Innovation-related Activities Research Articles

Inclusive agro-industrial development and sectoral systems of innovation: insights from South Africa

ABSTRACT The agro-industries are widely viewed as important to inclusive industrial development due to their relatively low entry barriers and acessibility to small firms. However, the agro-industries are more technologically complex than commonly assumed. Small and young firms face challenges acquiring capabilities to compete effectively. The paper explores how differing sectoral systems of innovation (SSI) shape patterns of inclusion and exclusion in the agro-industries, and the factors shaping this. It analyses two contrasting South African agro-industrial sectors, maize processing and fresh citrus. It proposes a partial conceptualization of ‘inclusive’ SSIs (ISSIs) as sectoral configurations of actors and institutions that lower entry barriers and narrow capability gaps between small firms and dominant incumbents at the technological frontier. It argues that ISSIs rely on institutions that coordinate innovation-related activities in a manner benefitting small firms and new entrants, by aiding the broad diffusion of relevant technology and capabilities. Alongside state agencies, business associations can play an important role in this regard. It identifies the characteristics of state-business relations and inter-firm dynamics of competition and collective action as important underlying determinants of ISSIs. Thus, the paper highlights the need for attention to sector-level political economy in understanding the diverse outcomes of SSIs.

Building a Sustainable Innovation Ecosystem in Universities for Ideation and Entrepreneurial Competence: The University of Lagos Experience

What is new? Universities in the global south particularly in sub-Saharan African countries have not impacted greatly on their host communities as research efforts in these universities are not linked to innovation addressing societal challenges. What was the approach? The University of Lagos (UNILAG), recognizing that a robust innovation ecosystem is central to building capacity in the innovation space for unleashing the creative potentials of both faculty and students beyond traditional teaching and research, activated three units to drive innovation-related activities in the university. This article presents critical discussions on the University of Lagos’s experience in driving innovation through novel institutional frameworks facilitated by the Research Management Office, the Innovation & Technology Management Office, and the Entrepreneurship & Skills Development Centre. The article also presents challenges encountered in the process and strategies employed to successfully navigate through the challenges, lessons learned, successes recorded in patents and intellectual property management, as well as future directions for greater impact. What is the academic impact? The paper makes recommendations for sustainability and for the implementation of efficient strategies in newly established units seeking to strategically drive innovation-related activities. What is the wider impact? Practical implications of the UNILAG’s experience for Research and management practitioners in developing countries are articulated.

Are James March's ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ separable? Revisiting the dichotomy in the context of innovation management

The conceptual dichotomy between exploration and exploitation has gained much academic attention in innovation management studies ever since March (1991) identified and examined the importance of this distinction and its consequences for organisations. A systematic literature review surrounding this dichotomy, perusing its postulations, was conducted and our findings indicate that the rationale for separating exploration and exploitation is questionable and not really grounded in the extant empirical evidence. Exploration and exploitation, either as theoretical concepts or managerial activities, may, in fact, be inextricable from one another within the context of managing innovation related activities. This view challenges the status of the assumed dichotomy and suggests that this notional separation may be unhelpful in guiding practices and conceptualisation in innovation management. Accordingly, accepting exploration and exploitation to be essentially intertwined and inseparable can lead to the development of a more comprehensive and inclusive framework for understanding how processes of innovation may be better managed. Our intention is to spark the search for further empirical evidence on the actual practical implementation of exploration and exploitation, looking into alternative explanations, including the use of the dichotomy as end outcomes rather than formative activities, and what this means for reconceptualising innovation management processes.

Who Are the Innovators in the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry? Highlights from the Second SPE Global Innovation Survey

