significant influence on brand passion, creativity, and identification with the community. The
hypotheses are tested on a sample of 550 members of the Volkswagen Golf GTI car community. Structural
equation modeling was used to test the relationship among the constructs. Though a positive disposition
toward a brand may be advantageous for consumers that are willing to interact with producers during new
product development, our results show that it is consumer interest in innovations and the innovative process
that drives them to get involved. Further, brand community members with more knowledge and more
innovative skills seem to be more willing to contribute than less qualified community members.
Funk J (2008) Systems, Components and Technological Discontinuities: The Case of the Semiconductor
Industry. Industry and Innovation 15:411-433
This paper uses the semiconductor industry to describe a
model of technological change that sheds light on the mechanism by which many technological
discontinuities occur. The model combines two arguments: (1) incremental improvements in a system's
components impact on the performance and design of systems; and (2) these incremental improvements in
components can lead to discontinuities in system design through their impact on the design tradeoffs that are
inherent in all systems. Components are defined loosely as any subsystem in a nested hierarchy of
subsystems where the most important component in the semiconductor industry is semiconductor
manufacturing equipment. Improvements in this equipment and the processes they are used in have changed
(and continue to change) the tradeoffs that firms make in their choices of semiconductor materials, transistor
designs and system designs, and thus led to a number of technological discontinuities. The model is
described using the discontinuities that are the most widely emphasized in histories of the semiconductor
industry.
Gao LL (2008) China's Patent System and Globalization. Research-Technology Management 51:34-37
With the speedup in economic globalization, tariffs have been greatly cut and non-tariff measures have been
substantially reduced. As the role of tariff protection is further weakened, IP protection is becoming one of
the major issues in international economic development and is of concern to all countries. China, by revising
its patent law, acceding to international conventions, and strengthening enforcement of the law, has made
impressive progress toward building a good IP system. China has taken steps to fulfill its TRIPS (TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) obligations and to become gradually integrated into the
economic globalization process.
Garcia N, Sanzo MJ, Trespalacios JA (2008) New product internal performance and market performance:
Evidence from Spanish firms regarding the role of trust, interfunctional integration, and innovation type.
Technovation 28:713-725
This study examines the influence of the organizational climate in the
marketing-R&D relationship during the new product development (NPD) process on new product
performance. Two key variables-trust and interfunctional integration-serve to measure this interfunctional
climate. This article distinguishes between internal and external success, such that three dimensions-"met
cost goals," "met time goals," and "product advantage"-represent dimensions of internal success, whereas a
market dimension represents external success. Furthermore, this research determines whether the type of
innovation, in terms of newness, moderates relationships among these variables. According to surveys of
R&D directors from 178 innovative Spanish firms that introduced 345 products, (1) trust is positively
associated with interfunctional integration; (2) firms in which interfunctional integration exists obtain better
cost, time, and product performance; (3) each dimension of internal success is positively associated with
greater market success; and (4) newness moderates the intensity of the positive association between the met
time goals and market success variables.
Garnsey E, Leong YY (2008) Combining Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theory to Explain the Genesis
of Bio-networks. Industry and Innovation 15:669-686 This paper examines new firms creating innovative
networks to support their development in emerging industries. Resource-based and evolutionary theories are
combined to explain the genesis of a new business ecosystem. Two case studies of biopharm ventures
developing drugs against cancer showed how participants altered their selection environment as they
enhanced their network's capability. Resource building took place at the firm and network level through
collaborative business models involving innovative contractors. This approach uncovered previously
unnoticed features of networks for drug development: resource asynchronies were found to be a stimulus to
innovation in development networks, as in the Penrosean firm.
Garrido MJ, Gutierrez A, San Jose R (2008) Organizational and economic consequences of business eprocurement intensity. Technovation 28:615-629
The implementation of e-procurement by companies
implies a diverse degree of Internet use during different purchasing processes. The purpose of this research
is to analyze how the intensity of Internet use in the procurement process impacts firms from a different
point of view: organizational and economical. The organizational consequences refer to the structure of the
buying center in terms of size, participation, number of hierarchical levels and functional areas. Economical
consequences materialize in concrete purchase results in terms of efficacy and efficiency. In this research,
the intensity of Internet use in the procurement process is determined by two factors: the stage of purchasing
process and the number of Internet tools involved in each stage. The survey was performed by splitting the
sample of 103 industrial Spanish companies into two groups: those showing a low intensity of Internet use
in the procurement process and a second group with a high intensity. Results show that intensity of e-
procurement causes an increase in buying center size and in the number of functional areas involved in the
purchase. We also notice that efficacy and efficiency increase, either by reducing costs in the search for
information or by allowing the purchase of higher quality products at lower prices. To sum up, our research
provides empirical evidence for Internet added-value in terms of its ability to transform the information
stream within firms, and the consequences derived from this fact on industrial purchasing processes. All
these factors allow better purchasing decisions to be made. It can be a powerful instrument to reach
competitive advantage and can establish itself as a key factor for business success.
German JB (2008) Looking into the future of foods and health. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice
10:109-120 The health of the population is compromised by poor dietary choices. Resolving this situation
will require a substantial investment at many levels of science, agriculture and food industrialisation. If such
investments are undertaken they will provide the opportunity to change the food marketplace from a product
centric, to a consumer centric, strategy competing to deliver health benefits to individuals.
Giloni A, Seshadri S, Tucci CL (2008) Neo-Rawlsian fringes: A new approach to market segmentation and
new product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:491-507 Prior research into the
link between new product development and market segmentation has focused on two main approaches: (1)
design, segment, and do limited competitive evaluation; and (2) segment first, design second. This paper
proposes a third approach, which is to simultaneously design, perform segmentation according to benefit and
to evaluate against competitive designs. This research uses a benefit segmentation technique based on
conjoint analysis (or other techniques that relate product attributes to consumer utility) in which the
segments emerge simultaneously with the design based on certain design principles or "strategies." Herein a
method is proposed to narrow down the many possible feasible designs (combinations of attributes) to a
finite set and to examine the appeal of each design. Five distinct design strategies are proposed for modeling
and studying competitive reaction. These include "traditional" ones such as differentiation and new ones
whose fringe customers have high utility. The paper shows that these five strategies are adequate for
modeling competitive reaction using simulation. Another contribution of the paper is the way competitive
reaction is modeled. In generating and evaluating a design the desire herein is also to assess the defensibility
of the design and include it in the evaluation criteria. These issues are addressed by decomposing the
solution procedure into two phases. In the first phase, different optimal designs are created based on
predefined product development strategies. In the second, these optimal designs are compared against one
another with regard to market share and potential to secure market leadership. This work shows that the
nature of competition as well as the variability of customer preferences are critical to how a strategy
performs. This process uncovers a surprisingly robust design strategy-developing attributes such that a
"lower fringe" is most satisfied-that even achieves market dominance under certain conditions. This
methodology is also applied to partworth data on refrigerators, which provides a concrete example of the
concepts and demonstrates results consistent with the propositions developed earlier in the paper.
Gilsing VA, Duysters GM (2008) Understanding novelty creation in exploration networks - Structural and
relational embeddedness jointly considered. Technovation 28:693-708
In exploration networks the keyorganisational question is not how to organise a division of tabour but instead how to create novelty. The
aim of this paper is to develop an understanding of how such novelty in exploration networks is created.
Based on an empirical analysis of the multimedia and biotechnology industries in the Netherlands, this paper
shows that exploration networks face a trade-off between diversity and selection. Moreover, the findings
indicate that depending on the type of exploration task, exploration networks need to make a combination of
density and tic strength in such a way that diversity and selection are aligned. The paper concludes, among
others, that the views of Burt, Coleman and Granovetter should not be seen as contradictory, but rather as
proponents of complementary views.
Githens G (2008) Getting to innovation: How asking the right questions generates the great ideas your
company needs. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:521-522
Golish BL, Besterfield-Sacre ME, Shuman LJ (2008) Comparing academic and corporate technology
development processes. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:47-62 There is a growing concern
that a large portion of innovation, one area in which the United States has excelled, may soon follow
manufacturing to less costly, more efficient countries overseas. Although U.S. innovators collectively still
have more patentable technologies granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) than all other
countries, offshore competitors have made substantial gains with recent year-to-year percent increases much
larger than the United States. Of concern is the relatively low number of patents granted to academic
innovators. In spite of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, success in this area has been limited with the proportion
of patents from academia being less than 2 percent of the total patents awarded in the United States in the
years since the act. Consequently, this article examines the U.S. technology development process in a
descriptive study to determine exactly how and where academic and corporate inventors differ in their
approaches. A series of structured interviews with academic and corporate innovators was conducted as part
of a larger study investigating the technology development processes of academic and corporate inventors.
Each inventor developed a concept map describing the particular process followed. To do this, a
comprehensive set of possible development process elements was compiled. Inventors were then asked to
select and then to arrange the elements they actually used to reflect their individual process. The resultant
maps were examined using five different approaches-three quantitative and two qualitative. These analyses
clearly documented that, on average, academic inventors used significantly less elements in their process
(maps) than did their corporate counterparts, and further, that there was little commonality among elements
on the academic maps. Overall, the corporate maps were viewed as being more complete, correct, and
organized than the academic maps. This article reveals that for a small number of academic inventors and
for a single technology scope, activities such as defining the market and IT growth potential, actual versus
planned cost evaluation, and determination of changing customer needs/market requirements are not being
conducted by the inventor. If such activities were performed either by the academic inventor or more
logically by the PTO, more licensures and patents may occur.
Gordon S, Tarafdar M, Cook R, Maksimoski R, Rogowitz B (2008) Improving the front end of innovation
with information technology. Research-Technology Management 51:50-58 The so-called fuzzy front end
would seem to be the stage of innovation least suited to the use of information systems and technology, tools
usually applied to repeatable processes and those amenable to formal specification. Yet, many companies
have learned that information technology can help increase their innovators' productivity even before those
innovations become formal projects. Information systems can help with collaboration, knowledge sharing,
competitive intelligence, and in many other ways to help people generate ideas that are both creative and
potentially valuable. This research examines the best practices of companies that use information technology
to support the front end of their innovation processes.
Guo L (2008) PERSPECTIVE: An analysis of 22 years of research in JPIM. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:249-260
Numerous articles have been published in the Journal of Product Innovation
Management (JPIM) since its inception in 1984, representing the most advanced studies dedicated to the
management practice in all of the functions involved in the total process of product innovation. It is timely
to draw a research profile by investigating the research patterns and development in JPIM to reflect the
evolution of the field. First of all, the present study performed a text analysis of 544 research articles
published from 1984 to 2005 and then developed a list of research streams. Next, each article was analyzed
by coding the following information: the author's background (i.e., academic or professional), the author's
country of affiliation, the research topic, the structure of theoretical framework (i.e., analog, composite, or
propositional), the type of research design, the quantitative analytical technique, the types of industries, and
the countries investigated in the empirical studies. The results indicated that JPIM had made substantial
progress in two points. The first is the expanded collaborations of authors, which are not only within the
national boundary but also across countries and continents. With such a divergence of research traditions
and cultural perspectives, this cooperation offers the potential to enrich the stock of new product
development and innovation management theories as well as methodologies more than single-country
arrangement. The second is a high degree of science in respect of methodology. Although JPIM has become
a major journal for business research, three opportunities of knowledge advancement were suggested. The
first is to reduce the domination of American and European publication and to promote article submission
from developing countries. The second concerns the need of relatively broad theoretical schema and
diversified research methods. The last opportunity lies in the encouragement of research on certain
promising topics.
Gwynne P (2008) Microsoft Opens 6th Lab for Fundamental Research. Research-Technology Management
51:3-5
Gwynne P (2008) MIT recruiting engineers for biomedical research. Research-Technology Management
51:5-6
Gwynne P (2008) Setting the stage for next-generation research. Research-Technology Management 51:1316
Gwynne P (2008) Preparing ground for global warming. Research-Technology Management 51:3-5
Gwynne P (2008) Mope schools teaching entrepreneurship. Research-Technology Management 51:6-8
Gwynne P (2008) European villages could offer glimpse of energy future. Research-Technology
Management 51:2-4
Habaradas RB (2008) Strengthening the National Innovation System (NIS) of the Philippines: Lessons from
Malaysia and Thailand. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:1-22 This paper briefly describes the
efforts of Malaysia and Thailand in developing their national innovation systems (NIS) as they attempt to
attain sustained economic growth and competitiveness in the global business environment. It also seeks to
generate insights that would be useful for the Philippines given the current state of its own NIS, and given its
resource constraints as a developing economy. The experiences of Malaysia and Thailand provide additional
empirical support for some of the propositions raised by scholars who have studied NIS dynamics. The key
insights generated are as follows: (1) Visionary leadership is critical in developing a country's NIS; (2)
Innovation policy must be linked to the overall economic and development goals of the country, and must be
adequately supported by targeted programs; (3) Focusing on a few sectors serves to concentrate scarce
resources on the priority areas; (4) Integrating efforts through a coordinating body enhances the ability of the
government to mobilize limited resources by reducing activities that duplicate each other, but could also
worsen bureaucratic red tape; and (5) Government programs and policy instruments must be designed to fit
the requirements of firms that face a variety of constraints and have different motives for undertaking
innovation.
Han JH, Lee JD, Yoon BS (2008) An Empirical Study on the Network Properties of Innovation in Clusters:
The Social Capital Aspect. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:47-66
In a knowledge-based
society, knowledge is crucial to innovation. In terms of innovation input, firms look to their partners to seek
knowledge to maximize their values by effectively combining the partner's resources and exploiting
complementarities. Thus, it is impossible for a firm to possess all the knowledge for innovation. Delivery of
information is harder with tacit knowledge than with explicit knowledge. In general, it is known that explicit
knowledge can be a spillover through formal channels. On the contrary, tacit knowledge can be delivered
with ease through informal channels. The purpose of this paper is to find whether the network activities
based on social capital (trust and shared objective) differ in Korea clusters or not. Using data collected from
multiple respondents in firms, it is found that there are no differences between formal and informal channels.
As a means of knowledge transfer, formal channel is more effective than informal channel in Korea
regardless of characteristics of firm, the size of firms, and pattern of innovation. To transfer knowledge
based on tacit knowledge, social capital should be better cultivated among actors in clusters through policy
implementation.
Harmon RR (2008) The pursuit of new product development: The business development process. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 25:108-110
Harryson SJ (2008) Entrepreneurship through relationships - navigating from creativity to
commercialisation. R & D Management 38:290-310
This paper explores the role of relationships in the
emergence of a network's value creation structure. The strategic navigation from creative exploration to
global exploitation through the use of so-called transformation networks is particularly highlighted. The
creativity phase requires a creator with visionary leadership. The commercialisation phase, on the other
hand, requires technology integration and global marketing excellence. Realising that this requires more
than a bright inventor, the creator of Anoto brought in the right complementary assets at distinct phases of
the commercialisation process. Our case illustrates how integrator and marketeer profiles were brought into
a networked act of entrepreneurship for joint navigation across an ocean of relationships that gave birth to a
global standard for digital writing. By combining theories on open innovation and networking, a theoretical
framework is developed to analyse the different nature of the networks (or the value creation structure) in
which complementary assets can be accessed, transferred and transformed into commercialised innovation.
The analysis suggests that the value of complementary assets are embedded in and unlocked by three distinct
types of networks: creativity networks, transformation networks and process networks. It also suggests that
the ideal approach to accessing complementary assets shifts over the research and development management
process, and happens through these three different types and levels of networks, requiring fundamentally
different approaches to leadership and relationship management. Current literature describes open and
networked innovation as a continuous - not dynamic - process of exploration and exploitation without any
distinction of how types and structures of networks evolve and interact in the process.
Hart MA (2008) Designing interactions. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:203-205
Henard DH, McFadyen MA (2008) Making knowledge workers more creative. Research-Technology
Management 51:40-46
The knowledge management process is increasingly seen as a key to
organizational creativity and innovation. The evolving global business environment necessitates that
organizations shift from a rigid, standardized competitive approach to a more flexible mobilization of human
resources located both inside and outside the company. This can be aided by recognizing knowledge worker
capabilities as a hierarchy from acquired knowledge to more complex unique and creative knowledge.
Competitive advantage can be gained by moving individual and cumulative capabilities higher on this
pyramid.
Hennessy M (2008) The enterprise of the future. Research-Technology Management 51:7-8
Herfert KF, Arbige MV (2008) Aligning an R&D portfolio with corporate strategy. Research-Technology
Management 51:39-46 R&D faces challenges when serving multiple businesses and markets, each with its
own strategies within an overall corporate strategy. To perform in this environment, Genencor has created
an interactive, cross-functional engagement within the corporation that involves R&D, manufacturing,
supply, and other supporting functions. Business integration teams (BITs) have been introduced to create the
necessary cross-functional link-ages. A process for setting and managing portfolio priorities has also been
implemented, and stress is placed on the importance of open and proactive communication across both the
internal organization and with external customers and industries. The resulting staff engagement and project
ownership in various functions within the business have enabled dynamic, real-time management of the
R&D portfolio. with effective leadership of the corporate innovation portfolio, significant performance gains
have been achieved for Danisco's Genencor Division.
Hernandez B, Jimenez J, Martin MJ (2008) Extending the technology acceptance model to include the IT
decision-maker: A study of business management software. Technovation 28:112-121
The
implementation of new information technologies (IT) has been a key factor in company development in
recent years. Therefore, firms must be equipped for the correct management of this new resource and
effectively confront the challenges posed by its adoption. This paper analyses the acceptance of business
management software within the new competitive environment by applying the concepts introduced by the
technology acceptance model (TAM). The results obtained show that, in contrast to other studies which
analyse employee behaviour, the analysis of the perceptions of the company decision-maker increases the
explanatory power (R-2 = 0.95), thereby avoiding some of the weaknesses inherent in this model. We find
that, for a greater implementation of the management software, the IT should be useful in the performance
of a business function and easy to apply.
Herrera L, Nieto M (2008) The national innovation policy effect according to firm location. Technovation
28:540-550
The regional nature of innovation and innovation policy was investigated. The aim of this
study was to determine whether the specific economic and institutional conditions of a region had an
influence on the results of a national policy intended to support entrepreneurial innovation. The analysis
compared the effect of the national R&D subsidies on the innovation effort of firms located in central
regions, which concentrate an important percentage of the national innovation activity, together with those
firms located in periphery regions. Significant regional differences were detected with regard to the national
R&D subsidies' effect and distribution. The central regions manifested a higher subsidy effect compared to
the periphery regions. The results of this study have allowed us to conclude that the region plays an
important differentiating role in connection with the final result of the innovation policy aimed at the entire
national territory. Therefore, this study recommends including the geographical location of the firm in future
evaluations.
Hidalgo A, Albors J (2008) Innovation management techniques and tools: a review from theory and
practice. R & D Management 38:113-127
Knowledge is considered to be an economic driver in today's
economy. It has become a commodity, a resource that can be packed and transferred. The objective of this
paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the scope, trends and major actors (firms, organizations,
government, consultants, academia, etc.) in the development and use of methods to manage innovation in a
knowledge-driven economy. The paper identifies the main innovation management techniques (IMTs)
aiming at the improvement of firm competitiveness by means of knowledge management. It will specifically
focus on those IMTs for which knowledge is a relevant part of the innovation process. The research study,
based on a survey at the European level, concludes that a knowledge-driven economy affects the innovation
process and approach. The traditional idea that innovation is based on research (technology-push theory) and
interaction between firms and other actors has been replaced by the current social network theory of
innovation, where knowledge plays a crucial role in fostering innovation. Simultaneously, organizations in
both public and private sectors have launched initiatives to develop methodologies and tools to support
business innovation management. Higher education establishments, business schools and consulting
companies are developing innovative and adequate methodologies and tools, while public authorities are
designing and setting up education and training schemes aimed at disseminating best practices among all
kinds of businesses.
Hirsch-Kreinsen H (2008) "Low-Tech'' Innovations. Industry and Innovation 15:19-43 This paper is about
an industrial sector which, according to the usual socio-scientific indicators, is referred to as "low-tech'',
respectively as non-research intensive and which mostly comprises "traditional'' industries. The interest in
this sector is motivated by the contradictory situation that, on the one hand, the debate about the perspectives
of modern societies focuses on the rapidly growing importance of technological innovations, knowledge and
research-intensive economic sectors while, on the other hand, traditional industries make up a considerable
fraction of employment and production, especially also in developed economies. On the basis of the results
of extensive empirical research, this contribution tries to find answers to the basic question, whether one can
speak of an innovation mode typical of the low-tech sector. The institutional based innovation systems
approach forms the categorical basis of the analysis. In order to elucidate the specific features of low-tech
innovations, they are, in conclusion, compared to the general characteristics of high-tech-based innovation
processes.
Ho JC, Lee CS (2008) The DNA of industrial competitors. Research-Technology Management 51:17-20
Competitor analysis is critical to strategy formulation and implementation. Firms are able to develop and
deploy better strategies if their competitors' responses can be analyzed or even predicted. However, a
competitor may initiate certain strategic actions to improve its position. A strategic approach to analyzing
competitor responses to a rival's actions in order to achieve a better position would greatly help in the
formulation of a firm's business strategy. A DNA analogy shows the way.
Hospers GJ (2008) Governance in innovative cities and the importance of branding. InnovationManagement Policy & Practice 10:224-234 Everywhere in the Western world we can see the rise of cities
calling themselves 'innovative cities'. In this paper we look at these cities from a governance perspective.
Making use of insights from urban economics, we understand innovative cities as competitive urban areas
that combine concentration, diversity, instability and especially a positive image. Case studies of three
innovative hot spots - Austin (Texas), Oresund (Denmark/Sweden) and Manchester (UK) - suggest that local
governments cannot plan urban innovativeness from scratch. We conclude, however, that policy-makers can
increase the chance that innovation in cities emerges by giving chance a helping hand and by branding the
city in the outside world.
