Category
innovation-theory
1747 entries tagged innovation-theory.
Articles — 1744
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Choreography in Inter-Organizational Innovation Networks
Introduces 'choreography' as a concept for inter-organizational innovation networks — a self-organizing coordination mechanism that shapes connectivity and cohesion among hubs, semi-peripheral, and peripheral members lacking hierarchical authority.
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Designing and Orchestrating Embedded Innovation Networks: An Inquiry into Microfranchising in Bangladesh
Longitudinal case study of an emerging microfranchise network in Bangladesh facilitated by CARE, used to examine how innovation networks are designed and orchestrated in resource-scarce settings to deliver agricultural inputs to small-scale poor farmers.
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Enhancing Rural Innovation in Canada
OECD Rural Studies report examining Canada's rural innovation ecosystem — the actors, funding flows, and policy levers that shape innovation in rural and remote regions, with comparative international benchmarks. Verify exact publication year on the cover.
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Innovation networks for social impact: An empirical study on multi-actor collaboration in projects for smart cities
Examines what drives the formation of innovation networks for smart-city projects involving companies, government, and society. Identifies searching, acting, and convincing as core activities; argues smart-city innovation requires public-private-citizen configuration.
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Management of innovation networks: a case study of different approaches
Empirical case study of two software-business SMEs with contrasting approaches to managing innovation networks. Surfaces six dimensions for mapping innovation network management: duration, rewards, fundamental meaning, organisational nature, planning/control/trust, and hierarchy.
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Rural innovation system: Revitalize the countryside for a sustainable development
Proposes a 'rural innovation system' framework drawing on new growth theory, institutional theory, and innovation systems theory, with three pillars: technology innovation, institutional/management innovation, and community-based network/intermediary platforms. Compares rural and urban innovation systems.
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Tech hubs, innovation and development
Examines tech hubs in developing-country contexts, asking what 'innovation' and 'development' mean in their practice and to what extent the rhetoric matches the reality of who benefits.
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Unpacking the multiple spaces of innovation hubs
Conceptualizes innovation hubs as constituted by multiple overlapping spaces (physical, social, virtual, symbolic) and argues that attending to all of them gives a richer reading of how hubs do or do not foster development.
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A Primer on Innovation, Learning, and Knowledge Flows
Working paper from Memorial University connecting New Regionalism, knowledge flows, and learning to rural and regional economic development. Frames the region as the locus where competitive advantage is distilled from social and institutional assets.
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Applicability of Territorial Innovation Models to Declining Resource-Based Regions: Lessons from the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland
Tests how well established territorial innovation models (regional innovation systems, learning regions, etc.) travel to declining resource-based rural regions, using Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula as the case.
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Creating value in ecosystems: Crossing the chasm between knowledge and business ecosystems
Studies 138 innovative start-ups in Flanders to compare their knowledge ecosystem and business ecosystem. Finds the knowledge ecosystem well-structured but the business ecosystem nearly absent locally — implications for ecosystem policy.
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Regional Innovation Systems in the Periphery: The Case of the Beauce in Québec (Canada)
Survey-based study of 45 SMEs in the Beauce region of Quebec asking how innovation actually happens in a peripheral regional innovation system, where actors are less diversified than in oft-cited core regions like Silicon Valley or Emilia-Romagna.
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The role of knowledge, attitudes and perceptions in the uptake of agricultural and agroforestry innovations among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa
Agricultural innovation adoption by smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa is slow because existing frameworks overlook intrinsic factors. This paper argues that farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions significantly influence adoption decisions alongside external factors like adopter characteristics and environment. Using agroforestry as a case study, the authors present a framework combining both intrinsic and extrinsic variables. They conclude that understanding how these factors interact is essential for designing sustainable, appropriately targeted agricultural technologies.
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Agriculture 4.0: Broadening Responsible Innovation in an Era of Smart Farming
Smart farming technologies like AI and robotics promise productivity gains, but their social implications are often overlooked. Farmers and the public express concerns about how these technologies might reshape agricultural communities. The authors argue that responsible innovation—emphasizing anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness—must guide Agriculture 4.0. They call for systemic approaches that map innovation ecosystems, broaden participation beyond traditional stakeholders, and test frameworks in practice to ensure technologies develop responsibly.
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Why do Social Innovations in Rural Development Matter and Should They be Considered More Seriously in Rural Development Research? – Proposal for a Stronger Focus on Social Innovations in Rural Development Research
Social innovations—new organizational forms, practices, and services—are critical drivers of rural development but remain underexamined in rural research. The author defines social innovation conceptually, models its process, and argues that weak social innovation capacity constrains rural community vitality in developed countries. An actor-oriented network approach offers a promising methodology for studying how social innovations emerge and function in rural contexts.
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Rural Marginalisation and the Role of Social Innovation; A Turn Towards Nexogenous Development and Rural Reconnection
Rural areas across Europe face increasing marginalization despite EU development policies, with gaps widening between prosperous and struggling regions. This paper examines whether social innovation can combat rural decline. Through three case studies, the author identifies distinctive features of rural social innovation: reliance on civic self-organization due to state withdrawal, and cross-sectoral collaboration. The paper proposes a new framework called nexogenous development, emphasizing socio-political reconnection as a driver of rural revitalization beyond traditional endogenous or exogenous approaches.
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Rural entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship in the rural – between place and space
This paper distinguishes two ideal types of entrepreneurship in rural areas. The first type—entrepreneurship in the rural—pursues profit-driven, mobile ventures with weak local ties. The second type—rural entrepreneurship—leverages local resources and maintains deep place-based connections, showing greater commitment to staying and optimizing local development. Both contribute to rural economies, but place-embedded ventures demonstrate superior potential for sustainable local growth.
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Beyond agricultural innovation systems? Exploring an agricultural innovation ecosystems approach for niche design and development in sustainability transitions
This paper argues that agricultural innovation systems need to adopt an ecosystems approach to better support sustainability transitions. The authors show that innovation ecosystems thinking enhances traditional approaches by emphasizing power dynamics, including diverse actors and ecological factors, and enabling cross-sector collaboration. This framework enables design of transboundary innovation niches that support sustainable agriculture across multiple scales and paradigms.
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Towards a Better Conceptual Framework for Innovation Processes in Agriculture and Rural Development: From Linear Models to Systemic Approaches
This paper argues that agricultural innovation requires moving beyond linear, technical models to systemic approaches that recognize farming's multifunctional role. The authors identify gaps between societal demands for change and farmers' capacity to innovate, showing that technical and economic factors alone cannot explain innovation processes. They propose that successful innovation emerges from collaborative networks where social and institutional factors, farmer knowledge, motivations, and values drive change. Extension services and institutions often become barriers when they fail to recognize shifted farmer and societal needs.
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Social innovation in rural development: identifying the key factors of success
Social innovation succeeds in rural development through three layers of factors: overall innovation process conditions, the actor network's operational space, and participation mechanisms. Most success factors resist external control, but rural policy can influence the room to maneuver available to innovation actors. Top-down steering of social innovation proves ineffective, questioning whether policymakers can instrumentalize social innovation for rural development.
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Twenty Years of Rural Entrepreneurship: A Bibliometric Survey
This bibliometric analysis of 181 articles on rural entrepreneurship reveals the field remains underdeveloped theoretically despite growing research interest. Rural entrepreneurship research concentrates in Europe, particularly the UK and Spain, and focuses on organizational characteristics, policy, and governance. Empirical work emphasizes developed nations like the UK, USA, and Finland. The authors argue that weak theoretical foundations limit the field's progress and call for expanded research in less developed countries where rural entrepreneurship holds significant potential.
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Transformative social innovation for sustainable rural development: An analytical framework to assist community-based initiatives
This paper develops an analytical framework for understanding how local community initiatives and government structures work together to achieve sustainable rural development. Using a Costa Rica case study, the authors identify that successful social innovation requires 'bottom-linked governance'—where actors across different political levels and sectors share decision-making. They find that bridging roles (network enabler, knowledge broker, resource broker, conflict resolver, vision champion) and power-sharing are critical for social innovation to scale up and transform governance systems.
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The role of education in facilitating risk-taking and innovation in agriculture
Education reduces risk-aversion among farmers in rural Ethiopia, making them more likely to adopt agricultural innovations. The study shows schooling encourages technology adoption both directly and indirectly by shifting attitudes toward risk. Educated farmers who adopt innovations early may create positive spillovers when less-educated farmers copy their practices, generating benefits beyond individual adopters.
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Pathways for impact: scientists' different perspectives on agricultural innovation
Agricultural scientists often misunderstand how their research reaches farmers and creates real-world impact. This paper examines five pathways for agricultural innovation—technology transfer, farmer-driven innovation, market-induced innovation, participatory development, and innovation systems—and argues that scientists must better understand these mechanisms to improve smallholder productivity and reduce rural poverty. The author calls for changes in scientific training, promotion criteria, and funding to embed impact thinking into agricultural research professionalism.
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Social innovation and sustainability; how to disentangle the buzzword and its application in the field of agriculture and rural development
Social innovation is widely cited as crucial to agricultural and rural development, yet its meaning remains unclear. This paper identifies three main interpretations: innovation's social mechanisms, innovation's social responsibility, and society's need for innovation. The concept appears more relevant to rural development than agriculture alone, particularly regarding sustainable production, collaboration, and social renewal. However, social innovation is often presented as a vague bundle of processes and outcomes, which weakens its critical potential. The paper argues for clearer definition to better support and monitor social innovation's actual contribution to social change.
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RAAIS: Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Innovation Systems (Part I). A diagnostic tool for integrated analysis of complex problems and innovation capacity
RAAIS is a diagnostic tool that analyzes complex agricultural problems by examining institutional, technological, and socio-cultural dimensions across multiple levels. It assesses innovation capacity within agricultural systems and identifies constraints affecting farmers, government, and researchers. The tool combines qualitative and quantitative methods to find entry points for innovation. Testing in Tanzania and Benin on parasitic weed problems in rice production demonstrated its effectiveness.
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Local Embeddedness and Rural Entrepreneurship: Case-Study Evidence from Cumbria, England
Rural entrepreneurs in Cumbria, England operate within complex local contexts that extend beyond simple geographic boundaries. The paper challenges the assumption that economic activity depends primarily on territorial embeddedness. Instead, it shows that locality functions through multiple dimensions of social connection and context. The research demonstrates how entrepreneurs navigate between local place-based factors and broader networks, requiring policymakers to move beyond territorial approaches to understanding rural economic development.
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Smart Farming: Including Rights Holders for Responsible Agricultural Innovation
Agricultural innovation embeds values and shapes social relationships, not just technical problems. The paper argues that innovation design and governance must include diverse rights holders and stakeholders to ensure responsible development. Treating innovation as purely technical work ignores how farming technologies reorder social and environmental systems, requiring broader participation in decision-making.
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Innovation adoption in agriculture : innovators, early adopters and laggards
Dutch farmers adopt agricultural innovations at different rates based on structural and behavioral factors. Farm size, market position, solvency, and farmer age distinguish innovators and early adopters from laggards. Innovators and early adopters share similar structural traits but differ behaviorally: innovators actively seek external information sources and participate in developing new technologies, while early adopters do not.
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Opening design and innovation processes in agriculture: Insights from design and management sciences and future directions
Agricultural innovation requires more open, participatory design processes that move beyond traditional approaches. This paper synthesizes research on co-design and co-innovation in agriculture, drawing insights from management and design sciences. It identifies three priorities: expanding design tools to engage multiple senses, opening innovation networks to support sustainability transitions while addressing power dynamics, and including non-human actors like materials and ecosystems in innovation processes.
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Identifying social innovations in European local rural development initiatives
This paper examines social innovation in European rural development by analyzing community-led local development initiatives across five countries. Using a Schumpeterian framework, the authors identify how new resource combinations create social value in rural areas. They find distinct processes and outcomes that generate positive change, and argue these insights should inform the design and evaluation of future rural development policies and programmes.
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Adoption of agricultural innovations as a two‐stage partial observability process
This paper argues that partial observability models better explain agricultural innovation adoption than standard statistical approaches. The authors show that adoption operates as a two-stage process where farmers first decide whether to consider an innovation, then decide whether to adopt it. They apply this framework to organic farming adoption in Greece, demonstrating that the model accounts for non-adopters and incomplete information more accurately than conventional methods.
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Romancing the rural: Reconceptualizing rural entrepreneurship as engagement with context(s)
Rural entrepreneurship research often romanticizes rural contexts in misleading ways. This paper argues that understanding rural entrepreneurship requires examining how entrepreneurs actually engage with the specific contexts that define rural areas, rather than relying on idealized notions of rurality. The authors propose new methods to better understand rural entrepreneurial processes through context-focused analysis.
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Understanding place-based entrepreneurship in rural Central Europe: A comparative institutional analysis
This study examines how local institutions shape entrepreneurial behavior in rural Central Europe across five countries. The researchers find that normative and cognitive institutions—like social norms and shared beliefs—matter more than formal regulations in driving entrepreneurship. The fit between different institutional types determines whether entrepreneurial practices emerge in specific locations. Entrepreneurs in rural transition and non-transition contexts adopt different strategies based on place-specific institutional conditions.
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Agricultural innovation: invention and adoption or change and adaptation?
Agricultural innovations arise from farmers and craftspeople making practical modifications to existing tools and practices rather than from radical new inventions. Most improvements target crops, animals, growing conditions, implements, or management practices. Farmers adapt existing technologies to their needs rather than simply adopting new ones. When multiple improvements across different farming areas reach critical mass simultaneously, they can produce revolutionary societal impacts.
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Extending the paramedic role in rural Australia: a story of flexibility and innovation
Rural paramedics in south-eastern Australia are evolving into primary healthcare providers, taking on expanded responsibilities beyond emergency response. The study identifies a Rural Expanded Scope of Practice model where paramedics engage communities, respond to emergencies, provide situated care, and deliver primary healthcare. This integrated approach connects paramedics with other health agencies to improve patient outcomes and community health in small rural areas.
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The new harvest: agricultural innovation in Africa
This review examines agricultural innovation across Africa, analyzing how farmers develop and adopt new farming practices and technologies. The paper discusses the conditions enabling innovation in African agriculture, including access to resources, knowledge systems, and institutional support. It argues that understanding local innovation processes is essential for improving agricultural productivity and food security in rural African communities.
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Foresighting Australian digital agricultural futures: Applying responsible innovation thinking to anticipate research and development impact under different scenarios
Australian researchers used foresighting workshops to explore how digital technologies will shape agriculture's future and identify social and ethical implications. Participants developed four scenarios based on resource security and farm business model changes. The analysis reveals that reflexivity in research and development is essential to ensure digital agriculture benefits farming communities equitably and addresses potential inequities in technology adoption across value chains.
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Food and agricultural innovation pathways for prosperity
Agricultural research investments can reduce poverty and improve rural prosperity through multiple pathways affecting farmers, laborers, value chain actors, and urban poor. The authors identify 18 plausible impact mechanisms linking agricultural research to poverty reduction outcomes and examine how urbanization and climate change reshape development contexts in low-income countries. They emphasize that measuring success requires understanding who benefits and loses, incorporating gender equity and nuanced definitions of prosperity beyond income metrics.
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Strategic management implications for the adoption of technological innovations in agricultural tractor: the role of scale factors and environmental attitude
Larger Italian farms adopt more advanced tractor technologies than smaller operations. Older farmers with longer agricultural experience show stronger commitment to environmental protection and workplace safety. The study reveals that farm size and farmer demographics significantly influence technology adoption decisions, with implications for designing innovations that meet farmer needs and promote efficient, safe modern agriculture.
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Assessing or Predicting Adoption of Telehealth Using the Diffusion of Innovations Theory: A Practical Example from a Rural Program in New Mexico
A rural telemedicine program in New Mexico used diffusion of innovations theory to understand why healthcare providers adopt or reject telehealth. The researchers found that the type of innovation decision—whether adoption is made individually, collectively, or by authority—significantly influences whether telehealth gets adopted. They demonstrate that diffusion theory effectively evaluates telehealth programs and propose developing a predictive tool to assess adoption likelihood before new programs launch.
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Provoking identities: entrepreneurship and emerging identity positions in rural development
This ethnographic study of a declining rural community over six years reveals how entrepreneurship reshapes local identity and agency. Entrepreneurs challenged dominant narratives by repositioning their community's assets—locality, history, and place—as resources rather than liabilities. Four key tensions (change versus tradition, rational versus irrational, spectacular versus mundane, individual versus collective) shaped how local actors negotiated new identity positions and opportunities through entrepreneurial action.
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Predicting Adoption of Innovations by Farmers: What is Different in Smallholder Agriculture?
Adoption prediction models developed for large-scale farms in wealthy countries fail to account for key differences in smallholder farming systems. Smallholder farmers face greater resource constraints, cultural influences, and subsistence priorities. They discount future benefits more heavily, rely on multiple income sources, and experience slower information diffusion. Extension services vary widely in quality and reach. These factors substantially alter how quickly and widely new agricultural technologies spread among smallholder populations.
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Agricultural specialists intention toward precision agriculture technologies: integrating innovation characteristics to technology acceptance model
Agricultural specialists in Iran show stronger intention to adopt precision agriculture technologies when they can observe results, try the technology first, and find it easy to use. Attitude toward using the technology is the strongest predictor of adoption intention. Perceived usefulness and ease of use influence adoption indirectly through attitude, not directly.
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Entrepreneurship in rural hospitality and tourism. A systematic literature review of past achievements and future promises
This systematic review of 101 articles from 2000–2020 examines entrepreneurship in rural hospitality and tourism. The authors identify six key research themes: barriers and enablers, entrepreneur roles, women entrepreneurs, firm performance drivers, innovation, and value creation. They find that entrepreneurship journals have given limited attention to rural hospitality, most studies are qualitative, and research concentrates heavily in Europe. The review proposes an ecosystem framework and outlines six future research directions.
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Social Innovation for Sustainability Transformation and its Diverging Development Paths in Marginalised Rural Areas
Social innovation—collaborative responses from civic society to societal challenges—drives sustainable development in marginalised rural areas facing biophysical limits and funding shortages. Analysis of 211 social innovation examples and 11 in-depth cases identified four distinct development paths for social innovation. The research shows that social innovation requires both local and external actors, but depends critically on internal local activity and knowledge to succeed in transforming marginalised rural communities.
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Agricultural Innovation and the Role of Institutions: Lessons from the Game of Drones
Unmanned aerial systems (drones) offer Swedish farmers significant benefits including reduced costs, higher yields, and environmental gains. However, camera surveillance legislation unexpectedly classified drones as surveillance devices, creating institutional barriers that inhibited their agricultural adoption. The study demonstrates how legislative institutions can obstruct responsible innovation and reveals conflicts between competing ethical frameworks governing technology use.
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Can Social Innovation Make a Change in European and Mediterranean Marginalized Areas? Social Innovation Impact Assessment in Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, and Rural Development
Social innovation initiatives in European and Mediterranean marginalized rural areas produce measurable impacts across economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions. The study evaluated nine social innovation projects in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development. Results show these initiatives generate cross-sectoral and multi-level benefits that improve societal well-being and reduce marginalization within their territories.
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Agricultural innovation and resilience in a long-lived early farming community: the 1,500-year sequence at Neolithic to early Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük, central Anatolia
Archaeobotanical evidence from Çatalhöyük reveals how an early farming community sustained itself for 1,500 years through continuous agricultural innovation. The community's resilience came from three factors: a diverse initial crop spectrum that provided options for later adoption, household-level experimentation enabled by modular social structure, and an agglomerated settlement that allowed successful innovations to spread community-wide. Minor crops and contaminants were recruited as major staples over time, demonstrating flexible cropping strategies that sustained long-term productivity.
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Does Directed Innovation Mitigate Climate Damage? Evidence from U.S. Agriculture
Innovation in U.S. agriculture has shifted toward crops increasingly exposed to extreme temperatures since the mid-twentieth century, driven by adaptation-focused technologies. This directed innovation significantly reduces economic damage from temperature extremes at the county level. The authors estimate that innovation has offset 20% of potential agricultural land value losses from climate trends since 1960 and could offset 13% of projected damage by 2100, demonstrating that technological adaptation provides meaningful but incomplete protection against climate change.
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Farmer First Revisited: Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development
This paper revisits the 'Farmer First' approach to agricultural research and development, examining how farmer-led innovation shapes the design and implementation of agricultural technologies and practices. The work argues that centering farmer knowledge and participation in research processes produces more effective and sustainable agricultural innovations adapted to local conditions and needs.
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Whose Narrative is it Anyway? Narratives of Social Innovation in Rural Areas – A Comparative Analysis of Community‐Led Initiatives in Scotland and Spain
Social innovation in rural communities relies on compelling narratives that mobilize people around shared challenges. This study analyzes narratives from three community-led initiatives in Scotland and Spain using a framework examining problematization, solutions, actors, and plot. The research finds that marginalisation, environmental concerns, and community activation dominate these narratives. Collective leadership and supportive policies strengthen narratives over time, improving project sustainability and reducing power imbalances.
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Diverse diversities—Open innovation in small towns and rural areas
Innovation thrives in small towns and rural areas, not just cities. This study of seven successful Swiss firms shows that rural innovation depends on three types of diversity: internal workforce diversity, multiplexed interactions across hierarchical levels, and external connections beyond the region. The findings challenge the assumption that geographic density and agglomeration are necessary for innovation, demonstrating that rural networks can be equally diverse along certain dimensions.
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Social Innovation in Rural Regions: Urban Impulses and Cross‐Border Constellations of Actors
Social innovation in rural German regions emerges through cross-border networks of actors and urban influences rather than in isolation. Ethnographic research in the Eifel, Lower Lusatia, and Uckermark regions shows that rural communities adopt knowledge and practices from urban areas, creating hybrid rural-urban innovations. These connections strengthen rural-urban relationships and reduce traditional antagonisms between them.
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Open Innovation in Agribusiness: Barriers and Challenges in the Transition to Agriculture 4.0
This study examines how open innovation enables Agriculture 4.0 adoption in agribusiness. Internet of Things technology shows the strongest potential for implementation. The main barrier is insufficient operator knowledge and skills, requiring training investment. Existing technology infrastructure and system integration facilitate adoption. The authors recommend agribusiness stakeholders collaborate with engineering solution providers through open innovation frameworks to overcome barriers and accelerate the transition to digitalized farming.