Oil and gas have been mainstays of the world’s energy supply for much of the past century and will quite likely continue to play an important role in the global energy mix for many years to come. Despite the steady demand for its products and services, however, the industry that finds and brings these energy resources to market is undergoing significant changes on several fronts. First, it is widely understood that the sector materially contributes to the planet’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, but it is working diligently to reduce its carbon footprint. Second, with much of the world’s “easy oil” already consumed, upstream oil and gas companies will have to use increasingly sophisticated technologies to find and produce tomorrow’s hydrocarbons. Future oil and gas resources—especially in non-OPEC countries—will tend to be deeper, harder to find, and in environments that are significantly more difficult to access than they used to be. Third, policymakers and the public have steadily increased expectations for oil and gas companies with regards to environmental stewardship, safety, and human welfare. In the face of these kinds of challenges, technology will clearly play a pivotal role in the success or failure of oil and gas firms in the future. As a step toward improving how the upstream oil and gas sector develops and deploys new technologies, the first SPE Global Innovation Survey (SPE 166084, SPE-1212-0062-JPT) was put together in 2012 to shed light on several different aspects of how the industry conducts research and development (R&D) and innovation-related activities. The unit of analysis for the first survey was the business unit, and managers from 199 business units around the world responded with data about many aspects of innovation-related activities within and outputs from their respective organizations. While organizations clearly play an important role in the innovation process, these activities are invariably underpinned by the creativity, know-how, and imagination of individual people. Therein lies the motivation for the second SPE Global Innovation Survey, which was conducted in 2017. It dove deeper into the industry than the previous survey, this time asking individuals from a broad range of roles, levels of responsibility, cultures, and geographical locations about the innovation-related dimensions of their jobs within the upstream oil and gas industry. A deeper understanding of the roles of individuals in the innovation process is more important than ever as the organizations that make up the industry are being fundamentally transformed. Some of the largest oil and gas companies are reinventing themselves as “energy companies” rather than continuing to focus on their oil and gas legacies and are significantly overhauling major aspects of their businesses. How organizations configure their human resources has also changed considerably since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual-level innovative behaviors are therefore more important to understand than ever as the oil and gas sector’s institutions are changing and adapting in the face of these tectonic changes—and the people in the industry are the building blocks that will be reorganized as these changes occur.

Innovation Output and Idiosyncratic Volatility: US Evidence

Firms engaging in innovative practices have patents to prevent competitive forces from eroding the resulting economic rents; however, there is limited evidence regarding the impact of innovation on risk. We shed new light on how firms’ involvement in innovation activities impacts their volatility, particularly their idiosyncratic volatility. In this paper, we empirically examine the effect of innovation on idiosyncratic volatility. To do so, we empirically examine the impact of innovation, measured by patents weighted by citations and R&D expenditure, on the idiosyncratic volatility of firms. Using a large sample of 8256 US firms, we find that more innovation is associated with lower idiosyncratic volatility. We also find that information uncertainty is the channel through which innovation affects idiosyncratic risk. The results are robust for different measures of idiosyncratic volatility. These results have empirical implications for investors, managers, and firms engaging in innovation-related activities.

Endorsing sustainable development in BRICS: The role of technological innovation, renewable energy consumption, and natural resources in limiting carbon emission

This research aimed to examine the complex interaction between technological innovation, renewable energy consumption, natural resources, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries from 1990 to 2019, to accomplish the Paris Climate Conference (COP-21) objective of reducing CO2 emissions to promote environmental sustainability. The long-run empirical estimations derived from the CS-ARDL technique, which considered other estimation issues like cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity, indicated that technological innovation, renewable energy consumption, and natural resources increase environmental sustainability by limiting CO2 emissions, in the short-run and long-run. The technological innovation-related activities have a CO2 mitigating effect as shown by the negative coefficients which ranges between −0.05 and −0.14. This shows that they increase environmental sustainability and aid in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 13. Similarly, renewable energy and natural resources decrease CO2 emissions as shown by the coefficient of renewable energy (−0.31 to −0.81) and natural resources (−0.01 to 0.95); thereby increasing ecological quality by limiting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the interaction of technological innovation with natural resource rent and renewable energy consumption also aids in mitigating CO2 emissions and increases environmental health. Finally, panel causality analysis revealed a significant causality from all explanatory variables to CO2 emissions. Based on the results, significant policy suggestions are provided, such as improving energy effectiveness, investing in energy technologies, and increasing renewable energy consumption to stimulate technological innovation to achieve the target of a net-zero‑carbon economy.

Exploring potential drivers of innovation-related activities in Poland: evidence from Polish business clusters