Howells J (2008) New directions in R&D: current and prospective challenges. R & D Management 38:241252
This paper investigates the paradox of research and development (R&D), that is being increasingly
undervalued by firms and nations, and yet continues to grow and prosper in terms of overall size and reach.
The analysis outlines key developments that are currently affecting the growth and development of R&D
activity and highlights the issues and problems that R&D managers and policymakers may likely face over
the next decade.
Howells J, Gagliardi D, Malik K (2008) The growth and management of R&D outsourcing: evidence from
UK pharmaceuticals. R & D Management 38:205-219
Outsourcing of research and development (R&D)
activities has become a major management issue for R&D and technical managers within firms. It has also
been of growing concern to academics who are trying to chart the implications of the increasingly
distributed nature of research and innovative activities in advanced economies. This study is based on a
survey of research-based pharmaceutical companies operating in the United Kingdom conducted in 20042006. The aim of this paper is to outline the main reasons for pharmaceutical firms to outsource R&D and
the management practices followed by such companies in relation to outsourcing. The research results
provide interesting findings in relation to, for example, the reasons behind outsourcing, the decision-making
processes behind such practices and barriers to outsourcing arrangements. These issues are evaluated
together with the characteristics of the firms and the specific project outsourced.
Hu JL, Hsu YH (2008) The more interactive, the more innovative? A case study of South Korean cellular
phone manufacturers. Technovation 28:75-87
This paper shows that there had been a gap in R&D
intensity between South Korean and western cellular phone firms in past years, but this gap has closed.
South Korean firm R&D efficiency has recently generally been superior to that of European and American
competitors. South Korean innovative power came from three sources: interaction with operators, getting
service information and applications from service providers, and internal and external competition. After
successful experiences in innovating products for the domestic market, South Korean cellular phone makers
used customised design with foreign mobile operators and their foreign R&D centres to localise design and
make modifications to meet foreign market demand. Therefore, for 3C (computer, communication and
consumer) latecomers in developing economies, due to capital, cost and risk issues, they should strengthen
their R&D efficiency through these methods in place of prematurely increasing R&D intensity before the
firm is large enough.
Hung SW, Tang RH (2008) Factors affecting the choice of technology acquisition mode: An empirical
analysis of the electronic firms of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Technovation 28:551-563
In today's
globalized economy, enterprises are facing ever increasing competitive pressures. A commonly adopted
strategy for gaining new technologies and remaining competitive is to acquire needed technology from
external sources. The goal of this paper is to identify influential factors and their impact using a multifactorial analysis of the choice of technology acquisition mode. The effect of various factors on these modes
was studied by examining a sampling of the electronic industries of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. A patent
analysis combined with Logit Regression is made and tested using data of these electronic firms. The results
indicate that among the factors analyzed in this study, the technological capability (including technological
level, technological innovation and research and development (R&D) activities) of a firm is the most
significant factor in influencing the determination of the mode of technology acquisition. Finally, we discuss
the significance of results based on resource theory and present our conclusions and their implications. By
highlighting the important links between a firm's technological capability, size, previous experience and
relevance of its core technology to the mode of technology acquisition in these technology-based firms, we
hope to cast light on the contribution of various influential factors on the decision making of these modes for
firms in these countries.
Hurmelinna-Laukkanen P, Sainio LM, Jauhiainen T (2008) Appropriability regime for radical and
incremental innovations. R & D Management 38:278-289
In the present day markets, new product
development and innovation are essential for value creation. Innovation, however, hardly provides benefits
if rivals are able to copy it with little or no extra cost. Consequently, being able to build an appropriability
regime that provides effective protection against imitation and enables getting returns on investments in
innovation is necessary. The problem is that choosing the methods to protect different kinds of innovations
is not straightforward. In this paper we study appropriating from radical and incremental innovations. It is
widely known that many significant differences exist between the two innovation types, and the
appropriability conditions are no exception. Empirical evidence on the topic is provided by analyzing survey
data collected among 299 companies. As a result, the effects of environmental dynamism and research and
development (R&D) intensity on radical and incremental innovation are illustrated, and knowledge is
provided on the role of the appropriability regime in enhancing the potential to profit from radical and
incremental innovations.
Jaruzelski B (2008) The customer connection: The global innovation 1000. Research-Technology
Management 51:63-64
Jin J, von Zedtwitz M (2008) Technological capability development in China's mobile phone industry.
Technovation 28:327-334 The development of technological capability (TC) is critical for manufacturing
firms in high-tech industries. Kim's [1980. Stages of development of industrial technology in a developing
country: a model. Research Policy 9, 254-277] model of acquisition, assimilation, and improvement is
widely accepted to explain TC development in developing economies. However, some R&D practices we
observed in Chinese manufacturing companies appear to be in disagreement with Kim's model. Based on
four in-depth cases studies set in China's mobile phone industry, we hypothesize (a) a complementary stage
in Kim's model, and (b) those stages can be traversed concurrently.
Johnson A (2008) The leaders we need and what makes us follow. Research-Technology Management
51:63-64
Johnson B (2008) Cities, systems of innovation and economic development. Innovation-Management Policy
& Practice 10:146-155
Innovative cities are essential for the economic growth and development of
countries. At the same time, however, social and environmental problems related to city growth can be
serious threats to the full realisation of the socio-economic contribution that cities can make. In this paper it
is argued that the notion of a 'system of innovation' is helpful in understanding the factors that shape the
processes of innovation and that determine the extent to which problems related to city growth may be
solved. It is also argued that it is in cities, especially big cities, that the power of innovation to promote
economic growth and development will be tested and that; in this context, institutional innovation and
political innovation as compared to technical innovation are of special importance.
Johnson WHA (2008) Roles, resources and benefits of intermediate organizations supporting triple helix
collaborative R&D: The case of Precarn. Technovation 28:495-505 Triple helix collaborations involving
academia, government and industry are believed vital to the success of regional technology development.
However, due to differences in culture, organizational functioning and incentive mechanisms as well as the
different objectives of the various actors involved, such collaboration is difficult to create and sustain. A
case study of the organization called Precarn, a collaborative, which manages a program of triple helix
projects, is used here to illustrate how an intermediate organization can help triple helix partnerships towards
the successful commercialization of new technologies. The paper contributes to the literature on managing
R&D collaborations and innovation networks using organization theories to explain why and how
collaborative intermediate organizations can facilitate successful technological adoption and
commercialization across innovation networks.
Jolly DR (2008) Chinese vs. European views regarding technology assessment: Convergent or divergent?
Technovation 28:818-830 This paper tries to identify whether Chinese and European assessments of their
respective technology portfolios differ. A first question relates to the perceived levels of competitiveness
and attractiveness of each technology portfolio. A second question relates to the underlying rationales to
technology audit practices: does each of these practices tend to a unique and general model or do they
exhibit some idiosyncratic features? Technology audits conducted in 10 Chinese and 40 European
companies produced 454 self-assessments: 82 Chinese and 372 European. There are two conclusions: (a)
comparisons of means show that attractiveness of technologies does not differ in the Chinese and the
European samples; it can be inferred that Chinese and European are targeting technologies with similar
value. However, Chinese technological competitiveness was clearly perceived as much lower. This shows
that a competitive gap is still clearly perceived between China and Europe. (b) Factorial analyses show that
rationales for assessment of technology attractiveness tend to diverge but that rationales for assessment of
technological competitiveness tend to follow similar lines in both sub-samples; this is possibly because
attractiveness is a culture-based concept while competitiveness is more and more global.
Kafouros MI, Buckley PJ, Sharp JA, Wang CQ (2008) The role of internationalization in explaining
innovation performance. Technovation 28:63-74
Although it has been suggested that innovation has
significant consequences for a firm's economic performance, the past empirical findings are mixed, not
always confirming this proposition. Extending previous research, this study demonstrates that the reason for
previously conflicting results may be an incomplete understanding of the factors influencing the innovationperformance relationship. We argue that not all firms can reap rewards from innovation. Rather, we suggest
that firms need to have a sufficient degree of internationalization, i.e. be active in many markets, to capture
successfully the fruits of innovation. Initially, the study offers a theoretical framework that explains how and
why a higher degree of internationalization, by affecting both innovative capacity and a number of
appropriability factors, influences the effects of innovation. Then, utilizing firm-level data, the study
empirically tests this proposition. The results confirm that internationalization enhances a firm's capacity to
improve performance through innovation. However, they also show that firms are unable to benefit from
innovation if their international activity is below a threshold level.
Kafouros MI, Wang CQ (2008) The Role of Time in Assessing the Economic Effects of R&D. Industry and
Innovation 15:233-251
This study investigates the impacts of R&D on firm performance. It extends
previous research by constructing alternative stocks of R&D-Capital that take into account that time plays an
important role in assessing the pay-off of industrial research. The results show that even when we employed
R&D-Capitals that placed more emphasis on the industrial research that had been undertaken 7 years ago,
the effects of R&D were very (statistically) significant and relatively high, thereby suggesting that the life of
R&D (on average) tends to be long. The results however, vary across organizations depending on both firm
size and the technological opportunities that a company faces. It appears that the depreciation rate of R&D
investments is higher in the case of technologically sophisticated firms. In contrast, strategic investments in
industrial research generate a relatively constant effect on the performance of other firms, supporting the
notion that the corresponding returns for such firms decay slowly.
Kaiser S, Muller-Seitz G (2008) Leveraging Lead User Knowledge in Software Development-The Case of
Weblog Technology. Industry and Innovation 15:199-221
Firms increasingly rely upon information
technology (IT) to manage organizational knowledge, though this does not inevitably result in increased
knowledge sharing. In contrast, we know that in the case of non-commercial open software development, IT
plays a central role in knowledge sharing between software developers. This paper acknowledges the impact
of a blogosphere-a system of connected weblogs (i.e. personalized and informal publications on the Internet
in reverse chronological order)-on the motivation of lead users to develop commercial software together
with the employees of a large for-profit organization. On the basis of multi-method data, collected over a 28month period, our results indicate parallels to the field of open source software: we argue that weblog
technology and its features evoke intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to engage in knowledge sharing within a
commercial software development project.
Kale D, Wield D (2008) Exploitative and Explorative Learning as a Response to the TRIPS Agreement in
Indian Pharmaceutical Firms. Industry and Innovation 15:93-114
The intellectual property regime forms
an important part of any government's economic and industrial policies. It is an important regulatory
instrument not only affecting industry and market structure but also influencing firm-level learning
strategies, especially in knowledge-based industries like pharmaceuticals. Given its crucial role, the
strengthening of patent laws as a result of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement
presents a significant institutional change for developing country industry. This paper analyses Indian
pharmaceutical firms' strategic response to the strengthening of patent law. The research in this paper shows
that Indian pharmaceutical firms responded to anticipated disruptive regulatory change by developing
competencies incrementally as well as radically. Ambidextrous capability development involved explorative
investment in R&D to develop innovative product R&D competencies and in parallel also involved
exploitative use of existing process R&D capabilities. This ambidextrous capability development has
enabled Indian pharmaceutical firms to survive and compete with multinational corporation (MNC)
pharmaceutical firms, showing other catch-up firms a different path of capability development.
Kaminski PC, de Oliveira AC, Lopes TM (2008) Knowledge transfer in product development processes: A
case study in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of the metal-mechanic sector from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Technovation 28:29-36
This paper reports a research that evaluated the product development
methodologies used in Brazilian small and medium-sized metal-mechanic enterprises (SMEs), in a specific
region of Sao Paulo. The tool used for collecting the data was a questionnaire, which was developed and
applied through interviews conducted by the researchers in 32 companies. The main focus of this paper can
be condensed in the synthesis-question "Is only the company responsible for the development?" which was
analyzed thoroughly. The results obtained from this analysis were evaluated directly (through the respective
percentages of answers) and statistically (through the search of an index which demonstrates if two
questions are related). The results point to a degree of maturity in SMEs, which allows product development
to be conducted in cooperation networks.
Karlsson J (2008) Taking care of xerox business-virtually. Research-Technology Management 51:15-18
Katz R (2008) The fast path to corporate growth. R & D Management 38:444-U443
Katzy BR, Crowston K (2008) Competency rallying for technical innovation - The case of the Virtuelle
Fabrik. Technovation 28:679-692 Technology improves at an ever-increasing rate, but the speed at which
firms can adapt their strategies and competencies to develop technological innovations and exploit market
opportunities remains limited. While networks provide an option to increase agility through collaborative
access to relevant external competencies, we know little about systematically managing such networks. This
paper identifies a collaborative network process that we label competency rallying. We describe the set of
inter-organizational routines involved in competency rallying in a case study of the interactions among the
partners of the Virtuelle Fabrik, a case of an organized regional network in the manufacturing industry in
Switzerland. We describe competency rallying as the (1) identification and development of competencies,
(2) identification and facing of market opportunities, (3) marshalling of competencies, and (4) short-term
cooperative effort for technological innovation and commercialization. The paper contributes a model that
furthers the understanding of the organizational character of networks based on specific, learned network
capabilities and which allows prediction of the likelihood of success of practical collaboration projects in
networked organizations.
Kingston G (2008) Human factors in project management. Journal of Product Innovation Management
25:523-524
Klein R (2008) Smart world: Breakthrough creativity and the new science of ideas. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:519-521
Klein R (2008) The Medici Effect: What elephants & epidemics can teach us about innovation. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 25:519-521
Klein R (2008) Results without authority: Controlling a project when the team doesn't report to you. Journal
of Product Innovation Management 25:107-108
Klerkx L, Leeuwis C (2008) Balancing multiple interests: Embedding innovation intermediation in the
agricultural knowledge infrastructure. Technovation 28:364-378
The purpose of this paper is to provide
insights into the emergence, embedding and optimal design of intermediaries who act as a bridge between
demand and supply in the agricultural knowledge infrastructure. Using a case-study approach, the paper
focuses on the relationships between a for-profit intermediary organisation in The Netherlands and several
parties for which it performs various bridging functions, i.e., coupling these parties in particular innovation
processes and channelling their subsequent interactions. The findings suggest that although innovation
intermediation is seen as beneficial, tensions emerge regarding the innovation intermediary's governance
structure, the way it generates its revenues and the different activities it performs. A clearer delineation
between its different activities has to be made in order to minimise competition with other providers of R&D
and knowledge intensive business services, and to protect its credibility and impartiality. Furthermore, some
tasks of innovation intermediaries are best funded publicly, whereas others should be funded privately. The
originality of the paper lies in the fact that it focuses on relationships between an innovation intermediary
and the supply side of the knowledge infrastructure, whereas typically the focus is on interactions with endusers of knowledge and information.
Kratzer J, Gemunden HG, Lettl C (2008) Balancing creativity and time efficiency in multi-team R&D
projects: the alignment of formal and informal networks. R & D Management 38:538-549
The business
world is denoted by an increasing number of multi-team research and development (R&D) projects,
however, managerial knowledge about how to run them successfully is scarce. The present study attempts to
shed light at this kind of projects by investigating the alignment of formal and informal network structures
and their effect on the challenge to balance project creativity and time efficiency. In order to analyze this
issue data in two multi-team R&D projects in space industry are collected. There are two intriguing findings
that are partly contradicting the state-of-the-art knowledge. First, formally ascribed design interfaces and
informal communication networks overlap only marginally because the informal communication networks
are characterized by many more linkages. Second, the weak overlap between formally ascribed design
interfaces and the informal communication networks is inversely U-shaped associated with the team's
creativity, whereas it negatively impacts the team's time efficiency.
Kristinsson K, Rao R (2008) Interactive Learning or Technology Transfer as a Way to Catch-Up? Analysing
the Wind Energy Industry in Denmark and India. Industry and Innovation 15:297-320
This paper uses
sectoral systems of innovation framework to examine the relationship between technology policy and
industrial development by comparing the emergence of the wind energy industry in Denmark and India.
Since the late 1970s Denmark has led the development of a global wind energy industry and in 2004 wind
energy supplied 18.8 per cent of Denmark's electricity consumption. India was however a late entrant that
managed in a few years to establish itself as the fifth largest producer of wind energy in the world. We
suggest that India's unique policy of "nteractive learning'' with international and especially Danish actors,
instead of imitation of foreign technology policies and institutions, was a substantial contributor to India's
success in developing their wind energy industry.
Kroll H, Liefner I (2008) Spin-off enterprises as a means of technology commercialisation in a transforming
economy - Evidence from three universities in China. Technovation 28:298-313
Recently, some
university spin-off firms have begun to substantially contribute to the technological upgrading of China's
economy. The corresponding academic literature, however, does not yet deal with spin-off activities of
Chinese universities in a comprehensive and theoretically sound way. Currently, most articles on Chinese
spin-offs focus on case studies of the most prominent government-sponsored enterprises in Beijing. This
paper aims to contribute to the literature in a more comprehensive manner by providing a theoretical
discussion of spin-off formation in a developing and transforming economy, and by presenting results from
a comparative study based on data from 82 interviews with spin-off enterprises in three metropolitan regions
in China. The study shows that under the initial framework conditions, government-driven spin-off
formation has indeed proved an appropriate solution for technology transfer at Chinese universities. Many of
the companies thus formed, however, suffer from defective incentive structures and lack of performance.
Consequently, since lifting or easing restrictive regulations, the formerly unique model of Chinese spin-off
formation has been complemented by a surge of entrepreneurial spin-off formation.
Kuesten CL (2008) Selling blue elephants: How to make great products that people want before they even
know they want them. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:637-638
Kuesten CL (2008) The leader's guide to lateral thinking skills: Unlocking the creativity and innovation in
you and your team, 2nd edition. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:305-307
Lakoff S (2008) Upstart startup: "Constructed advantage" and the example of Qualcomm. Technovation
28:831-837
De la Mothe and Mallory have proposed that even in an age of globalization the right
environmental conditions can give it locality a "constructed advantage" in promoting innovation. The
creation and success of Qualcomm, a telecommunications company, illustrates the contention. The
establishment of it branch of the University of California in San Diego was critical in attracting those who
founded the company. But constructed advantage can only set the stage. In technological innovation, other
factors also matter, including a marketable idea, entrepreneurial zeal, good timing, ability to influence
standard setting, help from intellectual property law, and sheer perseverance. Qualcomm is it dramatic
example of how constructed advantage can combine with these other factors to yield an impressive result.
Lal K (2008) Information and Communication Technology Adoption in Malaysian SMEs. Asian Journal of
Technology Innovation 16:161-186 This study aims to analyse the role of the institutional environment in
the adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) in small and medium-size enterprises
(SMEs) in Malaysia. Findings of the study are based on the data collected from sixty-seven SMEs. The
results suggest that the knowledge base of the owners and the language barriers between employers and
employees have played a pivotal role in the adoption of new technologies. In addition, the skill intensity of
workers has significantly influenced the adoption of new technologies led by ICT. The results show that
firms with foreign technological collaboration adopted more advanced ICT. Anecdotal evidence collected
from managing directors suggests that although the Malaysian government has taken several measures to
augment the competitiveness of SMEs, the success of such policies has been very limited. Another
important finding is that sector-specific factors have influenced the degree of ICT adoption to a great extent.
Perhaps, for the first time, the study found evidence to support the argument that formally trained workers
are more useful than on-the-job trained workers in SMEs. Availability of knowledge acquisition
opportunities in industrial clusters have also played an important role in the adoption of advanced
technologies. We conclude that one of the ways to avoid the onslaught posed by globalisation is to focus on
the appropriate human resource development policies that can cater to the specific needs of SMEs.
Lane RW (2008) Avoiding commodity hell. Research-Technology Management 51:24-29
OVERVIEW:
More than ever, a business today requires innovation to achieve and sustain strong economic performance.
At Deere & Company, effective innovation depends on four key pillars: a sustained investment in good
times and bad; a disciplined, thoughtful and strategic approach; a broad perspective of what innovation
means to a business; and finally, a commitment to aligned talent. Nurturing innovation from a shapeless idea
to a prized customer solution offers an opportunity to avoid "commodity hell" by propelling a good business
to a great, enduring business.
Lange B, Kalandides A, Stober B, Mieg HA (2008) Berlin's Creative Industries: Governing Creativity?
Industry and Innovation 15:531-548
This paper aims at discussing the issue of governing creativity
exemplifying the case of Berlin. Berlin has a fast growing creative industry that has become the object of the
city's development policies and place marketing. The core question is: What are the spatial-organizational
driving forces of creativity in Berlin-can they be steered by public administration? The point of departure of
this paper is the four "paradoxes of creativity'' formulated by DeFillippi, Grabher and Jones in 2007 that
describe organizational dilemmas linked to epistemological problems of the study of creativity. For our
analyses, we refer to and make use of the various existing databases and recent studies on Berlin's creative
industries, in particular the attempts of the Berlin Senate to assess the economic contribution of creative
industries. We will show the potential for self-organization-and thus self-governance-of creativity and
creative industries in Berlin. This potential is linked to the activities of communities of practice that make
use of Berlin's specific urban fabric. The "paradoxes of creativity'' that have become obvious in the case of
Berlin's creative industries concern, for instance, the tension between the autonomy of creative production,
on the one hand, and the necessities of professionalization on the other. The local communities of practice-of
which most of Berlin's creative industries are made-serve both as quality evaluation circles and drivers of
creativity and innovation.
