Actors In Innovation System Research Articles

Knowledge Intensive Business Services as Generators of Innovations

Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are widely argued to be important actors in innovation systems. They are active both innovating themselves, and by providing their clients with important knowledge and learning opportunities. This study uses survey data to investigate the mechanisms of knowledge transfer and innovativeness improvement through the provision of KIBS. The empirical core of the paper is a set of Russian surveys of KIBS and their clients: KIBS are a fairly new phenomenon in Russia, so this provides an opportunity to contrast KIBS supplier-client relationships featuring more and less experienced customers. Many of the KIBS firms? services are highly tailored to customer specificities, and we consider how far this is minor customisation and how far novel products (and thus potentially product innovations) are involved. These services typically involve KIBS consumers into a coproduction process, where both the formal supplier and the formal user of the service are engaged together in service production. Knowledge transfers through learning-by-doing in such cases affect customers' propensity to innovate and improve their absorptive capacity. The paper concludes that the generation of innovations through KIBS may well be a self-sustaining process. In this process, service providers are incentivised to engage in service innovations by more innovative customers? demand for highly individualised services. In turn, the process stimulates the innovativeness of customers, as they engage in learning-by-doing through coproduction.

Science and Technology Network in the Innovation System of Up-Stream Oil Palm Industry in Indonesia

Indonesia is the second largest palm oil producer country in the world. It is projected that in 2008 Indonesia can become the largest oil palm producer in the world. Combined with Malaysia, the two countries have more than 85% of the Crude Palm Oil (CPO) world market share (Pahan, 2006). A deeper observation suggests that the palm oil industry facing some challenges both in the up-stream and down-stream. In the up-stream industry, sustainable provision of high quality oil palm planting material is one of the issues that needs to be addressed with technological innovation. In the down-stream, opportunity for national industry to produce derivative palm oil-based products are still widely open. Both cases requires concerted efforts from the main and supporting actors of the innovation systems in order to enhance its innovation capacity. A study on the science and technology network in the innovation system of up-stream palm oil industry revealed some important findings on the nature of S&T related to development of quality oil palm seeds by local industry. It is found that local industry has low level of interaction with other two main actors of innovation system in Indonesia. On the other hand, there is a case where it has a continuous and long term relationship with other research institutes overseas. This paper will highlight of Indonesian policies impacted the industry, briefly describe some innovation challenges in the oil palm seed industry, and provide an excerpt of a survey on science and technology network review in up-stream palm oil industry.

Using web mining to explore Triple Helix influences on growth in small and mid-size firms

While broad “Triple Helix” frameworks of industry, government and university collaborations have the potential to enhance innovation and economic development at macro-levels, at the micro-level of the firm it should not be assumed that such relationships are uniform in character or outcomes. Each firm will negotiate and develop its own set of relationships with other innovation system actors based on its capabilities and strategies. To better understand these dynamics, particularly from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises, this study probes the micro-level characteristics and impacts of external enterprise relationships. Novel website-based Triple Helix measures are introduced that extend the analytical scope beyond customary indicators (such as patent analysis or entropy measures) to include communication and coordination among all three helices at the micro-level of individual firms. This approach is used to explore the micro-level characteristics and impacts of industry, government and university relations for small and medium-sized enterprises by analyzing a subset of 271 U.S. green goods small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. We compare the website-based measures with case study results to authenticate the method. A panel data regression model is then employed to analyze the simultaneous impacts of various combinations of industry, government and university links on firm sales growth (2008–2011), with controls for region, scale, and application domains. The ability of website-based indicators to distinguish the impacts of different mixes of Triple Helix relations is demonstrated. While relationships with all three helices have a positive total marginal effect on firm sales growth, local relationships and relationships that emphasize links with government and industry make particularly notable contributions to growth in the sample green goods enterprises. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Influence of social-economic institutions on innovative environment development: Russian case study

One of the important questions for innovative environment development is social-economic institutions, which help to decrease transaction cost and risks in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Basic institutional framework is represented by a set of specific institutions, which form the innovation environment of the region and have an impact on the activities of the innovation system actors. The proposed set of institutions is divided into two groups: those institutions that directly affect the development of innovative environment and institutions, which influence is indirect, but nevertheless important. The result of analysis of institutions development of Tomsk region and five more innovation-oriented areas of the Russian Federation is given in the article.

Social enterprises in regional innovation systems: a review of Finnish regional strategies

ABSTRACTThe aim of modern innovation policies is to enhance the innovation capability of regions, their organizations and people. Regional innovation system (RIS) theory has been one of the most popular frameworks for realizing innovation policies. Yet, adopting the perspective of sustainable innovation policy where innovation is also seen as a solution to various societal and environmental problems has been slow. Social enterprises (SEs) are discussed here as a means to address those problems, particularly through collaboration between sectors and focusing on social sustainability. The aim of this paper is to identify whether and in what way SEs are communicated as an innovative solution and as a source of innovations for economic and development activities through regional strategies. The data consist of regional innovation and business strategies from all Finnish regions, analysed using qualitative content analysis. We argue that there is a need to go deeper and include effective support mechanisms for SEs in these documents. Better inclusion of SEs as part of innovation systems and communicating this through regional strategies would help to develop SEs and to have them perceived as potential innovators and active entrepreneurial actors in innovation systems contributing to economically, environmentally and socially sustainable development.