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Rural Entrepreneurship: An Analysis of Current and Emerging Issues from the Sustainable Livelihood Framework
Rural entrepreneurship differs fundamentally from urban entrepreneurship because it operates under resource constraints. This literature review examines rural entrepreneurship through a sustainable livelihood framework, identifying key themes: women entrepreneurs, poverty reduction, youth engagement, social entrepreneurship, and institutional support. Social and human capital emerge as critical resources. The authors highlight research gaps in social entrepreneurship, governance, institutional development, livelihood growth, and eco-entrepreneurship.
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Rurality and social innovation processes and outcomes: A realist evaluation of rural social enterprise activities
Rural social enterprises drive social innovation through both push and pull factors. The paper finds that rural context shapes how innovation happens—not the outcomes themselves. Different rural areas deploy distinct mechanisms to address similar challenges based on local resources. Rural social innovation policies should remain flexible rather than prescriptive, since context determines both the problems and the solutions available.
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Impact of agricultural innovation adoption: a meta‐analysis
This meta-analysis of 154 studies examines how agricultural innovation adoption affects production and economic outcomes. Results show reported impacts increase over time, though publication bias exists. Study findings depend on research design, statistical methods, and region. The literature heavily favors high-yielding variety innovations while neglecting complementary technologies.
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Organizational Path Constitution in Technological Innovation: Evidence from Rural Telehealth1
This paper develops a theory of how technological innovation paths form within organizations, using a rural telehealth case study. It combines path dependence (historical constraints) with path creation (deliberate actor choices) to explain how organizations transform innovation patterns, merge or separate paths, and sometimes become locked into dominant patterns they struggle to escape.
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Social Innovation to Sustain Rural Communities: Overcoming Institutional Challenges in Serbia
Social innovations in rural Serbia address poverty, inequality, and migration despite institutional obstacles like weak law enforcement, poor infrastructure, and low trust. The study of nine rural initiatives reveals that social innovators operate through subsistence, idealistic, or lifestyle goals, creating new social values. Solutions to institutional gaps include developing context-specific organizations, strengthening legal frameworks, and designing innovative financing mechanisms.
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Business models for maximising the diffusion of technological innovations for climate-smart agriculture
Current business models for delivering climate-smart agricultural technologies fail to optimize diffusion because they misalign with farmer needs. The study identifies critical gaps in value propositions, distribution channels, customer relationships, resources, partnerships, and cost structures. Innovation providers and potential users hold conflicting views about what works. The authors recommend redesigning business models to better match farmer adoption requirements and accelerate climate-smart agriculture uptake.
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Understanding Farmers’ Adoption of Sustainable Agriculture Innovations: A Systematic Literature Review
Farmers adopt sustainable agriculture innovations at low rates globally, especially in the Global South. This systematic review examines sociopsychological factors driving adoption decisions. Researchers find that existing models rely on constructs borrowed from other sectors and repeat variables like attitude and subjective norms while neglecting agriculture-specific factors like knowledge. The review concludes that better-tailored determinants and context-specific measurements are needed to explain farmer adoption behavior.
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Why we should rethink ‘adoption’ in agricultural innovation: Empirical insights from Malawi
This study challenges the standard adoption framework for measuring agricultural innovation in Malawi. Using participatory research, the authors show that farmer decision-making around conservation agriculture is dynamic, multidimensional, and contextual—not the linear process assumed by typical technology transfer models. They identify four key factors shaping adoption: social dynamics, contextual costs and benefits, risk aversion, and practice adaptation. Effective scaling requires building on existing farming systems and knowledge.
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The entrepreneur–opportunity nexus: discovering the forces that promote product innovations in rural micro-tourism firms
This study examines what drives product innovation in small rural tourism businesses by analyzing 40 new tourism products created by micro-firm owners in rural Sweden. The research identifies three types of forces that trigger innovation: internal factors within the firm, supply chain dynamics, and reactions to external changes. The findings show that entrepreneurial opportunities emerge through a specific nexus between entrepreneurs and opportunities, with triggering forces playing a critical role in initiating the innovation process.
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Constraints to the Adoption of Agricultural Innovations
The paper argues that discussions about why farmers reject agricultural innovations are confused because developers fail to distinguish between problems inherent to the innovation itself and external prerequisite conditions. By clarifying this distinction through design-specification exercises, developers can identify which adoption failures stem from their own innovation process rather than blaming external factors like land tenure or market access.
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Frugal innovation for sustainable rural development
Frugal innovation—creating affordable, resource-efficient solutions—contributes more effectively to sustainable development goals in rural South Asia than conventional products. The study analyzed 13 frugal enterprises through interviews and found these innovations positively impact multiple SDGs, though some goals require national-level policy rather than enterprise-level action. Frugal approaches offer a practical pathway for rural sustainable development.
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The Increasing Multifunctionality of Agricultural Raw Materials: Three Dilemmas for Innovation and Adoption
Agricultural raw materials now serve multiple industries beyond food and fiber, including energy, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. This expansion creates three critical challenges: competing goals among different sectors, competition between established and new companies, and blurred industry boundaries. The paper reviews innovation and adoption research in the bioeconomy and proposes conceptual frameworks to address these dilemmas.
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Highlighting the Retro Side of Innovation and its Potential for Regime Change in Agriculture
Farmer innovations based on rediscovering forgotten traditional knowledge create viable alternatives to dominant modern food systems. Two case studies reveal niche formation where old and new knowledge combine effectively. These retro innovations offer significant potential for rural development and can challenge prevailing food regimes. Social scientists are essential for understanding how these alternative knowledge systems influence agricultural practice.
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Thinking Together Digitalization and Social Innovation in Rural Areas: An Exploration of Rural Digitalization Projects in Germany
This paper examines how digitalization and social innovation work together in rural German communities. The author develops a conceptual framework connecting these two areas, which are typically studied separately, and uses it to analyze existing rural digitalization projects in Germany. The framework helps identify the range of initiatives and provides a systematic approach for supporting smart villages that integrate both digital technologies and social innovation.
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Farmers’ Demand and the Traits and Diffusion of Agricultural Innovations in Developing Countries
Agricultural innovations developed by international research often fail adoption among smallholder farmers in developing countries despite yield potential. This review examines why, analyzing technology traits and farmer constraints. Farmers frequently prioritize reducing variance, water use, or labor over maximizing yields. When external constraints ease, farmers reallocate resources in ways that don't increase yield intensity. Agronomical trial results poorly predict actual farmer demand in real conditions, requiring research and policy adjustments.
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The Power of Experience: Farmers' Knowledge and Sustainable Innovations in Agriculture
Farmers' knowledge plays a crucial role in developing sustainable agricultural innovations. The paper outlines why farmer expertise matters, explains how it differs from scientific knowledge, and proposes practical methods for scientists and farmers to collaborate effectively. It concludes by identifying institutional changes needed in agricultural knowledge systems to support this integration.
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Innovations for a Shrinking Agricultural Workforce
The paper examines how agricultural businesses adopt labor-saving technologies in response to a shrinking workforce. It argues that investment in new farm technologies must account for long-term labor supply decline in the U.S. and rising education levels in traditional agricultural worker regions, requiring strategic planning for a smaller but more educated workforce.
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Responsible Innovation for Life: Five Challenges Agriculture Offers for Responsible Innovation in Agriculture and Food, and the Necessity of an Ethics of Innovation
This paper examines how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can be applied to agriculture and food systems. The authors argue that agricultural innovation must balance economic, environmental, and social-ethical concerns, including animal welfare and food security. They identify five key challenges for implementing RRI in agriculture and call for ethical reflection on responsibility and innovation practices in the sector.
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Rural resilience through continued learning and innovation
Rural businesses in England build resilience through continuous learning and incremental innovation. When facing economic adversity, small rural enterprises adapt by leveraging available resources and developing new practices to survive. The study shows that learning from challenges creates a resilient organizational culture, with innovation becoming essential for business continuity during difficult economic periods.
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Assessing Sustainability Perspectives in Rural Innovation Projects Using Q‐Methodology
This study uses Q-methodology to identify distinct perspectives on sustainable agriculture among participants in a Dutch innovation program called TransForum. The research reveals two main competing viewpoints: radical perspectives reject technology and favor multifunctional rural landscapes, while prosaic perspectives embrace technology and prioritize agricultural production. Notably, no ecological modernization perspective emerged, prompting the authors to propose a new concept of 'metropolitan agriculture' to address this gap.
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‘Workable utopias’ for social change through inclusion and empowerment? Community supported agriculture (CSA) in Wales as social innovation
Community supported agriculture (CSA) projects in Wales function as social innovations that address food system problems through bottom-up initiatives. These CSA models meet demand for ecologically sound, ethically produced food while empowering individuals and communities. The study finds CSA initiatives operate as viable small-scale social enterprises, but identifies barriers preventing their replication, policy participation, and scaling up that must be overcome for broader transformative impact.
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Innovation in urban agricultural practices: Responding to diverse production environments
Urban farms in seven US cities develop distinct innovations to overcome space constraints, limited land access, and non-traditional growing conditions. These operations prioritize community and social missions alongside food production, creating unique production systems unlike rural agriculture. The study identifies how local environmental factors and food system structures drive farms to adopt space-intensive techniques across diverse business models, from parking lots to warehouses, and highlights major ongoing challenges facing urban agriculture.
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How Can Innovation in Urban Agriculture Contribute to Sustainability? A Characterization and Evaluation Study from Five Western European Cities
Urban agriculture in five Western European cities generates innovations driven by specific problems farmers aim to solve. The study identified 147 novelties across environmental, social, and economic dimensions, with more innovations in environmental and social areas than economic ones. External stakeholders significantly supported these projects. The research demonstrates that greater innovativeness directly enhances overall sustainability outcomes in urban agriculture.
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Digital agriculture platforms: Driving data‐enabled agricultural innovation in a world fraught with privacy and security concerns
Digital agriculture platforms enable data sharing and collaboration across agricultural value chains, but face significant challenges around data quality, privacy, and intellectual property. This paper develops a taxonomy of the digital agriculture landscape and analyzes platforms against technical and use requirements, establishing a common vocabulary for understanding how these systems support data-enabled agricultural innovation.
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Understanding inclusive innovation processes in agricultural systems: A middle-range conceptual model
This paper develops a middle-range theory explaining how inclusive innovation works in smallholder agricultural systems across the Global South. By analyzing three cases from South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, the author identifies a consistent pattern: initial activities alter local context, triggering social learning, social capital strengthening, and consensus formation. These mechanisms drive technical, organizational, and institutional innovation. The model provides practitioners and researchers with a framework for understanding, facilitating, and evaluating inclusive agricultural innovation processes.
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Understanding Adoption of Innovations and Behavior Change to Improve Agricultural Policy
Agricultural adoption research shows that farmers make adoption decisions as ongoing processes shaped by learning and diverse motivations, not just profit. The paper identifies gaps in predicting adoption and understanding how innovation characteristics influence farmer decisions. Policy opportunities include supporting women farmers in developing countries and applying marketing techniques to extension programs.
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Addressing the politics of mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems
Mission-oriented agricultural innovation systems are increasingly used to transform agri-food systems, but their political dimensions demand greater attention. This paper argues that MAIS must address four critical areas: directionality (how power shapes innovation direction), diversity (multiple pathways, actors, and knowledge types), distribution (just resource allocation across communities), and democracy (deliberative knowledge production). The authors contend that researchers must recognize how their work influences and is shaped by these political dynamics to ensure transformations are sustainable, equitable, and socially desirable.
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Developing a framework for radical and incremental social innovation in rural areas
Social innovation in rural areas takes two forms: radical and incremental. Using case studies from Spain and Scotland, the authors show that radical social innovation requires conflict management and new skills, while incremental innovation suits communities with different aspirations. Both pathways drive sustainable development, but they reshape communities differently. Public actors should recognize local aspirations and support appropriate innovation types.
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Unpacking sustainable business models in the Swedish agricultural sector– the challenges of technological, social and organisational innovation
Swedish agri-food companies employ eight distinct sustainable business models, grouped into three archetypes. A survey of 1,143 companies found no regional differences in technological or social innovation, but significant regional variation in organisational innovation. Northern Sweden showed stronger organisational innovation than southern and eastern regions, likely driven by greater environmental and economic pressures. The study identifies pathways for translating social and environmental value into competitive advantage.
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User innovation and entrepreneurship: case studies from rural India
Rural innovators in India develop low-cost solutions to local problems driven by necessity rather than profit. Five case studies reveal that these user-innovators lack resources to commercialize their inventions. External actors can bridge this gap by providing support. The research proposes a framework for enabling rural innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries, showing that successful innovations reduce poverty and create positive social impacts for entrepreneurs and their communities.
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Induced Innovation in United States Agriculture, 1880–1990: Time Series Tests and an Error Correction Model
This paper tests the induced innovation hypothesis in U.S. agriculture from 1880 to 1990 using an error correction model. The analysis confirms that changes in factor prices and research spending drive technological change that saves expensive inputs. The study separates factor substitution from technological bias, establishing that price signals and R&D investment causally precede the development of labor-saving and land-saving innovations in American agriculture.
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LEARNING FROM THE POSITIVE TO REDUCE RURAL POVERTY AND INCREASE SOCIAL JUSTICE: INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS IN AGRICULTURAL AND NATURAL RESOURCES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
This paper argues that development organizations miss opportunities to reduce rural poverty and advance social justice by failing to learn from existing success stories. Examining cases of bamboo irrigation in Bihar and agricultural policy changes in Nepal, the author identifies three key lessons: institutional innovations are context-specific, social entrepreneurs drive positive change, and observation choices shape outcomes. The paper recommends strengthening social science research, hiring staff committed to social justice, and deepening reflection within development programs rather than pursuing formulaic best practices.
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Agricultural Innovation and Sustainable Development
Global agriculture faces existential challenges that require innovation to achieve sustainable development. The paper examines how agricultural innovation can address these challenges and contribute to sustainability goals. It analyzes the relationship between technological advancement in farming and broader sustainable development objectives.
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Rural Entrepreneurship Success Factors: An Empirical Investigation in an Emerging Market
This study identifies key factors distinguishing successful from failed small businesses in rural emerging markets. Using logistic regression on 230 rural businesses, the researchers found that capital, industry experience, staffing, and marketing skills most significantly predict success. The Lussier prediction model achieved 71% accuracy, validating its use across both advanced and developing economies and providing practical guidance for rural entrepreneurs, policymakers, and financial institutions.
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Applicability of diffusion of innovation theory in organic agriculture
The authors argue that diffusion of innovation theory can effectively explain how organic farming spreads and is adopted by agricultural communities. Organic farming emerged as an innovation addressing environmental problems and rural development challenges. The theory helps analyze organic farming systems by accounting for their unique characteristics and how knowledge about these practices transfers among farmers. The authors conclude the framework is applicable to studying organic farming adoption.
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Appreciating the Contribution of Broadband ICT With Rural and Remote Communities: Stepping Stones Toward an Alternative Paradigm
Conventional broadband policy evaluation in rural areas focuses narrowly on measurable short-term outcomes, missing how ICT actually contributes to economic, social, and cultural wellbeing. This paper proposes an alternative approach treating broadband projects as learning experiments within sociotechnical systems. It emphasizes stakeholder engagement, adaptive policymaking, and letting communities define their own impact indicators rather than imposing predetermined measures.
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Unpacking the Personal Initiative–Performance Relationship: A Multi‐Group Analysis of Innovation by Ugandan Rural and Urban Entrepreneurs
Personal initiative drives innovation differently in rural versus urban Uganda. The study identifies two mechanisms: business planning works better in dynamic environments, while social network development matters more in individualistic settings. In static, collectivistic rural contexts, personal initiative has less impact on innovation. The findings come from surveying 573 Ugandan entrepreneurs across rural and urban areas.
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In pursuit of responsible innovation for precision agriculture technologies
Agricultural decision support systems using satellite data, drones, and machine learning reshape how farms operate, but create uneven benefits and risks. Research with farmers in Vermont and South Dakota reveals these technologies transform knowledge production, change labor arrangements, and distribute advantages unevenly. Developers must adopt inclusive deliberative processes when designing these systems to ensure ethical, equitable, and sustainable outcomes.
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Exploring the readiness of publicly funded researchers to practice responsible research and innovation in digital agriculture
Irish publicly funded researchers show alignment with responsible research and innovation principles in digital agriculture, but face challenges implementing integrated RRI approaches. Interviews with 15 scientists and funders revealed three key concerns: unintended cultural consequences of technology, ensuring farm-level usability, and clarifying scientist responsibilities. The study identifies gaps in how RRI frameworks are framed and supported within academic institutions.
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Making room for manoeuvre: addressing gender norms to strengthen the enabling environment for agricultural innovation
Gender norms significantly shape whether agricultural innovation succeeds or fails at the local level, yet development research has largely overlooked them. Drawing on the GENNOVATE research initiative, the authors show that gender norms interact with individual agency to determine agricultural outcomes. Effective agricultural development requires explicitly addressing these norms and challenging underlying inequality structures, not just focusing on policies, markets, and institutions.
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Preinoculation of Soybean Seeds Treated with Agrichemicals up to 30 Days before Sowing: Technological Innovation for Large-Scale Agriculture
Researchers developed a method for preinoculating soybean seeds with beneficial microorganisms up to 30 days before planting, even when seeds have been treated with agrichemicals. This innovation allows large-scale farmers to prepare seeds in advance without losing the benefits of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, improving crop performance and yield.
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Entrepreneurship for social impact: encouraging market access in rural Bangladesh
This case study examines how an entrepreneur in rural Bangladesh created new institutional arrangements to enable poor people to access markets and participate in the economy. By combining available resources and institutions creatively, the entrepreneur built platforms that addressed the institutional gaps preventing the poorest from engaging in economic activity. The findings offer practical strategies for development agencies and policymakers seeking to reduce poverty and corruption.
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Agricultural innovation from above and from below: Confrontation and integration on Rwanda's Hills
Rwanda's smallholder banana farmers develop their own innovations alongside top-down agricultural modernization efforts promoted by the World Bank's Green Revolution agenda. The paper shows how farmers receive and adapt macro-level innovations while simultaneously creating grassroots solutions driven by their own risk-management needs. The authors argue that policymakers must prioritize farmers' capacity for bottom-up innovation when designing Rwanda's agricultural strategies.
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Is There Any Difference in the Impact of Digital Transformation on the Quantity and Efficiency of Enterprise Technological Innovation? Taking China’s Agricultural Listed Companies as an Example
Digital transformation in China's agricultural companies increases the quantity of technological innovations but does not improve innovation efficiency. The effect varies by company ownership type and depends on operating expense ratios. When operating expenses fall below a critical threshold, digital transformation significantly boosts innovation efficiency. These findings reveal that digitalization alone does not guarantee better-quality innovations in agricultural enterprises.
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Intellectual Property Rights and the Ascent of Proprietary Innovation in Agriculture
Agricultural biological innovations historically lacked formal intellectual property protection, but recent decades have seen substantial strengthening of these rights. This paper documents how plant IPRs have evolved, examines economic theory on their effects, and reviews empirical evidence on innovation outcomes. The authors show how agricultural IPR experience aligns with or diverges from broader IPR literature, and discuss implications for market structure and input pricing.
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Classification of Social Innovations for Marginalized Rural Areas
This paper establishes a common definition of social innovation tailored for marginalized rural areas. The authors argue that existing definitions lack specificity for rural contexts and propose a classification framework to standardize how social innovations are identified and evaluated in rural development. This enables consistent measurement and comparison of social innovations addressing rural marginalization.
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Using diffusion of innovations theory to understand agricultural producer perspectives on cover cropping in the inland Pacific Northwest, USA
Farmers in the inland Pacific Northwest resist adopting cover crops despite research showing benefits. Using diffusion of innovations theory, interviews with 28 producers revealed that low perceived profitability, incompatibility with existing systems, and complexity of experimentation deter adoption. Focus groups with 48 stakeholders identified opportunities to improve adoption by providing region-specific agronomic and economic data, aligning policies with producer goals, and tailoring outreach to local conditions.
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Disruption disrupted? Reflecting on the relationship between responsible innovation and digital agriculture research and development at multiple levels in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
Digital agriculture technologies promise productivity gains but create socio-ethical challenges. This paper examines responsible innovation practices in Australian and New Zealand public agricultural research organizations. The authors find that responsible innovation remains only partially implemented, with gaps between stated goals and actual practice. They argue that systemic organizational changes—including new performance measures and reward structures—are necessary to embed responsibility across research teams and enhance socially beneficial outcomes in digital agriculture development.
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Responsible to whom? Seed innovations and the corporatization of agriculture
Hybrid and genetically engineered seed innovations were developed alongside corporate and chemical industry interests, systematically disadvantaging small farmers and alternative agricultural practices. The paper traces how these technological shifts occurred with minimal public controversy because they were embedded in cultural narratives about seeds and farming that normalized corporate control. The author argues that examining seed innovation through technopolitics and cultural analysis reveals how responsibility gets built into technology design, before those choices become locked into material systems and social practice.
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What really matters? A qualitative analysis on the adoption of innovations in agriculture
Agricultural innovation adoption depends on multiple interconnected factors beyond technology alone. Research across Italy, Greece, and Turkey identified that farmers prioritize ease of use, effectiveness, usefulness, resource savings, and compatibility. Adoption accelerates through trials, demonstrations, knowledge sharing, and expert support. Public funding, agricultural policies, and market conditions significantly influence whether farmers ultimately adopt new technologies.
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The Role of Agency in the Emergence and Development of Social Innovations in Rural Areas. Analysis of Two Cases of Social Farming in Italy and The Netherlands
This paper examines how agency—the ability to turn challenges into opportunities—drives social innovation in rural agriculture. Researchers studied two social farming cases in Italy and the Netherlands, developing a framework to evaluate agency dimensions using both quantitative and qualitative data. The findings show that a strong innovation idea, agency resilience, and the agency's embeddedness in local context are critical for social innovations to emerge and develop in rural areas.