Langerak F, Hultink EJ, Griffin A (2008) Exploring mediating and moderating influences on the links
among cycle time, proficiency in entry timing, and new product profitability. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:370-385
Development cycle time is the elapsed time from the beginning of idea
generation to the moment that the new product is ready for market introduction. Market-entry timing is
contingent upon the new product's cycle time. Only when the product is completed can a firm decide
whether and when to enter the market to exploit the new product's window of opportunity. To determine the
right moment of entry a firm needs to correctly balance the risks of premature entry and the missed
opportunity of late entry. Proficient market-entry timing is therefore defined as the firm's ability to get the
market-entry timing right (i.e., neither too early nor too late). The literature has produced divergent evidence
with regard to the effects of development cycle time and proficiency in market-entry timing on new product
profitability. To explain these disparities this study (1) explores the mediating roles of development costs
and sales volume in the relationships among development cycle time, proficiency in market-entry timing,
and new product profitability, respectively; and it (2) explores the moderating influence of product newness
on the relationship between development cycle time and development costs and that of new product
advantage on the link between proficiency in market-entry timing and sales volume. The results from a
survey-based study of 72 manufacturers of industrial products in the Netherlands suggest that development
costs mediate the relationship between development cycle time and new product profitability and that sales
volume mediates the link between proficiency in market-entry timing and new product profitability. In
addition, the findings indicate that new product advantage strengthens the positive relationship between
proficiency in market-entry timing and sales volume. The results provide no evidence for a moderating
effect of product newness. These results have important implications because to maximize new product
profitability managers need to distinguish between costs and demand side effects of development cycle time
and market-entry timing on new product profitability. Keeping this distinction in mind should help them to
better determine the relative profit impact of investments in cycle time reduction or improved entry timing.
Moreover, the findings suggest that highly advantaged products that enter the market at the right time may
have a highly attenuated sales volume. It also implies that new products with lower advantage may have
very little leeway in hitting the "sweet spot" in market. The message is that "doing the right thing" (i.e., to
develop a highly advantaged new product) may be at least as important as correctly balancing the risks of
premature entry and the missed opportunity of late entry.
Langlois RN, Garzarelli G (2008) Of Hackers and Hairdressers: Modularity and the Organizational
Economics of Open-source Collaboration. Industry and Innovation 15:125-143
Using the idea of
modularity, we study the general phenomenon of open-source collaboration, which includes such things as
collective invention and open science in addition to open-source software production. We argue that opensource collaboration coordinates the division of labor through the exchange of effort rather than of products:
suppliers of effort self-identify in the same way as suppliers of products in a market rather than accepting
assignments like employees in a firm. We suggest that open-source software (and other) projects are neither
bazaars nor cathedrals, but hybrids manifesting both voluntary production and conscious planning.
Lanzerotti LJ, Reilly AK (2008) Keeping US industry competitive in the global economy. ResearchTechnology Management 51:11-12
Larson CF (2008) Industrial R&D in 2008-Revisiting the 1998 Predictions. Research-Technology
Management 51:18-22
In 1998, the Industrial Research Institute predicted that people in the laboratory
2008 would be more risk-taking and business-oriented with skills that are constantly being upgraded: that
technical intelligence would be fully integrated throughout the firm; that technical work in the lab would be
far more efficient and effective, utilizing a wide variety of outside resources; that flexible organizational
structures and true enterprise integration would capitalize on a new era for growth and competitiveness; and
that leadership and skillful management would be critical elements of these evolving processes. A recent
survey of the IRI membership was undertaken to determine whether or not these changes actually happened
and if so, to what degree. The results show progress but some of the actions proposed 10 years ago are just
now being implemented.
Larson CF, Whiteley RL (2008) INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE'S 10th ANNUAL R&D
LEADERBOARD. Research-Technology Management 51:13-17
Lazzeretti L, Boix R, Capone F (2008) Do Creative Industries Cluster? Mapping Creative Local Production
Systems in Italy and Spain. Industry and Innovation 15:549-567
An important debate on the role of
creativity and culture as factors in local economic development is distinctly emerging. Despite the emphasis
put on the theoretical definition of these concepts, it is necessary to strengthen comparative research for the
identification and analysis of the kind of creativity embedded in a given territory. Creative local production
systems are identified, in Italy and Spain, that depart from local labour markets as territorial units and focus
on two different kinds of creative industries: traditional cultural industries (publishing, music, architecture
and engineering, performing arts) and technology-related creative industries (R&D, ICT, advertising). The
results show a concentration of creative industries in the largest urban systems, although different patterns of
concentration of creative industries are revealed between the two countries.
Lee H, Kelley D (2008) Building dynamic capabilities for innovation: an exploratory study of key
management practices. R & D Management 38:155-168
While both the innovation literature and the
dynamic capabilities perspective identify loose processes as most appropriate for high uncertainty domains,
this produces little reassurance to organizations seeking to improve their ability to commercialize
innovations. This paper takes the position that practices for managing innovation project leaders are a key
component of an organization's dynamic capabilities for innovation. Our comparative case analysis of
divisions of two established Korean organizations suggests that managerial practices include the deployment
of entrepreneurial resources having particular skills, characteristics, and motivation. In addition, we identify
the relational and decision support roles of managers.
Lee J, Veloso FM (2008) Interfirm innovation under uncertainty: Empirical evidence for strategic
knowledge partitioning. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:418-435 This paper analyzes how
uncertainty and life-cycle effects condition the knowledge boundary between assemblers and suppliers in
interfirm product development. Patents associated with automotive emission control technologies for both
assemblers and suppliers are categorized as architectural or component innovations, and technology-forcing
regulations imposed by the government on the auto industry from 1970 to 1998 are used to define periods of
high and low uncertainty. Results confirm that suppliers dominate component innovation whereas
assemblers lead on architectural innovation. More importantly, when facing uncertainty firms adjust their
knowledge boundary by increasing the knowledge overlap with their supply-chain collaborators. Suppliers
clearly expand their knowledge base relatively more into architectural knowledge during such periods. But
assemblers' greater emphasis on component innovation in periods of greater uncertainty is only true as a
relative deviation from an overall trend toward increasing component innovation over time. This trend
results from an observed life-cycle effect, whereby architectural innovation dominates before the emergence
of a dominant design, with component innovation taking the lead afterward. Thus, for assemblers life-cycle
effects may dominate over task uncertainty in determining relative effort in component versus architectural
innovation. This work extends research on strategic interfirm knowledge partitioning as well as on the
information-processing view of product development. First, it provides a large-scale empirical justification
for the claim that firms' knowledge boundaries need to extend beyond their task boundaries. Further, it
implies that overlaps in knowledge domains between an assembler and suppliers are particularly important
for projects involving new technologies. Second, it offers a dynamic view of knowledge partitioning,
showing how architectural knowledge prevails in the early phase of the product life cycle whereas
component knowledge dominates the later stages. Yet the importance of life-cycle effects versus task
uncertainty in conditioning knowledge boundaries is different for assemblers and suppliers, with the former
dominating for assemblers and the latter more influential for suppliers. Finally, it supports the idea that
architectural and component knowledge are critical elements in the alignment of cognitive frameworks
between assemblers and suppliers and thus are key for information-exchange effectiveness and resolution of
task uncertainties in interfirm innovation.
Lee KR, Rhee W (2008) Identifying Leading Korean Industries and Firms Based on Patent and Export
Statistics. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:167-185
This paper aims to identify the leading
industries and firms of Korea. It tries to make an industry classification based on the concept of
technological trajectories, and identifies leading industries by analyzing export and US patent statistics and
leading firms by analyzing world-class products and firms. Based on the results of the analysis on leading
industries, the information-intensive type of industries has the highest lead index, but has a decreasing trend
over the three-year period. The specialized-supplier type and the science-based type tend to increase their
position at a rapid speed during the period of 2004-2006. As for specific industries, the shipbuilding industry
appeared to have the highest lead index, followed by the electronic parts industry. In identifying the leading
firms, it was found that the Chaebol firms have produced many world-class products. SMEs, classified as
specialized-supplier and science-based firms, have also innovated technologies and have created good value
for foreign wholesalers, thereby generating a large number of world-class products. These findings imply
that the Korean economy has been moving at a positive direction. It is believed that the Korean industry has
strengthened its technological capability to produce more high-value-added products with deeper scientific
and technological knowledge than in the past. Certainly, the Korean industry requires creativity in order to
accelerate this development and adopt a new innovation mode.
Lee S, Lee S, Seol H, Park Y (2008) Using patent information for designing new product and technology:
keyword based technology roadmapping. R & D Management 38:169-188
With the rapid change in
markets and technologies, it is becoming essential for firms to develop new products constantly. This can
most successfully be achieved by using technology roadmaps (TRMs), which are effective tools for
connecting product and technology planning. However, TRMs generally tend to overstate the qualitative and
expert-dependent knowledge rather than incorporating quantitative and objective information. This paper
proposes a new approach where patent data are used in a quantitative methodology to support reliable
decision-making in roadmapping processes. In this study, text-mining techniques were utilized to extract the
relevant information on which portfolio, co-word, and network analyses were carried out. The results were
three types of product-technology maps that can be applied to specific roadmapping steps. The suggested
approach is expected to yield useful information about roadmapping, and help improve the overall
effectiveness and quality of the technique.
Lee SH, Yigitcanlar T, Han JH, Leem YT (2008) Ubiquitous urban infrastructure: Infrastructure planning
and development in Korea. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:282-292
The fast growing
ubiquitous infrastructure technologies are capable of improving current urban management and
infrastructure planning and development capabilities. These technological advancement urban infrastructure
developments in the Republic of Korea have recently shifted from an old paradigm of conventional
infrastructure to a new paradigm of intelligent infrastructure provision. This new paradigm, so called
ubiquitous infrastructure, is a combination of urban infrastructures, information and communication
technologies and digital networks. Ubiquitous infrastructure refers to an urban infrastructure system where
any citizen can access any infrastructure and services via any electronic devices regardless of time and
location. This paper introduces this new paradigm and new schemes for urban infrastructure planning and
development in the Republic of Korea and discusses the potential positive effects of ubiquitous
infrastructure on Korean cities to achieve sustainable urban development.
Lee YG, Lee JH, Song YI, Kim HJ (2008) Technological Convergence and Open Innovation in the Mobile
Telecommunication Industry. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:45-62
This study addresses
open innovation in the telecommunications industry and the relationship between technological convergence
and open innovation. Specifically, the study focuses on the increasingly widespread trend of mobile
companies to engage in external capabilities and knowledge sources as a way to extend their knowledge
boundaries. Collaboration efforts have strongly impacted open innovation strategies as the external
environment is constantly changing, particularly in digital convergence and standards networks. The authors
confirm that exploitation-oriented alliances play a key role in the paradigm shift by using the number of U.S.
co-patents to prove the strong, collaborative research of leading mobile firms (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung
and LG). They also confirm that current industry leaders have relatively high cross-country patents,
indicating international research and development (R&D) efforts with increasing strategic alliance activity.
Foreign inventors and strategic alliances are therefore increasing.
Lee YJ (2008) Characteristic Features of Valuable Patents: The Difference between Private Firms and
Public Research Institutes in Korea. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:187-210
Patented
inventions can play a key role in corporate strategy where they are used mainly for applicative or protective
purposes. However, the usefulness of the patents of public research institutes (PRIs) is limited to industrial
application through licensing. Thus, the duration of patents is expected to vary depending on the usefulness
of the patents because patent holders allow less useful patents to expire earlier. In this paper, the researcher
claims that the effect of patents' characteristics in the duration of patents varies with the types of patent
holders or the purposes of using the patents, whether for application or protection. The results of a hazard
rate duration analysis reveal that the breadth of a patent and its technological competitiveness, which are at a
level enough to make the patent holder become a technology leader, are especially valuable for private firms
when they need extra protection. On the other hand, collaboration with private firms and specialization in
the field where PRIs have superiority are valuable for PRIs from the licensing viewpoint.
Leon N (2008) Attract and connect: The 22@Barcelona innovation district and the internationalisation of
Barcelona business. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:235-246 Innovation is frequently cited
as the battleground of international competitiveness in the 21st century and cities are increasingly viewed as
the cauldrons of innovation, enriching not only their surrounding regions but their nations as a whole.
Across the globe massive renewal is taking place in our cities, fundamental shifts in the nature of work and
the workplaces they host, and transformation of their output as well as their consumption. Cities compete
with one another to attract not only firms and direct foreign investment, but also skilled knowledge workers
to develop their social capital and capacity for innovation. But is the attraction of top talent the crucial
ingredient? In this study we examine the transformation of Barcelona and its historic cotton district to
become an international hub of innovation.
Lepkowski W (2008) Deep Problems In Our Future, AAAS Hears. Research-Technology Management 51:5+
Leung F, Isaacs F (2008) Risk management in public sector research: approach and lessons learned at a
national research organization. R & D Management 38:510-519
As the Canadian federal government's
main research body and a public sector agency, the National Research Council (NRC) must manage
numerous strategic as well as operational risks, including those at the project, program and portfolio levels.
Such risks might arise from political and other stakeholder interests, intellectual property ownership and
policy, funding structures, public perceptions of science and technology, occupational health and safety,
management of highly qualified personnel, availability of receptor capacity for research being undertaken,
and unknown markets for very new research areas, to name a few. Varying risk management practices have
existed across NRC institutes and programs in the past as a result of the relative autonomy afforded to these
groups. In seeking a more systematic approach, driven by both external and internal interests, NRC
researched best practices, models and frameworks for risk management. NRC needed an appropriate model
and approach for managing risk that could be applied throughout different levels and within the various
arenas of its activities. The approach selected is based on the concept of enterprise risk management,
allowing NRC to look not only at specific areas of risk but the larger picture - effectively assessing,
controlling, exploiting and monitoring risks from all sources that might threaten the achievement of its
goals. At the same time, such an approach also ensures that potential opportunities that could facilitate
achievement of its goals are not missed. This paper shares some of NRC's findings of its research (including
best practices), describes its current framework and approach, as well as some of its challenges.
Li Y, Guo H, Liu Y, Li MF (2008) Incentive mechanisms, entrepreneurial orientation, and technology
commercialization: Evidence from China's transitional economy. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:63-78
Scholars view entrepreneurial orientation as an essential element of highperforming firms. The extant research has focused extensively on the construct development related to and
performance implications of entrepreneurial orientation. Prior research has also identified the significant
positive impact of entrepreneurial orientation on technology commercialization. The research community
has, however, yet to examine critical antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation and to investigate relevant
antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial orientation in transitional settings such as that of China.
Most Chinese firms are embracing significant changes in governance incentive mechanisms as China
deepens the economic reform. The extant literature provides limited insight as to how incentive mechanisms
such as chief executive officer (CEO) ownership and turnover may affect firm entrepreneurial orientation in
China's transitional setting. Furthermore, given the significant changes and uncertainty in the market place,
China provides an ideal laboratory to examine the influence of technological turbulence on the relationship
between entrepreneurial orientation and technology commercialization. Aimed at filling in these glaring
gaps, this study develops a conceptual model, with institutional theory as its underpinning, to examine the
relationships among governance incentive mechanisms, entrepreneurial orientation, technological
turbulence, and technology commercialization. The empirical results from a sample of 607 Chinese firms
reveal several important findings. The CEO ownership has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial
orientation, and CEO turnover frequency has an inverse U curvilinear impact on entrepreneurial orientation.
Furthermore, entrepreneurial orientation positively affects technology commercialization, with technological
turbulence positively moderating this relationship. This study makes several important contributions. First,
the present article brings into sharper focus the differing impacts of CEO ownership and CEO turnover on
entrepreneurial orientation. The theoretical deliberation and empirical testing offer useful insights into the
formation process of entrepreneurial orientation. Second, the examination of the moderating effect of
technological turbulence provides additional richness to the extant literature. In addition, different from prior
studies, this study was conducted under China's transitional economy context. By integrating unique
institutional arrangements and the turbulent technological environment, two key characteristics of China's
transitional economy setting, the study broadened and deepened understanding of key antecedents and
consequences of entrepreneurial orientation. The article also discusses managerial implications of the
findings and suggests directions for future research.
Liao SH, Fei WC, Liu CT (2008) Relationships between knowledge inertia, organizational learning and
organization innovation. Technovation 28:183-195
Both as power and a resource, knowledge is a
significant asset both for individuals and organizations. Thus, knowledge management has become one of
the important issues for enterprises. However, when facing problems, people generally resort to their prior
knowledge and experience for solutions. Such routine problem-solving strategy is termed "knowledge
inertia". This study aims to establish the constructs of knowledge inertia and examine the relationships
between knowledge inertia, organizational learning and organizational innovation. Structural equation
modeling is employed to discuss the degree of influence each construct has on each other and whether their
relationships vary in different organization types. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from
government organizations as well as state-run and private enterprises. A total of 485 valid responses were
collected. Our results reveal that knowledge inertia comprises both learning inertia and experience inertia.
The relationships between the three variables are as follows. First, knowledge inertia exerts a mediating
effect on organizational innovation through organizational learning. Second, when a firm's members have
either less learning inertia or more experience inertia, the performance of the organizational learning will be
better.
Lichtenthaler U (2008) Integrated roadmaps for open innovation. Research-Technology Management 51:4549
In the context of open innovation, firms increasingly acquire technologies from external sources.
Moreover, many firms have recently started to actively commercialize technologies, for example, by means
of outlicensing. While some pioneering firms realize enormous benefits from this, many others experience
major difficulties in managing external technology exploitation. To overcome these challenges, firms need
to establish appropriate strategic technology-planning processes. Such processes include the extension of
product-technology roadmapping to integrated roadmaps for open innovation processes, including external
technology exploitation. This has a number of implications for technology managers, including the need to
consider potential returns from a technology as a whole rather than from product sales alone.
Lillford PJ (2008) Food supply chains: Recent growth in global activity. Innovation-Management Policy &
Practice 10:29-39
Lin HF, Lin SM (2008) Determinants of e-business diffusion: A test of the technology diffusion perspective.
Technovation 28:135-145
Based on the technology diffusion theory and the technology-organizationenvironment (TOE) framework, this study develops a research model to study the determinants of e-business
diffusion. The research model examines the influence of technological context (IS infrastructure and IS
expertise), organizational context (organizational compatibility and expected benefits of e-business) and
environmental context (competitive pressure and trading partner readiness) on e-business diffusion. Ebusiness diffusion is characterized by two dimensions: internal integration and external diffusion. Data
gathered from 163 IS executives in large Taiwanese firms were employed to test the relationships between
the research model constructs using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. Among the TOE
factors, the results reveal that IS infrastructure, IS expertise, expected benefits of e-business, and
competitive pressure are important factors shaping e-business diffusion. Implications for practice and
research are discussed.
Linton JD (2008) Assessing the economic rationality of remanufacturing products. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:287-302 Consideration is given to the factors that affect the determination of
the profitability of remanufacturing product. This results in a technique being developed and applied to
assess the economic rationality of remanufacturing a variety of products. A study of price preferences from
49 subjects finds that in many cases an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) will earn greater overall
profits by offering both new and remanufactured versions of their product. Differences in pricing behavior
are noted between both products and individuals. There also appears to be differences in switching behavior.
It is, however, reasonable to treat the transfer in preference from new product to remanufactured product as
linear over some price range. This assumption allows for a relatively simple calculation of under what
circumstances it is economically rational for an OEM to produce both new and remanufactured products and
in such situations what the relative prices, sales, and profits should result. The remanufactured products
considered are retreaded tires, auto parts, cell phones, toner cartridges, printers/copiers, and disposable
cameras. In addition to the article's academic contributions, techniques and insights are offered for
practitioners to assist them in understanding the opportunities and implication of pursuing remanufacturing
as an addition to their current products.
Linton JD (2008) Why big science has trouble finding big money and small science has difficulties finding
small money. Technovation 28:799-801 Consideration is given to three reasons why obtaining funding for
scientific research is increasingly difficult for many public and private laboratories. The reasons: "science is
a worthwhile pursuit in itself"; "science is economically worthwhile, but is difficult to value"; and "social
innovation must occur before the value of technical innovation can be obtained". Insight into addressing
these three barriers to support for scientific research is offered.
Litan RE, Song M (2008) From the special issue editors: Technology commercialization and
entrepreneurship. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:112-113
Litan RE, Song M (2008) From the special issue editors: Technology commercialization and
entrepreneurship. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:2-6
Lo SK, Lie T (2008) Selection of communication technologies - A perspective based on information
richness theory and trust. Technovation 28:146-153 Communication technology is constantly proliferating
due to nonstop technological innovation. The development of revolutionary communication tools has a
radical effect on communication behavior. Yet, the introduction of new communication technology tools
does not necessarily lead to the immediate replacement of old technology, but rather provides consumers
with additional choices. In other words, every new communication technology product faces competition
from existing communication tools. This study explores the underlying factors that affect consumer selection
of various communication technology tools. Experimental results show that communicators will choose a
tool with high information richness when faced with a long-distance communication situation involving a
highly equivocal task and a low degree of trust for the other party. However, media selection decisions for
communication over short distances are not affected by either task equivocality or trust.
Loch CH (2008) Mobilizing an R&D organization through strategy cascading. Research-Technology
Management 51:18-26
Cascading business strategy down into an R&D organization is widely used to
drive strategy; into the organization and align researchers and developers behind the organization's strategy.
However, the key benefit from cascading lies not in top-down control, but in clarity for the technical
personnel about what they can contribute, in the motivation that stems from being able to voice their views
and concerns, and in the dialogue between senior management and the R&D organization. Dialogue is what
mobilizes a technical organization to not only "make the numbers," but also to contribute creatively
according to its abilities. In other words, cascading becomes most useful when it is seen not as a tool to
enforce strategy, but rather as an empowerment device for the R&D personnel to understand the sources of
value for the business and to explore how to innovatively produce the highest value.