Research background: Innovations are introduced by competitive companies. One of the most common methods, increasingly used by companies, is organizing clusters or cluster initiatives operating within a specialized sector, competing with each other, exploiting the potential of cooperation and its impact on creating new business ideas. However, these efforts could be unviable due to the lack of an effective leader of the group. One should underline a crucial role of the leader in such an organized network, since the leader makes improvements and takes initiatives for all the network and its partners. These concepts prompt us to undertake the research on the role of clusters? characteristics on enhancing willingness to innovate in general. This study aims to point out the main characteristics of clusters and to investigate their impact on companies? innovativeness. The main problem to address is the magnitude of specific effects that might boost introducing new solutions in firms? networks. Purpose of the article: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of factors describing cluster environment (characteristics like cooperation within clusters and beyond them, incentives of a leader, and localization factors) that might affect the innovativeness of companies. Methods: The authors collected data using questionnaire. This type of primary source enables the authors to construct a model consisting of latent variables such as incentives of coordinator of cluster or cluster initiative, cooperation of firms with local authorities, cooperation between entrepreneurs, or localization. The results are subject to the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis. Findings & value added: The conducted analysis leads to several findings. Firstly, incentives provided by the cluster coordinator enable companies to increase the willingness to introduce innovations in general. Secondly, however, the influence of other cluster characteristics on the propensity to innovate for firms functioning within specific Polish business clusters is scant. These findings point to the fact that actions leading to assign the official coordinator of a cluster need to be done, as it should result in better flow of knowledge, more symmetric information among companies within cluster, and more productive and innovative way of functioning firms in general. Regarding innovation clusters (and regional innovation systems), these actions need to be supported by forming policy on regional level, because effective clusters would induce more competitive regional economy in long-term scenario.

Disruptive Innovation in the Context of Retailing: Digital Trends and the Internationalization of the Yiwu Commodity Market

The prevalence of disruptive innovation practices, enabled by the advancement of digital technologies, has greatly changed the way SMEs innovate and the competitive landscape of today’s retail industry. This study seeks to understand how disruptive innovation has been adopted for the purpose of internationalization across retailing SMEs in Yiwu’s Commodity Market. To answer the research questions, the approach used in this study utilized a qualitative research approach in combination with semi-structured interviews. In this way, the chronology of several phases of Yiwu’s Commodity Market’s development into a global market center is presented, based on analysis of the data. The findings of this study provide an insight into how to facilitate disruptive paths to achieve the internationalization of SMEs through dynamism of the market, strategy positioning, and capability construction. This study contributes to literature on disruptive innovation by providing and testing a model of internationalization mechanisms that SMEs can use to coordinate digital disruptive innovation-related activities. The study also provides insights for policymakers and SMEs in the retail industry about the importance of digital technologies for motivating potential entrepreneurs to pursue new ventures.

EDITORIAL — SPECIAL ISSUE: MANAGING VALUES FOR INNOVATION

Although values in business have a long history, only recently has their pivotal role in innovation and its management become a topic attracting growing attention from both researchers and practitioners. Values-based innovation management is developing into a vibrant field of studies and practice with increasing relevance for innovation managers and entrepreneurs, providing a powerful toolbox of new methods and applications as well as having societal impact. We survey the state-of-the-art discussions in the field, including related concepts and methods and values-based approaches in areas such as innovation consulting and education, business modelling and entrepreneurship. As an introduction to the papers in IJIM’s Special Issue on Managing Values for Innovation, this editorial paper revisits and repositions some widespread assumptions about the nature, functions and potential of values in innovation contexts. We show to what extent values are an inevitable moment of innovation-related activities, requiring contributions from diverse stakeholders in normative, strategic and operational management dimensions. We illustrate their practicality to promote rather than handicap innovation and clarify their potential to change and assume different meanings rather than being static entities. The explanatory power of a values-based approach, its generative potential and its emancipatory impact motivate further research and development. Future avenues for research and development include impact management studies, attention to different levels of values and advancing the methodology and available tools to manage values for innovation in order to achieve more desirable outcomes.

Critical Factors to Technology Development in Indian Academia : An ISM-MICMAC Approach

The significance of research translation and technology transfer in academia is getting increasing attention for the greater public interest. Besides, the successful transfer of knowledge to augment a university’s outreach mission is in a large measure driven by R&D outcomes, more particularly, in terms of developed technologies. It thus becomes worthwhile to analyze the factors that enable technology development in academia. This objective remains a gap in extant literature. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the enabling factors of technology development in the university ecosystem and to examine their interrelationships. An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique was applied to identify the interrelationship among factors. Further, MICMAC analysis was applied to identify the driving and dependent enabling factors. Our findings revealed that top management’s leadership and visionary approach ; research mission ; strategy & culture ; adequate research infrastructure ; and intramural funding for research, development, and innovation-related activities are the key driving factors to technology development in academia. This study will be useful for the managers and decision-makers to comprehend the relationship between technology development enablers and framing the institutional policies and strategies.

The Economic Impact of Healthcare Innovation Activity on the Newfoundland and Labrador Economy in 2019 and 2020.