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Innovation and firm growth in agricultural inputs industry: empirical evidence from India
R&D investments in India's agricultural input firms—seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, and machinery—drive firm growth, with stronger effects for younger companies. Export-oriented firms and those importing raw materials show different growth patterns. The study of 1,320 firm-year observations from 2001–2019 demonstrates that innovation benefits compound over time and help firms capture industry externalities, suggesting governments should subsidize R&D to boost agricultural input sector competitiveness.
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Financial development, technological innovation and urban-rural income gap: Time series evidence from China
This study examines how technological innovation and financial development affect China's urban-rural income gap from 1985 to 2019. The researchers find that technological innovation increases income inequality between urban and rural areas, while financial development shows an inverted-U relationship with the gap. The two factors have bidirectional causal relationships with income inequality. The findings suggest policymakers should strengthen financial systems and mitigate negative distributional effects of technological advancement.
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Village public innovations during COVID19 pandemic in rural areas: Phenomena in Madura, Indonesia
During the COVID-19 pandemic, village administrations in Sampang Regency, Indonesia implemented three types of public innovations to maintain their green zone status and adapt to new living habits. These included product innovations like cash assistance programs and free internet networks, process innovations using call centers and digital communication tools, and policy innovations establishing volunteer teams and social distancing protocols at the village level.
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Evaluating Innovation in European Rural Development Programmes: Application of the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Method
This paper evaluates social innovation outcomes from England's Rural Development Programme using Social Return on Investment methodology. Analysis of 196 beneficiaries found that innovation support generated £170 million in benefits through individual behavior changes, operational improvements, relational shifts, and institutional reforms. The authors argue that traditional performance measures fail to capture social innovation's full value and call for comprehensive evaluation approaches that better connect innovation outcomes to rural policy decisions.
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Social innovation and rural territories: Exploring invisible contexts and actors in Portugal and India
Social innovation in rural areas drives personal and socioeconomic development by meeting citizen needs and promoting empowerment. This study compares social innovation emergence in rural Portugal and India, revealing how top-down and bottom-up approaches shape innovation differently across contrasting socioeconomic contexts. The research fills a gap by examining rural innovation dynamics in both western and non-western settings.
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Supporting bottom-up innovative initiatives throughout the spiral of innovations: Lessons from rural Greece
Bottom-up innovative initiatives emerge in rural areas even under difficult conditions. The Spiral of Innovations framework, applied non-linearly, helps track how these initiatives develop. Innovation Support Services tailored to each initiative and its development stage prove critical for success. Networking between diverse actors—farmers, researchers, businesses, policymakers—drives innovation co-generation and strengthens rural economies.
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Understanding Indigenous Innovation in Rural West Africa: Challenges to Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Current Social Innovation Practice
Development agencies implementing social innovation in West Africa often impose external processes that disrespect indigenous creativity and ignore existing local innovation. The author documents a functioning innovation system among Hausa villagers in Niger that operates independently of development intervention, challenging diffusion of innovations theory. Supporting indigenous innovation processes proves more effective than initiating externally-designed change.
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Innovations, food storage and the origins of agriculture
The paper argues that nomadic hunter-gatherers transitioned to sedentary agriculture by building on existing skills in foraging, pottery, and food storage. As their tool kits grew heavier and more diverse, settling in one place became practical. Sedentarism then enabled specialization in the very activities that had burdened them—plant cultivation and food storage—ultimately driving the global emergence of agriculture.
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Hegemony, Technological Innovation and Corporate Identities: 50 Years of Agricultural Revolutions in Argentina
Argentine agriculture experienced two major technological shifts since the mid-1960s: the Green Revolution and the Agribusiness Paradigm. Each period was led by a different agrarian elite that framed technological adoption as essential for agricultural survival. The paper shows how agrarian leaders used technological innovation as ideology to gain political influence, with each era linking specific technologies, business models, and government policies to construct and maintain their power over agricultural development.
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Reconstructive Social Innovation Cycles in Women-Led Initiatives in Rural Areas
Women-led social innovations in rural Canada, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, and Serbia address gender equity challenges by reconstructing discriminatory practices, institutions, and beliefs. The study identifies a reconstructive social innovation cycle—cyclical processes where women engage through civil society initiatives to question and transform marginalizing norms. These innovations operate across everyday practices, institutional structures, and cognitive frames, offering concrete pathways for rural women to overcome patriarchal barriers and create opportunities for education and employment.
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Exploring social innovation through co-creation in rural India using action research
Co-creation workshops in rural Indian villages successfully generated socially innovative solutions to development challenges. The study used action research and co-design techniques to involve citizens in identifying innovative ideas. The authors developed a framework showing how facilitated co-creation effectively produces social innovation, offering practitioners a replicable method for designing more impactful public policies in disadvantaged rural communities.
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Design, innovation, and rural creative places: Are the arts the cherry on top, or the secret sauce?
Rural establishments with strong design orientations—particularly those integrating design into core operations—grow faster economically than those without systematic design approaches. Design-intensive rural firms cluster in counties with educated workforces and performing arts organizations. The study identifies three distinct design and innovation orientations among rural businesses and confirms that design integration correlates with wage growth during economic recovery, suggesting design capability drives rural economic performance.
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Social entrepreneurship and innovation: Self-organization in an indigenous context
This paper examines social entrepreneurship in Māori communities through complexity theory and self-organization. Innovation emerges from interaction between young opportunity-seeking entrepreneurs (potiki) and elder statespeople (rangatira) within tribal structures. The research shows that tradition and cultural heritage enable innovation pathways, while entrepreneurial risk-takers advance along those paths. Historical and cultural context fundamentally shapes how social and economic entrepreneurship develop.
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Indigenous Innovation and Economic Development: Lessons from China's Leap into the Information Age
This paper examines indigenous innovation in China's computer electronics industry through case studies of four leading companies—Stone, Legend, Great Wall, and Founder—from their origins through the late 1990s. The analysis applies a framework emphasizing strategic control, organizational integration, and financial commitment as critical factors driving innovation. The findings illuminate how Chinese firms developed indigenous technological capabilities and their implications for understanding innovation dynamics and economic development.
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Entrepreneurial orientation, strategic flexibilities and indigenous firm innovation in transitional China
This paper examines how entrepreneurial orientation influences innovation in Chinese firms during economic transition, mediated by strategic flexibility. The researchers developed a conceptual model and tested it empirically, revealing how firms' willingness to take risks and pursue opportunities translates into innovation through their ability to adapt strategies flexibly.
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The Role of Microfinance in Contemporary Rural Development Finance Policy and Practice: Imposing Neoliberalism as ‘Best Practice’
Microcredit emerged in the 1970s as a poverty-reduction tool based on individual entrepreneurship, gaining strong support from neoliberal policymakers and international development institutions. However, evidence now shows microcredit has failed to reduce poverty or support rural development. Rural communities exposed to microcredit have suffered damage through boom-and-bust cycles. Despite this failure, major development institutions and Western governments continue supporting microfinance for ideological reasons.
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Indigenous Distinctive Innovations to Achieve its Vision, Priority and Thrust – A Case Study of Srinivas University
Srinivas University in Karnataka developed an Indigenous Distinctive Innovations model to help higher education institutions differentiate themselves while advancing their core missions. The model operates across university, institutional, and faculty levels through specific strategies, methods, and pedagogies. The case study demonstrates how this framework enables institutions to improve service quality and institutional standing.
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Knowledge management approaches in managing agricultural indigenous and exogenous knowledge in Tanzania
Western knowledge management models fail to address rural farming communities in developing countries. This study examined how Tanzanian farmers acquire and share both indigenous and exogenous agricultural knowledge. Indigenous knowledge spreads through small local networks, while exogenous knowledge reaches wider audiences via formal sources. Policies, legal frameworks, ICTs, and culture shape knowledge access. The researcher developed a new knowledge management model tailored to rural developing-world contexts.
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A Spiral of Innovation Framework for Social Entrepreneurship: Social Innovation at the Generational Divide in an Indigenous Context
This paper examines social innovation in indigenous Māori communities through a complex adaptive systems lens. It argues that innovation emerges from intergenerational collaboration between young opportunity-seeking entrepreneurs (potiki) and elder statespeople (rangatira), combining social and economic entrepreneurial activity. The authors propose a 'Spiral of Innovation' framework that integrates opportunity-seeking with cultural heritage, illustrated through the example of Māori Maps, positioning innovation as self-organization within specific cultural contexts.
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Mindfulness, indigenous knowledge, indigenous innovations and entrepreneurship
Mindfulness enables indigenous communities to develop and value their own knowledge systems, fostering indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship. The paper argues that when researchers and societies practice mindfulness—appreciating non-Western forms of knowledge—they recognize indigenous communities' accumulated experiences and accumulated knowledge as valuable resources for economic development and sustainability. This recognition facilitates indigenous-led business ventures and innovations rooted in local understanding.
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Organizational Learning, Internal Control Mechanisms, and Indigenous Innovation: The Evidence from China
This study examines how Chinese firms develop indigenous innovation through two types of organizational learning: acquisitive learning (acquiring external knowledge) and experimental learning (learning by doing). The research finds that experimental learning mediates the relationship between acquisitive learning and innovation. Internal control mechanisms—behavior control and output control—moderate these relationships differently, with behavior control hindering acquisitive learning but supporting experimental learning, while output control shows an inverted relationship with both learning types.
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Organizational culture, organizational citizenship behavior, knowledge sharing and innovation: a study of indigenous people production organizations
This study examines how organizational culture, citizenship behavior, knowledge sharing, and innovation interact within Indigenous peoples' production organizations. Using data from 139 Indigenous workers, the research finds that organizational culture directly influences both citizenship behavior and innovation, while knowledge sharing alone does not drive innovation. Organizational citizenship behavior mediates the relationship between culture and knowledge sharing, suggesting these organizations motivate staff participation but need stronger mechanisms to translate that into innovation performance.
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Understanding indigenous knowledge: Bridging the knowledge gap through a knowledge creation model for agricultural development
Indigenous knowledge management in Tanzania's agricultural sector can be strengthened using Nonaka's knowledge creation theory. The study found that local communities need structured knowledge-creating environments to capture, preserve, and share traditional agricultural knowledge while integrating it with new technologies and innovations. Adequate resources for documentation are essential before this knowledge disappears.
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Indigenous Knowledge, Mapping, and GIS: A Diffusion of Innovation Perspective
Indigenous peoples are increasingly adopting GIS technology to map and communicate their traditional knowledge. Using a diffusion of innovation framework, this paper examines how Indigenous communities have adopted and implemented GIS based on published research and fieldwork. The authors identify gaps in current understanding and recommend future research directions to better support Indigenous peoples' use of high-technology mapping for preserving and sharing their knowledge systems.
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The pursuit of indigenous innovation amid the Tech Cold War: The case of a Chinese high-tech firm
A Chinese high-tech firm pursued indigenous innovation during geopolitical tensions by leveraging organizational cultural attributes including patriotism, elitism, and endurance of hardship. The study shows how emerging market firms develop advanced capabilities to reduce dependence on international knowledge sources when facing techno-nationalist restrictions. Organizational culture and state policies significantly shape innovation strategies for firms operating under geopolitical constraints.
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Islands of Indigenous innovation: reclaiming and reconceptualising innovation within, against and beyond colonial‐capitalism
This paper challenges the dominant capitalist definition of innovation by examining Indigenous innovation through a critical lens. Using case studies from Te Moana-nui-a-kiwa (the Pacific), the authors demonstrate that Indigenous communities practice innovation outside and against colonial-capitalism, focused on collective wellbeing rather than profit. The paper reclaims innovation as central to Indigeneity and expands its meaning to include collective struggle and survival.
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The Dynamism of Nations: Toward a Theory of Indigenous Innovation
Phelps argues that standard economic models fail to explain modern economies because they ignore indigenous innovation—genuinely new ideas driven by human creativity, not just technological parameter shifts. Western nations have lost dynamism because corporatist values, regulation, and social protection have replaced the modern values of individualism and visionary thinking that historically fueled mass innovation and prosperity. Restoring economic vitality requires cultural change, not just policy reform.
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Sustainability of indigenous folk tales, music and cultural heritage through innovation
This paper documents the creation of Bah Luj Production, an innovative resource package of folk tales, music, and cultural heritage from Malaysia's indigenous Semai people. The authors argue that cultural sustainability requires collaboration between culture bearers and researchers, combined with adaptability to contemporary consumer interests. The practice-led approach demonstrates that indigenous traditions survive when they remain flexible, relevant, and open to innovation rather than preserved in static form.
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Absorptive Capacity in Rural Schools: Bending Not Breaking During Disruptive Innovation Implementation
Rural schools successfully implemented disruptive education policy innovations by developing absorptive capacity through specific leadership strategies and organizational processes. School leaders used buffering, bridging, and brokering tactics alongside shared goal-setting, curriculum revision, and teacher collaboration to maintain student performance while selectively adopting external reforms. These mechanisms enabled educators to assimilate and transform new knowledge without abandoning existing strengths.
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The Decolonized Quadruple Bottom Line: A Framework for Developing Indigenous Innovation
This paper proposes a decolonized quadruple bottom line framework for indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship. Rather than the standard triple bottom line (people, planet, profit), the authors add spirituality and culture as essential factors. The framework combines community, spirituality, sustainability, and entrepreneurship to create indigenous innovation that supports sustainable economic development for American Indian nations and communities.
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China's indigenous innovation approach: the emergence of Chinese innovation theory?
China is developing indigenous innovation capabilities to build an innovation-based economy, but existing research relies heavily on Western innovation theory. This paper proposes building a distinctly Chinese innovation theory rather than applying Western frameworks. The authors present a research agenda and seven papers that develop this Chinese-centric approach to understanding innovation in Chinese business and policy.
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The Impact of Foreign and Indigenous Innovations on the Energy Intensity of China’s Industries
Indigenous innovation drives down industrial energy intensity in China more effectively than foreign innovation. Foreign direct investment and imports reduce energy intensity, while exports increase it. The relationship between foreign innovation and energy intensity depends on a sector's technological absorptive capacity. Policymakers should maximize technology spillovers and consider sector-specific factors when targeting industrial energy efficiency.
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The Strategic Role of Indigenous Innovation for Global Competition The Case Study of Mobile Phone and Telecom-Equipment Industry in China
Indigenous innovation strengthens technological capabilities and supports long-term firm growth. The authors develop a model linking globalization, market conditions, and technical factors to indigenous innovation. Analysis of China's mobile phone and telecom-equipment industries demonstrates how firms leverage indigenous innovation during economic transitions to compete globally.
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Framings in Indigenous futures thinking: barriers, opportunities, and innovations
Indigenous peoples bring distinctive perspectives to futures thinking—shaped by colonisation, unique knowledge systems, and commitment to biodiversity—that enable innovative solutions to climate change and social injustice. This paper identifies four framings of Indigenous futures thinking (Adaptation oriented, Participatory, Culturally grounded, and Indigenising) and finds that innovation increases when Indigenous people lead research teams, co-design projects, use Indigenous methodologies, and apply decolonisation approaches. The authors create a glossary to standardise terminology across this emerging field.
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Assembling indigeneity: Rethinking innovation, tradition and indigenous materiality in a 19th-century native toolkit
This paper analyzes iron tools from a 19th-century Nipmuc home site in Massachusetts to understand how Native woodsplint basketmaking emerged as a trade practice. The baskets were marketed as traditional and authentic to Anglo-American buyers, yet their forms, decorations, and tools were actually innovations developed in post-Revolutionary economic conditions. The author uses assemblage theory to show how Indigenous innovation and tradition coexist rather than conflict.
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INDIGENOUS INNOVATION, FOREIGN TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND THE EXPORT PERFORMANCE OF CHINA’S MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES
Domestic innovation efforts in China's manufacturing industries boost export performance, but skill shortages limit their impact. Foreign technology transfer and knowledge spillovers from foreign enterprises prove even more effective at driving exports than domestic innovation. Over time, China's industrial exports show increasing domestic content, indicating growing reliance on internal innovation alongside foreign technology channels.
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The Constitution of the White Earth Nation: A New Innovation in a Longstanding Indigenous Literary Tradition
This essay examines the White Earth Nation Constitution as an innovation within indigenous literary traditions. The author traces how Gerald Vizenor and co-authors drew on centuries of indigenous constitutional literature—from the Popol Vuh through colonial petitions to contemporary fiction—to create a living text that uses irony and political critique. The constitution functions as a tool for imagining and inventing indigenous worlds through established literary and political methodologies.
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Promoting and sustaining rural social innovation
Rural social innovation requires addressing rural decline through innovative service delivery, empowering vulnerable groups like immigrants, and involving multiple local stakeholders. The study identifies key mechanisms: identifying urgent societal challenges, increasing rural attractiveness, mobilizing marginalized populations in service design, and using participatory workshops to develop and implement community-driven solutions.
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STUDY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF INNOVATION FOR THE BOP CONSUMER — THE CASE OF A RURAL WATER FILTER
This paper examines innovation principles for low-income markets using a rural water filter developed in India. The researchers used quality control methodology to establish realistic bacterial removal specifications, then introduced the filter in a village where it reduced waterborne disease cases significantly. The cost savings from fewer illnesses exceeded filter costs, creating a profitable model for both rural consumers and entrepreneurs.
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Social Innovation in Rural Regions: Older Adults and Creative Community Development*
Disadvantaged rural regions face demographic decline and economic challenges while being pressured to innovate. This paper examines how social innovations actually emerge in these regions and challenges the assumption that older adults cannot be innovators. Drawing on a research project in rural municipalities, the authors show that older adults actively drive and participate in socially innovative community development projects, with their contributions shaped by personal motivations, community interests, and available resources.
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>Intersectional knowledge as rural social innovation
Rural communities develop locally-rooted solutions shaped by intersecting identities of caste, race, gender, ethnicity, and class. The paper argues these grassroots innovations deserve recognition as legitimate social innovation. By centering rural actors' own knowledge and experiences—particularly marginalized groups—the authors expand how we understand and value rural social innovation beyond conventional frameworks.
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Social Innovation: The Promise and the Reality in Marginalised Rural Areas in Europe
Social innovation offers a practical approach to addressing challenges in marginal rural European areas, but the concept lacks clear theoretical grounding and suffers from definitional confusion. Three European case studies demonstrate that when committed local actors, enabling institutions, and supportive policies align, social innovation delivers positive social, economic, and environmental outcomes in specific places. However, the concept faces competition from established frameworks like community-led local development and emerging approaches like smart villages.
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Analyzing social innovation as a process in rural areas: Key dimensions and success factors for the revival of the traditional charcoal burning in Slovenia
A 20-year case study of Charcoal Land in Slovenia reveals how social innovation revived traditional charcoal burning in a remote rural area. The research identifies five key dimensions of the social innovation process and three critical success factors: innovators embedded in multiple networks, strategic use of narratives to secure resources, and legitimization by local and public actors. The revival scaled beyond the original territory and became recognized as an intangible cultural practice with sustainable forestry applications.
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Social Innovation Impacts and Their Assessment: An Exploratory Study of a Social Innovation Initiative from a Portuguese Rural Region
This case study examines how a social innovation initiative in rural Portugal creates measurable impacts across multiple sectors and timeframes. The research finds that the local development association ADC Moura generates effects spanning social, economic, institutional, and environmental domains, with strongest influence at the municipal level. The study demonstrates that social innovation assessment in rural contexts requires multi-dimensional frameworks capturing impacts beyond single sectors.
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How can rural China achieve sustainable development through inclusive innovation? A tripartite evolutionary game analysis
This study uses evolutionary game theory to analyze how government, enterprises, and low-income customers interact to drive inclusive innovation in rural China. The research finds that government support must evolve across innovation stages—advocating initially, promoting during growth, then stepping back as markets mature. Low subsidies and high supervision costs both undermine innovation adoption. The findings suggest tailored policy mechanisms for different innovation lifecycle stages can accelerate sustainable rural development.
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Application of a Comprehensive Methodology for the Evaluation of Social Innovations in Rural Communities
This paper applies a comprehensive evaluation framework based on OECD criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability) to assess a social innovation initiative in rural Southern Italy. The evaluation methodology successfully identifies strengths and weaknesses across multiple dimensions, with 48% of indicators rated high and 36% medium. The results support communication strategies, help project managers address gaps, and provide evidence for policymakers designing cost-effective rural development policies.
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The Importance of Social Innovations in Rural Areas
Social innovations—new ideas addressing existing social problems—play a critical role in rural development that technical innovations alone cannot fulfill. The paper distinguishes social from technical innovation and examines how social innovations expand employment and support rural development. Successful rural strategies require active participation from citizens and civil organizations, supported by strong local identity and community cohesion. Technical solutions are insufficient; social innovations addressing disadvantaged groups and underdeveloped regions are essential for sustainable rural progress.
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Social Innovations for the Achievement of Competitive Agriculture and the Sustainable Development of Peripheral Rural Areas
This study analyzes social innovations across peripheral rural areas in Finland, Croatia, and France, examining nine good practice examples to understand how social innovations drive sustainable rural development and competitive agriculture. The research identifies distinct types of social innovations shaped by regional social conditions and demonstrates that these innovations significantly impact rural economic activities and sustainability outcomes, with notable differences in social, environmental, and economic effects across the three European regions.
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A rural laboratory in the Austrian alm—Tracing the contingent processes fostering social innovation at the local level
Social innovation in rural areas emerges through evolving ecosystems and infrastructures rather than isolated projects. This study of Austria's Mühlviertel region shows how local perceptions and development ideas become institutionalized through governance networks over time, combining incremental and radical innovations in contingent, temporally dependent processes.
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Rural Community Development Click-by-Click. Processes and dynamics of digitally supported social innovations in peripheral rural areas
Digital tools are transforming how peripheral rural communities address local challenges in communication, healthcare, and mobility. This study of five German villages identifies how digitally supported social innovations develop through three phases: inspiration, emergence, and consolidation. The process follows a linear-circular pattern, combining targeted problem-solving with creative feedback loops that generate new ideas throughout implementation.
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Modes of spread in social innovation: A social topology case in rural Portugal
Social innovation spreads through rural regions via material and discursive configurations that circulate across spatial scales and territorial boundaries. Using a network of young farmers in Portugal (EPAM) as a case study, the research demonstrates that social innovation operates simultaneously as a bounded regional object and as a trans-scalar relational process where objects, subjects, and spaces reconfigure each other. Images and infrastructure prove agential in how social innovation diffuses through peripheral rural territories.