Loch CH, Solt ME, Bailey EM (2008) Diagnosing unforeseeable uncertainty in a new venture. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 25:28-46
New ventures often do not correctly foresee real market
opportunities or the best way to address them. How to cope with unforeseen, unpredictable factors, also
referred to as unknown unknowns, is critical for new ventures. Findings in the fields of innovation and
project management have shown that dealing with the unpredictable requires management approaches
different from those used for classical plan-and-achieve-the-target projects. Management approaches for
novel initiatives include a combination of trial-and-error learning (i.e., flexible redefinition of the new
venture business model as new information emerges) and selectionism (i.e., running multiple parallel trials
and choosing the best performing approach ex post). The management approach must be chosen when the
venture is set up. This requires a venture management team to diagnose at the outset whether unknown
unknowns are present (or possible), although unknown unknowns cannot be identified initially by definition
because they emerge over time. Anecdotal testimony from experienced venture managers and project
managers suggests they have a feeling for where their knowledge is limited. However, such a claim is
controversial. Some researchers think the concept of diagnosing unforeseeable influence factors is an
oxymoron. Thus, the research question in this article is this: How can unforeseeable influence factors in a
new venture be diagnosed at the outset? Research to date has insufficiently addressed the a priori
identification of the type of uncertainty faced by a new venture. Based on models from decision theory, this
article suggests dividing the overall problem of structuring the venture into subproblems for which the
management team can identify knowledge gaps. Using a case study, the article describes how knowledge
gaps were identified for the subareas of a new venture in a real situation and how this diagnosis was used to
correctly identify the areas where unknown unknowns lurk. These areas were managed in a different way
(i.e., with learning and experimentation) than the other subproblems (i.e., with targets and deadlines). As a
result, the venture could successfully respond to unforeseeable events. The results of this study suggest that
a decomposition of the overall venture management problem into subproblems is feasible and natural to
managers, that a qualitative assessment of knowledge gaps and vulnerability to unknown unknowns is
possible, and that a structured, process-like approach can be used to identify subproblems, to determine their
uncertainty profiles, and to update the uncertainty profiles. These results are immediately useful to venture
management and venture capitalists in setting up the venture's structure for effective response to uncertainty.
The results advance research about uncertainty management by offering a systematic set of questions for the
diagnosis of unknown unknowns before they can be formally described. The usefulness of this process can
be tested further in more formal empirical research.
Lucas R (2008) Entry and post-entry performance of newborn firms. R & D Management 38:353-354
Luo LM, Sheu HJ, Hu YP (2008) Evaluating R&D Projects with Hedging Behavior. Research-Technology
Management 51:51-57
Many scholars suggest that, in general, successful R&D involves the systematic
reduction of unique risk. Consequently, firms should adopt diversification or hedging behavior to reduce risk
when investing in R&D projects. These projects can be evaluated through a real option method while
considering the hedging behavior of firms. However, conventional real option methods may over- or understate a project's value because they are apt to be influenced by the R&D firm's subjective expectations of the
future market or technological prospect. The method proposed in this paper, which incorporates the hedging
behavior of firms, would provide a more reasonable assessment of R&D projects, and would not be
influenced by the arbitrary judgment of project evaluators. Additionally the results imply that the effective
management of investment diversification can not old reduce the unique risk faced by firms, but also
enhance the value of these R&D projects.
Ma ZZ, Lee Y (2008) Patent application and technological collaboration in inventive activities: 1980-2005.
Technovation 28:379-390 Patent application encompasses valuable information about inventive activities.
This study examines the pattern of international collaboration across countries in inventive activities using
the information about inventors and assignees as defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO). This study first develops a series of indices and then uses the patent information from the USPTO
databases on the fields of inventors and assignees to evaluate these indices, with the data from the eight most
inventive OECD countries and two Asian economic entities (South Korea and Taiwan) for a span of 19802005. The results reveal a pattern of increasing collaboration in inventive activities across the world over the
past two decades, which may suggest that the world has begun to embrace the inceptive stage of "Technoglobalism."
Maccoby M (2008) Nasa Researchers Learn Leadership as a Way of Being. Research-Technology
Management 51:66-67
Maccoby M (2008) Creative downsizing requires strategic intelligence. Research-Technology Management
51:60-61
MacGregor SP (2008) Involving customers in new service development. Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:307-308
MacGregor SP (2008) Service is front stage: Positioning services for value advantage. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:307-308
Maine E (2008) Radical innovation through internal corporate venturing: Degussa's commercialization of
nanomaterials. R & D Management 38:359-371
Internal corporate venturing enables radical innovation
within established firms in mature markets. Without effectively designed and managed internal corporate
ventures, the organizational constraints of established firms will strongly favour incremental innovation over
radical innovation. This paper investigates the evolution of a successful internal corporate venture within a
large, incumbent chemical firm, now known as Evonik Degussa, to reveal the challenges, organizational
design, and management strategies of their commercialization of radical nanomaterials technology. The
commercialization of nanomaterials technology is of great interest to incumbent materials and chemical
firms and to independent ventures, but the radical, generic, and capital intensive nature of nanomaterials
technology requires organizational and managerial innovation. This case study demonstrates a model to
enable growth through radical innovation in nanomaterials, while taking advantage of an incumbent firm's
capabilities and complementary assets. Organizational strategies include incubation from a risk-adverse
culture, relatively long timelines for evaluation, and a high-level steering committee. Managerial strategies
focus on product development, risk reduction, and active risk management.
Mansury MA, Love JH (2008) Innovation, productivity and growth in US business services: A firm-level
analysis. Technovation 28:52-62 This paper examines the impact of innovation on the performance of US
business service firms. We distinguish between different levels of innovation (new-to-market and new-tofirm) in our analysis, and allow explicitly for sample selection issues. Reflecting the literature, which
highlights the importance of external interaction in service innovation, we pay particular attention to the role
of external innovation linkages and their effect on business performance. We find that the presence of
service innovation and its extent has a consistently positive effect on growth, but no effect on productivity.
There is evidence that the growth effect of innovation can be attributed, at least in part, to the external
linkages maintained by innovators in the process of innovation. External linkages have an overwhelmingly
positive effect on (innovator) firm performance, regardless of whether innovation is measured as a discrete
or continuous variable, and regardless of the level of innovation considered.
Marceau J (2008) Innovation in the city and innovative cities INTRODUCTION. Innovation-Management
Policy & Practice 10:136-145
Martin R, Simmie J (2008) Path dependence and local innovation systems in city-regions. InnovationManagement Policy & Practice 10:183-196 In this paper we argue that evolutionary economic geography
and particularly the concept of path dependence provide a theoretical framework within which to understand
the different historical economic trajectories followed by different cities. Within this framework we identify
four phases of path dependent development of new technologies or industrial sectors within urban
economies. The particular characteristics of each of these phases depend on the nature and interactions of a
city's local innovation system combined with the capacity to absorb new knowledge.
Martin-De-Castro G, Lopez-Saez P, Navas-Lopez JE (2008) Processes of knowledge creation in knowledgeintensive firms: Empirical evidence from Boston's Route 128 and Spain. Technovation 28:222-230
The
capability to create and apply new knowledge is considered as one of the main sources of the competitive
advantage of the firm. This has produced an enormous interest in knowledge, lots of theoretical models, and
abundant literature that tries to test knowledge creation processes. Nevertheless, theoretical frameworks still
need from additional empirical evidence in order to strengthen the main concepts in this field. In this vein,
taking as starting point the well-known SECI model [Nonaka, I., 1991. The knowledge-creating company.
Harvard Business Review 69, 96-105; Nonaka, I., Takeuchi, H., 1995. The Knowledge Creating Company:
How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford University Press, New York], and
gathering data from knowledge-intensive firms with a survey, this paper provides two empirical tests with
firms from the Boston's Route 128 and from Spain, in order to describe their particular and real knowledge
creation processes in comparison to the SECI model, Findings reveal that there is no a generally and unique
way of learning, but knowledge creation seems to be conditioned by context-based considerations. Cultural,
geographical, and cluster-based arguments reveal that knowledge creation processes can be a socially
constructed true.
Massa S, Testa S (2008) Innovation and SMEs: Misaligned perspectives and goals among entrepreneurs,
academics, and policy makers. Technovation 28:393-407 The present research stems from the results of a
survey on the innovativeness of a sample of Italian Small and Medium (SMEs). These results, largely based
on self-reported data by entrepreneurs or managers, showed that the considered SMEs important developers
of radical innovations in contrast with data published by local institutions. This misalignment between
entrepreneurs' opinions and the official data, that are typically defined and selected by academics and policy
makers, motivated a research aimed at analyzing the intimate reasons for it. The research is rooted in the
social construction of innovation perspective and based on interviews with the three main innovation
stakeholders, identified as: entrepreneurs, academics, and policy makers. The show the existence of deeply
different perspectives concerning innovation, starting from its definition, to the effective policies to it, to the
role of intermediary institutions and so on. Sometimes, these views show diverging goals among the
stakeholders consequently, contrasting opinions on effective supporting policies. These results can partly
explain the misalignment between survey's output and "institutional" data and, maybe, also the failure of
many supporting initiatives that are largely documented by survey and also by literature. The aim of the
paper is to investigate the different perspectives on innovation held by the stakeholders, highlighting the
points of major contrast together with similarities in order to provide new insights into the problem.
McAdam M, McAdam R (2008) High tech start-ups in University Science Park incubators: The relationship
between the start-up's lifecycle progression and use of the incubator's resources. Technovation 28:277-290
University Science Park incubators (USIs) have emerged as a means by which Government, academia and
business can develop high technology business firms (spin out HTBFs) from initial conception through to
becoming established small firms, which are ready to move beyond the Science Park confines. Although
there is considerable literature on how USIs can be improved and developed there is a paucity of studies,
which explore how lifecycle development within HTBFs in USIs can affect how they use the unique
resources and opportunities of the USI. Moreover, there is a focus on single point in time studies, which do
not adequately investigate the longitudinal dynamics of HTBF lifecycle development within USIs.
Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the longitudinal use of the unique resources of the USI by
HTBFs at different lifecycle stages. The research methodology involved 18 HTBFs within two separate
USIs. A series of longitudinal interviews and focus groups were conducted with HTBFs and USI staff over a
36-month period. NUD*lST software was used in developing the coding and analysis of transcripts. The
results show that a HTBFs propensity to make effective use of the USI's resources and support increases as
the lifecycle stage of the company increases and the small-firm searches for independence and autonomy.
Therefore, further research is required to investigate the following two outstanding questions; firstly, which
usage pattern is associated with the HTBF's ultimate success or failure in the marketplace? And secondly,
are there any services missing front the observed array that the USI could provide to enhance the HTBF's
degree of ultimate success?
McAdam R, O'Hare T, Moffett S (2008) Collaborative knowledge sharing in composite new product
development: An aerospace study. Technovation 28:245-256
New Product Development (NPD) in the
commercial aerospace industry focuses on producing products, which reduce operating and service costs,
emissions and weights, while increasing operating performance parameters. There is an increasing use of
Composite materials in aerospace NPD projects to achieve these goals due to the advantageous properties of
increased strength and reduced weight. A key constraint in developing Composite capability in aerospace
NPD is the development of appropriate diagnostic and manufacturing capability requiring new knowledge
within aerospace organisations. The aim of this paper is to explore the acquisition, embedding and use of
new knowledge from multiple sources in Composites NPD using a case analysis of a leading international
aerospace prime. In particular, the study focuses on the need for new diagnostic testing capabilities and
knowledge within the Composites NPD process as a source of competitive advantage. Data sources include
multi-level semi structured interviews (it = 20) with internal and external stakeholders involved in the NPD
process and focus groups (it = 5) comprised of the Composites NPD team members. The findings show that
in addition to traditional internal and external knowledge sources, out of sector knowledge (in this case from
Healthcare Diagnostics) can be used to inform specialist NPD technologies. Furthermore, it is essential that
knowledge from multiple sources is effectively integrated within the NPD process using a designated
knowledge portal.
McCarthy F, Vickers M (2008) Digital natives, dropouts and refugees: Educational challenges for
innovative cities. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:257-268
However cities respond to the
monumental challenges of climate change, trans-national migration, diversity, and scarce resources, one
aspect of city life remains certain: children will continue to require an education. How this education is
shaped, how its content is formulated and delivered, and how it constructs who a student is, remain open and
troubling questions. The larger social and political context in which schools are embedded will also help
shape the innovations that will be deployed in an effort to raise the quality of education and encourage
innovative citizens of the future.
McCarthy G (2008) Managing for performance: Delivering results through others. R & D Management
38:110-111
McMillan GS (2008) Mapping the invisible colleges of R&D Management. R & D Management 38:69-83
R&D Management has consistently been considered one of the top technology and innovation management
journals since its inaugural issue in 1970. The purpose of this paper is to use bibliometric techniques to
examine R&D Management in four time periods, 1986-1990, 1991-1995, 1996-2000, and 2001-2005 in
order to reveal changes in its intellectual base. Bibliometric research has illuminated the knowledge domains
of several technology and innovation management journals including R&D Management Linton and
Thongpapanl, but there has not previously been a comprehensive detailed analysis focused only on R&D
Management. Using co-citation analysis, this paper identifies the invisible colleges (research networks)
associated with publications in R&D Management. The results indicate that Cohen and Levinthal's
absorptive capacity model dominates the final two periods. The conclusions suggest how the absorptive
capacity model might be more effectively utilized in future R&D Management research.
McNutt K (2008) The role of consumer magazines in communicating innovations in food choices.
Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:96-108 Magazines are hardly the dominant determinant of
consumer perceptions related to innovations in the food supply but for millions of people they do indeed
contribute to the big picture within which your neighbours decide what to eat. This paper draws primarily
from articles selected, during the three years preceding October 2007, for inclusion in the monthly
Consumer Magazines DIGEST, an eight-page publication which has for 18 years summarised selected
articles from the approximately fifty monthly US and Canadian magazines shown in Tables 1 and 2. Content
reviewed here has been selected because of its relevance to the titles of other chapters in this issue of
Innovation: Management, Policy and Practice.
Medcof JW (2008) The organizational influence of the Chief Technology Officer. R & D Management
38:406-420
The proposition that the Chief Technology Officer's (CTO) primary bases for power and
influence are in technical expertise and position power is critically analyzed from the perspective of upper
echelons research. This fresh perspective suggests that CTOs who aspire to have significant influence in
their organizations should also build their power bases on broad knowledge of the firm and its environment,
a network of personal relationships inside and outside the firm, ownership position in the firm, and intuitive
understanding of the business. The CEO's leadership style can also enhance or curtail the influence of the
CTO. Research and managerial implications are drawn.
Mercure JL (2008) Food Related Innovation: Technology, Genetics and Consumer Impacts PREFACE.
Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:2-3
Meyer MH (2008) PERSPECTIVE: How Honda innovates. Journal of Product Innovation Management
25:261-271 This article describes how Honda leverages its engine and other key subsystem technologies
into new products uniquely designed for new target users and their new special uses. In this profile of the
development of the Honda Element sports utility vehicle, we see how firm can identify new target
applications, dive deeply into user research, and translate its acquired insights into specific designs and
features. The feasibility and profitability of the effort is maximized by leveraging robust, fully operational
platforms within new product lines.
Meyer MH, Willcocks N, Boushell B (2008) Corporate venturing: An expanded role for R&D. ResearchTechnology Management 51:34-42
OVERVIEW: Managers in R&D need to take a more active role in
helping their corporations to find new market applications and develop business plans for realizing value
from those applications. Often it is conventional thinking with respect to user needs, possible routes to
market, and ways to make money that inhibit corporate growth. At confectioner Mars, Incorporated, the
R&D management team has had to learn to be as innovative in developing new business concepts as it has
been in creating new products for its snack, pet and other food businesses.
Miller R, Olleros X (2008) To manage innovation learn the architecture. Research-Technology Management
51:17-27
Innovation is often perceived as an unmanageable process. At best, sophisticated selection
procedures can impose discipline and guidance so as to contain costly errors. The research reported here,
conducted with 923 chief technical officers and senior R&D managers, yields a more nuanced view.
Innovation becomes manageable when managers move away from prescriptions that view the process as
uniform and recognize that different rules and practices apply in different contexts. The main argument
presented here is that product architecture has become a key element of innovation strategy. Innovation
focuses not only on stand-alone items but increasingly on systemic as well as modular products and services.
Product architecture interacts with market dynamics, which leads to distinct "games of innovation," seven of
which have been identified empirically. These games are not predetermined but leave ample room for
creative actions.
Millson MR, Wilemon D (2008) Impact of new product development (NPD) proficiency and NPD entry
strategies on product quality and risk. R & D Management 38:491-509
This research explores the
variation of new product quality and risk associated with New Product Development (NPD) entry strategies
(e.g. in-house developments and joint ventures). Our first two research questions examine the quality of new
products and the variation of risk across five NPD entry strategies. Our third and fourth research questions
investigate the association of the proficiency with which NPD technical activities are performed with new
product quality and the risk involved in developing new products. Our final two research questions explore
whether the type of NPD entry strategy mediates the association between the proficiency with which NPD
technical activities are performed and the quality and risk associated with the development of new products.
Our study focuses on new products developed by three major industries, namely medical devices, electrical
equipment, and heavy construction equipment. Our research suggests that there is no difference in the
quality or the risk associated with the development of new products across NPD entry strategies. We also
found that new product quality was associated with the proficient performance of many NPD technical
activities whereas risk was associated with the proficient performance of fewer NPD technical activities. We
found that choice of NPD entry strategy mediates the relationship between new product quality and NPD
technical activity proficiency. Unlike product quality, NPD entry strategy selection appears to mediate NPD
risk minimally. Our study contributes to NPD knowledge and managerial decision making by pointing out
that the technical activities performed during the early stages of the NPD process are important to the
attainment of a quality product and positively, not negatively, associated with perceived NPD risk.
Additionally, our study extends knowledge of the association between proficiently performed NPD technical
activities and the resultant product quality and perceived risk felt when individual NPD entry strategies are
implemented.
Mingardo G (2008) Cities and innovative urban transport policies. Innovation-Management Policy &
Practice 10:269-281
Successful modern cities must combine high levels of accessibility and quality of
life. These aims may conflict with each other: increasing accessibility could be detrimental to the urban
environment while the improvement of urban air quality might mean restricting the accessibility of the city.
The challenge for cities in the 21st century is to maintain economic growth, stay accessible and improve
quality of life at the same time. The aim of this paper is to increase understanding of how cities should
address their transport policies. Examples from London (UK) and Gothenburg (Sweden) are used to
emphasize the character of innovative urban transport policies.
Minola T, Giorgino M (2008) Who's going to provide the funding for high tech start-ups? A model for the
analysis of determinants with a fuzzy approach. R & D Management 38:335-351 The aim of this paper is
to understand which factors influence the financial structure of Italian young, high-tech, innovative firms,
and to attempt to formulate a predictive model to determine the ideal financial strategy for a given
entrepreneurial project. Venture capital is the most relevant form of financing for high-technology start-ups
in the United States and is frequently cited as crucial in the technological leadership of the US economy.
However, banks are also moving toward establishing a role in capital provision, making innovative offers to
meet the financial needs of start-ups, especially in bank-centric countries such as Italy. Is it possible to build
a robust and ordered set of determinants of the financial strategy of new technology-based firms? Is it
possible to gather them in a model that allows a rigorous analysis? Is it possible to summarize the analysis in
a synthetic value of orientation to one or other form of financing? Through a systematic review of the
literature and comparison between investors, we have taken the first step toward answering these questions.
This work develops a methodology to solve the problem and builds a provisional fuzzy-set based tool to
permit the rationalization of the relevant information and effectively support the reduction of qualitative
evaluation of complex phenomena into simple and measurable dimensions. The structure of the model is
hierarchical but simple. We consider, as the first level of main determinants (sub-dimensions), the figure of
the entrepreneur, the nature of the project, the financial scenario, and the market characteristics. For each of
these, we provide deep insights about their relation with finance. We have verified the value of this approach
in the context of ten business cases, by matching the financial strategies undertaken by entrepreneurs and the
obtainable conclusions with the fuzzy tool. However, the definition of a robust, predictive model requires
more consistent empirical validation, which we intend to develop from this work.
Moehrle MG, Walter L (2008) Risk and uncertainty in R&D management. R & D Management 38:449-451
Mohr R, Pacl H, Hartmann M (2008) Realize Hidden Value through Timely Portfolio Decisions. ResearchTechnology Management 51:44-50
Sophisticated portfolio management tools have been developed and
implemented to maximize the value of existing projects in the later phases of drug development. However,
the almost equally cost-intensive early research phase with a large number of relatively small and risky
projects has not been examined appropriately. By taking into account key drivers of early pharmaceutical
research, namely leveraging internal and external expertise identically across the organization, and
recognizing the temporary validity of respective portfolio decisions while using utility value-based dynamic
portfolio management techniques, it is possible to derive a consistent organizational model that should
significantly enhance research productivity and pipeline value.
Molero J, Garcia A (2008) The innovative activity of foreign subsidiaries in the Spanish Innovation System:
An evaluation of their impact from a sectoral taxonomy approach. Technovation 28:739-757
The aim of
this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the impact multinational enterprises (MNEs)
innovative strategies have on the countries they localised their activities, particularly the so-called
"intermediate countries". By using micro-data of the 2003 Spanish Innovation Survey we investigate the
situation in the manufacturing sector. A new perspective of that impact arises from the elaboration of a
sectoral taxonomy of sectors by combining their revealed technological advantage with the evolution of their
technological position in the world during 1993-2003, using for both purposes data of patents granted by the
USPTO. We found MNEs subsidiaries show noticeable coincidences with domestic enterprises, after
controlling most important fixed effects, in the way they organise their innovative activities. The importance
of belonging to a group is absolutely clear and discriminates sharply between the relationships of the firms
with the system and the impact they produce. As far as factors are concerned, the crucial role of size and
some related aspects (notably, capability of integrating inner and outer sources of knowledge and human
resources and funds availability) must be underlined. However, factors, which have to do more with the
organisation of innovation more directly are less significant to differentiate the possible impact for the
innovation system. The importance of sectoral categories reach in many estimations validate the taxonomy
proposed as a way of better understanding the relationships of MNEs with the Spanish Innovation System.