Eastern Health (EH), the most populous region of the four Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Regional Health Authorities, has been advancing innovation to improve patient care, health outcomes and provincial economic development. This paper describes how EH engaged with the provincial Department of Finance to estimate the direct, indirect and induced economic impacts on provincial gross domestic product, employment and employment income from innovation-related activities. The modelling demonstrated significant economic benefits in both 2019 and 2020. There was a large increase in 2020 due to pandemic-related personal protective equipment manufacturing opportunities. The number of well-paying jobs created also increased. Local healthcare innovation was stimulated by EH's Living Lab, Health Innovation Team and increased coordination between vendor partners, Memorial University, the NL Centre for Health Information and government funding agencies.

Intellectual property rights, non-market considerations and foreign R&D investments

Prior research has focused on how firms use a variety of organizational mechanisms to protect their R&D investments from misappropriation risks in foreign countries. Little is known, however, about how firms can rely on non-market factors to induce preferential treatment by host government authorities, thereby protecting their intellectual property overseas. In this paper, we investigate two such non-market factors, one at the country level, the other at the firm level, that are likely to influence the choice of where firms locate their innovation activities: host country inclination towards the firm's home country and the firm's political capabilities, respectively. We thus examine how IPR policies and non-market factors interact in protecting firm innovation from misappropriation and in making countries more attractive for innovation-related activities. We find support for our predictions in a sample of 1,341 foreign R&D investments made by 163 firms from 14 home countries over the period 2003–2016.

Modeling innovation efficiency, its micro-level drivers, and its impact on stock returns

Motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing challenges to human and economic welfare, this research seeks to evaluate innovation efficiency, its micro-level drivers, and its impact on stock returns. This study considers innovation-related activities during two growth phases experienced by 138 listed pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in China: research and development (R&D) and marketing. A dynamic two-phase network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model measured R&D efficiency, marketing efficiency, and dynamic integrated innovation efficiency. A projection difference analysis was presented to offer a feasible solution to address inefficient companies. Then, panel regression methods were adopted to examine micro-level drivers of innovation efficiency. Additionally, a portfolio formation test was used to investigate innovation efficiency as a characteristic impacting stock returns. The results indicate that the listed companies are generally innovation inefficient. Only two are DEA innovation efficient. Low marketing and R&D efficiencies are impeding innovation efficiency amelioration, with the most losses attributed to the marketing phase. Most companies lack good conditions for R&D and the commercialization of scientific and technological breakthroughs. Institutional investors and financial analysts' coverage have a positive and significant impact on innovation efficiency. Foreign institutional ownership and stock market overvaluation impact listed companies with high innovation efficiency positively. There is a negative and significant effect of size on innovation efficiency. However, growth in pharmaceutical manufacturing company size positively influences innovation efficiency at higher levels. The portfolio formation test results reveal that investors consider companies with high innovation efficiency as high-profile targets that provide high stock returns. The findings of this study offer stakeholders avenues to shape the initiation, process, and outcome of innovation.

Urban Agglomeration and Firm Innovation: Evidence from Asia

This paper presents evidence on the spatial distribution and effects of urban agglomeration on firm innovation. It uses a unique dataset that consistently defines city boundaries and identifies firms’ innovation-related activities across 25 developing countries in Asia. We find firm innovation to be highly concentrated at the city level. We also find substantial gains from increases in city population in terms of firms’ propensity to introduce process and product innovations and undertake research and development (R&D) activities. These gains remain even after addressing concerns regarding endogeneity through the use of historical population data as instruments. In addition, we present evidence that knowledge spillovers are an important channel through which agglomeration effects occur, specifically through the presence of top-tier universities in a given city and by raising the effectiveness of firms’ R&D efforts. These findings confirm the existence and significance of urban economies of scale in augmenting the knowledge flows that generate innovation.

Qu’apporte l’urbanisme à l’étude des espaces de coworking ?

Dans un contexte de profondes mutations du marché du travail, on constate une concentration d’activités liées à l’innovation dans les centres urbains. Parmi celles-ci, les espaces de coworking (ECW) promeuvent des idées de partage et d’ouverture pour changer le devenir des communautés. La littérature aborde principalement les dimensions économique et entrepreneuriale des ECW et rares sont les écrits liant ECW et villes. Cet article cherche donc à renouveler l’approche des rapports entre territoire et innovation, en contribuant à la connaissance de cette relation sous l’angle de l’approche urbanistique. L’article propose tout d’abord une revue critique de la littérature qui décline les liens entre villes et ECW selon trois entrées : la ville réceptacle, la ville en tant que ressource territoriale et la ville comme champ d’action des politiques publiques. À partir de ces liens, sont ensuite identifiés les principaux enjeux d’aménagement de l’espace (ressort de l’ancrage, programmation urbaine, gestion des flux), appelant, dans un dernier temps, à une remobilisation des méthodes de l’urbanisme et de la planification urbaine sous trois angles : réglementaire, de projet et tactique.