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An exploration of potential growth pathways of social innovations in rural Europe
This paper develops a typology of growth pathways for social innovations in rural Europe. The authors synthesize existing frameworks from literature to clarify how social innovations expand and develop differently across rural contexts. They apply rural development theories to explain why certain pathways emerge in rural areas, addressing the lack of clear conceptualization around both social innovation itself and its scaling mechanisms.
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‘Regenerative’ Social Innovation for European Rural Regions? Lessons from Regenerative Farming
Regenerative agriculture represents an emerging form of rural social innovation in Europe, where grassroots farming initiatives embed food production within social and ecological systems. These practices encourage shared responsibility for resource use and challenge mainstream development models. The paper argues regenerative farming offers a pathway toward non-extractivist economies that fundamentally rethink growth and production systems.
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Challenges of impact assessment in Social Innovation: A qualitative study from two European rural regions
Social innovation initiatives in rural Austria and Portugal struggle to assess their impacts despite recognizing its importance. Local development organizations face conceptual and practical challenges in measuring outcomes because no uniform assessment method exists. The study reveals tensions between different approaches to impact evaluation and difficulties in determining what counts as impact across different levels of analysis.
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How Social Innovation can be Supported in Structurally Weak Rural Regions
Social innovation initiatives flourish across rural Europe, driven by residents and entrepreneurs addressing societal challenges. This paper analyzes conditions enabling rural social innovation to emerge and identifies critical factors supporting or hindering its success. The research reconstructs actor constellations and innovation phases, pinpoints obstacles that derail initiatives, and determines which support strategies help social innovation develop in structurally weak rural regions.
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Better the devil you know? A relational reading of risk and innovation in the rural water sector
A Ugandan NGO developed CBM-lite, an innovation to improve hand pump maintenance in rural water systems by replacing voluntary committees with paid operators and adding microfinance insurance for repairs. Despite addressing real sustainability problems, the innovation faced resistance because stakeholders preferred known risks of system failure over potential threats to established ideology, organizational reputation, and social norms. The study reveals that sector inertia, not technical barriers, explains why communities resist even improvements to community-based water management.
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Women economic empowerment leads towards social innovation in rural setting of Saudi Arabia
Women's economic empowerment significantly drives social innovation in rural Saudi Arabia. The study measured five empowerment dimensions: family decision-making, mobility freedom, political participation, progressive attitudes, and parental background. All dimensions showed positive effects on social innovation, with mobility freedom having the strongest impact. The findings demonstrate that supporting women's autonomy, political engagement, and progressive thinking fosters community innovation and sustainable change.
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State-driven social innovation: Can neo-exogenous development address rural marginalization? A tale of two villages in China
China's Rural Revitalization Strategy represents state-driven social innovation that can reduce rural marginalization, but outcomes depend heavily on how social capital is built. Two Sichuan villages showed different results: one remained dependent on external actors despite infrastructure improvements, while the other leveraged bonding social capital and local leadership to create inclusive partnerships with government. Effective sequencing of state initiatives regenerates all forms of social capital and enables adaptive governance.
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Municipal Social Innovation in a Rural Region
Swedish rural municipalities in Norrbotten recognize social innovation as essential for improving public services, but adoption varies significantly. Resource constraints from declining populations, aging demographics, shrinking tax bases, and labor shortages limit their capacity to implement social innovation despite national and international promotion efforts.
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Landscapes of practices, social learning systems and rural innovation.
Rural innovation systems benefit from understanding how communities of practice connect across boundaries. This paper applies Wenger's concept of 'landscapes of practices' to rural innovation, showing how learning and innovation potential increases when strong core practices link through active boundary processes. Examples of rural innovation communities demonstrate how systems thinking can help practitioners enhance their collective learning and innovation capacity across multiple interconnected groups.
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Valuation in Rural Social Innovation Processes—Analysing Micro-Impact of a Collaborative Community in Southern Italy
This paper examines how valuation processes embedded within social innovation activities drive rural development in a southern Italian agricultural community. The researchers identify three valuation phases—contesting norms, accumulating symbolic capital, and redefining values—that generate micro-level impacts on the agro-economic system, local culture, and place-making. The study demonstrates that collaborative valuation occurring during social innovation implementation, not just afterward, produces tangible community empowerment and societal change through joint sense-making.
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Rural development as the propagation of regional ‘communities of values’: A case study of local discourses promoting social innovation and social sustainability
Rural development initiatives in Austria's Mühlviertel region use social innovation to address economic and demographic decline by reconstructing how communities understand themselves and their places. The study shows that social innovation efforts succeed by promoting shared regional values and reshaping social bonds, creating new visions of sustainable countryside life that counter narratives of rural decline.
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Improving the lives of rural Indians through social innovation
Rural India faces interconnected challenges requiring participatory development approaches. Current innovation policy emphasizes economic and technological gains while overlooking local community strengths and social capital. The paper argues that sustainable rural development depends on leveraging local resources, stakeholder participation, and social capital. It recommends state support for affordable agriculture, ICT access, vocational training, self-help groups, and microfinance to enable rural communities.
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Can Social Innovation and Agriculture Serve as a Turning Point in Rural Areas? Insights from a Bibliometric Literature Review
This bibliometric review of 178 publications examines how social innovation and agriculture address rural challenges. The analysis identifies agriculture, digitalization, and forestry as key research areas, alongside emerging organizational models like rural hubs, living labs, and community cooperatives. These initiatives aim to revitalize rural social fabric and improve quality of life in rural populations.
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Teatro Povero di Monticchiello: Community-based Social Innovation and Intangible Heritage in Rural Tuscany
Teatro Povero di Monticchiello in rural Tuscany stages autodrama annually, blending community participation with cultural heritage. The paper shows how this fifty-year practice functions simultaneously as intangible heritage and social innovation, driven by place attachment, collective memory, and collaborative leadership. Local residents view autodrama as both cultural preservation and a vehicle for social change.
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Frugal innovation and sustainable development: a holy grail for rural transformation
Frugal innovation—affordable, accessible, and sustainable solutions—offers rural communities a pathway to development. Multinational companies can drive positive change by aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals, establishing local partnerships, and empowering local entrepreneurs. This approach addresses rural poverty, healthcare, education, and energy access while creating social impact, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.
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Evaluating the Efficacy of Social Innovation Programming at Advancing Rural Development in the Context of Exogenous Shocks
A randomized evaluation in rural Peru shows that a social innovation program significantly improved household economic well-being, food security, and community outlook despite COVID-19 disruptions. Participating households shifted income sources away from traditional agriculture toward entrepreneurship and specialized labor in both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. These diversified, value-added activities proved more resilient than traditional farming during the pandemic, generating net income gains that outweighed losses from reduced agricultural earnings.
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Co-creation of social innovations for healthy ageing in rural Europe – a process evaluation of a volunteer-led guided conversation toolkit using Normalisation Process Theory (NPT)
Researchers evaluated a volunteer-led toolkit for healthy ageing in rural European communities using Normalisation Process Theory. They interviewed 25 project partners and volunteers across Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The study found that effective toolkits must address ageing holistically by considering person-centred and place-based factors. Normalisation Process Theory proved valuable for understanding how context shapes implementation of social innovations.
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The Impact of Dissonance? A Valuation Perspective on Rural Social Innovation Processes
Social innovation in rural areas produces impacts that are constructed iteratively through the innovation process itself, not predetermined outcomes. The authors introduce 'dissonance'—tensions and conflicts at key moments like impulses, turning points, and lock-ins—as a critical mechanism shaping how value emerges and gets assigned. Using case studies from Northern Germany, they show that understanding rural social innovation requires examining how stakeholders experience and negotiate value throughout the process, rather than measuring fixed results.
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Frugal innovation in women-led family businesses in rural communities
Women-led family businesses in rural Oaxaca, Mexico use four types of frugal innovation to survive crises: new production and marketing models, operational methods, financing methods, and organizational methods. The study of 160 businesses found that shifting to new financing and organizational approaches proved most critical for survival during disruptions like COVID-19. These findings reveal how resource-constrained women entrepreneurs in the Global South innovate under pressure.
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Adoption of Digital Innovations in Rural Banking of Vellore District: Based on UTAUT Model
This study examines why rural bank customers in Vellore District adopt digital banking innovations like mobile apps and digital wallets. Using the UTAUT model with 525 rural respondents, the researchers found that customers embrace these technologies primarily because they make banking easier and faster. Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, and security all positively influence adoption decisions.
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Local Community Participation in Social Innovation Initiatives for Enhancing the Quality of Life: A Case Study in Rural Egypt
A study of two rural Egyptian villages examined what factors influence community participation in a long-running grassroots social innovation initiative. Researchers surveyed 221 households and found that participation increased with positive attitudes toward the initiative, sense of community, and perceived benefits. Participation decreased when people's needs were already satisfied or when social loafing occurred. Age, mobility, attitude, and community feeling together explained 61% of participation variation.
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Living Lab, interrupted? Exploring new methods for postdigital exchange on WeChat with urban-rural Living Labs in China and Germany during COVID-19
This paper tests a postdigital ethnographic method using WeChat photo exchanges to engage with Living Labs in China and Germany during COVID-19. Researchers created a photo-sharing group where participants documented everyday experiences, revealing the approach effectively builds rapport and captures local practices. However, the method faced challenges around trust, bias, and ethics. The authors propose four design principles for conducting Living Lab research when in-person collaboration is impossible.
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Cultural and communicative pathways in grassroots science and innovation: field research learnings from under-resourced rural India
This study examines how grassroots innovation emerges in under-resourced rural India through culturally grounded science communication practices. Working with youth in underserved communities, the research shows that informal settings foster locally relevant solutions despite linguistic diversity, trust gaps, and infrastructure limits. The work rejects top-down expert models and advocates instead for community-centered, dialogic approaches that integrate Indigenous methodologies and position marginalized voices as sources of knowledge.
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Sustained precariousness in the grey space: self-organized care homes for older adults as frugal aging-in-place innovations in rural China
Self-organized care homes in rural China operate informally in farmhouses to provide affordable elder care where government services are absent. These grassroots facilities succeed through creative use of space, kinship trust, and resourcefulness, enabling older adults to age in place with dignity and autonomy. However, their legal ambiguity creates ongoing vulnerability. The study argues policymakers should regulate these innovations carefully to protect residents while preserving the flexibility that makes them work.
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Narratives of Change or Changing the Narrative? An Exploration of Narratives in Rural Social Innovation
Rural social innovation initiatives in Portugal and Austria construct narratives that challenge dominant stories about rural decline, decision-making divides, and competition. The paper identifies how these initiatives frame change through narratives of bringing rural communities back into focus, promoting experimentation, and pursuing opportunity-led development. These counter-narratives represent attempts to reshape how rural social innovation is understood and valued.
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A Failed Social Innovation Experiment in Rural China
A participatory action research project in rural China attempted to extend the impact of short-term design interventions through a toolkit approach. Despite three iterations, the experiment failed to achieve its goals of fostering sustainable village development. The researchers found that rigid tools and linear problem-solving approaches don't work in village settings. They conclude that lasting rural innovation requires flexibility, adaptability, and attention to both tangible and intangible legacies rather than predetermined frameworks.
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Social innovation in rural areas to promote Sustainable Development: A Systematic Review
A systematic review of 2010–2020 literature identifies social innovation models applied in rural areas to promote sustainable development and adapt to new agricultural practices. The study finds that information and communication technologies, entrepreneurship, family farming, and transformative practices drive rural innovation. Government entities and rural communities play promoter and facilitator roles through governance structures that enable community participation and leadership to improve socioeconomic conditions.
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Social Innovation and Sustainability in Rural Organizations in Southern Sonora
Rural organizations in southern Sonora show limited social innovation implementation due to small size and low technological capacity. A survey of 200 members reveals that social innovation dimensions—particularly social impact, innovation type, economic viability, and replicability—positively influence organizational sustainability. Intersectoral collaboration showed no significant effect. The findings demonstrate how social innovation strengthens rural organizations and inform policy design for local development.
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Social Innovation Approach in Integrated Farming: Advancing Rural Well-Being in Karawang Regency, West Java, Indonesia
Integrated farming systems in Karawang, Indonesia show characteristics of social innovation and boost productivity, but don't significantly improve farmer well-being on their own. The study found that production behavior and management matter more than social innovation factors for productivity gains. Productivity accounts for only 13.5% of overall well-being, indicating that higher yields alone don't lift farmers out of poverty. Sustainable rural development requires market access, fair pricing, education, and social support systems alongside productivity improvements.
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Frugal Innovation and Patent Analysis in Sericulture: Lessons for Sustainable Rural Bioeconomy Systems
Patent analysis of silk-reeling technologies from 2000–2024 reveals that most innovations emphasize energy-intensive industrial methods unsuitable for low-resource rural contexts in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The study evaluated 212 patents against criteria including resource efficiency, accessibility, and social inclusion, finding that current designs marginalize traditional producers—mostly women and smallholders—from emerging bio-based value chains. The authors argue for resource-efficient, modular, socially inclusive innovations to support rural sericulture within circular bioeconomy systems.
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A Global Perspective of Rural Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Digital Era: A Panel Report
Digital technologies enable rural communities to innovate and pursue entrepreneurship by providing affordable, accessible tools that overcome traditional barriers like limited resources and infrastructure. This panel report calls for increased research on how digital technology supports rural innovation and entrepreneurship, proposing a socio-materialist framework to guide future studies in this emerging field.
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Digital Health Innovation by Design: A Logic Model Scaffold for Rural, Regional, and Remote Settings
Digital health innovations often fail in rural and remote settings despite their potential. This paper presents a logic model scaffold—a four-step iterative process for planning, implementing, and evaluating digital health interventions in these contexts. The approach emphasizes understanding local needs, aligning with system enablers, and embedding reflexivity to adapt to workforce realities and geographic constraints. A Northern Australian case example demonstrates how this method improves rigor and responsiveness.
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Development Strategy of Rural Revitalization from the Perspective of Social Innovation: A Case Study of “Jiyingweigong” in Xiamen
A social innovation design project called "Jiyingweigong" in Xiamen, China demonstrates how blending public welfare with business activities revitalizes rural communities. The project activated Gangtou Village's overall development by creating a micro-ecosystem balancing social and economic goals. The study shows that social innovation design thinking systematically addresses rural economic, cultural, and ecological challenges while building sustainable local capacity.
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Rural Social Innovation: An Exploratory Study in Rural Brazil
Rural social innovations in Brazil emerge from families collectively addressing socio-environmental challenges over time, rather than simply adopting new techniques. Ethnographic research in a Pantanal settlement reveals that social innovation strengthens rural development and tackles problems affecting farming communities. Understanding these innovations requires deep fieldwork to capture how they actually develop through shared problem-solving.
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Results of the social innovation workshops developed in dispersed rural territories, using the phases of the desing thinking methodology
This paper reports results from social innovation workshops conducted in dispersed rural territories using design thinking methodology. The workshops applied structured phases of design thinking to develop social innovations addressing rural challenges. The work demonstrates how design thinking can be systematically applied to generate practical solutions in geographically dispersed rural communities.
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THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SOCIAL INNOVATION IN RURAL AREAS
Social innovation projects in Russian rural regions directly improve quality of life and activate local communities. The study finds that relying solely on local sources for innovation is insufficient; diversifying funding to include business investment is essential, since businesses benefit from increased rural purchasing power. These findings provide guidance for federal and regional authorities planning rural development policies.
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Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension
This paper reviews and reconceptualizes absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge. The authors distinguish between potential capacity (acquiring and assimilating knowledge) and realized capacity (transforming and exploiting knowledge). They develop a model showing how these two capacities differently affect competitive advantage under varying organizational conditions.
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Open for innovation: the role of openness in explaining innovation performance among U.K. manufacturing firms
U.K. manufacturing firms that search widely for external ideas and sources show better innovation performance, but only up to a point. Beyond optimal breadth and depth of external search, performance declines. The relationship follows an inverted U-shape, meaning firms benefit from open innovation strategies but face diminishing returns when searching too extensively.
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Collaboration Networks, Structural Holes, and Innovation: A Longitudinal Study
This longitudinal study of chemical industry firms shows that direct and indirect business relationships both boost innovation output. However, structural holes—disconnections between a firm's partners—reduce innovation in interfirm collaboration networks. The research demonstrates that network structure significantly affects innovation performance, and optimal network design depends on what firms aim to achieve.
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KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IN INTRAORGANIZATIONAL NETWORKS: EFFECTS OF NETWORK POSITION AND ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY ON BUSINESS UNIT INNOVATION AND PERFORMANCE.
Business units within large organizations benefit from knowledge transfer with other units. Units positioned centrally in organizational networks and those with strong absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize and apply external knowledge—innovate more effectively and perform better. Strategic network positioning and internal learning capacity drive innovation outcomes across organizational units.
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Developing a framework for responsible innovation
This paper presents a framework for responsible innovation governance in emerging science and technology. The authors identify four key dimensions—anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness—developed through a UK geoengineering research project. They argue this framework helps democracies manage controversial innovations and has broad applicability beyond the UK research context.
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Open Innovation: The New Imperative For Creating and Profiting From Technology
This paper introduces open innovation as a strategic approach for technology development and commercialization. Organizations increasingly leverage external knowledge sources alongside internal R&D to create and profit from innovations. The framework challenges traditional closed innovation models and demonstrates how firms can accelerate innovation cycles and improve financial returns by opening their innovation processes to external partners and contributors.
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Value creation in innovation ecosystems: how the structure of technological interdependence affects firm performance in new technology generations
Firm performance in innovation ecosystems depends on where external innovators face challenges. The authors analyze semiconductor lithography equipment from 1962 to 2005 across nine technology generations. They find that upstream component challenges benefit technology leaders, while downstream complement challenges harm them. Vertical integration becomes more effective at managing ecosystem interdependence as technologies mature.
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The Era of Open Innovation
Innovation has shifted from closed, internally-controlled models to open innovation where companies harness external ideas and share internal knowledge beyond organizational boundaries. The paper argues that widespread knowledge dissemination and rapid market dynamics make centralized R&D obsolete, requiring firms to collaborate externally while leveraging their own innovations outside traditional operations to create and capture value.
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'Mode 3' and 'Quadruple Helix': toward a 21st century fractal innovation ecosystem
This paper argues that successful innovation systems in the 21st century must combine multiple knowledge and innovation paradigms simultaneously through co-evolution and co-specialization. The authors introduce the 'Quadruple Helix' model, which extends traditional triple-helix frameworks by adding media and culture as essential components. They contend that adaptive capacity to integrate diverse knowledge modes creates competitive advantage in knowledge economies.
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Open Source Software and the “Private-Collective” Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science
Open source software development represents a hybrid innovation model combining private investment and collective action. Developers solve their own problems while freely sharing innovations without capturing private returns, creating public goods. This private-collective model offers society advantages of both approaches and raises new research questions for organization science. The authors provide guidance on accessing open source project data and conducting empirical studies.
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Beyond high tech: early adopters of open innovation in other industries
Open innovation—where companies source ideas from outside their organization and commercialize internal ideas externally—has been studied mainly in high-tech industries. This paper identifies early adopters of open innovation in non-tech sectors, showing that open innovation practices work across traditional and mature industries. The authors document successful adoption practices and clarify that open innovation does not simply mean outsourcing R&D.
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Absorptive capacity, learning, and performance in international joint ventures
This paper examines how international joint ventures learn and perform by breaking absorptive capacity into three components: understanding new knowledge (influenced by trust and relative capacity), assimilating knowledge (shaped by learning structures), and applying knowledge (driven by strategy and training). A longitudinal study of Hungarian joint ventures confirms that understanding and application affect performance, while trust and management support correlate with performance but not learning itself.
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Regional Innovation Systems, Clusters, and the Knowledge Economy
This paper defines regional innovation systems and establishes criteria for identifying them in practice. It argues that Europe lags behind the United States in innovation because European governments over-rely on public intervention, indicating market failure. The paper calls for European public innovation support systems to evolve while private sector institutions strengthen their organizational capacity.
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On the Fintech Revolution: Interpreting the Forces of Innovation, Disruption, and Transformation in Financial Services
Financial services are undergoing major disruption through fintech innovations in payments, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, lending, and investment management. The paper presents a mapping approach to assess transformation across four areas: operations, technology (payments and cross-border transfers), lending and deposits (including peer-to-peer lending), and investments (including robo-advisory). Traditional financial firms risk losing dominance if they fail to adapt to these efficiency and customer-centered changes.
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Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector
Airbnb represents a disruptive innovation that leverages internet technology to enable homeowners to rent residences as tourist accommodation. The platform offers cost savings, household amenities, and authentic local experiences that appeal to mainstream consumers despite lacking traditional hotel attributes. The paper examines regulatory challenges, tax concerns, and Airbnb's potential to transform the accommodation sector with both positive and negative destination impacts.
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Absorptive capacity: Valuing a reconceptualization
This paper critiques and refines the concept of absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge. The authors identify gaps in a previous reconceptualization and propose improvements: redefining how organizations recognize valuable knowledge, clarifying transformation processes, distinguishing potential from realized capacity, emphasizing socialization's role, accounting for power dynamics, and incorporating feedback loops into a dynamic model.
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Open R&D and open innovation: exploring the phenomenon
Open innovation—where organizations combine internal and external knowledge for R&D—has become strategically important. Research shows three main processes: outside-in (acquiring external knowledge), inside-out (sharing internal knowledge), and coupled approaches. The paper argues that organizations must understand where open innovation creates value and adapt their R&D management methods accordingly, considering strategic, organizational, and business implications.
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Social Networks, the <i>Tertius Iungens</i> Orientation, and Involvement in Innovation
This study examines how people's social network positions and behaviors influence their involvement in organizational innovation. The research finds that individuals who actively connect disconnected colleagues and facilitate coordination between already-connected people—a "tertius iungens" orientation—are more likely to drive innovation. Dense networks and diverse social knowledge also predict innovation involvement. The findings challenge structural holes theory by showing that connecting people benefits innovation more than exploiting network gaps for personal advantage.
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Match your innovation strategy to your innovation ecosystem.