Monalisa M, Daim T, Mirani F, Dash P, Khamis R, Bhusari V (2008) Managing global design teams.
Research-Technology Management 51:48-59
Geographically distributed design teams have become
crucial, yet a significant number fail to accomplish their objectives. The reason is that long distances and
cultural differences compromise working relationships, communications, trust, accountability, organization,
individual contribution, and thus productivity. This paper analyzes eight such teams in the high-tech industry
and discusses the most common issues/problems that surround them. These are categorized as technological,
organizational and personal. An expert panel assigns a score to the problems and provides a set of
recommendations that can improve productivity and minimize failure in such virtual teams.
Montresor S, Marzetti GV (2008) Innovation Clusters in Technological Systems: A Network Analysis of 15
OECD Countries for the Mid-1990s. Industry and Innovation 15:321-346
The paper aims to investigate
how innovations cluster in different technological systems (TSs) when their "tehno-economic'', rather than
"territorial'' space, is considered. Innovation clusters of economic sectors are identified by referring to the
innovation "potential'' represented by their R&D expenditure and by applying social network analysis to the
intersectoral R&D flows matrices of 15 OECD countries in the mid-1990s. Different clusterization models
are first tested in order to detect the way sectors group on the basis of the embodied R&D flows they
exchange. Actual clusters are then mapped in the different TSs by looking for intersectoral relationships
which can be qualified to constitute "reduced TSs'' (ReTSs). In all the 15 TSs investigated the technoeconomic space appears organized in hierarchies, along which its constitutive sectors grouped into clusters
with different density and composition. Once ReTSs are looked for, the 15 TSs display highly
heterogeneous structures, but with some interesting similarity on the basis of which different clusters of TSs
can be identified in turn.
Moughan PJ (2008) Technology. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:40-42
Mulenburg G (2008) Reinventing project management: The diamond approach to successful growth and
innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:635-637
Mulenburg G (2008) Project sponsorship: Achieving management commitment for project success. Journal
of Product Innovation Management 25:308-310
Mulenburg G (2008) Rainbows & ratholes: Best practices for managing successful projects. Journal of
Product Innovation Management 25:207-209
Nelson B (2008) Putting hope to work: Five principles to activate your organization's most powerful
resource. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:408-409
Nelson B (2008) Flexible product development: Building agility for changing markets. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:303-304
Newbert SL, Gopalakrishnan S, Kirchhoff BA (2008) Looking beyond resources: Exploring the importance
of entrepreneurship to firm-level competitive advantage in technologically intensive industries.
Technovation 28:6-19
The resource-based view of the firm (RBV) suggests that in order to attain and
sustain a competitive advantage firms must possess and exploit valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable resources. Despite the focus on exploitation, empirical work in this area has focused primarily
on resource possession. By infusing this traditional view of the RBV with ideas from the dynamic
capabilities approach and the entrepreneurship literature, this paper presents conceptual arguments about the
exploitation of resources through the development of specific capabilities. The empirical results suggest that
entrepreneurial capacity and entrepreneurial management are important capabilities that help in building
competitive advantage for firms in technologically intensive industries.
Ngai EWT, Jin C, Liang T (2008) A qualitative study of inter-organizational knowledge management in
complex products and systems development. R & D Management 38:421-440
Much research has
recognized that cross-disciplinary knowledge inputs are necessary to successful product innovation,
particularly in complex products and systems (CoPS) development. This paper focuses on developing an
exploratory framework for studying how an inter-organizational knowledge management (KM) approach
affects the development of CoPS, and exploring how inter-organizational collaboration affects KM within a
CoPS context. Based on a review of the literature and in-depth case studies, this paper puts forward some
propositions and develops an integrated conceptual model showing the link between the dimensions of interorganizational KM and the performance of CoPS development. Finally, the implications of the proposed
model for inter-organizational KM in a CoPS environment are discussed.
Noke H, Perrons RK, Hughes M (2008) Strategic dalliances as an enabler for discontinuous innovation in
slow clockspeed industries: evidence from the oil and gas industry. R & D Management 38:129-139 The
concept of 'strategic dalliances' - defined as non-committal relationships that companies can 'dip in and out
of,' or dally with, while simultaneously maintaining longer-term strategic partnerships with other firms and
suppliers - has emerged as a promising strategy by which organizations can create discontinuous
innovations. But does this approach work equally well for every sector? Moreover, how can these links be
effectively used to foster the process of discontinuous innovation? Toward assessing the role that industry
clockspeed plays in the success or failure of strategic dalliances, we provide case study evidence from
Twister BV, an upstream oil and gas technology provider, and show that strategic dalliances can be an
enabler for the discontinuous innovation process in slow clockspeed industries. Implications for research and
practice are discussed, and conclusions from our findings are drawn.
O'Connor GC (2008) Major innovation as a dynamic capability: A systems approach. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:313-330
Major innovation (MI), composed of both radical and really new
innovation, is an important mechanism for enabling the growth and renewal of an enterprise. Yet it is poorly
managed in most established firms, and success stories are rare. This conceptual article draws on systems
theory, recent advances in dynamic capabilities theory, and the management of innovation literature to offer
a framework for building an MI dynamic capability. The framework is composed of seven elements that
together form a management system rather than a process-based approach to nurturing radical innovation.
These system elements are (1) an identifiable organization structure; (2) interface mechanisms with the
mainstream organization, some of which are tightly coupled and others of which are loose; (3) exploratory
processes; (4) requisite skills and talent development, given that entrepreneurial talent is not present in most
organizations; (5) governance and decision-making mechanisms at the project, MI portfolio, and MI system
levels; (6) appropriate performance metrics; and (7) an appropriate culture and leadership context. It is
argued that dynamic capabilities for phenomena as complex as MI must be considered in a systems fashion
rather than as operating routines and repeatable processes as the literature currently suggests. A set of
propositions is offered regarding how each element should play out in this parallel management system.
Finally, each element's role in the major innovation system is justified in terms of four criteria required by
systems theory: (1) The system is identifiable, and its elements are interdependent; (2) the effect of the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts; (3) homeostasis is achieved through interaction and networking
with the larger organization; and (4) there is a clear purpose in the larger system in which the MI
management system is embedded. Examples are given to demonstrate these criteria. Systems theory offers a
new way of thinking about dynamic capability development and management.
O'Regan N, Sims MA (2008) Identifying high technology small firms: A sectoral analysis. Technovation
28:408-423 This study explores the use of existing categorizations in classifying high and low technology
firms such as the standard industrial classification (SIC). Such classifications tend to be applied to firms in a
blanket fashion rather than on a systematic basis. This study uses both input and output approaches to
identify high technology firms. The results indicate that electronics and IT/software firms meet the criteria
for classification as high technology firms using both input and output criteria. The findings also indicate
that distribution firms can also be categorized as high technology firms using the output approach only.
Based on the analysis, we derived objective criteria for the classification of high technology firms.
Olleros X (2008) The lean core in digital platforms. Technovation 28:266-276
This paper intends to
illustrate and make more explicit the decentralization argument put forward in the literature on platform
leadership. The analysis shows that in the digital economy, where rapid scalability and evolvability are so
important, decentralization has played a crucial role in the success of some open platforms, as against the
failure of other, also open but more centralized, platforms. More specifically, on the basis of four
comparative case studies, the paper shows that platform leaders should beware of offering the market too
heavy a platform core, lest the platform's neutrality, scalability and evolvability be compromised.
Page AL, Schirr GR (2008) Growth and development of a body of knowledge: 16 years of new product
development research, 1989-2004. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:233-248 In this study, a
content analysis was performed on 815 articles focused on new product development (NPD) published in 10
selected leading marketing, management, NPD, and research and development (R&D) journals from 1989 to
2004. Journals selected were a combination of leading journals in the discipline and publications that
included NPD articles. NPD articles were classified by a series of key attributes including methodology
employed, domains of knowledge utilized, and broad topics explored. The resulting data were then studied
to discern trends over time or common characteristics within domains, methodologies, or journals. The study
of NPD has grown since the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) was launched in 1984. This
study shows strong growth in the number of articles on NPD in each category of journal selected. The
research in the articles has changed: The early focus on a few selected success factors or a staged
development process has evolved and broadened over the 16-year period. More variables and more
sophisticated models are being studied in NPD articles. The study found a continuing evolution in research
topics and increased sophistication in quantitative techniques over the 16-year period. Overall this review of
the NPD literature uncovers encouraging signs of a maturing discipline. However, there are concerns about
continuing issues in methodology, insufficient study of service innovation, and continued focus on process
characteristics instead of other antecedents of NPD success. The service sector seems to be understudied,
even as the reality of a service economy is generally acknowledged. The call in a recent meta-analysis to
focus more on market and product characteristics and less on process characteristics has not yet been
heeded, even by marketing researchers.
Paiola M (2008) Cultural Events as Potential Drivers of Urban Regeneration: An Empirical Illustration.
Industry and Innovation 15:513-529
In this paper the relational dimension of cultural production is
explored, with explicit attention to the impact of cultural events on networks and creativity in local contexts.
Three qualitative empirical cases are produced, showing that networks have a crucial importance in
sustaining spatial proximity-based creativity. Three models of local cultural events are identified and valued
qualitatively in terms of their impact on local creativity, concluding that the value of an event in its territory
is dependent on the organizational frame of the specific event. In particular, the bottom-up network-based
model appears to be able to favour local activation and creativity spanning, thereby leveraging local
resources.
Pal SS (2008) The fast path to corporate growth: Leveraging knowledge and technologies to new market
applications. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:524-525
Paladino A (2008) Analyzing the effects of market and resource orientations on innovative outcomes in
times of turbulence. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:577-592 Innovation and new product
success are often a core precursor to superior performance. Although research has examined the resourcebased view (RBV) and market orientation (MO) individually, limited research has evaluated and compared
their effect on innovation and new product success in one study. Furthermore, relative to MO, comparatively
less research has been conducted to evaluate the relationship between organizational learning (OL) and the
RBV to examine their effects on a firm's ability to innovate and succeed. The purpose of this paper is to
investigate the role of environmental variables (i.e., market turbulence and technological turbulence) on the
relationship between two strategic orientations and performance and to extend a previous study.
Specifically, it aims to evaluate whether a focus on the customer or the firm will impact innovation, product
quality, new product success, financial performance, and customer value in settings of varying
environmental turbulence. Data were collected from more than 200 senior executives. LISREL was applied
to evaluate the relationships under examination. Interaction effects were assessed using a nested goodnessof-fit strategy using a multiple-group solution. Results depicted significant relationships between
organizational learning and both resource and market orientations. Significant relationships also emerged
between each strategic orientation and various performance indicators. Interaction effects were observed for
market turbulence on customer value and market orientation as well as for resource orientation (RO) on
innovation in times of high technological turbulence. The paper concludes with a review of theoretical and
managerial implications to stimulate further debate. These results suggest that managers seeking innovation
and new product success cannot afford to ignore the environment and do so at their peril. The provision of
customer value is essential for positive financial performance. Thus, management needs to monitor
environmental contexts so that they are able to adjust their investment in market orientation and the requisite
processes that enable its implementation. Conversely, the effects of RO on performance are more robust
across industry conditions, presenting an alternative avenue for management to achieve market superiority.
The paper concludes with a review of theoretical and managerial implications to stimulate further debate.
Parhi M (2008) Impact of the Changing Facets of Inter-firm Interactions on Manufacturing Excellence: A
Social Network Perspective of the Indian Automotive Industry. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation
16:117-141 This paper studies the vertical relational structure of automotive and auto component firms in
the Indian automotive supply chain where a clear 'unequal balance of power' is observed. This is done by
combining the theories of network and systemic idea of innovation. We uncover the hidden relational
structure of the automotive and auto component firms and find that the industry network shows some
prominent scale-free structural properties indicating the existence of a typical dependence and dominance
structure with complex dynamical behaviour. We also draw the innovation and sustainability characteristics
of the firms' network and their inclination towards vulnerability and some related policy implications.
Peneder M (2008) The problem of private under-investment in innovation: A policy mind map.
Technovation 28:518-530
This paper reviews the major finance-related causes of private underinvestment in innovation and the consequent alternative choices for public policy. The focus is on (i)
incentive-based arguments that address the problem of limited appropriability of new knowledge, and (ii)
the lacking access to external sources of finance caused by imperfections in the capital market. Drawing a
policy mind map, which aims to enhance the mutual awareness and coordination of policy makers at the
crossroads of technology and corporate finance, the paper is organised along the following chain of thought:
(i) causes and rationales, (ii) aims and targets, (iii) critical constraints, and (iv) the main finance-related
instruments of innovation policy.
Percival JC, Cozzarin BP (2008) Complementarities Affecting the Returns to Innovation. Industry and
Innovation 15:371-392 The purpose of this paper is to determine which firm strategies, perceived benefits
of innovation and objectives for innovating in various manufacturing industries are indeed complementary
with innovation. The test for complementarity is performed by proving that the data satisfies a set of
supermodularity parametric equation restrictions. Our estimation results, from Canada's national innovation
survey, show a wide variation in complements affecting the perception of the value of innovation to a firm.
In terms of profit, complementary variable pairs for world-first innovators exceed those of firms who report
a Canada-first or firm-first innovation. With labour productivity, complementary variable pairs for the
Canada-first innovators exceed those of the world- and firm-first innovators. It is readily apparent though,
that a high-technology industry does not necessarily equate to a high degree of complementarity.
Philbin SP (2008) Managing complex technology projects. Research-Technology Management 51:32-39
A survey of United Kingdom-based industrial companies has identified the development of systems
architectures and the use of a robust approach to integrated systems design as important contributors to the
successful delivery of today's complex technology and engineering projects. A new conceptual framework,
called the four-frames systems view, has been developed as a tool for the management of such projects. This
innovative framework brings together different systems related methodologies and tools in order to reduce
risk in project design, implementation and management. The framework is based on a view that different
systems methodologies are needed in order to accommodate different levels of complexity. The
development of a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) system for the civil sector is an initial application of the
framework.
Pinnegar S, Marceau J, Randolph B (2008) Innovation for a carbon constrained city: Challenges for the built
environment industry. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:303-315
The built environment,
especially that of our largest cities, faces substantial change in the next twenty years if it is to meet the
increasing demands for carbon neutrality, reduced water consumption and more efficient resource
consumption. The industries that design, build, retrofit, manage and maintain the built environment face
equally significant changes in organisation, working practices and skills development, approaches to design
and construction and materials development if they are to meet these challenges. Equally, the institutional
and governance structures within which they operate will need to undergo fundamental changes, not least in
terms of changed regulatory and incentive structures to stimulate innovation and adaptation of new
sustainability goals and outcomes. This paper reviews the key drivers of change facing the built environment
and analyses the major challenges facing the built environment industry, broadly constituted, in adapting to
these drivers.
Potts J et al. (2008) Consumer Co-creation and Situated Creativity. Industry and Innovation 15:459-474
This paper examines the industrial dynamics of new digital media from the perspective of consumer cocreation. We find that consumer-producer interactions are an increasingly important source of valuecreation. We conclude that cultural and economic analysis might be usefully united about these themes, and
that situated creativity should be construed as analysis of an ongoing co-evolutionary process between
economic and cultural dynamics.
Prajogo DI, Hong SW (2008) The effect of TQM on performance in R&D environments: A perspective
from South Korean firms. Technovation 28:855-863
This paper presents an empirical study, which
examines the effectiveness of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices in R&D environments by
demonstrating the effect of TQM practices on R&D performance in terms of product quality and product
innovation. Despite numerous studies of the relationship between TQM and organisational performance,
little research has been done on the relationship between TQM and R&D performance. This study used data
from 130 R&D divisions of Korean manufacturing firms. Two research questions were posed, with the first
pertaining to the implementation of TQM principles in R&D environments and the second focusing on the
effect of TQM on R&D performance. TQM practices were measured by six criteria of Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award, and R&D performance measures consist of quality and innovation aspects. Using
structural equation modelling techniques, the findings showed the integration of the implementation of TQM
practices in R&D divisions as well as the significant contribution of TQM to R&D performance. These
findings suggest that TQM as it set of generic principles can be adapted in environments other than
manufacturing or production areas.
Prather CW (2008) Use mistakes to foster innovation. Research-Technology Management 51:14-16
Prebble DR, de Waal GA, de Groot C (2008) Applying multiple perspectives to the design of a
commercialization process. R & D Management 38:311-320
Most commercialization models begin by
taking an idea through some sort of stage-gate product development process. There is much talk about
building market thinking into this process, but this paper argues that much more is required. The research
identified three perspectives required to be present at all stages of product development. The first is labelled
'technical and operational', the second 'strategic' and the third 'commercial'. The paper argues that each
perspective is required at every stage to drive the right activities that lead to successful commercialization.
The science, idea and opportunity stage leads onto the technology and feasibility stage, which in turn leads
onto the product and market readiness stage. The research applied the grounded theory methodology to
categorize and represent data obtained from interviews and desk research. The resulting model was
introduced to a New Zealand Crown Research Institute during a consulting assignment in 2004. Three
external experts were selected based on their particular perspectives and experience in the area of product
development. Each perspective was built into the commercialization process. Applying multiple
perspectives has led to a more robust approach to product development and a greater awareness of how
multiple tools work together to create a holistic product development process. Each perspective of the
commercialization process can be broken down into detailed stages. The technical and operational
perspective addresses areas such as opportunity creation, proof of concept and market readiness. The
strategic perspective addresses areas such as strategic fit, strategic analysis/choice and pathways to market.
Finally, the commercial perspective addresses areas such as opportunity assessment, feasibility
study/business planning and launch.After being in place for 18 months, the challenges faced in
implementation were discussed with the current commercialization manager and the model was adapted to
another institute wishing to develop a design-led commercialization process. A key finding of the research
was the common understanding of language and meaning across three distinct disciplines and the
involvement of each discipline in the decision-making process. All parties accepted the value of each other's
contribution once the different perspectives were understood and accepted. The paper provides useful
insights for those involved in the design of commercialization processes and establishes a multi-dimensional
framework that assists in facilitating the different perspectives required for successful commercialization.
Pruett M, Thomas H (2008) Experience-based learning in innovation and production. R & D Management
38:141-153
How can we model and document the impact of experience in product innovation? We use
data on the innovation and production histories of 294 product platforms to explore experience-based
learning. We extend learning curve concepts from their traditional domain - the production process - into the
product innovation process to build and test a richer, quantitative model of learning. The results suggest that
learning occurs differently in the innovation process than in production. They also suggest that how and
where a firm learns depend in part on the complexity of product components and sub-systems. Finally, we
discuss the competitive implications for product innovation.
Radeka K (2008) The elegant solution: Toyota's formula for mastering innovation. Journal of Product
Innovation Management 25:205-207
Rasiah R, Krishnan G (2008) Economic Performance and Technological Intensities of Manufacturing Firms
in Malaysia: Does Size Matter? Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:63-82
This paper examines
size-based differences in export and technological intensity and the statistical relationships involving them
in a 2004 sample of manufacturing firms in Malaysia. The results demonstrate that large enterprises have
higher export-intensity means compared to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Moreover, these
differences remained significant once controlled for other variables. Large firms enjoyed a higher overall
technological intensity mean-consisting of human resources (HR) and research and development (R&D)
intensities-than SMEs, but the differences disappear once controlled for other variables. Foreign ownership
is highly and positively correlated with export-intensities but not with any of the technological intensity
variables. Export-intensity is likewise highly and positively correlated with HR. The other expected positive
signs that remained in the three samples were statistically highly significant only in the SMEs and overall
samples. Government support is highly correlated with the technology variables of overall technological
intensity, process and product, and R&D intensities.
Rasmussen E (2008) Government instruments to support the commercialization of university research:
Lessons from Canada. Technovation 28:506-517
Increased efforts are made in most industrialized
countries to promote the commercialization of university research, for instance, through spin-off firm
formation. Many studies have investigated the initiatives set up in the university sector that aim to support
and facilitate the commercialization of research, such as technology transfer offices (TTO). However, few
studies have looked at the increasing number of instruments introduced from the government. This paper
reviews the Canadian support structure at federal level that aims to support the commercialization of
publicly funded research. Two types of programs can be identified. Firstly, programs made to induce
structural reforms within the university sector in order to improve the institutional capabilities to facilitate
commercialization projects. Secondly, programs providing support to specific commercialization projects.
This paper explores how these types of programs are operated at government level. An example of
implementation at university level is also given. The lessons to be learned from the Canadian case are
related to how the government initiatives encourage a bottom-up approach. This is accomplished by
providing resources for direct use in commercialization projects or to develop professional expertise in
technology transfer in the university sector, by experimenting with new initiatives, and finally by facilitating
cooperation between commercializing organizations.
Redoli J, Mompo R, Garcia-Diez J, Lopez-Coronado M (2008) A model for the assessment and
development of Internet-based information and communication services in small and medium enterprises.
Technovation 28:424-435 Young engineers understand technology very well, but they usually have poor
skills on business practices. For this reason, they should appreciate tools that help in assessing small
companies from a combined viewpoint of business and technology. In this article we present such a tool in
the form of a model that helps to understand how an enterprise is using information and communication
technologies (ICTs) and "how" and "when" a company should incorporate new technological elements. The
model can also be applied to marketing research to understand the small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
emergent market related to ICTs and to plan government policies devoted to fostering ICT introduction in
SMEs. The model has been applied successfully in the assessment of 500 SMEs, and also as an innovative
active learning tool for higher education.