The effects of coopetition on the innovation activities and firm performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper involves evaluating the impact of coopetition on the innovation activities and innovation performance of companies.Design/methodology/approachThe study deployed data from the Community Innovation Survey – CIS 2012 and subject to the application of different multivariate statistical analysis processes.FindingsThe authors furthermore conclude that coopetition and the transfer of knowledge to and from competitors generates a statistically significant positive impact on company innovation-related activities and performance.Originality/valueThis work enriches the theory of innovation from the perspectives of game-theoretic strategic and resource theory approach. Moreover, the findings provide several recommendations for managers to effectively conduct firm’s coopetition strategy on innovation performance.

Network position and innovation capability in the regional innovation network

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the positioning of actors characterized by different natures in a regional innovation network and explores how these actors improve their innovation capabilities by assuming prominence or brokering positions. Innovation capability is widely seen to be the driving force in building regional competitive advantage, therefore investigating how the positioning of actors improves their innovation-related activities is relevant in terms of regional competitiveness. This paper builds on a survey conducted on the Sicilian regional area in Italy. A questionnaire was used to collect data concerning the relationships established between actors and the extent to which these relationships impact actors’ innovation capability. Results suggest that regional actors cannot be considered as a homogeneous group regarding their positioning in a regional network and that the innovation benefits of assuming different network positions depend on their nature. This paper offers some theoretical implications to the literature on regional innovation network and practical suggestions to organizations and regional policy makers.

Does Innovation Explain the Performance Gap Between Privatized and Private Firms?

In this study, using a unique firm-level survey database, I investigate innovation for privatized former state-owned enterprises (SOEs) versus originally private (de novo) firms in 30 Eastern European and Central Asian countries. I also examine how innovation related activities and practices affect firm growth in these transition economies. Besides using an invention-based narrow definition of innovation, I use an imitation and adaptation-based broad definition of innovation. I find that innovative firms grow faster than non-innovative firms. The main results suggest that privatized former SOEs in transition economies are less innovative than originally private firms. My results hold after controlling for a country’s economic development, governance quality, EU membership, and former USSR membership. The findings may provide a possible explanation for the underperformance of privatized firms in comparing to private firms.

The technological system of production and innovation: The case of photovoltaic technology in China

This research paper studies the Chinese technological system of production and innovation in the field of photovoltaics (PV). It contributes to a better understanding of the emergence and development of the system by utilizing three levels of analysis: the institutional framework of the system, the market dynamics of production and deployment, and the composition of innovation-related activities. The analysis demonstrates the interrelated roles of transnational factors, local government policies, and research and development (R&D) activities undertaken by the main actors in shaping the system dynamics. Tracking the relative position of China in the global PV manufacturing, installation and technological development, the analysis shows a gap between the growth of China’s market share and its modest share of transnational patent applications. This suggests a puzzle, which the paper attempts to answer by inspecting the individual companies in the system against four aspects. First, the dynamic development of their size and performance. Second, the nature of their international involvement through foreign direct investment and mergers and acquisition deals. Third, their technological specialization within the PV value chain over time. Fourth, the spatial scope of their patenting protection endeavours. The analysis recognises four periods of system development driven jointly by market dynamics and government plans. Behind the continuous growth of the system, there were different driving and moderating factors in each period.

RETURNS TO INNOVATION AND GROWTH: A PANEL DATA APPROACH FOR MIDDLE INCOME COUNTRIES

This paper attempts to investigate the relationship between the growth of gross domestic product and innovation related activities. A panel data analysis is conducted on a sample of eight middle-income countries covering 5-year time period from 2012-2016. The major findings of the study show a significant positive impact of expenditure on education, graduates in science and engineering, knowledge intensive employment, scientific and technical articles, population and foreign direct investments on the growth of gross domestic product. Hence, we conclude that there is a strong relation between innovation-related activities and economic growth in middle-income countries. Therefore, we suggest that middle-income countries should focus more on R&D and innovation related activities to grow and change their income status to higher income levels.