Innovation ecosystems require firms to coordinate with complementary innovators to create customer value, but this coordination introduces three types of risk: initiative risks, interdependence risks, and integration risks. The HDTV failure demonstrates how even superior technology fails without complementary products and infrastructure. Companies that systematically assess ecosystem risks holistically can develop more realistic expectations, better contingency plans, and robust innovation strategies that lead to profitable outcomes.
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Orchestrating Innovation Networks
Hub firms actively orchestrate innovation networks by managing knowledge mobility, innovation appropriability, and network stability. Rather than treating network members as passive responders to incentives, this framework recognizes firms as dynamic agents that shape and are shaped by network structures. Orchestration enables value creation and extraction across loosely coupled autonomous firms without hierarchical control.
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The future of open innovation
Open innovation practices are gaining traction across organizations and research institutions. This overview synthesizes nine key perspectives needed to strengthen open innovation theory and examines recent evidence about how open innovation actually works in practice and organizational settings.
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Innovation in Innovation: The Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relations
Universities, industry, and government increasingly collaborate in a 'Triple Helix' model that drives innovation. Universities now actively commercialize knowledge and incubate technology firms. Companies invest in research and training as they advance technologically. Government functions as both entrepreneur and venture capitalist alongside its regulatory role. This interactive approach replaces linear innovation models, with institutions adopting each other's practices to create hybrid innovation ecosystems.
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The keystone advantage: what the new dynamics of business ecosystems mean for strategy, innovation, and sustainability
Companies operating in complex business networks can achieve long-term success by adopting a keystone strategy—actively maintaining ecosystem health rather than competing narrowly. Drawing from biological ecosystems, the authors argue that firms protecting their entire network's wellbeing simultaneously secure their own survival and competitive advantage.
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Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society
This paper defines responsible research and innovation as an emerging EU policy framework emphasizing democratic governance of research purposes, integration of anticipation and deliberation into innovation processes, and collective responsibility for uncertain outcomes. The authors trace the concept's development and identify three core features: steering innovation toward beneficial impacts, institutionalizing reflection and responsiveness, and recognizing innovation's unpredictable consequences as shared responsibility.
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National Innovation Systems—Analytical Concept and Development Tool
This paper develops the national innovation systems concept as a framework for understanding how knowledge and learning drive innovation within specific national contexts. The author argues that innovation systems perform better when their core institutions align with their wider economic and social settings. The framework requires understanding both individual actor behavior and systemic conditions, and the author emphasizes that developing countries need stronger institutions supporting learning, more equitable power distribution, and more open innovation systems.
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Interfirm Collaboration Networks: The Impact of Large-Scale Network Structure on Firm Innovation
Firms embedded in alliance networks with both dense local clustering and broad reach—short average distances to many other firms—produce more patents than those in less-connected networks. The study tracked 1,106 firms across 11 industry alliance networks longitudinally, showing that network structure directly influences innovation output by balancing local cooperation with access to diverse knowledge sources.
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University–industry relationships and open innovation: Towards a research agenda
Universities and industries increasingly collaborate to drive innovation through networks and partnerships. This paper examines how these relationships work across different industries and scientific fields, distinguishing them from technology transfer or hiring. The authors find collaborative research, research centers, and consulting are common practices, but organizational dynamics remain poorly understood. They propose a research agenda focusing on how universities and firms find and match with each other, and how to effectively manage these collaborations.
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Open Innovation and Strategy
This paper examines open innovation as a strategic approach where organizations leverage external ideas and technologies alongside internal capabilities. The authors argue that open innovation models fundamentally reshape how companies develop and commercialize innovations, moving beyond traditional closed research and development practices to create value through collaborative networks and external partnerships.
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The Process of Innovation Assimilation by Firms in Different Countries: A Technology Diffusion Perspective on E-Business
This study examines how firms across 10 countries assimilate e-business innovations through three stages: initiation, adoption, and routinization. Competition drives early adoption but hinders effective implementation. Large firms gain advantages initially but face structural barriers later. Regulatory environments matter more in developing countries, while technology readiness dominates there and technology integration dominates in developed economies, showing how innovation assimilation shifts with economic context.
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Integrating Models of Diffusion of Innovations: A Conceptual Framework
This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding how innovations spread by organizing diffusion research variables into three components: innovation characteristics (public/private consequences, benefits/costs), adopter characteristics (familiarity, status, networks, personal qualities), and environmental context (geography, culture, politics, global uniformity). The framework emphasizes how these variables interact and gate adoption decisions, affecting the speed at which different actors adopt innovations.
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PERSPECTIVE—Absorbing the Concept of Absorptive Capacity: How to Realize Its Potential in the Organization Field
This paper reviews twenty years of research on absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge. The authors identify major gaps in existing literature: most studies focus on tangible outcomes while neglecting organizational design and individual-level factors. They propose an integrative model showing how individual, organizational, and inter-organizational factors work together across multiple levels to influence innovation and firm performance, and call for research bridging micro and macro antecedents.
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SHIFTING INNOVATION TO USERS VIA TOOLKITS
Manufacturers traditionally invest heavily in understanding user needs before developing products, but this approach struggles as needs change rapidly and markets fragment. Toolkits for user innovation offer an alternative: manufacturers provide tools that let users develop customized products themselves. Evidence from pioneering fields shows this approach delivers custom products faster and cheaper than traditional development methods.
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Challenges of open innovation: the paradox of firm investment in open-source software
Firms face three core challenges when pursuing open innovation: exploiting internal innovations, integrating external innovations, and motivating outsiders to contribute. The authors examine how software firms resolve these challenges through four strategies: pooled R&D, spinouts, selling complements, and attracting donated complements. These approaches show how companies can invest in shared intellectual property while maintaining competitive advantage, with lessons applicable across industries.
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The open book of social innovation
This volume catalogs hundreds of methods and tools for social innovation being used globally, creating a knowledge base of diverse initiatives. It showcases entrepreneurs, campaigners, organizations, and movements worldwide addressing pressing social issues through innovative approaches, demonstrating the vitality and diversity of the emerging social innovation economy.
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From Creativity to Innovation: The Social Network Drivers of the Four Phases of the Idea Journey
Social networks influence innovation differently across four distinct phases: idea generation, elaboration, championing, and implementation. Each phase requires different network characteristics—cognitive flexibility, support, influence, and shared vision respectively. Network features beneficial in one phase become detrimental in another. Successful innovators navigate this paradox by reframing their approach and activating different network strengths at appropriate moments, moving ideas from conception to tangible field-changing outcomes.
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Towards a Theory of Open Innovation: Three Core Process Archetypes
Open innovation involves companies moving beyond internal R&D by integrating external knowledge sources and commercializing ideas outside their boundaries. This study of 124 companies identifies three core processes: outside-in (acquiring external knowledge from suppliers and customers), inside-out (licensing and selling intellectual property externally), and coupled (forming alliances where companies exchange complementary innovations). These patterns show how companies transform rigid boundaries into permeable structures enabling knowledge flow.
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A Capability‐Based Framework for Open Innovation: Complementing Absorptive Capacity
This paper develops a capability-based framework for open innovation by extending absorptive capacity theory. The authors identify six critical knowledge capacities—inventive, absorptive, transformative, connective, innovative, and desorptive—that firms use to manage knowledge both internally and externally. Knowledge management capacity acts as a dynamic capability that reconfigures these six capacities over time. The framework explains why firms differ in their innovation performance, alliance strategies, and organizational boundaries.
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Disrupting class: how disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns
The book applies disruptive innovation theory to education, arguing that personalized, student-centric learning powered by technology can transform how students succeed in school. It contends that computers deployed strategically in classrooms can overcome barriers to educational reform and help countries compete globally by rethinking intelligence, redesigning educational systems, and matching teaching methods to how people actually learn.
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Absorptive Capacity Configurations in Supply Chains: Gearing for Partner-Enabled Market Knowledge Creation1
Supply chain partners create market knowledge by sharing information through interlinked processes and IT infrastructure. This study identifies five distinct partnership configurations—collectors, connectors, crunchers, coercers, and collaborators—based on their absorptive capacity and capability platforms. The configurations differ in how they acquire, assimilate, and exploit partner knowledge to drive innovation and operational efficiency. Rich information sharing and coordination mechanisms determine success in partner-enabled knowledge creation.
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Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix and Quintuple Helix and How Do Knowledge, Innovation and the Environment Relate To Each Other?
This paper introduces the Quintuple Helix framework, expanding on earlier Triple and Quadruple Helix models. It integrates universities, industry, government, media/culture, and the natural environment into a unified system for understanding knowledge and innovation. The framework positions eco-innovation and eco-entrepreneurship within sustainable development and social ecology, showing how environmental considerations must shape innovation policy and practice.
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Open Platform Strategies and Innovation: Granting Access vs. Devolving Control
This study examines how technology platform owners can foster innovation through two strategies: granting access to independent developers or relinquishing control entirely. Using data from 21 handheld computing systems between 1990 and 2004, the research finds that granting access to hardware developers accelerates new device development up to fivefold, while giving up control produces smaller incremental gains. The findings reveal that these two opening strategies activate different economic mechanisms.
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Building Dynamic Capabilities: Innovation Driven by Individual-, Firm-, and Network-Level Effects
This study examines how innovation emerges from individual, firm, and network-level factors simultaneously. Using 22 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology data, the authors find that innovation drivers exist across all three levels and can either substitute for each other or reinforce one another. The research challenges the assumption that different analytical levels operate independently, showing instead that they interact to shape innovative output.
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Absorptive Capacity, Environmental Turbulence, and the Complementarity of Organizational Learning Processes
This study examines how organizations learn from external knowledge through three complementary processes: exploration, transformation, and exploitation. Using data from 175 industrial firms, the research shows that technological and market knowledge together form the foundation for absorptive capacity. The findings reveal that firms balancing all three learning types achieve better innovation and performance outcomes, particularly when facing rapid technological and market changes.
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The open innovation research landscape: established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis
This paper reviews open innovation research across organizational, inter-organizational, and ecosystem levels of analysis. The authors identify established perspectives and emerging themes, arguing that future research must integrate insights across multiple analytical levels rather than studying open innovation in isolation. They propose new research categories and cross-domain questions to advance the field.
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Innovation Contests, Open Innovation, and Multiagent Problem Solving
Innovation contests let firms post problems to independent solvers and reward the best solution. The paper shows that larger solver populations benefit firms through solution diversity, offsetting reduced individual effort. Performance-contingent awards further improve outcomes compared to fixed prizes. The analysis identifies which product types and cost structures gain most from contests versus internal innovation.
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A Longitudinal Study of the Influence of Alliance Network Structure and Composition on Firm Exploratory Innovation
A longitudinal study of 77 telecommunications equipment manufacturers shows that firms with technologically diverse alliance partners generate more exploratory innovation. When a firm's partners are also connected to each other (network closure), this diversity effect strengthens. The research demonstrates that firms can simultaneously benefit from both access to diverse information and tightly connected networks to drive innovation.
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Ambidexterity in Technology Sourcing: The Moderating Role of Absorptive Capacity
Manufacturing firms perform best when balancing internal technology development with external sourcing, following an inverted U-shaped relationship. However, a firm's absorptive capacity—its ability to recognize and integrate external knowledge—moderates this effect. Companies with stronger absorptive capacity gain greater performance benefits from balanced technology sourcing strategies than those with weaker capacity.
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The Logic of Open Innovation: Managing Intellectual Property
Companies must shift from closed, internal innovation models to open innovation approaches that leverage external R&D and knowledge. As commercially valuable knowledge spreads rapidly, firms managing intellectual property through open innovation—which emphasizes external partnerships and internal incentive systems—better maintain their innovation capacity than those relying solely on internal capabilities.
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Triple Helix Systems: An Analytical Framework for Innovation Policy and Practice in the Knowledge Society
This paper develops the Triple Helix framework—university, industry, and government interactions—into a formal systems model for analyzing innovation. It identifies key components including R&D and non-R&D innovators, hybrid institutions, and individual actors. Five relationship types (technology transfer, collaboration, leadership, substitution, networking) connect these components across knowledge, innovation, and consensus spaces. The framework reveals how knowledge and resources circulate within regional innovation systems and identifies blockages that impede innovation.
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Open Innovation: Research, Practices, and Policies
Open innovation has become central to academic research, business practice, and policy decisions. This article surveys the current state of open innovation across these domains, examining key trends like digital transformation and challenges such as uncertainty. The authors discuss potential solutions including EU funding programs and introduce selected papers from the World Open Innovation Conference that address these issues.
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Inbound Open Innovation Activities in High-Tech SMEs: The Impact on Innovation Performance
This study examines how small and medium-sized high-tech firms benefit from open innovation practices. Using data from 252 SMEs, the researchers found that different inbound open innovation activities drive different types of innovation outcomes. Technology sourcing strengthens radical innovation performance, while technology scouting improves incremental innovation performance. The findings show that SMEs must match their open innovation strategies to their desired innovation goals.
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Value Creation by Toolkits for User Innovation and Design: The Case of the Watch Market
Customers using design toolkits to create personalized watches show high design diversity and willingness to pay substantial premiums—averaging 100% more than standard watches. The study of 717 participants demonstrates that even simple toolkits enable meaningful customization, creating real value by letting consumers express individual preferences. Customer designs vary widely yet show coherent patterns, indicating heterogeneous but non-random preferences.
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The role of technology in the shift towards open innovation: the case of Procter & Gamble
This paper examines Procter & Gamble's 'Connect and Develop' open innovation strategy to understand how technology enables collaborative innovation. The authors identify two key technological roles: information and communications technologies that facilitate knowledge exchange across distributed partners, and specialized 'innovation technologies' including data mining, simulation, prototyping, and visualization tools that support product development. The study reveals that technology is fundamental to implementing open innovation, not merely supportive.
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Social Media, Knowledge Sharing, and Innovation: Toward a Theory of Communication Visibility
Enterprise social networking sites increase communication visibility within organizations, allowing employees to see others' messages and network connections. This visibility enhances metaknowledge—understanding who knows what and whom. Workers then learn vicariously from colleagues, recombine ideas more effectively, avoid duplicating efforts, and proactively aggregate information. These changes lead to more innovative products and services in knowledge-economy work.
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Research and Development, Spillovers, Innovation Systems, and the Genesis of Regional Growth in Europe
This paper combines three approaches to understanding regional innovation in Europe: R&D investment analysis, regional innovation systems, and knowledge spillovers. Using regression analysis across EU-25 regions, the authors show that regional economic growth depends on complex interactions between local and external research combined with local and external socio-economic and institutional conditions. Knowledge spillovers are strongest over short distances, indicating that geographic proximity matters significantly for transmitting economically productive knowledge.
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Finding Commercially Attractive User Innovations: A Test of Lead‐User Theory<sup>*</sup>
This study tests lead-user theory by analyzing kite-surfing enthusiasts who modified equipment. The researchers found that both key components of lead-user theory—high expected benefits and being ahead of trends—independently predict which user innovations become commercially attractive products. Adding measures of users' local resources further improved identification of valuable innovations. The findings confirm lead-user theory's core principles and provide practical guidance for firms seeking to commercialize user-developed innovations.
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Digital product innovation within four classes of innovation networks
Digital technologies reshape how innovation networks create and share knowledge by reducing communication costs, increasing connectivity, and accelerating convergence across diverse participants. The authors identify four types of digitally-enabled innovation networks—project, clan, federated, and anarchic—each requiring different approaches to knowledge sharing and integration. Digital infrastructures support these networks through representational flexibility, semantic coherence, traceability, knowledge brokering, and linguistic calibration.
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Innovation diffusion in global contexts: determinants of post-adoption digital transformation of European companies
This study examines why European companies adopt and use digital transformation technologies at different rates. The researchers found that compatibility with existing systems drives adoption most strongly, while security concerns matter more than cost. Technology competence, partner readiness, and competitive pressure accelerate usage. Large firms move slower due to structural inertia. Economic and regulatory differences across European countries create uneven adoption patterns even among developed nations.
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Brokerage, Boundary Spanning, and Leadership in Open Innovation Communities
Leaders in open innovation communities need strong technical skills first, then must integrate their communities to prevent fragmentation. Two social positions enable this: brokers who connect disparate groups, and boundary spanners who link different technological areas. Boundary spanners advance to leadership more readily than brokers because they avoid the trust deficits brokers face, though physical interaction can help brokers overcome this disadvantage. The study tracked careers in the Internet Engineering Task Force from 1986 to 2002.
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Knowledge sharing, absorptive capacity, and innovation capability: an empirical study of Taiwan's knowledge-intensive industries
This study examines how knowledge sharing drives innovation in Taiwan's knowledge-intensive industries. Using data from 170 firms across electronics, financial insurance, and medical sectors, the researchers found that absorptive capacity acts as the critical mechanism linking knowledge sharing to innovation capability. Knowledge sharing directly strengthens absorptive capacity, which then enables firms to innovate more effectively. The relationship holds consistently across different industries.
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Disruptive Innovation: An Intellectual History and Directions for Future Research
This paper reviews the intellectual history of disruptive innovation theory, showing how the concept has been misunderstood by practitioners and inconsistently engaged by researchers. The authors trace how the theory evolved from a narrow technology-change framework into a broader causal theory of innovation and competitive response. They identify gaps in empirical research and propose three underexplored areas—response strategies, performance trajectories, and innovation metrics—to guide future academic work.
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Diffusion Of Innovations Theory, Principles, And Practice
This paper explains diffusion of innovations theory and how it applies to healthcare. The authors identify key parameters of how innovations spread, clarify relationships between diffusion and related processes like implementation and scale-up, and provide principles for designing interventions. They address why beneficial healthcare innovations fail to spread quickly despite their merit.
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Microfoundations of Internal and External Absorptive Capacity Routines
Organizations develop absorptive capacity—the ability to learn from and apply new knowledge—through specific internal and external routines. This paper identifies how firms balance creating knowledge internally with acquiring and assimilating external knowledge. The authors argue that successful early adopters of innovations implement complementary configurations of these routines, while most firms remain imitators because they fail to develop the right combination of organizational practices.
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Regional Innovation Systems: Theory, Empirics and Policy
This paper synthesizes theory and evidence on regional innovation systems, examining how regions develop competitive advantage through innovation networks. The authors identify three core questions: the nature of regional systems themselves, the boundaries between industrial clusters and knowledge transfer mechanisms, and the role of labor markets in facilitating learning. The work reveals gaps in current understanding and proposes directions for future research on how regions can address inequality through innovation policy.
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Diffusion of innovations
This review of 200 publications on innovation diffusion over 50 years reveals that research heavily focuses on consumer durables (70%) rather than cultural products or B2B goods. Functional products diffuse downward from wealthy to lower-income groups, driven by price and affordability. Cultural products follow the opposite pattern, spreading upward from lower to upper classes through identity formation and status signaling. The authors develop a theory of reverse diffusion to explain how cultural innovations spread differently than functional ones.
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Explicating Open Innovation: Clarifying an Emerging Paradigm for Understanding Innovation
This paper clarifies the open innovation paradigm, defining it as a distributed innovation process involving purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries using both monetary and non-monetary mechanisms aligned with business models. The authors review academic literature since 2003, address critiques and divergent views on open innovation, and extend the research agenda by identifying new subjects and units of analysis for future investigation.
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Detailed Review of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Educational Technology-Related Studies Based on Rogers' Theory.
Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory provides a widely-used framework for understanding how new innovations spread and get adopted across different fields. This review examines Rogers' model and its application in educational technology research over three decades, showing how the theory has shaped studies in political science, public health, communications, history, economics, technology, and education.
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Disruptive innovation for social change.
Catalytic innovation—simpler, cheaper solutions targeting underserved populations—drives social change more effectively than complex offerings. Unlike traditional disruptive innovation, catalytic innovations prioritize social impact through scaling and replication. They succeed by meeting unmet needs with good-enough alternatives that incumbents initially dismiss. Examples across healthcare, education, and economic development show both nonprofits and for-profits deploying this approach to reach broader populations than conventional organizations.
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Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning
This paper develops theoretical models explaining how new ideas and products spread through populations with different characteristics. The author examines three diffusion mechanisms—contagion, social influence, and social learning—and shows each creates a distinct pattern in adoption curves. Using historical data on hybrid corn adoption, the paper demonstrates how to empirically distinguish between these diffusion mechanisms and provides tools for analyzing innovation spread in heterogeneous groups.
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To recover faster from Covid-19, open up: Managerial implications from an open innovation perspective
The paper argues that open innovation approaches are essential for economic recovery from Covid-19. It examines how organizations have responded to the pandemic and extracts lessons about managing innovation during recovery. The author contends that opening innovation processes—collaborating across organizational boundaries—enables faster adaptation and problem-solving in crisis situations.
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Knowledge Networks, Collaboration Networks, and Exploratory Innovation
Innovation depends on two distinct networks within firms: collaboration networks between researchers and knowledge networks linking knowledge elements. Using patent data from a microprocessor manufacturer, the study finds that structural holes in collaboration networks boost exploratory innovation, while structural holes in knowledge networks reduce it. Moderate centrality in knowledge networks maximizes exploration, but high centrality in collaboration networks decreases it. The two networks shape where researchers search for new discoveries.
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Open Innovation in Practice: An Analysis of Strategic Approaches to Technology Transactions
This study surveyed 154 companies to identify how firms actually practice open innovation through technology transactions. The research reveals that companies pursue distinct strategic approaches by balancing two activities: acquiring external technology and commercializing their own technological knowledge. The findings show that open innovation operates as an integrated process rather than separate acquisition or exploitation activities, providing the first large-scale empirical picture of how firms strategically manage technology transactions across their innovation processes.
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Open Innovation: Past Research, Current Debates, and Future Directions.
This paper reviews open innovation research and debates whether it represents a sustainable business practice or temporary management fashion. The author examines key topics including technology transactions, user innovation, business models, and innovation markets. The paper develops a conceptual framework addressing critical open innovation processes and their management implications across organizational, project, and individual levels.
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Determinants of User Innovation and Innovation Sharing in a Local Market
This study examines user innovation in library OPAC systems in Australia, finding that 26% of users modify their systems in ways manufacturers consider commercially valuable. The researchers identify characteristics distinguishing innovating users from non-innovators, including technical capability and leading-edge status. Many innovators freely share their modifications with other users. The findings suggest that even in follower markets, users generate significant innovations worthy of commercial attention.