Reichstein T, Salter AJ, Gann DM (2008) Break on Through: Sources and Determinants of Product and
Process Innovation among UK Construction Firms. Industry and Innovation 15:601-625
While
construction is often seen as a low-technology sector, it has witnessed substantial changes in practices,
processes, technology and performance over the past 20 years. Understanding the sources of these changes
is Important for innovation strategy and policy to improve performance within the sector, and because it
produces the capital goods-buildings and structures-to enable other sectors to develop. Logistic regression is
applied to data from the UK Innovation Survey to examine sources of product and process innovation
among construction firms. Results show that working with customers, suppliers and having a broad market
orientation can help construction firms break through the confines of their particular industrial context. The
paper concludes by exploring implications of these findings for policy and theory and by considering
questions for further research.
Reinertsen D (2008) Lean product and process development. Journal of Product Innovation Management
25:404-406
Reppy J (2008) A biomedical military-industrial complex? Technovation 28:802-811
Since the terrorist
attacks and anthrax letters in 2001, the US government has multiplied the number of government programs
and agencies concerned with biosecurity and greatly increased its spending on related projects, including a
20-fold increase in spending for biodefense research. This paper considers whether the surge in spending
and the responses from industry, universities, and individual scientists have created a network of
interlocking interests that constitute a new 'Biomedical Military-Industrial Complex' (BMIC), similar to the
military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against in his Farewell Address. Despite the emergence
of many practices associated with the military-industrial complex, the tentative conclusion is that the new
institutions and practices in the area of biosecurity do not merit the BMIC label, at least not yet. In
particular, the concern that knowledge production in the life sciences might be seriously distorted by the
increase in biodefense funding is discounted because, since the rise of molecular biology in the 1970s, the
biological sciences have steadily evolved toward a model in which university research is already heavily
influenced by outside patrons and commercial interests.
Richardson J (2008) France's competition clusters seek to boost industry innovation. Research-Technology
Management 51:2-+
Riley PG, Buckley PR (2008) The best scientists are becoming free agents. Research-Technology
Management 51:9-12
Roupas P (2008) Human and organisational factors affecting technology uptake by industry. InnovationManagement Policy & Practice 10:4-28
While there are numerous models for technology transfer into
different industries, including licensing agreements, cooperative research and development (R & D)
agreements between government laboratories and private companies, the formation of spin-off companies
and other mechanisms, there is also a growing body of information that human factors and
organisational/environmental factors play a very significant role in determining the success or failure of
technology transfer and commercialisation ventures. This review attempts to capture the current knowledge
on the human and organisational traits, thinking patterns, attitudes and behaviours towards innovation and
new technology uptake, with a view to identifying interventions to support change behaviours of both the R
& D sector and industry to promote innovation in the food manufacturing industry.
Ruckman K (2008) Externally Sourcing Research through Acquisition: Should it Supplement or Substitute
for Internal Research? Industry and Innovation 15:627-645
A technology motivated acquirer can use a
target's technology to supplement or substitute for its own internal research, The Impact of the extent of
integration on post-acquisition performance is further complicated by the effects of pre-acquisition research
relatedness between the target and acquirer. This study determines the integration and research relatedness
of acquisitions in the US biopharmaceutical industry during the 1990s and then examines their impact on
profitability. The results indicate that related research that supplements (or is integrated into) internal
research increases post-acquisition profits as does unrelated research which substitutes for (or Is kept
separate from) internal research.
Ruse DH, Jansen KE (2008) Stay in Front of the Talent Curve. Research-Technology Management 51:38-43
Although executives are faced daily with making critical decisions about the number and type of talent they
need to run their businesses, they often lack the complete and accurate information required to make these
decisions. This makes it difficult for them to manage their talent portfolio so as to have the right people in
the right place at the right time to implement the business strategies - to ensure they stay in front of the talent
curve. However, companies can stay ahead of the talent curve through the implementation of strategic
workforce planning. One such approach that has been used by a variety of innovation-based companies is
known as Human Capital Planning (c). This four-stage approach helps companies forecast future talent
through talent segmentation, talent supply and demand dynamics, and "buy/build" decision making.
Saarenketo S, Puumalainen K, Kylaheiko K, Kuivalainen O (2008) Linking knowledge and
internationalization in small and medium-sized enterprises in the ICT sector. Technovation 28:591-601
This paper examines the internationalization of Finnish information and communication technology (ICT)
firms from the knowledge-based perspective. Building on transaction cost economics and modern
economics-based strategy research, this study presents a model that explores the influence of six important
knowledge determinants on two key elements of the internationalization strategy, i.e. on the choice of entry
mode and market concentration/diversification. We tested the model among 78 internationally operating
Finnish ICT SMEs. The survey results indicate that the internationalization strategy is linked with
uncertainty, asset specificity, appropriability of knowledge assets through tacitness and legal means, and
economies of scale and scope. However, no link was found between opportunism and internationalization
strategy of the firm. The paper concludes with implications to managers and future research.
Salomo S, Talke K, Strecker N (2008) Innovation field orientation and its effect on innovativeness and firm
performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:560-576
New product development (NPD)
has become a prime source for gaining a competitive edge in the market. Although a large body of research
has addressed the question of how to successfully manage individual innovation projects, the management
of a firm's new product portfolio has received comparably less research attention. A phenomenon that has
recently emerged on the research agenda is innovation field orientation. Such orientation is understood as
the deliberate setup and management of multiple thematically related NPD projects. However, the facets and
effects of innovation field orientation are still unexplored. In particular, this study is interested in (1)
developing a concept of innovation field orientation, (2) investigating the extent to which innovation field
orientation is an established part of the corporate strategic planning practice, and (3) assessing the direct and
indirect performance effects of innovation field orientation. For the empirical analysis, data were collected
through a mail survey and document analyses from 122 publicly listed firms. Tobin's q was used as an
objective performance metric directly related to shareholder value. The results confirm that innovation field
orientation is a phenomenon that prevails in practice. In addition, all defining aspects of this orientation have
either direct or indirect effects on firm performance. Hence, those firms that deliberately specify and manage
innovation fields have a more innovative product portfolio and are more successful than others. Specifically,
the findings underline the performance relevance of formally framing innovation fields and assigning a
critical mass of resources to them. In addition, empirical support is lent to the suggestion that innovation
field orientation has strong indirect performance effects mediated by the innovativeness of the firm's new
product portfolio. This implies that firms that deliberately specify focus areas, assign resources to, provide
organizational framing for, and stimulate synergies between related NPD projects stand a better chance to
achieve a more innovative new product portfolio. This again is highly appreciated by investors and results in
a superior stock market evaluation of these firms.
Santarelli E, Lotti F (2008) Innovative Output, Productivity and Profitability. A Test Comparing USPTO
and EPO Data. Industry and Innovation 15:393-409 The aim of this paper is to test whether patent-based
indicators are still reliable measures of innovativeness in light of organizational changes in the field of
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection and the regulatory reforms already occurred and under way,
respectively, at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). For
most high-tech industries, patents represent an outcome of the production process and their number can be
taken as a proxy for a firm's ability to improve its productivity growth and profitability. The case study
reported here concerns the biotechnology industry in Italy, whose firms, by definition, have Intellectual
Property (IP) activities in their portfolios. For this purpose, we use a unique dataset which collects balance
sheet items and patent information from EPO and USPTO. After linking firms' financial and production data
with the patent information, we estimate a modified knowledge production function in which the dependent
variable is alternatively (labor) productivity growth and profitability. Although based on a quite small
sample, our findings provide some indication of a statistically significant relationship between patents with
the EPO and both productivity growth and, in particular, profitability. This suggests that firms might pursue
different strategies when patenting with the USPTO and the EPO.
Sarkissian A (2008) Intellectual property rights for developing countries: Lessons from Iran. Technovation
28:786-798
Recent years have witnessed a heated debate about the need to overhaul the Iranian
intellectual property system in both academic and policymaking circles. However, a close scrutiny of the
debates reveals that a study offering a coherent account of the big pictures of the intellectual property (IP)
system is still missing. This paper draws on various sources of information-extant literature, legislations,
policy documents, official statements, expert commentaries, and interviews with officials-to craft a coherent
account of the main features of the Iranian IP system. Emphasis will also be given to highlighting
idiosyncrasies of the IP system and taking stock of the latest debates. Issues raised in this paper can hold
important lessons for comparable developing countries.
Sawers JL, Pretorius MW, Oerlemans LAG (2008) Safeguarding SMEs dynamic capabilities in technology
innovative SME-large company partnerships in South Africa. Technovation 28:171-182
This paper
focuses on technological collaboration between small and large firms. It is argued that such collaborations
can be beneficial for both types of partner, but that small firms often are confronted by the hazards of
collaboration as these relationships are typically asymmetric. As a result of this, knowledge embodied in the
dynamic (strategic, internal and external) capabilities of SMEs can flow unintentionally to the larger partner.
If this occurs, the collaboration would be less successful from the SMEs' point of view. Next, it is proposed
that the use of formal and informal safeguards can protect technology innovative SMEs against such
knowledge flows. This paper examines to what extent is the number of dynamic capabilities of SMEs
associated with partnership success and to what extent is this relationship influenced by the number of
safeguards used by the SMEs? A sample of 43 technology innovative SMEs was interviewed by means of a
structured questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between
the number of dynamic capabilities on the one hand and partnership success on the other. Moreover, the
impact of (in)formal safeguards on this relationship was analyzed. The research found that SME's strategic
and internal capabilities are negatively associated with partnership success, whereas external capabilities are
positively related. The inclusion of safeguards turned out to produce the hypothesized effects. The paper
shows, therefore, that unintentional knowledge flows from the SME to the larger partner can be prevented
by putting in place formal and informal protection mechanisms.
Say T (2008) Grabbing lightning-building a capability for breakthrough innovation. Research-Technology
Management 51:69-69
Schlossstein DF, Yun JHJ (2008) Innovation Cluster Characteristics of Baden-Wuerttemberg and GyeongiDo. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:83-112
This paper sketches the key dimensions of two
powerful regional innovation systems, the Bonwol Siwha Industrial Cluster in Gyeonggi Province in South
Korea and Baden-Wuerttemberg in Germany. Previous governments in Korea had not paid much attention
to empowerment and capacity building at the regional level, resulting in severe imbalances in regional
innovation readiness and propensity. To address these deficits, the government in 2005 enacted a new
cluster strategy across seven industrial sites. The Bonwol Siwha National Industrial Cluster is the one
located in Gyeonggi Province, one of Korea's top three regional innovation systems. This cluster, now
specializing in advanced materials and components, is home to 3,000 companies and over 100,000
employees. It is now presented with the challenge of transforming itself into a high-tech industrial cluster
similar to Baden-Wuerttemberg. This upgrading presents a considerable policy challenge, especially to the
cluster itself and the regional government. The main obstacles on this path are the lack of any major
company and a recognized research university, misalignment of conceptions between SMEs and
universities, and a lack of competition among the national industrial clusters.
Schmidt GM, Druehl CT (2008) When is a disruptive innovation disruptive? Journal of Product Innovation
Management 25:347-369 A disruptive innovation (i.e., one that dramatically disrupts the current market)
is not necessarily a disruptive innovation (as Clayton Christensen defines this term). To aid in understanding
why some innovations are more (or less) disruptive to the long-term health of incumbents, this article offers
terminology and a framework complementary to Christensen's work, focusing on the diffusion pattern of the
new product. The framework and model presented herein suggest that when an innovation diffuses from the
low end upward toward the high end, a pattern called low-end encroachment, the incumbent may be tempted
to overlook its potential impact. Three possible types of low-end encroachment are illustrated: the fringemarket, detached-market, and immediate scenarios. Conversely, when the pattern is one of high-end
encroachment, the impact on the current market is immediate and striking. A three-step framework is
identified to assess the potential diffusion pattern and impact of an innovation, thereby helping a firm
determine the threat or opportunity that an innovation represents.
Schneider M, Tejeda M, Dondi G, Herzog F, Keel S, Geering H (2008) Making real options work for
practitioners: a generic model for valuing R&D projects. R & D Management 38:85-106
We propose a
generic valuation framework for the appraisal of R&D projects based on real option theory. The added value
of this approach is the presentation of a model that was implemented in a manner that allows corporate
decision makers to use real options in an intuitive and standardized way. The project valuation procedure is
separated into three main phases: project modeling, data and input collection, and result generation and
analysis. The project model represents the structure of the real world R&D project with its investments,
expected results, and decisions that need to be taken conditionally on the outcomes of research activities.
The project model is represented in the form of a decision tree, where different research results or taken
decisions lead to new branches. In this way, every possible situation the project can pass through can be
represented. Uncertainties are separated into market uncertainties (e.g., market prices) and project specific,
private uncertainties (e.g. uncertainty of research results). For both uncertainties, event trees are constructed
which are then combined and merged with the above mentioned decision tree in order to represent the value
evolution of the R&D project under given decisions and uncertainties. For every possible state of the project
the real option value is calculated. By creating multidimensional trees, a multitude of decision steps and
various kinds of real options (e.g., continue, expansion, switch, abandonment) can be modeled. The
calculation complexity for the decision trees is given. From the tree structure we can calculate the real
option value of starting an R&D project, i.e., the value of undertaking the first investment and thus acquiring
the subsequent decision opportunities given by the completion of the first research effort. Furthermore, the
optimal exercise strategy is derived from the decision tree. The exercise strategy gives the manager the
possibility to have an a priori overview of where an R&D project may lead to, which decisions need to be
taken in which circumstances, and when the project needs to be stopped in order not to generate losses. In an
in-depth case study we use an illustrative R&D project to set up and discuss the three phases of project
modeling in the real options framework: building the multidimensional decision tree, input generation, and
calculation of the real option value as well as the optimal strategy for the R&D project.
Schreier M, Prugl R (2008) Extending lead-user theory: Antecedents and consequences of consumers' lead
userness. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:331-346
Lead users are found to come up with
commercially attractive user innovations and have been shown to be a highly promising source of
innovation for new product development tasks. According to lead-user theory, these users are defined as
being ahead of an important market trend and experiencing high benefits from innovating. The present
article extends lead-user theory by exploring the antecedents and consequences of consumers' lead userness
in the course of three studies on extreme sports communities. Regarding antecedents, it uncovers that fieldrelated variables (consumer knowledge and use experience) as well as field-independent personality
variables (locus of control and innovativeness) help explain an individual's lead userness. These variables
might therefore be used as a proxy to identify the rare species of lead users. With regard to consequences, it
uncovers that lead users demonstrate innovative behavior not only by creating new product ideas but also by
adopting new commercial products more heavily and faster than ordinary users. This highlights the idea that
lead users might not only be valuable to idea-generation processes for radically new concepts; instead, they
might also be relevant to more general issues in the marketing of new products.
Schwartz M, Hornych C (2008) Specialization as strategy for business incubators: An assessment of the
Central German Multimedia Center. Technovation 28:436-449 The literature on business incubators (BIs)
mainly discusses findings of incubators that do not restrict themselves to specific sectors (diversified
incubators). There is a strong disregard of the possible benefits arising from the concept of a sectorspecialized business incubator (SBI), although this concept has become more important in recent years. In
Germany, about 19% of the incubators can be characterized as being specialized. Since 1999, nearly onethird of all new BIs in Germany opened with a sector-specific focus. This study attempts to approach this
research question by examining the advantages and deficiencies of this concept and to address them with
empirical observations from an SBI in the city of Halle (Germany), which has an explicit sector-focus on the
media industry (MI). We identify key benefits arising from such an incubator concept: (1) high-quality
premises and equipment, (2) improvement of service and consultancy offerings and (3) image effects for the
location. We also find deficiencies of an SBI especially regarding internal networking activities and
promotion of linkages to universities. Furthermore a negative working climate impedes interaction. This
study offers implications for firms, incubator managers and local policy-makers who are concerned with the
instrument of an SBI.
Scinta J (2008) Industrial Research Institute's R&D trends forecast for 2008. Research-Technology
Management 51:19-23
Sedita SR (2008) Interpersonal and Inter-organizational Networks in the Performing Arts: The Case of
Project-Based Organizations in the Live Music Industry. Industry and Innovation 15:493-511
The main
aim of the paper is to contribute to the literature on project-based organizations (PBOs), concerning how
temporary organizations are nested in an organizational setting that involves interpersonal and interorganizational networks. Special attention is paid to the performing arts. A PBO is defined here as an
organization that uses a one-shot method of organizing transactions, created by the ability of a permanent
organization to design an organizational setting using the existing social and productive net. This may be
considered a latent, informal network, based on reputation-driven interpersonal relationships. The paper also
attempts to explore the relationship between the organizational capabilities to deploy latent networks and
their economic performance. The empirical context is live music performances in the Veneto region. The
analysis relates to the population of singers who have worked with an organization at least once in 2003,
performing at an artistic event within this region. Using statistical techniques and network analysis tools, the
analysis reveals the existence of a network of creativity, where the ability of the organizations to deploy
latent networks supports their economic performance.
Seong J, Song W (2008) Innovation Policy and Administration System in the Era of Post Catch-up: The
Case of the Roh Moo-hyun Administration's Innovation Policy. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation
16:25-46
This study analyzed the implications of changes in the innovation policy and administration
system in the Roh administration and explored its limitations as well as its future development prospects.
Since the Roh Moo-hyun administration took office in 2002, Korea's innovation policy has been expanded
and its position has been further elevated in the hierarchy of policies. Especially, S&T-related agenda has
emerged as a core national policy initiative and these changes showed the start of a new type of innovation
policy. Various experiments tried in the Roh administration, however, showed the limitation and path
dependency of the administration. Since the Lee Myung-bak administration took office in 2008, his
government carried out radical governmental reforms, including the integration and abolition of S&T-related
ministries. As a result, the government abolished the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Science and
Technology (Ministry of Science and Technology), which was established in 2004. The government also
abolished the Office of Science, Technology and Innovation (OSTI), which was established in 2004 to
support the Deputy Prime Minister in the overall coordination of STI policies. In fact, all of the four Deputy
Prime Ministers in the previous government were abolished. As we can see through these changes, it is
difficult to expect continuity in policy implementation in Korea owing to institutional limitations such as the
single presidential term. Under this institutional constraint, innovation policy and administration system
tried in the Roh administration seems to be heading towards dissolution or ending up in smoke.
Shah CM, Zegveld MA, Roodhart L (2008) Designing ventures that work. Research-Technology
Management 51:17-25
Corporate venturing (CV) is a widely accepted mechanism for incubating and
developing new business within large established firms. Substantial research has been done on this subject,
yet many firms have failed in their venturing efforts and booked large losses. In contrast, venturing at firms
like IBM, Nokia and Shell is thriving, and has done well for more than a decade. This gives rise to the
following questions: Why do most venturing initiatives fail and only some survive? How can a company
establish CV that survives and delivers successfully? A study reveals three dominant elements of an
effective corporate venturing effort: carrying out a thorough necessity analysis, achieving clarity of
objectives and creating the right ambiance.
Sherwood AL, Covin JG (2008) Knowledge acquisition in university-industry alliances: An empirical
investigation from a learning theory perspective. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:162-179
A firm's technological knowledge base is the foundation on which internal product and process innovations
are generated. However, technological knowledge is not accumulated solely through internal learning
processes. Increasingly, firms are turning to external sources in the technology supply chain to acquire the
technological knowledge they need to introduce product and process innovations. Thus, the successful
structuring and executing of partnerships with external "technology source" organizations is often critical to
competitive success in technologically dynamic environments. This study uses situated learning theory as a
basis for explaining how factors inherent to the knowledge acquisition context may affect the successful
transference of technological knowledge from universities to their industry partners. Data collected via a
survey instrument from 104 industry managers were used to explore the effects of various organizational
knowledge interface factors on knowledge acquisition success in university-industry alliances. The
organizational knowledge interface factors hypothesized to affect knowledge acquisition success in the
current research include partner trust, partner familiarity, technology,familiarity, alliance experience, formal
collaboration teams, and technology experts' communications. Results indicate that partner trust predicts the
successful acquisition of tacit knowledge but not explicit knowledge. Both forms of knowledge are predicted
by partner familiarity and communications between the partners' technology experts. These findings suggest
three principal managerial implications. First, although the development of a trusting relationship between
the knowledge source and knowledge-seeking parties is generally advisable, firms that seek to acquire
explicit technological knowledge from their alliance partners may successfully do so without having made
significant time and energy investments designed to assure themselves that they can trust those partners. The
relative observability and verifiability of explicit knowledge relative to tacit knowledge may enable
knowledge-seeking parties to have greater confidence that knowledge has been acquired when partner trust
is in question or has not been deliberately developed. A second implication is that, other things being equal,
a knowledge-seeking party's interests may be best served through repeated exposures to particular alliance
partners, particularly if those exposures facilitate mutual understandings on relevant process-related matters.
A third managerial implication is that ongoing, broad-based communications between the partners'
technology experts should be used to effect technology transfer. A key quality of the organizational
knowledge interface that promotes the successful acquisition of technological knowledge, both tacit and
explicit, is multipoint, real-time contact between the technology experts of the partner organizations. Such
communications potentially enable the knowledge-seeking party to directly access desired information
through the most knowledgeable individuals on an as-needed basis.
Shibata N, Kajikawa Y, Takeda Y, Matsushima K (2008) Detecting emerging research fronts based on
topological measures in citation networks of scientific publications. Technovation 28:758-775
In this
paper, we performed a comparative study in two research domains in order to develop a method of detecting
emerging knowledge domains. The selected domains are research on gallium nitride (GaN) and research on
complex networks, which represent recent examples of innovative research. We divided citation networks
into clusters using the topological clustering method, tracked the positions of papers in each cluster, and
visualized citation networks with characteristic terms for each cluster. Analyzing the clustering results with
the average age and parent-children relationship of each cluster may be helpful in detecting emergence. In
addition, topological measures, within-cluster degree z and participation coefficient P, succeeded in
determining whether there are emerging knowledge clusters. There were at least two types of development
of knowledge domains. One is incremental innovation as in GaN and the other is branching innovation as in
complex networks. In the domains where incremental innovation occurs, papers changed their position to
large z and large P. On the other hand, in the case of branching innovation, they moved to a position with
large z and small P, because there is a new emerging cluster, and active research centers shift rapidly. Our
results showed that topological measures are beneficial in detecting branching innovation in the citation
network of scientific publications.