Intermediaries and innovation support in the design for sustainability field: cases from the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom

Companies face challenges and need support when applying specific knowledge to their innovation processes, such as design for sustainability. The providers of innovation support in innovation systems are intermediaries. While the literature on intermediaries focuses on various roles and approaches, the way in which intermediaries function in specific fields such as design for sustainability remains underexplored. This paper investigates how intermediaries provide innovation support in the design for sustainability field today, with a focus on the services and support they offer, the approaches and drivers that shape them, as well as the challenges of the intermediation process, particularly concerning sustainability and design. To do this, 14 intermediaries from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey were investigated through case studies. The role of design in support processes, especially during implementation, the importance and types of collaborations among various actors of innovation systems, and the emergence of a new type of intermediary that promises radical innovation in sustainability are among the findings. In addition, based on the empirical data, we suggest a framework for describing the roles and attributes of a group of five intermediaries that meets the needs of all types of companies engaged in design for sustainability. Finally we offer suggestions for Turkey on how to raise the capacity of its intermediaries operating in the design for sustainability field, which might be applicable to other similar contexts as well. This study contributes to the theory and practice of innovation support in the sustainability field, from which all innovation system's actors, especially intermediaries and governmental institutions, might benefit in designing support programs.

Building a Better National Innovation System through Effective Knowledge Sharing: A Case of Croatia

In this article we discuss how knowledge sharing that takes place between scientists working on complex Science and Technology projects is related to the knowledge sharing that takes place among actors of the innovation system. Governments’ role in constructing and managing National Innovation Systems and the role of effective knowledge sharing on S&T projects are emphasized. Leadership, support and clear vision by the government are essential for framework establishment and policy design facilitating effective interaction among research institutes, universities and firms which would enables knowledge sharing both on macro level, between innovation system actors , and on micro level, between scientists working on projects. Generating relevant knowledge flows, would help countries like Croatia, which are lagging behind in the innovation race, to establish knowledge based economies, consequently resulting in higher competitiveness and market success. Only through effective knowledge sharing both on micro and macro level can the optimal result be reached.

Unravelling the role of innovation platforms in supporting co-evolution of innovation: Contributions and tensions in a smallholder dairy development programme

The agricultural innovation systems approach emphasizes the collective nature of innovation and stresses that innovation is a co-evolutionary process, resulting from alignment of technical, social, institutional and organizational dimensions. These insights are increasingly informing interventions that focus on setting up multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as innovation platforms and networks, as mechanisms for enhancing agricultural innovation, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. There has been much emphasis on how such platforms are organized, but only limited analysis unravelling how they shape co-evolution of innovation processes. This paper addresses this gap and conceptualizes platforms as intermediaries that connect the different actors in innovation systems in order to foster effective co-evolution. We present a case study of a smallholder dairy development programme in Kenya, led by a consortium of five organizations that provide a platform for building multi-actor partnerships to enhance smallholder dairy productivity and improve livelihoods. The findings indicate that co-evolution of innovation is a highly dynamic process with various interactional tensions and unexpected effects, and that the distributed nature of intermediation is important in resolving some of these tensions emerging at different actor interfaces. However, platforms are not always able to adapt adequately to emerging issues. This points to the need to look at platforms dynamically and pay more attention to mechanisms that strengthen feedback, learning and adaptive management in innovation processes.

Innovation strategy, firm survival and relocation: The case of Hong Kong-owned manufacturing in Guangdong Province, China

Based on a survey adapted from the Fourth European Community Innovation Survey (CIS-4), this study finds that, in the changing manufacturing environment of Guangdong Province in China, Hong Kong-owned businesses that generate a higher share in new product sales as a percentage of total sales or engage in R&D or collaborative innovation activities in China are more likely to survive and remain in Guangdong. The study fills a gap in the literature by investigating the effects of innovation on the survival and relocation of Hong Kong-owned manufacturing firms in Guangdong. The results support policy initiatives that strengthen collaborative ties among key innovation system actors.

Are Technology Institutes a Satisfactory Tool for Public Intervention in the Area of Technology? A Neoclassical and Evolutionary Evaluation

Many public efforts have been made to foster the creation and development of organisations aimed at encouraging innovativeness in firms (and especially in small and medium-sized enterprises). In Spain, technology institutes (TIs) have been a key tool in this respect and it is necessary to evaluate whether their performance is meeting the objectives of technology policy postulated by both neoclassical and evolutionary authors. We create a set of specific indicators designed to accomplish this empirical task. Our results suggest that TIs are helping to reduce market failures in the area of technology and to foster relationships among innovation-system actors. Wide regional disparities can be explained by the different roles played by regional governments.

Tracing knowledge flows in innovation systems

This paper gives an overview of quantitative approaches used to study the science/technology linkage. Our discussion is informed by a number of theoretical approaches that have emerged over the past few years in the area of innovation studies emphasizing the exchange of actors in innovation system and a shift in the division of labour between publicly funded basic research and industrial development of technology. We review the more quantitative literature on efforts made to study such linkage phenomena, to which theorizing in the science policy area has attributed great importance. We then introduce a typology of three approaches to study the science/technology linkage - patent citation, industrial science, and university patenting. For each approach, we shall discuss merits and possible disadvantages. In another step we illustrate them using results from studies of the Finnish innovation system. Finally, we list key limitations of the informetric methods and point to possible hybrid approaches that could remedy some of them.