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Managing Open Innovation
Industrial innovation increasingly relies on external knowledge sources and market channels, creating uncertainty in evaluating early-stage projects. Companies typically minimize false positives but neglect false negatives, losing potential value. New metrics can help firms better leverage external innovation sources and capture value from rejected projects through alternative business models.
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Innovation by User Communities: Learning From Open-Source Software
User communities can develop complex products independently of manufacturers, as demonstrated by open-source software like Apache and user-designed windsurfing equipment. The paper examines how these loosely organized groups innovate to meet shared needs, sometimes collaborating with manufacturers and sometimes not. The Internet amplifies their capacity for collaboration and distribution, creating economic value that traditional business models struggle to explain.
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Open innovation practices in SMEs and large enterprises: evidence from Belgium
Open innovation practices produce different results in small and medium-sized enterprises than in large firms. SMEs gain more innovation performance by combining multiple open innovation practices simultaneously, while large firms benefit more from their search strategies. SMEs drive new product revenue through intellectual property protection, whereas large firms rely on broader external search approaches.
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Absorptive Capacity and Productivity Spillovers from FDI: A Threshold Regression Analysis*
Foreign direct investment boosts productivity growth, but only when local firms have sufficient absorptive capacity. Manufacturing sectors show nonlinear effects: productivity gains increase with absorptive capacity up to a threshold, then decline. Below a minimum capacity level, FDI spillovers become negligible or harmful. Technology-sourcing FDI produces no productivity spillovers.
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Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks: The Case of Digital 3-D Representations in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
When architect Frank Gehry adopted digital 3-D representations in construction projects, it triggered cascading innovations across multiple firms and communities involved in building. The new technology created separate innovation paths within different groups, enabled knowledge-sharing between them, and allowed innovations to spread across the entire project network. This demonstrates how changes in shared digital tools can spark unpredictable waves of innovation in complex, distributed systems.
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Incremental and Radical Innovation in Coopetition—The Role of Absorptive Capacity and Appropriability
Firms collaborating with competitors on innovation succeed differently based on two factors: absorptive capacity (ability to acquire external knowledge) and appropriability (ability to protect innovations from imitation). A Finnish cross-industry survey shows both factors boost incremental innovation outcomes. For radical innovation, strong appropriability matters most, though absorptive capacity helps when appropriability is already high. Firms pursuing incremental innovation should balance knowledge sharing with protection; those pursuing radical innovation should prioritize protecting core knowledge.
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Conversion to Organic Farming: A Typical Example of the Diffusion of an Innovation?
This paper reviews twenty years of studies on organic farmers across multiple countries to test whether organic farming adoption fits the diffusion-of-innovation model. Early organic farmers shared characteristics with innovators in other fields: they faced community opposition, social isolation, and operated when the sector was small. The author concludes the diffusion model successfully explains organic farming adoption patterns and the individual conversion decisions farmers make.
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Innovation ecosystems and the pace of substitution: Re‐examining technology S‐curves
This paper explains why some new technologies rapidly replace older ones while others take decades to gain traction. The authors develop a framework examining both competing technologies and their surrounding ecosystems. They identify four distinct patterns based on how easily new technology ecosystems can emerge and how much old technology ecosystems can extend. Analysis of ten technology transitions in semiconductor lithography equipment from 1972 to 2009 confirms their predictions about substitution speed.
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Closed or open innovation? Problem solving and the governance choice
Open and closed innovation represent distinct governance structures with different costs and benefits. The authors argue that innovation problems should be matched to appropriate governance forms based on problem type. They identify four open innovation models—markets, partnerships, contests, and user communities—and compare them with two closed forms: authority-based and consensus-based hierarchies. Each governance form uses different communication channels, incentives, and property rights mechanisms.
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How to Respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the Second Information Technology Revolution? Dynamic New Combinations between Technology, Market, and Society through Open Innovation
Eleven international scholars define the Fourth Industrial Revolution and propose institutional, technological, and firm-level responses to it. The paper establishes a framework for understanding how organizations can adapt through open innovation by combining technology, market dynamics, and societal needs. Rather than providing final answers, it creates a template for ongoing research into industrial transformation.
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Horizontal innovation networks--by and for users
User communities can build independent innovation networks without manufacturers, developing and distributing products and solutions among themselves. Open source software demonstrates this model, and similar horizontal networks exist for physical products. The paper identifies three conditions enabling these user-driven networks to operate autonomously and presents evidence that such conditions frequently exist across the economy.
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Frugal Innovation in Emerging Markets
Western multinational corporations struggle to develop frugal innovations—affordable, good-enough products for resource-constrained consumers—because their business models target affluent markets. Local R&D subsidiaries in emerging countries prove more effective at creating these innovations. Granting these subsidiaries substantial autonomy, including control over product portfolios, enables Western firms to successfully compete in frugal innovation markets alongside local corporations.
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Adding innovation diffusion theory to the technology acceptance model: Supporting employees' intentions to use e-learning systems
This study combines innovation diffusion theory with the technology acceptance model to understand why business employees adopt e-learning systems. Testing 552 employees in Taiwan, the research finds that five innovation characteristics—compatibility, complexity, relative advantage, and trialability—significantly influence perceived usefulness and ease of use, which in turn drive adoption intentions. The integrated model helps organizations plan and implement e-learning systems more effectively.
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Open Innovation: Where We've Been and Where We're Going
Open innovation, introduced in 2003, represents a shift in how companies approach industrial innovation by incorporating external ideas and partnerships. The concept has gained widespread adoption across academic research and business practice. This review examines the evolution of open innovation thinking and projects its future direction in organizational innovation strategies.
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Inhibitors of disruptive innovation capability: a conceptual model
Large corporations struggle to develop disruptive innovations due to interconnected internal and external barriers. This paper identifies six key inhibitor clusters: inability to unlearn outdated mental models, entrenched dominant designs, risk-averse culture, poor innovation management, insufficient follow-through competencies, and lack of necessary infrastructure. Understanding these interrelated factors helps companies develop strategies to bridge the gap between innovation intentions and actual disruptive capability.
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Entrepreneurship in Innovation Ecosystems: Entrepreneurs’ Self–Regulatory Processes and Their Implications for New Venture Success
Entrepreneurs operating within innovation ecosystems face competing demands between ecosystem leaders' goals and their own venture objectives. This paper examines how entrepreneurs' self-regulatory processes help them navigate and balance these conflicting priorities to achieve new venture success.
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Networking as a Means to Strategy Change: The Case of Open Innovation in Mobile Telephony
Nokia used different innovation networks to manage technological change in mobile telephony between 1985 and 2002. The company pursued exploitation strategies for early-generation mobile development through stable, long-term partnerships, then shifted to exploration strategies for third-generation technologies using flexible networks with higher partner turnover. This open innovation approach enabled Nokia to become a world leader and adapt to radical market shifts.
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Applying Diffusion of Innovation Theory to Intervention Development
Diffusion of Innovation Theory provides a robust framework for designing social work interventions that spread effectively. The author reviews seven key concepts—intervention attributes, clusters, demonstration projects, societal sectors, contextual conditions, opinion leadership, and adaptation—that accelerate adoption of evidence-based practices. By applying diffusion principles during intervention design rather than after implementation, social work can increase both internal validity and real-world spread of innovations.
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Absorptive Capacity and Information Systems Research: Review, Synthesis, and Directions for Future Research1
This paper reviews how absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to identify, assimilate, transform, and apply external knowledge—has been used in information systems research. The authors find inconsistent conceptualizations, measurement approaches, and applications across IS studies. They trace the construct's evolution in organizational literature, clarify its relationship to organizational learning, and provide a framework to help IS researchers apply absorptive capacity more effectively when studying information technology's organizational role.
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How collaborative innovation networks affect new product performance: Product innovation capability, process innovation capability, and absorptive capacity
Collaborative innovation networks improve new product performance through product and process innovation capabilities, but only when firms possess absorptive capacity to acquire external knowledge. Research on Iranian manufacturers found that collaboration with research organizations and competitors strengthens product innovation, while collaboration with research organizations and suppliers strengthens process innovation. Absorptive capacity acts as a critical condition enabling these benefits.
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Cultural Transmission and the Diffusion of Innovations: Adoption Dynamics Indicate That Biased Cultural Transmission Is the Predominate Force in Behavioral Change
This paper challenges the assumption that people adopt innovations through individual cost-benefit analysis. By analyzing adoption curves, the author demonstrates that biased cultural transmission—learning from others based on social preferences—drives innovation diffusion far more than environmental learning alone. The characteristic S-shaped adoption curves observed in real innovations require cultural transmission as the dominant mechanism, suggesting social influence matters more than rational individual decision-making in how new practices spread.
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PERSPECTIVE: User toolkits for innovation
User toolkits for innovation transfer product development responsibility from manufacturers to users, allowing customers to design custom products through iterative trial-and-error within guided constraints. Rather than manufacturers attempting to understand diverse user needs, toolkits enable users to create, simulate, prototype, and refine designs in their own environments. Applications in integrated circuits and custom foods demonstrate these toolkits outperform traditional manufacturer-led development approaches.
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Organizational Absorptive Capacity and Responsiveness: An Empirical Investigation of Growth–Oriented SMEs
Growth-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises improve their organizational responsiveness by developing strong capabilities in acquiring external knowledge and sharing information internally. The study shows these relationships strengthen when firms adopt proactive strategies or operate in turbulent environments. Environmental conditions and strategic orientation significantly influence how effectively SMEs convert knowledge into responsive action.
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Open-Source Software Development and Distributed Innovation
Open-source software development harnesses distributed intelligence across internet communities, achieving efficiency by avoiding restrictive intellectual property regimes and enabling concurrent design and testing. While projects risk fragmenting into competing versions, governance structures within open-source communities prevent this. The model offers developing countries a pathway to participate in cutting-edge innovation without traditional barriers.
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Prospects for developing absorptive capacity through internal information provision
Managers can develop organizational absorptive capacity by distributing internal knowledge to employees considering new practices. The effectiveness of this information provision depends on what employees already know. Prior experience with related practices strengthens the impact of managerial information, while existing knowledge from other sources or past events weakens it. This clarifies when absorptive capacity creates lasting competitive advantage.
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Expatriate Knowledge Transfer, Subsidiary Absorptive Capacity, and Subsidiary Performance
Expatriate managers transfer knowledge to foreign subsidiaries through three competencies: ability, motivation, and opportunity-seeking. This knowledge improves subsidiary performance, but only when the subsidiary has strong absorptive capacity to receive and use it. A study of British subsidiaries of Taiwanese firms confirms that absorptive capacity determines whether expatriate knowledge transfer actually boosts performance.
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User toolkits for innovation
User toolkits for innovation transfer product development directly to users rather than manufacturers trying to understand their needs. These toolkits let users design custom products through iterative trial-and-error, simulate designs, test them in their own environments, and refine them until satisfied. Applications in integrated circuits and custom foods demonstrate that user-driven toolkit approaches outperform traditional manufacturer-based development methods.
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Disruptive Innovation In Health Care Delivery: A Framework For Business-Model Innovation
Disruptive innovation has transformed other industries by making products affordable and accessible, but healthcare remains expensive and inaccessible because it lacks matching business-model innovation. This paper presents a framework for categorizing and developing innovative business models in healthcare and explains why disruptive innovation has progressed slowly in the sector.
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Absorptive capacity and innovative performance: A human capital approach
This study examines how human capital affects firms' ability to absorb knowledge and innovate. Using data from 1,544 Danish manufacturing and service firms, the research finds that highly educated employees, strong human resource management practices, and partnerships with suppliers and research institutions boost innovation while reducing imitation. However, in science-based and ICT-intensive sectors, experienced managers actually hinder innovation, suggesting these high-tech fields require continuous skill updates.
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The influence of supply network structure on firm innovation
This study examines how supply network structure affects firm innovation in the electronics industry. Using social network analysis on 390 firms, the researchers found that firms with greater supply network accessibility and interconnectedness produce more innovation. A firm's ability to absorb knowledge and its partners' innovativeness further strengthen these effects. The findings show that embedded network relationships directly influence how knowledge and information flow through supply networks to drive innovation.
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Collaborative networked organisations and customer communities: value co-creation and co-innovation in the networking era
Collaborative networked organizations and virtual customer communities drive value creation and innovation by pooling complementary skills, knowledge, and technologies across networks. These strategic alliances enhance flexibility and adaptability to market changes and customer needs. The paper reviews value co-creation and co-innovation concepts and proposes a framework for 'experience-centric networks' that connect organizations with customer communities to enable sustainable, user-driven collaborative innovation.
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Getting Clear About Communities in Open Innovation
This paper examines how researchers define and use the concept of 'community' across open source software, user innovation, and open innovation studies. The authors review existing definitions of community—both stated and unstated—and identify gaps in how scholars apply this construct. They argue that clearer, more consistent definitions are needed to make research across these fields comparable and to guide future investigation.
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Strategic Management of Open Innovation: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective
This paper applies dynamic capabilities theory to explain how organizations strategically manage open innovation. The authors argue that understanding open innovation's benefits and limitations requires a strategic management lens. They develop a framework showing how dynamic capabilities help explain both success and failure in open innovation initiatives, drawing on papers presented at the World Open Innovation Conference.
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On open innovation, platforms, and entrepreneurship
Open innovation and digital platforms have fundamentally transformed entrepreneurship across industries. These shifts create new opportunities for entrepreneurs to innovate and capture value, from supplying inputs to established firms to operating as complementors on platforms. The paper identifies key factors that enable or constrain these entrepreneurial opportunities and emphasizes how regulatory policies, digitization, and globalization shape emerging business models.
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The role of absorptive capacity and innovation strategy in the design of industry 4.0 business Models - A comparison between SMEs and large enterprises
This study examines how German industrial companies redesign their business models in response to Industry 4.0 by analyzing absorptive capacity and innovation strategy. Using data from 221 enterprises, the research shows that companies' ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit external knowledge enables both exploratory and exploitative innovation strategies, which then drive either efficiency-centered or novelty-centered business model changes. SMEs and large enterprises exhibit distinct patterns in this process.
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Innovation, Openness, and Platform Control
This paper develops a mathematical model to determine optimal platform openness and intellectual property duration for business ecosystems. The authors show that closing platforms increases sponsor revenue but limits developer innovation, while longer IP protection increases developer earnings but delays public access to innovations. The model identifies trade-offs between these competing interests and provides guidance for platform strategy, organizational design, and regulatory policy.
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The new age of innovation: driving cocreated value through global networks
This business strategy book argues that companies must build organizational capabilities to co-create value with customers through global networks. The authors contend that success requires transforming business processes, technical systems, and supply chains to enable continuous innovation, measure individual behavior through analytics, and treat all stakeholders as unique participants in seamless global operations.
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OPEN VERSUS CLOSED INNOVATION: A MODEL OF DISCOVERY AND DIVERGENCE.
Open innovation enables firms to discover product feature combinations that closed innovation misses. However, when partners have conflicting goals, open innovation limits the firm's control over technological direction. The optimal innovation approach depends on balancing discovery benefits against coordination costs from partner divergence.
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When Is Open Innovation Beneficial? The Role of Strategic Orientation
Open innovation activities significantly boost innovation performance across multiple dimensions—new service innovativeness, financial performance, customer outcomes, and product success—in service firms. A company's strategic orientation moderates these effects. Entrepreneurial orientation strengthens open innovation's benefits most powerfully, followed by market orientation, then resource orientation. The findings demonstrate that open innovation works best within organizations that embrace proactive, entrepreneurial strategic approaches.
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What is frugal innovation? Three defining criteria
Frugal innovation lacks a clear definition despite growing interest across emerging and developed markets. This paper identifies three defining criteria: substantial cost reduction, concentration on core functionalities, and optimized performance level. The authors conducted a literature review and interviewed 45 managers and researchers to establish these criteria, enabling organizations to better understand and develop frugal innovations in diverse market contexts.
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The Disruptive Nature of Information Technology Innovations: The Case of Internet Computing in Systems Development Organizations1, 2
This paper develops a theoretical model of disruptive IT innovations and applies it to Internet computing adoption. The authors studied eight systems development organizations in the United States and Finland, finding that Internet computing fundamentally transformed their development processes and service offerings. The research shows how architectural innovations in computing technology create cascading changes across organizational practices and outcomes.
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Users' contributions to radical innovation: evidence from four cases in the field of medical equipment technology
Users in medical equipment technology drive radical innovation by inventing and co-developing new solutions. Innovative users possess diverse competencies, strong motivation, and operate within supportive environments. They act entrepreneurially by building and organizing innovation networks that transform radical concepts into prototypes and marketable products. Manufacturing firms can leverage these user-innovators in early-stage radical innovation projects.
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Consumer adoption of the Uber mobile application: Insights from diffusion of innovation theory and technology acceptance model
This study examines why consumers adopt Uber by combining two adoption theories: Diffusion of Innovation and Technology Acceptance Model. The research finds that relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and social influence significantly affect how useful and easy users perceive the app to be, which then shapes their attitudes and intention to use it. The findings integrate both theoretical frameworks to explain mobile app adoption in the sharing economy.
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The ecosystem as helix: an exploratory theory‐building study of regional co‐opetitive entrepreneurial ecosystems as Quadruple/Quintuple Helix Innovation Models
This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding regional innovation ecosystems using the Quadruple/Quintuple Helix model, which integrates government, universities, industry, civil society, and environmental actors. The authors argue that regions function as complex, multi-level systems where organizations pursue both competitive and cooperative goals through entrepreneurial activities. They conceptualize these ecosystems as fractal structures with dynamic assets and propose that innovation systems can be organized by geographical and research-based properties.
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Value Creation and Value Capture in Open Innovation
Open innovation research has focused on collaborative invention but neglected how actors create and capture value from these collaborations. This paper argues that understanding value creation and capture is essential for sustaining open innovation and gaining competitive advantage. The authors clarify conceptual confusion around value capture and propose a framework linking open innovation to value creation and capture processes among interdependent actors.
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WHY 'OPEN INNOVATION' IS OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES
This paper critiques the open innovation concept, arguing it presents a false choice between open and closed models. The authors examine six core principles of open innovation and demonstrate that the framework misrepresents how firms actually operate. They show that while closed innovation has real limitations, most companies don't actually follow purely closed models, making open innovation's framing misleading rather than genuinely novel.
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Living Labs as Open-Innovation Networks
Living labs function as open-innovation networks that help organizations understand user needs and develop business opportunities. These collaborative environments create competitive advantages by enabling companies to co-create solutions with users in real-world settings, emerging as a practical approach for innovation development that goes beyond traditional research methods.
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Democratizing Innovation: The Evolving Phenomenon of User Innovation
User-centered innovation, once dismissed as marginal, has become a major force reshaping how products and services develop. End users and user firms now drive significant innovation across many fields, competing with and feeding into traditional manufacturer-led innovation. Advances in computing and digital communication accelerate this shift, making user innovation an increasingly powerful economic and creative phenomenon.
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Outbound open innovation and its effect on firm performance: examining environmental influences
This study examines how firms benefit from outbound open innovation—transferring technology externally—and identifies environmental conditions that strengthen these benefits. Using data from 136 industrial firms, the research finds that technological turbulence, active technology markets, and competitive intensity all enhance the positive relationship between outbound open innovation and firm performance. Stronger patent protection, however, does not improve outcomes. The findings clarify when companies should pursue outbound open innovation strategies.
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Living Lab: an open and citizen-centric approach for innovation
Living Labs represent a new approach to managing innovation that combines an innovation milieu with citizen-centered methods. The paper examines Botnia Living Lab and the FormIT approach, demonstrating how involving citizens in designing e-services for municipal governance strengthens innovation processes. Key structural components of Living Labs enhance both the innovation process and its underlying principles.
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Exploring open search strategies and perceived innovation performance from the perspective of inter‐organizational knowledge flows
The paper examines how companies access external knowledge to drive innovation. Using survey data from 184 Taiwanese electronics manufacturers, the authors find that focusing knowledge search on a few external sources strengthens incremental innovation, while searching broadly across many sources strengthens radical innovation. These findings clarify how different knowledge-gathering strategies produce different innovation outcomes.
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Open innovation and its effects on economic and sustainability innovation performance
This study examines how different external partners contribute to innovation performance in industrial firms. The researchers found that collaborating with universities, customers, NGOs, and intermediaries all improve both economic and sustainability innovation outcomes. Importantly, pursuing economic and sustainability goals simultaneously is not a conflict—firms can achieve both. The findings clarify which open innovation partnerships most effectively drive performance.
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Corporate social responsibility and innovation: a resource‐based theory
This paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) and innovation relate to each other using resource-based theory. Analyzing companies with R&D investments from 2003-2007, the authors find a negative bidirectional relationship: CSR practices reduce innovation efforts, and innovation reduces CSR practices. The effect varies by industry sector. Results show CSR investments take three years to demonstrate value and that companies rarely implement innovations linked to sustainability, revealing incompatibility between R&D spending and sustainable corporate behavior.
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The open innovation paradox: knowledge sharing and protection in R&D collaborations
Firms collaborating on R&D face a paradox: they must share knowledge to innovate together while protecting proprietary information. This study identifies how knowledge characteristics, collaboration structure, and relational factors create tension between openness and protection. The research finds that firms manage this paradox through strategies like layered collaboration schemes with inner and outer members, open knowledge exchange protocols, and licensing arrangements.
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Surmountable Chasms: Networks and Social Innovation for Resilient Systems
Networks facilitate social innovation by enabling cross-scale interactions that help communities escape rigid social structures and address complex problems. The paper argues that successful networks require institutional entrepreneurs with specific skills: pattern generation, relationship building, brokering knowledge and resources, and network recharging. These capabilities allow networks to increase resilience and improve human capacity to respond to systemic challenges.
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Opening up for competitive advantage – How Deutsche Telekom creates an open innovation ecosystem
Deutsche Telekom, Germany's national telecom operator, adopted open innovation practices to compete against declining revenues and market pressure. Through 15 interviews, researchers identified 11 open innovation instruments the company deployed. The study shows Deutsche Telekom successfully increased its innovation capacity by opening its development process to external creativity and knowledge sources, demonstrating how incumbent telecom firms can adapt to competitive threats.