Shih CT, Chang YC (2008) Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in R&D management. R & D
Management 38:235-240
Sicotte H, Bourgault M (2008) Dimensions of uncertainty and their moderating effect on new product
development project performance. R & D Management 38:468-479
In this study, we measure the
dimensions of uncertainty, starting from the definitions constructed for and generally used in innovation
projects. We then evaluate their direct and indirect effects on the performance of product and service
development projects. Four dimensions of uncertainty are delimited with satisfactory validity and reliability,
suggesting a differential moderating effect of the four types of uncertainty (technical and project uncertainty,
market uncertainty, fuzziness and complexity) depending on the performance dimension (effectiveness and
efficiency) and co-moderator (project methods and human resource adequacy). Of the four dimensions
explored, technical and project, and market uncertainty are true moderators and have the largest interactive
effect, fuzziness has a strong direct effect on both performance dimensions whereas complexity weakly
directly influences effectiveness. The latter two also influence the relations between performance and the
factors related to human resources and project management methods.
Simoes VC (2008) Technology, institutions and economic growth. R & D Management 38:441-U446
Singer J, Helferich J (2008) Supporting R&D support groups. Research-Technology Management 51:49-57
OVERVIEW: R&D support groups make essential contributions to the process of innovation and can help
speed time-to-market, yet the role they play is often overlooked or undervalued relative to that of their
internal customer groups. When status differences interfere with collaboration and the free flow of
knowledge between support groups and their customers, process efficiency and effectiveness can suffer. It is
therefore important for organizations to understand the relationships between support groups and their
customers, and to determine whether or not they are working as equals in carrying out their shared work
process. Social network analysis can be used to describe the relationships between support groups and their
customers in terms of the amount and direction of interaction that takes place between them, and can
highlight those areas where interactions are out of balance and more collaborative partnerships need to be
formed.
Siu WS, Bao Q (2008) Network strategies of small Chinese high-technology firms: A qualitative study.
Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:79-102
This article is an investigation of the
entrepreneurial network and its strategic implications in a Chinese sociocultural context. It identifies four
separate but highly interrelated network dimensions (relationship, governance, structure, and dynamic); it
also highlights an important research gap. Entrepreneurs of 12 small Chinese high-technology firms in
Beijing and Shenzhen were interviewed. The interview scripts were analyzed by data reduction. Concepts
related to entrepreneurial network strategies of small Chinese high-technology firms were gradually
condensed. Categorical principal component analysis (CATPCA) in SPSS for Windows 12.0 software was
applied to group the cases, which in turn confirmed the qualitative data analysis results. A tentative schema
is proposed, illustrating four types of entrepreneurial networkers according to network adaptation and
external resource dependence. Network adaptation is based on the differentiation of the entrepreneurial
efforts in network construction and change: integrative adaptation, cooperation, and coordination. External
resource dependence indicates to what extent the entrepreneur relies on external resources-that is, placing
emphasis on using external resources or maintaining a balance between internal and external resources. The
reliance on external resources is highly related to two factors: the nature of relationship and the extent of
commitment. In a transaction-based, relationship-dominated network, if the entrepreneur decides to develop
his or her own resource competitiveness he or she will rely less on external resources. In a collaborationbased, relationship-dominated network, if the entrepreneur tends to have a low commitment to maintaining
the relationship, he or she will depend little on external resources. Customer-oriented networkers value
interpersonal relations and strive to establish long-term customer relationships. Partnership networkers form
strategic alliance with suppliers, manufacturers, and subcontractors to access external resources. Valueoriented networkers have a holistic view of networks and play an active role in network construction and
development. Prospecting networkers make a strong commitment to network actors to exploit external
resources and to make proactive moves to adapt to environmental changes.
Slowinski G, Johnson A, Hummel E, Story B (2008) Building university relationships in China. ResearchTechnology Management 51:13-16
Slowinski G, Zerby KW (2008) Protecting Ip in Collaborative Research. Research-Technology Management
51:58-65
The number of collaborative research agreements is increasing rapidly. Large high-tech
companies are engaging smaller ones. Federal laboratories, universities, international firms, and competitors
in ways not dreamed of just five years ago. Central to these collaborations is the need to share proprietary
intellectual property (IP) to meet the collaboration's objectives, and to jointly create new IP. Firms face a
number of predictable pitfalls as they work to acheive these objectives. However, these pitfalls can be
overcome through an open discussion of risk and the linking of agreements to the marketplace and the
technical intents of each party.
Smith PG (2008) Change: Embrace it, don't deny it. Research-Technology Management 51:34-40 Change
midstream in a product development project often means cost and budget overruns, schedule delays and
product defects. Understandably, managers dislike change and have installed systems, such as phased
development, to inhibit it. On the other hand, change-from understanding the customer better, from market
dynamics and from technology advances-is connected inescapably with innovation, which management
seeks. This article proposes an alternative: build a set of tools and approaches to accommodate change
without undue disruption, thus reintroducing flexibility into product development. The flexibility techniques
described in this article were inspired by the recent reintroduction of flexibility into the parallel field of
software development by the agile software movement. They can be used defensively to deal effectively
with imposed change or offensively to actually lead change.
Smith R (2008) Hidden in plain sight. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:522-522
Smith R (2008) Harnessing competencies capabilities and resource. Research-Technology Management
51:47-53
The importance of identifying and fostering corporate "capabilities" has been confused with
creating competencies. Competencies are unique products or services, often created in the R&D labs, which
can penetrate existing markets. Capabilities are the operational ability to deliver those new products and
services efficiently, repeatedly and in sufficient volume. Capabilities and competencies are both required to
succesfully place a product in the market. These must also be supported by corporate resources to ensure
longevity. The importance of aligning competencies, capabilities and resources can be explained through the
analogy of an axe blade splitting dense wood.
Smith R (2008) Where do they find the time? Research-Technology Management 51:67-68
Smith R (2008) The evolution of innovation. Research-Technology Management 51:59-62
Smith R (2008) The future of management. Research-Technology Management 51:62-62
Soderlund J (2008) The business of projects: Managing innovation in complex products and systems.
Technovation 28:709-710
Soderlund J (2008) Reinventing project management: The diamond approach to successful growth and
innovation. R & D Management 38:355-356
Song M, Podoynitsyna K, van der Bij H, Halman JIM (2008) Success factors in new ventures: A metaanalysis. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:7-27
Technology entrepreneurship is key to
economic development. New technology ventures (NTVs) can have positive effects on employment and
could rejuvenate industries with disruptive technologies. However, NTVs have a limited survival rate. In our
most recent empirical study of 11,259 NTVs established between 1991 and 2000 in the United States, we
found that after four years only 36 percent, or 4,062, of companies with more than five full-time employees,
had survived. After five years, the survival rate fell to 21.9 percent, leaving only 2,471 firms still in
operation with more than five full-time employees. Thus, it is important to examine how new technology
ventures can better survive. In the academic literature, a number of studies focus on success factors for
NTVs. Unfortunately, empirical results are often controversial and fragmented. To get a more integrated
picture of what factors lead to the success or failure of new technology ventures, we conducted a metaanalysis to examine the success factors in NTVs. We culled the academic literature to collect data from
existing empirical studies. Using Pearson correlations as effect size statistics, we conducted a meta-analysis
to analyze the findings of 31 studies and identified the 24 most widely researched success factors for NTVs.
After correcting for artifacts and sample size effects, we found that among the 24 possible success factors
identified in the literature, 8 are homogeneous significant success factors for NTVs (i.e., they are
homogeneous positive significant metafactors that are correlated to venture performance): (1) supply chain
integration; (2) market scope; (3) firm age; (4) size of founding team; (5) financial resources; (6) founders'
marketing experience; (7) founders' industry experience; and (8) existence of patent protection. Of the
original 24 success factors, 5 were not significant: (1) founders' research and development (R&D)
experience; (2) founders' experience with start-ups; (3) environmental dynamism; (4) environmental
heterogeneity; and (5) competition intensity. The remaining 11 success factors are heterogeneous. For those
heterogeneous success factors, we conducted a moderator analysis. Of this set, three appeared to be success
factors, and two were failure factors for subgroups within the NTVs' population. To facilitate the
development of a body of knowledge in technology entrepreneurship, this study also identifies high-quality
measurement scales for future research. The article concludes with future research directions.
Spencer RW (2008) Group genius: The creative power of collaboration. Research-Technology Management
51:62-63
Staber U (2008) Network Evolution in Cultural Industries. Industry and Innovation 15:569-578
Most of
the research on social networks in cultural industries has taken an actor-centered perspective on individuals
and organizations, often based on the (implicit) assumption of relative stability in actor attributes and
relationships. This poses problems for an understanding of networks in a cultural context that is
characterized by spontaneity, variation, and disequilibrium. To give more credit to processes related to
"doing creative work'', I propose an evolutionary framework that focuses on ideas as the unit of analysis and
draws attention to the dynamic distribution of ideas in an environment where ideas compete for human
attention.
Stockstrom C, Herstatt C (2008) Planning and uncertainty in new product development. R & D Management
38:480-490
The domain of New Product Development (NPD) is subject to considerable uncertainties.
Aside from market-related sources of uncertainty, the degree of innovativeness of the underlying product
concept is a significant source of uncertainty, as unclear goals and specifications like, e.g. product
specifications may lead to substantial delays in the project. However, companies are required to manage the
innovation process as efficiently as possible. The resulting conflicting demands often leave companies
struggling to achieve both efficiency as well as flexibility due to their often opposing implications for
organizing and managing NPD projects. In this context, planning plays a central role; however, its
usefulness for NPD project success is perceived quite differently. While there are reports about a positive
influence of initial planning on various success measures, others have questioned the effectiveness of
elaborated initial planning and contend that the ability to rapidly react to changes later in the process and to
improvise may lead to success in NPD. This study aims at achieving a better understanding of planning in
NPD by investigating a sample of 475 Research & Development projects in Japanese electrical and
mechanical engineering companies. Regression analysis is used to shed more light on the interplay of
planning intensity, changes, and the degree of technological newness of the NPD project and their influence
on project success. Our results indicate planning to be of value for different types of innovation projects.
Furthermore, the influences of the variables in question vary with the success measures that are taken into
account, indicating that a more detailed and contingent understanding of planning in NPD needs to be
developed.
Stringer S (2008) Connecting business needs with basic science. Research-Technology Management 51:9-14
Sultan MF, Mantese JV, Ulicny DA, Brown A (2008) Defogging the crystal ball. Research-Technology
Management 51:28-34 Although we live in a rapidly evolving world, many of the changes associated with
this evolution can be anticipated with the proper analysis. Typically, significant social, economic and
political changes fit general patterns, or mega trends, that change less rapidly. The different ways that
societies respond to tomorrow's challenges are predictable with varying degrees of certainty. To ensure
survival and healthy growth, corporations must recognize and convert these anticipated responses into
business opportunities by developing appropriate roadmaps and research projects well ahead of time. The
risk of not following such a portfolio strategy is petrifaction and obsolescence of products, and potential
displacement by more agile companies.
Sung TK (2008) The Relationship between Standardization and Innovative Activity: An Exploratory Study
on Korean Service Firms. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:153-166
The paper analyzes the
effects of standards and standardization on innovative activities in Korean service firms. R&D intensity and
patent application are used as proxies for innovative activity. The variables of standardization activity are
standardization management at the firm level, domestic standardization activity, international
standardization activity, and accreditation. The logistic regression model is constructed using data from 102
service firms in Korea. The empirical findings are as follows: First, standardization management, domestic
standardization, and international standardization have no influence on both R&D intensity and patent
application. This seems to be due to the characteristics of the service firms, which do not perform
standardization activities in the R&D stage. Second, standardization management has a negative influence
on patent application, because there is a competitive relationship between standardization and patent
application, which is also observed in the manufacturing firms. Third, while acquisition of accreditation
activity has a negative effect on a firm's R&D intensity, it has a positive effect on a firm's patent application.
In short, for Korean service firms, standardization activity is not related with its innovation activities, which
include R&D investment and patent application. Only the acquisition of accreditation activity has an
influence on innovative activities. The activity is related with the mid or final stages of technological
innovation such as patent, rather than the initial stages, product planning, or R&D. Therefore, the Korean
government and firms should try to connect standardization activity with all the stages of business
innovation, from R&D to marketing.
Takeda Y, Kajlkawa Y, Sakata I, Matsushima K (2008) An analysis of geographical agglomeration and
modularized industrial networks in a regional cluster: A case study at Yamagata prefecture in Japan.
Technovation 28:531-539
In a regional innovation system, a dense inter-organizational network within
the region is recognized as a key factor in enhancing knowledge diffusion, regional learning, and effective
resource transfers. Therefore, understanding the network structure and physical proximity of organizations is
essential. In this paper, we investigated the industrial structure of Yamagata prefecture in Japan as a case
study. Because Yamagata is a representative industrial region, the analysis can also provide an insight into
other industrial regions. Initially, we investigated the geographical dispersion of firms and found them to be
agglomerated along Route 13 and the Tohoku Shinkansen railroad, indicating that infrastructures for
transportation still have a decisive role in terms of site location. Subsequently, we analyzed the modular
structure of the inter-firm network. The results showed that hub firms construct a different type of network
and play different roles within the inter-firm network, reflecting their strategic choice. The results also
showed that there is a tendency for firms to transact with those in close proximity, and that firm location is
also affected by the location of the hub firm in the module in addition to the infrastructures.
Talonen T, Hakkarainen K (2008) Strategies for driving R&D and technology development. ResearchTechnology Management 51:54-60
It is, often claimed that research and development has its own,
separate strategy. However, there are several strategaies related to research, as well as to product and
technology development, that address general business and competition, products and platforms, and
technologies and competencies. None of these is sufficient on its own because the strategies influence one
another. Business and technology roadmaps are essential in linking these company-wide strategic plans - by
integrating and exploring the strategies, transforming them into actions, and making them operational. Mere
strategaies are not sufficient, no matter how well defined and articulated, if they are rigid. They must be
resilient-incorporating an ability to recover from, or adjust easily to, misfortune or change.
Tang P (2008) Digital era governance. Technovation 28:630-631
Taylor RP, Germeraad P (2008) Visualize your intellectual property. Research-Technology Management
51:21-33
Because of the escalating value of intangible assets to industrial organizations, active
management of a company's intellectual property has become an increasingly important responsibility of
R&D and business managers. But the avalanche of published patent documents and their linguistic
complexity makes it impractical to maintain an understanding of the patent landscape around an industry
segment or technology by manual review of individual documents. Visualization of groups of documents
within an IP landscape through appropriate charts and graphs, and a comprehensive interpretation of their
significance, enables R&D and business managers to communicate appropriate alternatives to other
decision-makers in their organizations, enabling fast "sticky" decisions that maximizes the impact of their
investments.
Teitelbaum MS (2008) Is there really a shortage of technical professionals? Research-Technology
Management 51:10-13
Terwriesch C, Ulrich K (2008) Managing the opportunity portfolio. Research-Technology Management
51:27-38
Portfolio planning involves five basic tasks: identifying current as well as future gaps it? the
portfolio relative to the firm's overall business strategy, striking a balance between strengthening the firm's
current strategic position and the exploration of new markets or technologies, creating a portfolio with the
highest potential financial value, and exploring the extent to which the competition can be redefined. Tools
for accomplishing these tasks include the "traffic light" approach, analysis of technology positions and
product attributes, identification of discontinuous change, creating new dimensions of merit, lifecycle
analysis, portfolio/scenario analysis, and the strategic bucket framework. Not every tool will work for
everyone, but used as needed, these tools will help managers to build a rigorous portfolio strategy.
Thiruchelvam K, Ahmad KZ (2008) Attracting Scientific and Technical Talents from Abroad: The
Malaysian Experience. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:113-132
Attracting skilled people in
science and technology (S&T) and engineering has assumed urgency in today's increasingly knowledgeintensive economy. Countries, both rich and poor, have adopted various strategies to entice top talents in
S&T to their shores. This paper describes the initiatives adopted by Malaysia to attract skilled personnel to
serve the country. These measures, however, have not met with much success. An account of the findings of
a recent study to review these initiatives is also given. It is suggested that the adoption of future initiatives,
among others, should accord more emphasis on developing partnerships between local scientists and their
counterparts abroad as well as enhancing the domestic environment for S&T. This article argues that the
success of any program aimed at enticing and utilizing talent from abroad must be holistic in scope and,
above all, have the unwavering commitment of the government.
Thitinunsomboon S, Chairatana PA, Keeratipibul S (2008) Sectoral Innovation Systems in Agriculture: The
Case of Rice in Thailand. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation 16:83-100
Rice is a strategically
important cereal in many developing countries. It is the staple food for nearly half of the world's population.
Against this backdrop, Thailand has consistently sustained its position as the world's biggest rice exporter.
However, most of the exported rice from Thailand is milled rice, thus forgoing the opportunity to add
additional economic value. In the face of rising production costs and fiercely global commodity price
competition, Thailand is now attempting to generate additional added value through the development of
innovative downstream products derived from rice. This paper reviews the literature on innovative
technologies on rice, and explores interaction and activities within the rice sector that may help in opening
up communication channels and fostering collaboration between agencies. The article illustrates the
innovation being done within a large private sector in the rice milling enterprise from both historical, as well
as corporate innovation strategy perspectives. This is accomplished by highlighting the evolution of public
sector support for innovation in the rice sector, and illustrating partnerships and collaboration between key
agents as the basis of a nascent rice innovation system. Current constraints to sectoral growth are identified.
Finally, key recommendations for strengthening the rice innovation system are proposed.
Thompson AK, Moughan PJ (2008) Innovation in the foods industry: Functional foods. InnovationManagement Policy & Practice 10:61-73 For many consumers, health is a key factor in determining their
food choices. As well as simply providing nutrition, it is now being recognised that the consumption of
certain foods can promote improved health and well-being. The market for these functional food products is
estimated to be worth US$60 billion per annum, and is growing rapidly. This overview discusses the drivers
behind the growth of the functional foods industry and describes the current marketplace, as well as offering
a perspective on where the industry is heading in the future and some of the issues it will face.
Tirpak TM (2008) The global brain: Your roadmap for innovating faster and smarter in a networked world.
Research-Technology Management 51:62-62
Tubbs M (2008) Where are all the high-leverage innovators? Research-Technology Management 51:3-5
Un CA (2008) "Departmental Intelligence" makes the difference in product improvement. ResearchTechnology Management 51:58-61
Upham P (2008) The international handbook on environmental technology management. R & D
Management 38:111-112
van Burg E, Romme AGL, Gilsing VA, Reymen I (2008) Creating university spin-offs: A science-based
design perspective. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:114-128
Academic entrepreneurship
by means of university spin-offs commercializes technological breakthroughs, which may otherwise remain
unexploited. However, many universities face difficulties in creating spin-offs. This article adopts a sciencebased design approach to connect scholarly research with the pragmatics of effectively creating university
spin-offs. This approach serves to link the practice of university spin-off creation, via design principles, to
the scholarly knowledge in this area. As such, science-based design promotes the interplay between
emergent and deliberate design processes. This framework is used to develop a set of design principles that
are practice based as well as grounded in the existing body of research on university spin-offs. A case-study
of spin-off creation at a Dutch university illustrates the interplay between initial processes characterized by
emergent design and the subsequent process that was more deliberate in nature. This case study also
suggests there are two fundamentally different phases in building capacity for university spin-off creation.
First, an infrastructure for spin-off creation (including a collaborative network of investors, managers and
advisors) is developed that then enables support activities to individual spin-off ventures. This study
concludes that to build and increase capacity for creating spin-offs, universities should do the following: (1)
create university-wide awareness of entrepreneurship opportunities, stimulate the development of
entrepreneurial ideas, and subsequently screen entrepreneurs and ideas by programs targeted at students and
academic staff; (2) support start-up teams in composing and learning the right mix of venturing skills and
knowledge by providing access to advice, coaching, and training; (3) help starters in obtaining access to
resources and developing their social capital by creating a collaborative network organization of investors,
managers, and advisors; (4) set clear and supportive rules and procedures that regulate the university spinoff process, enhance fair treatment of involved parties, and separate spin-off processes from academic
research and teaching; and (5) shape a university culture that reinforces academic entrepreneurship by
creating norms and exemplars that motivate entrepreneurial behavior. These and other results of this study
illustrate how science-based design can connect scholarly research to the pragmatics of actually creating
spin-offs in academic institutions.
van den Ende J, Jaspers F, Gerwin D (2008) Involvement of system firms in the development of
complementary products: The influence of novelty. Technovation 28:726-738
This paper focuses on the
involvement of system firms in the development of complementary products to their systems. The central
question is: to what extent do the novelty of the system and the novelty of the complementary product affect
the appropriate degree of involvement of system firms in the development of complementary products? A
system firm has several options: it may develop the complementary product completely by itself, it can leave
the development completely to a specialized producer of complementary products, or it can apply different
forms of collaboration with such specialized firms. This paper presents a model for the most appropriate
degree of involvement of the system firm contingent upon the degrees of novelty of the system and the
novelty of the complementary product. Basic to the model are two objectives of firms developing a new
complementary product: the reduction of information and transaction costs in the development process, and
the timely creation of installed base of the novel system and/or complementary product. We performed a
pilot test of the model using data on new service development projects in mobile telecommunications. The
results show that the novelty of the system and complementary product indeed affect the expected
performance effects of system firm involvement. Particularly when the system is mature and the
complementary product new, the system firm could better leave complementary product development to a
specialized external firm. In other cases, the system firm can choose its degree of involvement from low to
either medium or high, depending on novelty conditions.
van Echtelt FEA, Wynstra F, van Weele AJ, Duysters G (2008) Managing supplier involvement in new
product development: A multiple-case study. Journal of Product Innovation Management 25:180-201
Existing studies of supplier involvement in new, product development have mainly focused on projectrelated short- term processes and success factors. This study validates and extends an existing exploratory
framework, which comprises both long-term strategic processes and short-term operational processes that
are related to supplier involvement. The empirical validation is based oil a multiple-case study of supplier
collaborations at a manufacturer in the copier and printer industry. The analysis of eight eases of supplier
involvement reveals that the results of supplier-manufacturer collaborations and the associated issues and
problems can best be explained by the patterns in the extent to which the manufacturer manages supplier
involvement in the short term and the long term. The results of this study reveal that the initial framework is
helpful in understanding why certain collaborations are not effectively managed yet conclude that the
existing analytical distinction among four different management areas does not sufficiently reflect empirical
reality. This leads to the reconceptualization and further detailing of the framework. Instead of four
managerial areas, this study proposes to distinguish between the strategic management arena and the
operational management arena. The strategic management arena contains processes that together provide
long-term, strategic direction and operational support for project teams adopting supplier involvement.