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MOBILE BANKING ADOPTION: APPLICATION OF DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION THEORY
This study examines factors influencing mobile banking adoption among Saudi Arabian bank customers using Diffusion of Innovation theory. Analysis of 330 mobile banking users reveals that relative advantage, compatibility, and observability positively drive adoption, while perceived risk negages it. Trialability and complexity show no significant effect, contrary to prior research. The findings provide practical guidance for Saudi banks designing mobile services.
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The Relation among Organizational Culture, Knowledge Management, and Innovation Capability: Its Implication for Open Innovation
This study examined how organizational culture and knowledge management affect innovation capability in high-tech firms operating under open innovation models. Surveying 182 high-tech company representatives, the researchers found that knowledge management strongly correlates with innovation capability, and that organizational culture significantly influences knowledge management practices. Firms fostering open innovation cultures emphasizing trust, collaboration, and learning—supported by participative leadership—achieve more effective knowledge management and stronger innovation capabilities.
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Integrating Technology Acceptance Model With Innovation Diffusion Theory: An Empirical Investigation on Students’ Intention to Use E-Learning Systems
This study examined what influences Malaysian students' willingness to use e-learning systems by combining technology acceptance and innovation diffusion theories. Surveying 1,286 students, researchers found that six innovation characteristics—relative advantage, observability, trialability, compatibility, complexity, and perceived enjoyment—significantly shaped how students viewed the ease of use and usefulness of e-learning platforms. The integrated model provides universities and colleges with evidence-based guidance for implementing e-learning systems effectively.
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Technology Alliance Portfolios and Financial Performance: Value‐Enhancing and Cost‐Increasing Effects of Open Innovation<sup>*</sup>
Belgian manufacturing firms using diverse technology alliances boost product innovation and financial performance indirectly, but face direct costs that initially outweigh gains. The study confirms that open innovation through external partnerships strengthens internal innovation efforts, yet managers must account for the substantial coordination and management expenses of maintaining multiple technology alliances alongside their long-term financial benefits.
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How constraints and knowledge impact open innovation
This study examines how resource constraints and external knowledge availability shape firms' innovation strategies and performance. Using survey data from Swiss companies, the researchers find that resource constraints reduce innovative performance but push firms toward broader, shallower searches for external knowledge. Abundant external knowledge boosts performance and creates a U-shaped relationship with search breadth and depth, meaning firms either search narrowly and deeply or broadly and shallowly.
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Socially and Environmentally Responsible Value Chain Innovations: New Operations Management Research Opportunities
This paper identifies new research opportunities in operations management focused on socially and environmentally responsible value chains. The authors argue that OM research should expand beyond traditional economic objectives to address environmental and social responsibility across emerging and developing economies, engaging diverse stakeholders including producers, consumers, governments, and nonprofits. The paper proposes this broader approach will advance both economic development and social well-being globally.
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Explaining Diffusion Patterns for Complex Health Care Innovations
Healthcare innovations spread unevenly regardless of scientific evidence quality. This study examines four cases to show that adoption depends on how benefits and risks align with the interests, values, and power structures of the healthcare system adopting them, not on the strength of scientific support alone.
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Absorptive capacity, knowledge management and innovation in entrepreneurial small firms
Small firms with 15 or more employees, younger founders, and higher education levels absorb and implement new knowledge most effectively. Absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire, assimilate, and use knowledge—depends significantly on firm size, founder age, and educational background. Policy should target graduate-founded SMEs and develop innovation management programs for these firms to build knowledge-based economies.
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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes: an exploratory multiple case study analysis
Digital technologies enable firms to manage open innovation by facilitating knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries. This study examines nine companies across different industries to identify the managerial actions required to implement digital technologies in open innovation processes. The research reveals how digital tools help firms capture, transfer, and manage knowledge flows more effectively, addressing coordination challenges that arise when innovation becomes more collaborative and resource-intensive.
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Open-market innovation.
Companies increasingly adopt open-market innovation, using licensing, joint ventures, and strategic alliances to access external ideas rather than relying solely on internal R&D. This approach lets firms acquire diverse expertise, retain creative talent, and measure innovation value. However, poor deal structuring can backfire, as seen when Xerox and TRW failed to capitalize on their own innovations.
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Disruptiveness of innovations: measurement and an assessment of reliability and validity
This paper develops and validates a measurement scale for assessing how disruptive innovations are. The authors surveyed senior executives at 199 business units across 38 Fortune 500 companies and used statistical analysis to confirm their scale is reliable and valid. They show that disruptiveness is distinct from other innovation characteristics like radicalness, providing researchers with a tool to study why established companies struggle to develop truly disruptive innovations.
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Economic Growth, Increasing Productivity of SMEs, and Open Innovation
Economic growth driven by technological innovation significantly boosts small and medium enterprise productivity and welfare. Government policies, capital support, and human resource development together explain 97.6% of SME development outcomes. The study recommends that governments adopt innovation-based economic growth strategies to increase productivity of community enterprises.
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The spread of innovations in social networks
This paper examines how network structure affects the speed at which innovations spread when people make strategic choices between competing alternatives. Using coordination game models, the authors find that innovations spread much more slowly on highly connected networks with long-range links than on low-dimensional networks based on geographic proximity. Their results contradict predictions from epidemic models commonly used to study innovation diffusion.
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Managing User Involvement in Service Innovation
Users generate more original service ideas with higher perceived value than professional developers, but their ideas are less producible. User involvement implementation matters significantly—users working with design expert feedback produced better results than those working alone. The study reveals trade-offs between innovation originality and technical feasibility when involving users in service development.
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Open innovation: current status and research opportunities
Open innovation has grown rapidly as a research field since 2003. This paper identifies key gaps in existing research, including the need for more work on outbound innovation, services, network collaboration forms like ecosystems and platforms, and adoption by small and nonprofit organizations. It calls for better measurement of open innovation's performance effects and understanding of why initiatives fail, plus stronger connections to established theories like absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities.
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An evolutionary integrated view of Regional Systems of Innovation: Concepts, measures and historical perspectives
Regional innovation systems have been studied with a national bias that overlooks sub-national dynamics and historical evolution. This paper integrates top-down and bottom-up perspectives to develop a more complete framework for understanding regional innovation systems, emphasizing how history and regional culture shape development opportunities. Italy's case demonstrates that historical regional contexts are essential for assessing future regional innovation potential.
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Innovation as the core competency of a service organisation: the role of technology, knowledge and networks
Service organizations compete through innovation driven by technology, knowledge, and networks. The paper argues that a firm's true resource is the amorphous knowledge created through customer and partner relationships, which enables innovation as a core competency. Innovation only delivers value when firms align their capabilities to meet customer needs in the marketplace.
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Navigating the Back Loop: Fostering Social Innovation and Transformation in Ecosystem Management
This paper examines how social innovation drives transformation in ecosystem management. The authors argue that fostering innovation during periods of ecosystem change—particularly in the 'back loop' of adaptive cycles—enables communities to develop new management approaches and adapt to shifting environmental conditions. The work emphasizes social innovation as essential for navigating complex ecosystem challenges.
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Factors influencing autonomous vehicle adoption: an application of the technology acceptance model and innovation diffusion theory
This study examined what factors influence people's willingness to adopt autonomous vehicles using technology acceptance and innovation diffusion theories. Survey data from 274 respondents showed that perceived usefulness and ease of use drive adoption intentions. The research also found that innovation characteristics—including relative advantage, compatibility, image, demonstrability, visibility, and trialability—shape how useful and easy people perceive AVs to be, offering insights for promoting autonomous vehicle adoption.
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INNOVATION TYPE AND DIFFUSION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
This study tests how five different types of innovations spread through English local government. Using data from 120 authorities, the research finds that different factors drive adoption of different innovation types. The results show that innovation adoption is complex and context-dependent, meaning policymakers cannot use one-size-fits-all approaches to encourage local government innovation.
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Open service innovation and the firm's search for external knowledge
This paper examines how service firms and manufacturing companies adopting service-inclusive models engage in open innovation—collaborating across organizational boundaries to access external knowledge. Using UK firm data, the authors find that business services firms are more active open innovators than manufacturers, rely more on informal knowledge-exchange practices, and prioritize scientific and technical knowledge. Open innovation engagement increases with firm size and R&D spending.
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Unravelling the process from Closed to Open Innovation: evidence from mature, asset‐intensive industries
This paper examines how mature, asset-intensive firms transition from closed to open innovation models. Through longitudinal case studies of four Italian companies, the authors identify four organizational dimensions that change during this shift: inter-organizational networks, organizational structures, evaluation processes, and knowledge management systems. The findings provide a framework for understanding and managing the organizational transformation required to adopt open innovation practices.
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Innovation and robustness in complex regulatory gene networks
This paper examines how evolutionary innovation occurs in gene regulatory networks controlling embryonic development. The researchers show that networks producing the same gene expression patterns form connected networks in genotype space, allowing evolution to explore diverse genetic changes while maintaining viable phenotypes. Robustness to mutations, rather than hindering innovation, actually enables long-term evolutionary innovation by keeping organisms close to functional states.
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Motivating and supporting collaboration in open innovation
Open innovation communities succeed when contributors are motivated by intangible rewards like learning, community cooperation, and entertainment rather than money. The study of three innovation intermediaries across France, the Netherlands, and Finland found that users value easy-to-use collaboration tools and visible engagement from community maintainers. Companies should invest in accessible platforms and active leadership to support effective collaboration.
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Orchestration Processes in Network-Centric Innovation: Evidence From the Field.
Companies increasingly pursue innovation through external networks rather than internal resources alone. This study examines how hub firms orchestrate network-centric innovation by combining product development and network theory with field research. The findings show that orchestration processes blend innovation design with network design, revealing how firms coordinate external partnerships to drive innovation.
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Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4
This report identifies ten emerging pedagogical innovations with potential to transform post-secondary education. Researchers at the Open University and SRI International reviewed educational theories and practices, then selected innovations already in use but not yet widely adopted. The report sketches these ten pedagogies in order of likely implementation timescale, aiming to guide teachers and policymakers toward productive educational change.
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Determinants and archetype users of open innovation
This paper explains why firms adopt open innovation at different levels by examining internal barriers to innovation rather than external factors. Using exploration-exploitation theory, the authors test how innovation impediments affect the breadth and depth of open innovation activities. Their analysis identifies four distinct firm archetypes with different open innovation patterns and identifies which internal weaknesses drive firms toward external R&D collaboration.
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Innovation, entrepreneurial, knowledge, and business ecosystems: Old wine in new bottles?
This theoretical paper reviews 104 sources to examine four types of ecosystems—business, innovation, entrepreneurial, and knowledge—and connects them to established territorial approaches. The authors identify common invariants across these diverging streams and propose a unified research framework that integrates ecosystem and territorial perspectives under complex evolutionary systems theory, providing foundations for future empirical research.
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Dynamic Capability Building in Service Value Networks for Achieving Service Innovation
Service organizations innovate by collaborating through value networks rather than working alone. This study of a telecommunications company shows that dynamic capabilities—including customer engagement, collaborative agility, entrepreneurial alertness, and innovative capacity—emerge through stakeholder collaboration and education. These capabilities drive service innovation outcomes and require continuous development as business conditions change. Managers must actively cultivate these collaborative skills to deliver new service offerings.
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Interlocking Interactions, the Diffusion of Innovations in Health Care
This study examines how healthcare innovations spread through organizations in the UK, focusing on later adoption stages. The research reveals that diffusion is not a simple decision but a complex, interactive process where context and actors interlock to shape outcomes. Scientific knowledge itself is socially mediated and contested, with active adopters playing crucial roles in determining whether innovations take hold.
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On the path towards open innovation: assessing the role of knowledge management capability and environmental dynamism in SMEs
This study examines how small and medium-sized enterprises develop open innovation capabilities. The research finds that IT-supported operations and human resource practices strengthen knowledge management capability, which in turn drives open innovation. Environmental dynamism also directly influences open innovation adoption. Interdepartmental connectedness alone does not significantly affect knowledge management capability.
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R&D and Absorptive Capacity: Theory and Empirical Evidence*
This paper develops a unified framework connecting endogenous growth theory with empirical R&D research. It shows that R&D drives both innovation and absorptive capacity—the ability to adopt others' discoveries. The model explains long-run productivity differences between countries and reveals that previous studies underestimated R&D's social returns by ignoring absorptive capacity effects.
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Knowledge‐based dynamic capabilities and innovation in networked environments
This study examines how knowledge-based dynamic capabilities drive innovation in networked manufacturing environments. Using survey data from 218 Chinese firms, the researchers found that knowledge combination capability mediates the relationship between dynamic capabilities and innovation performance. Network embeddedness influences dynamic capabilities through relational connections and network diversity, which enhance knowledge acquisition and joint problem-solving abilities.
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Where Do Good Innovation Ideas Come From? Exploring the Influence of Network Connectivity on Innovation Idea Quality
Network connectivity influences innovation idea quality differently depending on whether ideas come from individuals or groups. Individual innovators generate higher-quality ideas with more network connections, but highly connected groups actually produce lower-quality ideas. The study finds that some minimum level of connectivity is necessary for quality ideas, but excessive connectivity in group settings reduces performance. These findings suggest companies should facilitate individual interaction while carefully managing group dynamics during ideation.
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Open innovation: Are inbound and outbound knowledge flows really complementary?
This paper tests whether firms benefit from simultaneously engaging in inbound and outbound knowledge flows, as open innovation theory suggests. Using data from Belgian manufacturing firms, the authors find that while companies buying and selling knowledge do increase new product sales, their R&D costs rise disproportionately. The results show no complementarity between knowledge inflows and outflows, suggesting that the organizational costs of managing open innovation are higher than theory predicts.
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Responses to disruptive strategic innovation
Established companies face disruptive strategic innovations that challenge their existing business models. The paper identifies five response strategies: focus on the core business, ignore non-threatening innovations, counter the disruption, operate both models simultaneously, or scale the new approach. A company's choice depends on its motivation (growth rate, threat level, strategic relevance) and ability (skills, resources, time, conflict magnitude). Success requires recognizing that new competitive approaches aren't automatically superior.
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Too much of a good thing? Absorptive capacity, firm performance, and the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation
Absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to acquire and exploit new knowledge—shows an inverted-U relationship with financial performance in small and medium technology enterprises. Beyond moderate levels, absorptive capacity actually harms performance. Entrepreneurial orientation moderates this relationship, enabling firms to gain more from knowledge absorption at lower levels and sustain returns at higher levels before diminishing returns occur.
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Non-invasive prenatal testing for aneuploidy and beyond: challenges of responsible innovation in prenatal screening
This position document from European and American genetics societies provides recommendations for responsible innovation in prenatal screening using non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT). The authors argue that while NIPT improves accuracy and safety for detecting common chromosomal abnormalities, expanding screening scope requires rigorous validation and ethical evaluation. They call for governments to regulate prenatal screening as public health programs, ensuring quality counseling, professional education, and equitable access rather than allowing commercial expansion without oversight.
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Dynamic capabilities for ecosystem orchestration A capability-based framework for smart city innovation initiatives
Firms leading smart city innovation ecosystems need three core dynamic capabilities to succeed: configuring partnerships, deploying value propositions, and governing ecosystem alignment. The study identifies specific micro-routines underlying sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring activities that enable ecosystem leaders to orchestrate innovation in digitalized, sustainability-focused environments. These capabilities help firms gain competitive advantage by effectively managing emerging ecosystem partnerships.
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Innovative clusters: drivers of national innovation systems
Industrial clusters function as localized innovation systems that drive national economic growth by creating, diffusing, and using knowledge. The paper argues that both market-based and informal knowledge flows concentrate within these clusters. Policymakers and researchers demonstrate how national and local innovation policies can leverage and strengthen cluster dynamics across different countries.
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Ethics and Privacy in AI and Big Data: Implementing Responsible Research and Innovation
This paper argues that responsible research and innovation (RRI) provides a framework for addressing ethical and privacy concerns in AI and big data technologies. The authors contend that stakeholder engagement, including civil society participation, is essential to ensure these technologies deliver social benefits while remaining acceptable and sustainable. They illustrate RRI implementation through the Human Brain Project.
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Green Approach To Prepare Graphene-Based Composites with High Microwave Absorption Capacity
This paper describes a method for creating graphene-polymer composites with strong microwave absorption properties. Researchers mixed chemically reduced graphene with polyethylene oxide using an aqueous process, producing materials with high electrical conductivity and large surface areas. The resulting composites effectively converted microwave energy into heat through electrical pathways and interface interactions, achieving absorption performance suitable for industrial applications.
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The Future of Open Innovation
Open innovation—where organizations collaborate externally on research and development—has grown significantly in both practice and academic study. This overview synthesizes recent evidence about open innovation approaches and identifies theoretical perspectives needed to strengthen the field. The paper builds on prior work to assess what we know about how openness in innovation actually works.
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‘Spatializing’ knowledge communities: towards a conceptualization of transnational innovation networks
This paper argues that innovation systems research should shift focus from discrete geographic scales to network relationships operating across scales. The authors propose that innovation networks extend beyond firms to include knowledge communities and the movement of knowledgeable individuals. They develop a conceptual framework identifying three domains of transnational innovation networks: corporate-institutional, social network, and hegemonic-discursive, showing how these domains interact across different localities.
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When Is a Disruptive Innovation Disruptive?<sup>*</sup>
This paper distinguishes between market-disrupting innovations and disruptive innovations as defined by Christensen, using diffusion patterns to explain why incumbents sometimes underestimate threats. The authors identify low-end encroachment (fringe-market, detached-market, and immediate scenarios) where innovations spread upward from low-end markets, and high-end encroachment where impact is immediate. They provide a three-step framework to assess diffusion patterns and help firms evaluate innovation threats or opportunities.
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Agility in responding to disruptive digital innovation: Case study of an <scp>SME</scp>
Small and medium-sized enterprises achieve agility in responding to disruptive digital innovation through three key processes: reducing organizational rigidity via boundary openness, building innovative capabilities through organizational adaptability, and balancing the competing demands of exploration and exploitation despite resource constraints. The study develops a framework showing how SMEs specifically navigate these challenges differently than larger firms.
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DIFFERENTIATED KNOWLEDGE BASES AND VARIETIES OF REGIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS
This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding regional development through regional innovation systems, moving beyond the simple codified-versus-tacit knowledge distinction. It introduces a differentiated knowledge base approach that applies across economic sectors and presents different types of regional innovation systems within various capitalist contexts. The author examines whether regional innovation systems can actually exist as functional entities.
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INTERMEDIARIES, USERS AND SOCIAL LEARNING IN TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
Intermediaries play a critical role in technological innovation by connecting users with developers and facilitating the adoption of new technologies. The paper examines how intermediaries configure, facilitate, and broker technologies across supply and demand sides in emerging markets. The authors demonstrate that intermediaries bridge the gap between user-driven and developer-driven innovation, and that identifying and supporting user-side intermediaries is essential for innovation success.
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Social innovation, an answer to contemporary societal challenges? Locating the concept in theory and practice
Social innovation is promoted as a solution to societal challenges through inclusive practices and grassroots initiatives, but the concept has been stretched across so many different academic and policy contexts that it risks losing coherence. The authors argue that for social innovation to become a useful policy tool, researchers and policymakers need clearer theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence about what political and economic changes are necessary to support it effectively.
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Unpacking Absorptive Capacity: A Study of Knowledge Utilization from Alliance Portfolios
This study examines how firms use knowledge from their alliance networks during technological change. The researchers distinguish between two types of absorptive capacity: latitudinal (using diverse knowledge) and longitudinal (using distant knowledge). They find that moderate diversity in alliance portfolios optimizes knowledge use, but simultaneously increasing demands on both types of capacity reduces effectiveness. The paper identifies two portfolio strategies—telescopic and panoptic searches—that balance these trade-offs.
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Absorptive capacity: Enhancing the assimilation of time‐based manufacturing practices
Organizations implementing advanced manufacturing technologies need strong absorptive capacity—an internal environment that emphasizes knowledge sharing and continuous learning. This study measures absorptive capacity and tests its impact on adopting time-based manufacturing practices. Results from 303 manufacturers show that higher absorptive capacity directly strengthens adoption of innovative practices, which in turn increases customer value.
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Lessons for Responsible Innovation in the Business Context: A Systematic Literature Review of Responsible, Social and Sustainable Innovation Practices
This systematic review of 72 empirical studies identifies innovation practices and processes that businesses can use to implement responsible innovation. The authors synthesize findings on social, sustainable, and responsible innovation to create a framework addressing six key dimensions: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, deliberation, responsiveness, and knowledge management. The review advances both theory and practical application of responsible innovation in business contexts.
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Social Innovation: Integrating Micro, Meso, and Macro Level Insights From Institutional Theory
Social innovations require renegotiating or building institutions to address complex social problems involving multiple systems and actors. This paper presents a three-cycle model showing how social innovation operates across micro, meso, and macro levels through agentic, relational, and situated dynamics. The framework integrates institutional theory perspectives to guide understanding of how innovative solutions develop and get implemented across interconnected social systems.
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Learning from openness: The dynamics of breadth in external innovation linkages
Manufacturing plants that maintain external innovation partnerships over time become more effective at converting those partnerships into innovation outputs. Irish firms with prior experience collaborating with external knowledge sources generate greater innovation returns from their current openness activities. This learning effect means experienced firms extract more value from the same breadth of external linkages compared to less experienced firms.
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The Culture for Open Innovation Dynamics
This paper develops a concept model explaining how organizational culture drives open innovation dynamics. The authors identify three entrepreneurship dimensions—novice entrepreneurship, employee intrapreneurship, and organizational entrepreneurship—whose balance determines the type of culture that emerges. The model shows culture can control open innovation complexity and motivate innovation activity. The framework was validated through analysis of 23 related studies.
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Corporate Governance for Responsible Innovation: Approaches to Corporate Governance and Their Implications for Sustainable Development
This paper argues that addressing global challenges like poverty, climate change, and pandemics requires responsible innovation supported by new corporate governance models. The authors examine how participative and reflexive governance approaches can enable businesses to generate innovations that create social and environmental benefits while avoiding harm. They demonstrate governance challenges through examples including the COVID-19 pandemic response.