These processes also contribute to building tip a supplier base that can meet current and future technology
and capability needs. The operational management arena contains processes that are aimed at planning,
managing, and evaluating the actual collaborations in a specific development project. The results of this
study suggest that success of involving suppliers in product development is reflected by the firm's ability to
capture both short- and long-term benefits. If companies spend most of their time on operational
management in development projects, they will fail to use the leverage effect of planning and preparing such
involvement through strategic management activities. Also, they will not be sufficiently able to capture
possible long-term technology and learning benefits that may spin off from individual projects. Long- term
collaboration benefits can only be captured if a company can build long-term relationships with key
suppliers, with which it builds learning routines and ensures that the capability sets of both parties are
aligned and remain useful for future joint projects.
van Rooij A (2008) Now R&D helped transform DSM. Research-Technology Management 51:43-48
OVERVIEW: A long-term perspective on R&D at the Dutch chemical company DSM illuminates two
crucial and interrelated challenges in the management of R&D. On the one hand, companies must keep their
research focused on the technologies and markets they use and avoid research its sponsor cannot profit from.
On the other hand, companies must enable R&D to generate the options that can revitalize its current
businesses and open up new ones. These options may be risky and fall outside the framework of current
markets and technologies but at the same time promise high profits and ensure survival in competitive, hightech industries. To realize the full potential of R&D, companies need to create an arena for research: a space
where R&D can generate options and where mutual commitment between R&D and the company can be
nurtured.
van Winden W (2008) Urban governance in the knowledge-based economy: Challenges for different city
types. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:197-210
This paper discusses the governance of
cities in the knowledge economy. It focuses on three main aspects. First, it discusses the uneven urban
impacts of the structural move towards a knowledge economy and concludes that different types of cities
face different chances and opportunities because of their structural characteristics. Second, it addresses the
issue of urban governance and discusses a number of successful interventions within cities via the concerted
action of a number of key actors in the urban region. Moreover, it considers the unintended impacts of
national policy oil the urban level. Finally, the paper defines some key policy challenges for various city
types and for national governments.
van Wyk R, Karschnia B, Olson W (2008) Atlas of technological advance. Research-Technology
Management 51:61-66
Technology executives are increasingly being called upon to find innovation
opportunities along frontier. To do this properly, they need a special kind of technological knowledge - they
need broad technological edification and sophistication, including a panoramic grasp of the entire
technological landscape and its major evolutionary trends. To help executives achieve this understanding an
Atlas of Technological Advance is being created that will chart the global technological frontier.
Vanchan V, MacPherson A (2008) The Recent Growth Performance of US Firms in the Industrial Design
Sector: An Exploratory Study. Industry and Innovation 15:1-17
This paper assesses the competitive
factors associated with company growth in the US industrial design sector. This small but technologically
advanced sector delivers critical innovation inputs to firms that produce durable goods. Evidence from a
survey of 85 US design companies suggests that competitive success hinges upon service diversity.
Specifically, the most commercially buoyant companies have diversified their service offerings beyond
product or component design. These firms have developed strategic competencies in fields such as contract
research, prototype development, product testing, technological forecasting, market analysis and even
advertising. Although most US design companies are small-to-medium-sized enterprises, successful firms
do not differ from their less successful counterparts in terms of employment size, occupational structure,
regional location or market focus ( client sectors). Instead, the key differences lie in service diversity and the
quality of human capital. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the empirical
findings for future research on the dynamics of the design industry.
Vega-Jurado J, Gutierrez-Gracia A, Fernandez-De-Lucio I (2008) Analyzing the determinants of firm's
absorptive capacity: beyond R&D. R & D Management 38:392-405 This article proposes a new model for
analyzing the determinants of absorptive capacity in companies. We suggest that absorptive capacity is
determined not only by research and development activities, but also by a set of internal factors, which we
group into three basic categories: organizational knowledge, formalization, and social integration
mechanisms. In addition, we suggest that these factors may influence all components of the firm's absorptive
capacity, and that the influence can be positive or negative depending on the applicability of the knowledge
being absorbed. This paper thus advances the understanding of absorptive capacity by exploring a largely
ignored aspect in the literature: the role of knowledge attributes. We show how the model can be
operationalized and empirically tested and provide preliminary evidence supporting most of the propositions
in the analytical model.
Verde MD (2008) Knowledge creation processes: Theory and empirical evidence from knowledge-intensive
firms. R & D Management 38:354-354
Verganti R (2008) Design, meanings, and radical innovation: A metamodel and a research agenda. Journal
of Product Innovation Management 25:436-456 Recent studies on design management have helped us to
better comprehend how companies can apply design to get closer to users and to better understand their
needs; this is an approach usually referred to as user-centered design. Yet analysis of design-intensive
manufacturers such as Alessi, Artemide, and other leading Italian firms shows that their innovation process
hardly starts from a close observation of user needs and requirements. Rather, they follow a different
strategy called design-driven innovation in this paper. This strategy aims at radically change the emotional
and symbolic content of products (i.e., their meanings and languages) through a deep understanding of
broader changes in society, culture, and technology. Rather than being pulled by user requirements, designdriven innovation is pushed by a firm's vision about possible new product meanings and languages that
could diffuse in society. Design-driven innovation, which plays such a crucial role in the innovation strategy
of design intensive firms, has still remained largely unexplored. This paper aims at providing a possible
direction to fill this empty spot in innovation management literature. In particular, first it proposes a
metamodel for investigating design-driven innovation in which a manufacturer's ability to understand,
anticipate, and influence emergence of new product meanings is built by relying on external interpreters
(e.g., designers, firms in other industries, suppliers, schools, artists, the media) that share its same problem:
to understand the evolution of sociocultural models and to propose new visions and meanings. Managing
design-driven innovation therefore implies managing the interaction with these interpreters to access, share,
and internalize knowledge on product languages and to influence shifts in sociocultural models. Second, the
paper proposes a possible direction to scientifically investigate the management of this networked and
collective research process. In particular, it shows that the process of creating breakthrough innovations of
meanings partially mirrors the process of creating breakthrough technological innovations. Studies of
design-driven innovation may therefore benefit significantly from the existing body of theories in the field
of technology management. The analysis of the analogies between these two types of radical innovations
(i.e., meanings and technologies) allows a research agenda to be set for exploration of design-driven
innovation, a relevant as well as underinvestigated phenomenon.
Verworn B, Herstatt C, Nagahira A (2008) The fuzzy front end of Japanese new product development
projects: impact on success and differences between incremental and radical projects. R & D Management
38:1-19 This study of Japanese New Product Development (NPD) projects explores the fuzzy front end of
innovation. The goal of the paper is twofold: First, we analyse the impact of the fuzzy front end on the
success of all the NPD projects. We develop a conceptual model based on the information-processing
approach. A structural equation model was fitted to data from 497 NPD projects in Japanese manufacturing
firms to test the proposed model. The empirical analysis suggests that an early reduction of market and
technical uncertainty as well as an initial planning before development have a positive impact on NPD
project success. The model accounts for 17% of the variance of the efficiency and 24% of the variance of the
effectiveness-dependent variable. Thus, the front end phase is an important driver of NPD project success.
Second, we compare the fuzzy front end of incremental to radical NPD projects. Although these projects
differ in many aspects of newness, we found only a few differences with regard to the fuzzy front end. For
instance, it was more difficult to estimate the market size and price sensitivity of the customers during the
fuzzy front end of the radical NPD projects compared with the incremental projects. Implications of the
empirical results and limitations of the study are discussed.
Wang CH, Lu IY, Chen CB (2008) Evaluating firm technological innovation capability under uncertainty.
Technovation 28:349-363 Technology innovation capability (TIC) is a complex, elusive, and uncertainty
concept that is difficult to determine. Measuring TICs requires simultaneous consideration of multiple
quantitative and qualitative criteria. By adopting a fuzzy measure and non-additive fuzzy integral method,
this study evaluates the performance of synthetic TICs in hi-tech firms. The analytical results indicated that
the non-additive fuzzy integral is an effective, simple and suitable method for identifying the primary
criteria influencing TICs at hi-tech firms, especially when evaluation criteria are interactive and
interdependent. The proposed approach is an effective method for assessing the TICs of a firm and obtains
useful information regarding hierarchical TIC frameworks.
West J, Lakhani KR (2008) Getting Clear About Communities in Open Innovation. Industry and Innovation
15:223-231
Research on open source software, user innovation and open innovation have increasingly
emphasized the role of communities in creating, shaping and disseminating innovations. However, the
comparability of such studies has been hampered by the lack of a precise definition of the community
construct. In this paper we review prior definitions (implicit and explicit) of the community construct, and
other suggestions for future research.
West J, O'Mahony S (2008) The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing Sponsored Open Source
Communities. Industry and Innovation 15:145-168
Most research on open source software communities
has focused on those that are community founded. More recently, firms have founded their own open source
communities. How do sponsored open source communities differ from their autonomous counterparts? With
comparative examination of 12 open source projects initiated by corporate sponsors, we identify three
design parameters that together help form a participation architecture-the opportunity structure extended to
potential external contributors. In exploring sponsors' community design decisions, we found that sponsored
open source projects were more likely to offer transparency than they were accessibility and that this had
implications for their communities' growth. We contribute theoretical constructs that offer a common basis
of comparison for the future study of open source projects and illustrate how the tension between control
and growth affects open source community design and creation.
Willigers BJA, Hansen TL (2008) Project valuation in the pharmaceutical industry: a comparison of leastsquares Monte Carlo real option valuation and conventional approaches. R & D Management 38:520-537
Least-squares Monte Carlo simulation (LSM) is a promising new technique for valuing real options that has
received little or no attention in the pharmaceutical industry. This study demonstrates that LSM can handle
complex valuation situations with multiple uncertainties and compounded American-type options. The
limited application of real option valuation (ROV) in the pharmaceutical industry is remarkable, given the
importance of accurate project valuation in an industry that requires large investments in high-risk projects
with long pay-back periods, which is furthermore suffering from ever-increasing development costs and
shrinking profit margins. The LSM model developed in this study is constructed as an extension of a
discounted cash flow model that should be familiar to economists active in the pharmaceutical industry. A
number of pharmaceutical projects have been evaluated using LSM ROV, binominal real option valuation
and expected net present value techniques. The different results yielded by these methods are explained in
terms of differences in risking assumptions and ability to capture the value of flexibility. The analysis
provides a framework to introduce the basic concepts of real option pricing to a non-specialist audience. The
LSM model illustrates the potential for real-life commercial assessment as the versatility of the technique
allows for an easy customisation to specific business problems.
Wolfe DA, Bramwell A (2008) Innovation, creativity and governance: Social dynamics of economic
performance in city-regions. Innovation-Management Policy & Practice 10:170-182 The pressure towards
a globalizing, knowledge-based economy raises questions about the underlying determinants of economic
performance in city regions.' The creation and diffusion of new knowledge drives innovation in knowledgeintensive production and service activities, which in turn, drives economic performance and growth.
Although these processes are strongly shaped by national institutions and global knowledge flows, recent
analyses of innovation and creativity emphasize the continuing relevance of regions in general and urban
regions in particular as critical sites for determining economic performance. This work also suggests that the
underlying social dynamics of urban regions are particularly significant in shaping economic outcomes. This
paper explores some recent evidence on the social nature of innovation dynamics ill urban regions, the
increasing significance of talent and creativity in urban economies and their implications for the economic
performance of city regions. It concludes with a discussion of the need for the strategic management of
urban economies to cope with the challenges they face.
Wolff MF (2008) Innovation Pays Off, Research Shows. Research-Technology Management 51:5-5
Wolff MF (2008) Warren Gale Cutler, 1922-2007. Research-Technology Management 51:59-59
Wonglimpiyarat J (2008) High-tech entrepreneurship in Asia - Innovation, industry and institutional
dynamics in mobile payments. Technovation 28:391-391
Woolgar L (2008) Innovation and business partnering in Japan, Europe and the United States. R & D
Management 38:232-233
Wu LC, Ong CS (2008) Management of information technology investment: A framework based on a Real
Options and Mean-Variance theory perspective. Technovation 28:122-134
The selection of appropriate
technology projects has been one of the most significant business challenges of the last decade. Information
technology projects, in particular, represent the largest capital expenditure items for most US firms, yet
many projects have been unsuccessful. Because of the importance of such investments, there is an urgent
need for a framework to analyze them. In this paper, Real Options analysis in conjunction with classical
financial theory, namely, the Mean-Variance (MV) model, is used to provide new perspectives on project
selection. We develop a quadripartite framework and subsume the risks within its dimensions. Furthermore,
we map the corresponding options in each of the quadrants. The framework offers an easy, but
comprehensive, way for managers to evaluate potential projects. In addition, we conduct a case study to
demonstrate how practitioners can apply the framework. This paper contributes to the technology
management field by defining the risk dimensions of technology investments, and providing insights based
on interdisciplinary financial theories.
Wu WY, Chang ML, Chen CW (2008) Promoting innovation through the accumulation of intellectual
capital, social capital, and entrepreneurial orientation. R & D Management 38:265-277
This study
attempts to explore how a firm's operational mode can reinforce the advantages of intellectual capital on
innovation. Specifically, the main purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive research model to
integrate the interrelationships among social capital, entrepreneurial orientation, intellectual capital, and
innovation. In addition to identifying the influences of intellectual capital on innovation, this study focuses
in particular on the mediating effect of intellectual capital and the moderating effects of social capital and
entrepreneurial orientation on innovation, which have largely been neglected in previous literature. The
results support the mediating role of intellectual capital and the moderating roles of entrepreneurial
orientation and social capital on innovation. Specifically, firms that have higher levels of social capital and
entrepreneurial orientation tend to amplify the effects of intellectual capital on innovation.
Xia TJ, Roper S (2008) From capability to connectivity-Absorptive capacity and exploratory alliances in
biopharmaceutical firms: A US-Europe comparison. Technovation 28:776-785
In this paper, we explore
the relationship between aspects of firms' potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) on their involvement in
exploratory alliances. Our study is based on survey data from firms in the US and European (the UK,
Germany, France and Ireland) biopharmaceutical sectors. We use zero inflated negative binomial (ZINB)
models to capture the number of exploratory alliances in which firms are engaged, and find that the
assimilation dimension of PACAP is significantly more important than the acquisition dimension. More
specifically, we find that skill levels and continuous R&D play an important role in determining
biopharmaceutical firms' exploratory alliance activity, while R&D intensity proves relatively unimportant.
Our results also highlight differences between the determinants of alliance behaviour in the US and Europe:
in the US firms' skill levels prove more significant, while in Europe continuity of R&D proves more
significant. Commonalities are also observed, however, with firms' strategic focus and an inverted 'U'
shaped relationship between firm size and alliance engagement evident in both areas.
Yang C, Jiang S (2008) Strategies for technology platforms (vol 19, pg 773, 2006). Research-Technology
Management 51:6-6
Yang S, Kang HH (2008) Is synergy always good? Clarifying the effect of innovation capital and customer
capital on firm performance in two contexts. Technovation 28:667-678
The resource-based view (RBV)
posits that a firm call leverage the effect of existing capital on firm performance via capital configuration,
complementarity, and integration, but little empirical research has addressed these issues. This study
investigates the effects of innovation capital and customer capital on firm performance, whether their
complementary interactions are important determinants of relative firm performance within the industry, and
whether these effects considerably differ significantly between high- and low-technology manufacturing
firms. Based on data collected from 312 high-technology manufacturing firms and 204 low-technology
manufacturing firms in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry, the results of SEM analyses demonstrate that
the main effects of both innovation and customer capital significantly and positively impact firm
performance. The analytical results demonstrate that: (1) a significant interaction effect only exists in the
high-technology manufacturing firms; (2) the main effect of customer capital is lower among hightechnology manufacturing firms; (3) the main effect of innovation capital is the same for both high- and
low-technology manufacturing firms. Additionally, this investigation also discusses the limitations of the
current research, future research directions, and the theoretical and practical implications of the empirical
analysis.
Yao XN, Watanabe C (2008) Co-evolution between Economic Growth, Educational Development, and
Urbanization in China: The Triggering Role of Informatization. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation
16:23-44 China's economic growth has been remarkable since the economic reform started in 1978. It has
incorporated transitional processes to its long-lasting institutional system, which include the shift to a market
economy, rapid industrialization, and urbanization, as well as the dramatic reforms of its educational system.
While there is ongoing debate whether such economic performance is driven chiefly by productivity growth
or by factor accumulation, there have been studies, nonetheless few, that have taken institutional factors and
informatization into account. While the current low levels of human resources and urbanization have
impeded China's development, the conspicuous development of education and urbanization over the last two
decades could become the primary institutional factors for the acceleration of future economic growth. The
Chinese government's comprehensive informatization strategy is considered to be the accelerating factor of
education and urbanization, leading to a virtuous cycle between economic growth and further advancement
of informatization. This paper attempts an empirical analysis with the aim of substantiating the hypothetical
view cited above. Likewise, the role of the information and communication technology (ICT) in constructing
the virtuous circle is analyzed. The analysis is done by taking into consideration the relationship between
China's development with respect to its economy, education, and urbanization, and the country's
advancement in ICT in thirty-one regions over the last two decades.
Yarbrough C (2008) Singapore to open Fusionopolis. Research-Technology Management 51:4-5
Yoon B, Phaal R, Probert D (2008) Morphology analysis for technology roadmapping: application of text
mining. R & D Management 38:51-68
The practice of technology roadmapping (TRM) has received
much attention from researchers and practitioners, to support planning and forecasting in companies and
sectors. However, little research has focused on the support of well-organized information for more effective
roadmapping and the presentation of in-depth configurations of new products or technology. This paper
proposes a roadmapping methodology to assist decision-making by applying a systematic approach based on
quantitative data. To this end, key information is extracted from documents such as product manuals and
patent documents by text mining, which is then used to identify the morphology of existing products and
technology. Morphology analysis (MA) also plays a crucial role in deriving promising opportunities for new
development of product or technology by matching product and technology morphology. Therefore, MAbased TRM can enable the effective exploitation of large quantities of significant information that might
otherwise be left untapped, supporting innovation by generating a comprehensive set of detailed product and
technology configurations. The proposed MA-based TRM approach can be applied to both incremental and
radical innovation, supporting both market pull and technology push. The method is illustrated with a
detailed example for mobile phones to demonstrate its practical application.
Yoshida PG (2008) India emerging (maybe) as major R&D center. Research-Technology Management 51:24
Yoshikawa G, Watanabe C (2008) Structural source enabling firm revitalization innovation of sector - An
empirical analysis of Japanese 31 industrial Sectors. Technovation 28:37-51
During the "lost decade" of
the 1990s, a significant number of Japanese sectors experienced critical business circumstances. However,
by adopting a variety of strict disciplinary measures, a number of these sectors have been able to reconstruct
their operations, and several of them were able to revitalize themselves since 2004. This paper attempts to
empirically analyze and identify the structural sources that have enabled sectors to succeed in their
revitalization efforts. First of all, on the basis of a comprehensive review of Japan's 31 sectors over the last
13 years, this paper demonstrates that the structure which includes many strategy paths to activate sectors is
useful for the firm revitalization innovation at the sector level (FRI-s). In Japan, it was especially verified
that three independent strategies contributed to FRI-s. Second, by examining the empirical rate of FRI-s, this
paper demonstrates that the high possibility of FRI-s strengthens the revitalization structure of a sector.
Finally, it could be assumed the existence of a circulation mechanism at three layers (a national level
strategy, a firm level strategy, and a sector level accumulation) in the revitalization structure.
Young B, Hewitt-Dundas N, Roper S (2008) Intellectual Property management in publicly funded R&D
centres - A comparison of university-based and company-based research centres. Technovation 28:473-484
Recent thinking on open innovation and the knowledge-based economy have stressed the importance of
external knowledge sources in stimulating innovation. Policy-makers have recognised this, establishing
publicly funded Centres of R&D Excellence with the objective of stimulating industry-science links and
localised innovation spillovers. Here, we examine the contrasting I P management practices of a group of 18
university- and company-based R&D centres supported by the same regional programme. Our analysis
covers all but one of the Centres supported by the programme and suggests marked contrasts between the IP
strategies of the university- based and company-based centres. This suggests the potential for very different
types of knowledge spillovers from publicly funded R&D centres based in different types of organisations,
and a range of alternative policy approaches to the future funding of R&D centres depending on
policymakers' objectives.
Yusuf Y, Gunasekaran A, Wu CL (2008) Implementation of enterprise resource planning in China (vol 26,
pg 1324, 2006). Technovation 28:864-864