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Managing Socio-Ethical Challenges in the Development of Smart Farming: From a Fragmented to a Comprehensive Approach for Responsible Research and Innovation
Smart farming development in New Zealand has prioritized productivity and efficiency while neglecting socio-ethical challenges and excluding citizens and consumers from decision-making. The authors apply responsible research and innovation (RRI) principles to smart dairying and find that current R&D lacks adequate consideration of broader social impacts. They recommend government leadership to embed RRI principles in project design and call for sector-specific approaches to build RRI capacity across smart farming innovation systems.
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National Innovation System
This paper traces the intellectual origins of the National Innovation System framework, showing that the OECD's work in the 1960s fundamentally shaped the systems approach to innovation that later researchers like Freeman, Nelson, and Lundvall developed. The author argues the OECD's emphasis on interconnected sectors—government, university, and industry—and their relationships as drivers of innovation performance directly influenced the framework that became central to innovation studies.
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Combinations of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital for farm innovation: How farmers configure different support networks
Farmers adopt new agricultural technologies and practices through different support networks combining bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. This Chilean study identifies five distinct network configurations farmers use to explore new knowledge while implementing innovations. Rather than a single optimal approach, farmers customize their networks based on personal motivations, innovation goals, and available resources. All configuration types successfully achieve farm innovation, suggesting support strategies must adapt to individual farmer circumstances.
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The Core and Cosmopolitans: A Relational View of Innovation in User Communities
User communities drive innovation through two key positions: core members who deeply engage within the community, and cosmopolitans who bridge multiple external communities. This study analyzed online community interactions, surveys, and interviews to show that innovation emerges not just from individual traits but from relational structures. Communities enable distinctive behaviors that traditional organizations cannot, amplifying innovation through strategic positioning within and across networks.
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Micro- and Macro-Dynamics of Open Innovation with a Quadruple-Helix Model
Open innovation drives sustainability in the fourth industrial revolution through a quadruple-helix model involving industry, government, universities, and society. Industry builds innovation ecosystems on open platforms, government shifts from regulation to facilitation, universities engage in technology transfer and knowledge co-creation, and society participates in shared economy models. The paper proposes a framework addressing social, environmental, economic, cultural, policy, and knowledge sustainability across manufacturing and service sectors.
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Value creation and capture mechanisms in innovation ecosystems: a comparative case study
This comparative case study examines how innovation ecosystems create and capture value. The authors analyze mechanisms across different contexts to understand the processes by which organizations within ecosystems generate economic returns and distribute benefits among participants. The research identifies key patterns in value creation and appropriation strategies that vary across ecosystem types.
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The Effect of Absorptive Capacity on Innovativeness: Context and Information Systems Capability as Catalysts
Absorptive capacity—a company's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—significantly drives innovativeness in firms. A study of 286 large Spanish companies found that a company's willingness to unlearn outdated practices strengthens both potential and realized absorptive capacity. Information systems capabilities provide a practical tool for managers to enhance absorptive capacity and boost innovation performance.
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Cluster Absorptive Capacity
Industrial clusters grow when firms can absorb external knowledge and share it within the cluster. This paper argues that cluster success depends on absorptive capacity—the ability of member firms to learn from outside sources and distribute that knowledge internally. The diversity of firms' knowledge bases shapes how well clusters connect to external information and strengthen their internal learning systems.
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Bilateral Collaboration and the Emergence of Innovation Networks
This paper models how innovation networks form through bilateral partnerships between firms. Firms choose collaborators based on knowledge production rather than network strategy. The success of collaborations depends on cognitive fit, prior relationships, and information from shared contacts. The study shows that network structure varies with how knowledge decomposes into tasks and how firms learn about partners—dense networks emerge when innovation breaks into separate subtasks, while cliquish networks form when indirect information matters most.
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Knowledge-driven preferences in informal inbound open innovation modes. An explorative view on small to medium enterprises
Small and medium enterprises in the United Kingdom prefer informal open innovation partnerships when they adopt a knowledge-driven approach. The study examined 175 SMEs and found that knowledge-driven strategy is the strongest factor determining whether firms choose informal over formal collaboration modes for acquiring external knowledge. Absorptive capacity and cognitive dimensions also influence these preferences.
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Managing Distributed Innovation: Strategic Utilization of Open and User Innovation
Innovation increasingly happens across multiple organizations and stakeholders rather than within single firms. This paper compares vertically integrated innovation against open innovation, user innovation, crowdsourcing, and co-creation models. It examines how these distributed approaches differ in their sources, motivations, and value capture mechanisms, then provides a framework for strategically managing innovation across organizational boundaries.
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An Examination of the Relationship Between Absorptive Capacity and Organizational Learning, and a Proposed Integration
This paper clarifies the relationship between absorptive capacity and organizational learning, two concepts long studied together but never precisely defined in relation to each other. The authors argue that absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge—represents a specific type of organizational learning focused on external knowledge acquisition. They propose integrating these concepts using established frameworks from organizational learning and absorptive capacity literature.
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Exploring the field of open innovation
This paper reviews the emerging open innovation research field through systematic analysis of academic publications and expert interviews. The authors identify key research themes and reveal that the field is expanding toward broader definitions, developing critical perspectives, and focusing on theory and management implications. They propose using innovation process location and collaboration extent as dimensions for deeper understanding of how open innovation develops.
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THE CREATION AND DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW
This systematic literature review examines how innovation is created and adopted in developing countries' private sectors. The authors identify barriers to innovation and trace how new ideas and technologies spread within and across developing economies. They find that innovation capacity depends on interactions between geographical, socio-economic, political, and legal systems. Institutional contexts in developing countries significantly shape how innovations diffuse.
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Using users: When does external knowledge enhance corporate product innovation?
User knowledge significantly enhances corporate product innovation, particularly in new technology areas and radical innovations. The study examined medical device companies collaborating with innovative physicians and found that these user collaborations generate stronger innovation outcomes than relying solely on external knowledge from other firms or universities.
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Responsible Innovation Toward Sustainable Development in Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: a Resource Perspective
Small and medium-sized enterprises can develop responsible innovations for sustainable development even with limited resources. Research on 13 Nordic SMEs shows that equity capital is necessary, but the specific resource combinations needed vary by innovation type. Business model innovations require minimal resources—mainly equity and social capital—while environmental technology innovations demand more abundant resources, particularly industry knowledge and R&D cooperation.
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Citizen Participation, Open Innovation, and Crowdsourcing
Open innovation and crowdsourcing offer planning practitioners new approaches to problem-solving by engaging external participants and diverse groups. Unlike traditional citizen participation, crowdsourcing uses internet-based challenges to generate solutions from large audiences. The paper examines how these techniques differ and presents case studies demonstrating crowdsourcing's potential to produce more robust outcomes than internal organizational efforts.
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How do young firms manage product portfolio complexity? The role of absorptive capacity and ambidexterity
Young high-technology firms benefit from complex product portfolios through increased sales and competitiveness, but face rising costs that create diminishing returns. The study of 215 young firms shows that absorptive capacity and ambidexterity—the ability to balance exploration and exploitation—strengthen performance gains from portfolio complexity while reducing its costs.
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DIFFERENT MODES OF OPEN INNOVATION: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND AN EMPIRICAL STUDY
This paper develops a framework categorizing four modes of open innovation based on two dimensions: partner variety and innovation funnel openness. Testing the framework on Italian companies, the authors show that firms successfully adopt different collaboration strategies ranging from completely closed to fully open innovation. The research demonstrates that total openness is not always optimal; companies achieve success through varied degrees and types of external collaboration matched to their specific strategies and capabilities.
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Disrupting Class How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
This paper applies disruptive innovation theory to education, arguing that technological change will fundamentally transform how people learn globally. The author examines how disruptive innovations reshape educational systems and delivery methods, suggesting that new technologies will create alternative learning pathways that challenge traditional classroom-based education models.
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The social underpinnings of absorptive capacity: The moderating effects of structural holes on innovation generation based on external knowledge
Individual scientists and engineers who bridge structural holes in their organization's internal knowledge network generate more innovations from external knowledge sources. Using data from 276 R&D professionals at a multinational tech company, the study shows that an employee's position in the internal social network determines how effectively they convert external knowledge into innovations. Those connecting otherwise disconnected groups innovate more from outside information.
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Dismantling Knowledge Boundaries at NASA: The Critical Role of Professional Identity in Open Innovation
A study of NASA's adoption of open innovation reveals that R&D professionals traditionally protect knowledge within disciplinary boundaries. When NASA opened innovation to outside contributors, it achieved scientific breakthroughs with limited resources, but professionals who resisted identity change rejected external solutions. Only those who refocused their professional identity truly dismantled boundaries and integrated outside knowledge. Professional identity transformation proved essential for open innovation to succeed.
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Innovation with open data: Essential elements of open data ecosystems
Open data ecosystems are expected to drive innovation and citizen participation, yet little research defines what actually constitutes them. This paper identifies and analyzes the essential elements required for functional open data ecosystems, providing a framework for understanding how open data infrastructure supports innovation across sectors.
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The roles of absorptive capacity and cultural balance for exploratory and exploitative innovation in SMEs
This study examines how absorptive capacity and organizational culture influence innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises. Using survey data from 138 SMEs, the researchers found that realized absorptive capacity fully mediates the effect of potential absorptive capacity on both exploratory and exploitative innovation. Balanced organizational culture strengthens how realized absorptive capacity drives innovation, though it doesn't affect the potential-to-realized capacity conversion. The findings highlight that cultural equilibrium matters for SMEs pursuing simultaneous exploratory and exploitative innovation.
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Limits to the diffusion of innovation
Innovation diffusion depends on technological, social, and learning conditions operating within individual, community, or market contexts. The paper integrates theories from marketing, innovation, and sociology to explain why users resist or slowly adopt new technologies. Understanding these conditions helps companies reduce adoption risks and develop better strategies for radical innovations.
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Managerial challenges in open innovation: a study of innovation intermediation in the chemical industry
This study examines managerial challenges faced by chemical companies using innovation intermediaries to solve R&D problems. Researchers identified three recurring obstacles across seven companies: getting internal scientists to engage with intermediaries, choosing appropriate problems to outsource, and framing problems clearly enough to generate novel solutions. The authors explain these challenges stem from differences in how scientists work internally versus externally, and propose practical remedies.
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Transformative innovation and translocal diffusion
Transformative innovations emerge from locally rooted sustainability initiatives that challenge unsustainable systems by developing alternatives. These innovations grow through replication, partnership, and embedding, spreading across regions via translocal networks that share ideas and practices. The paper synthesizes European research to show how connecting local initiatives across contexts creates potential for sustainability transitions, though governance support remains necessary.
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Open Innovation and the Stage-Gate Process: A Revised Model for New Product Development
This paper presents an open Stage-Gate model that integrates open innovation principles into new product development processes. The model enables firms to systematically import and export knowledge and technology while evaluating core capabilities at each development stage. Applied to an upstream oil and gas company, the approach helps organizations capture value from both internal innovation and external technology partnerships.
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From Cost to Frugal and Reverse Innovation: Mapping the Field and Implications for Global Competitiveness
This paper distinguishes between four types of innovation targeting resource-constrained customers in emerging markets: cost, good-enough, frugal, and reverse innovation. The authors clarify conceptual differences between these approaches and explain how each requires different strategic and operational implications. The framework helps managers systematically analyze their resource-constrained innovation strategies and develop appropriate processes.
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Innovation communities: the role of networks of promotors in Open Innovation
This paper defines innovation communities as networks of promotors—transformational leaders who collaborate across organizational boundaries. Through three case studies, the research shows that these informal networks of promotors are essential to open innovation success. The paper connects promotor theory to open innovation research and demonstrates that close cooperation among these champions, regardless of functional or organizational divisions, drives innovation creation and dissemination.
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Green Process Innovation and Financial Performance in Emerging Economies: Moderating Effects of Absorptive Capacity and Green Subsidies
Green process innovation improves financial performance in manufacturing industries, particularly in emerging economies. Using ten years of Chinese industrial data, the study finds that both clean and end-of-pipe technologies boost profitability. Absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to learn and apply knowledge—strengthens this benefit, while government subsidies surprisingly weaken it. Industries gain more from leveraging internal capabilities than relying on external government support.
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Business, Innovation, and Knowledge Ecosystems: How They Differ and How to Survive and Thrive within Them
This paper examines how business, innovation, and knowledge ecosystems function and differ from one another. It applies ecological ecosystem concepts to understand how organizations and knowledge systems interact, survive, and develop within complex environments. The work helps explain the structural and operational differences between these three types of ecosystems and provides insights for thriving within them.
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The Innovation Effect of User Design: Exploring Consumers’ Innovation Perceptions of Firms Selling Products Designed by Users
Firms that involve users in designing products enhance consumer perceptions of innovation compared to traditional professional design. Four studies show this user-design approach increases purchase intentions, willingness to pay, and recommendation likelihood. The effect strengthens when more diverse consumers participate, face fewer constraints, and actually use their designs. Consumer familiarity with user innovation and task complexity moderate these outcomes.
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Theories of power and social change. Power contestations and their implications for research on social change and innovation
This paper develops a meta-theoretical framework for understanding power in social change and innovation processes. It identifies seven key contested dimensions of power—including power over versus power to, centralized versus diffused, and empowerment versus disempowerment—and shows how different theoretical approaches to power translate into specific empirical research questions for studying innovation.
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Enabling open innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises: how to find alternative applications for your technologies
Small and medium-sized enterprises struggle to identify opportunities to license their technologies outside their core business due to limited resources and specialized focus. This paper presents a practical methodology combining TRIZ tools with weighting and portfolio management techniques to help SMEs find alternative applications for their existing technologies. The authors developed and tested the approach with an Italian packaging company.
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Open and closed innovation &ndash; different innovation cultures for different strategies
This study examines how innovation culture differs between open and closed innovation approaches within a multinational specialty chemicals company. Surveying 109 employees across three business units, the researchers found measurable cultural differences in not-invented-here syndrome, risk-taking attitudes, and management support for innovation. The findings show that successful open innovation requires distinct cultural characteristics from closed innovation models.
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Data-Driven Innovation through Open Government Data
Open government data creates economic and social value through innovation, but the mechanisms driving this transformation remain poorly understood. This paper uses critical realist analysis to examine how data becomes value, focusing on Opower's case. The company transformed government energy data into behavioral interventions that significantly reduced energy consumption, demonstrating how open data can drive practical innovation with measurable real-world impact.
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Leveraging complexity for ecosystemic innovation
This paper analyzes innovation ecosystems through complexity science, treating them as open non-linear networks where multiple actors collaborate and adapt to uncertainty. The authors distinguish innovation ecosystems from other business networks by their internal interaction complexity, review four research streams studying them, and apply complex adaptive systems theory to understand how innovation clusters function. They argue that ecosystem-based thinking better supports innovation-led economic growth than traditional industrial-era approaches.
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Responsible Innovation: Managing the Responsible Emergence of Science and Innovation in Society
This book review examines a collection of essays on responsible innovation that develops frameworks for managing science and technology emergence in society. The authors define responsible innovation as a pluralistic process balancing diverse viewpoints while anticipating future impacts, operating within market-driven systems, and representing collective commitment to stewardship. The collection combines philosophical perspectives with practical approaches, addressing ethical issues in emerging fields like nanotechnology and geo-engineering through global perspectives including European normative standards for sustainability and social desirability.
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Collingridge and the dilemma of control: Towards responsible and accountable innovation
This paper examines David Collingridge's theories on controlling technology and his 'dilemma of control' concept, arguing that responsible innovation literature frequently cites but rarely deeply engages with his work. The authors reveal how Collingridge's substantive, methodological, and philosophical insights illuminate governance challenges in innovation, particularly regarding anticipatory decision-making, public participation, and institutional structures that shape technology's relationship with society.
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THE IMPACT OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY ON SMEs' COLLABORATION
Absorptive capacity—built through R&D investment and skilled workforce—significantly influences small and medium-sized enterprises' ability to collaborate with other firms, universities, and technology centers. A survey of 276 manufacturing SMEs in Lombardy, Italy, shows that absorptive capacity directly determines whether SMEs can successfully establish external partnerships and access knowledge from outside organizations.
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The Role of Organizational Absorptive Capacity in Strategic Use of Business Intelligence to Support Integrated Management Control Systems
This study examines how organizations absorb and use business intelligence systems within management control frameworks. The research finds that organizational absorptive capacity—the ability to gather, absorb, and leverage new information—is critical for successful BI implementation. While top management supports deployment, operational managers' absorptive capacity drives actual system use through bottom-up adoption rather than top-down mandates.
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Collaboration capability a focal concept in knowledge creation and collaborative innovation in networks
Sustainable innovation in knowledge-based competition requires collaboration capability—the ability to build and manage network relationships through trust, communication, and commitment. The authors review research on network collaboration and argue that collaboration capability is a prerequisite for diverse actors to share complementary knowledge and create innovations together. This concept integrates key elements from related research and explains how knowledge creation and innovation emerge through social interaction in networks.
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Open source and journalism: toward new frameworks for imagining news innovation
Journalists and technologists collaborate globally through open-source software projects to innovate news production. The authors examine open-source culture's core values—transparency, tinkering, iteration, and participation—and evaluate how these principles align with or challenge traditional journalism practices. They argue open-source frameworks offer new ways to understand and advance innovation in newswork.
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Understanding the Advantages of Open Innovation Practices in Corporate Venturing in Terms of Real Options
Open innovation in corporate venturing offers financial and strategic advantages over closed innovation approaches. Companies gain early exposure to emerging technologies, can delay major financial commitments, exit unprofitable ventures quickly to limit losses, and extend promising ventures longer. However, firms must actively develop new skills and organizational routines to fully realize these real options benefits.
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Triple Helix twins: innovation and sustainability
The paper proposes adding a Sustainability Triple Helix model alongside the existing Innovation Triple Helix to address environmental and social dimensions. Rather than introducing a fourth helix that could weaken the model's creative dynamics, the authors suggest a complementary framework where universities, public institutions, and government collaborate on sustainability issues, while universities, industry, and government continue driving innovation.
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Does Emotional Intelligence Contribute to Quality of Strategic Decisions? The Mediating Role of Open Innovation
Emotional intelligence in top managers directly improves the quality of strategic decisions they make. Open innovation mediates this relationship, enhancing decision-making through intelligent information systems. A survey of 213 UAE bank managers found strong positive links between managers' emotional intelligence and decision quality, with open innovation practices amplifying this effect.
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Innovations in climate policy: the politics of invention, diffusion, and evaluation
This paper argues that climate policy innovation at national and sub-national levels deserves greater scholarly attention. The authors propose a comprehensive framework for understanding policy innovation across three stages: invention of new policy elements, diffusion into wider use, and evaluation of effects. They identify analytical and methodological challenges in integrating these perspectives and present a framework applied throughout the volume to examine climate mitigation and adaptation policies.
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A new perspective on Twitter hashtag use: Diffusion of innovation theory
Twitter hashtags function as user-created tagging conventions that organize information around events and contexts. This paper applies diffusion of innovation theory to explain how hashtags are adopted and spread across the platform. The theory reveals insights for designing interfaces that support hashtag use and helps evaluate hashtag lifecycles to inform management decisions.
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Why organizations adopt information system process innovations: a longitudinal study using Diffusion of Innovation theory
This longitudinal study examines why organizations adopt information system process innovations across four decades and three organizational environments. Using Diffusion of Innovation theory, the researchers identify key adoption factors: user need recognition, technological infrastructure availability, past experience, trials, autonomous work, ease of use, learning by doing, and standards. However, many adoptions followed no clear pattern, suggesting additional unexplained influences on organizational innovation decisions.
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Open Innovation In Practice
DSM, a multinational life sciences company, combines internal and external knowledge to accelerate innovation across R&D and marketing. The company established a dedicated business development group to speed commercialization and adopted different management approaches for each innovation stage—from scientific rigor in early development to entrepreneurial risk-taking during commercialization to conservative management once products mature. DSM treats innovation as a cultural value rather than a formal process.
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The Role of Policy Attributes in the Diffusion of Innovations
Policy characteristics significantly influence how quickly innovations spread across U.S. states. Analyzing 27 criminal justice policies adopted between 1973 and 2002, the authors found that attributes like relative advantage, complexity, and compatibility with existing practices determine adoption likelihood. These same attributes also shape whether policies spread through geographic proximity or through learning from other states' experiences.
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Enhancing effects of manufacturing flexibility through operational absorptive capacity and operational ambidexterity
Manufacturing flexibility improves firm performance in uncertain environments, but this effect depends on organizational capabilities. The study of 852 manufacturing firms shows that absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize and apply new knowledge—and ambidexterity—balancing exploitation of existing capabilities with exploration of new ones—both strengthen how flexibility translates uncertainty into better performance.
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Managing innovation networks: Exploratory evidence from ICT, biotechnology and nanotechnology networks
This study examines how innovation networks function across ICT, biotechnology, and nanotechnology sectors in Australia. The researchers surveyed 219 participants from businesses, government, research organizations, and universities to test how network factors drive innovation outcomes. They found that effective management of inter-organizational relationships significantly influences new product development success, offering practical strategies for managers coordinating innovation across multiple organizations.
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Forty Years of Diffusion of Innovations: Utility and Value in Public Health
Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations model explains how new ideas spread through social systems via communication channels over time. Applied across thousands of studies spanning six decades, the model accounts for varying adoption rates and behavioral change. It has proven valuable for understanding how innovations—from agricultural technologies to public health interventions like HIV/AIDS prevention—take hold in populations.
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User Toolkits for Innovation: Consumers Support Each Other
User toolkits empower consumers to develop their own product features, reducing firms' information costs. However, this shifts support burdens to companies. Analysis of 78 computer games shows increased consumer involvement requires more firm support. The solution: establish consumer-to-consumer support networks. When consumers help each other solve problems, firms reduce support costs while improving toolkit knowledge diffusion and outcomes.
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Will disruptive innovations cure health care?
Disruptive innovations are transforming healthcare by enabling simpler, cheaper alternatives delivered in decentralized settings by nurse practitioners and general practitioners instead of expensive specialists. Examples include low-cost eyeglasses and angioplasty replacing open-heart surgery. Established institutions resist these changes through cost-cutting and consolidation, but history shows incumbent institutions get replaced by those with business models suited to new technologies. Regulators and providers should enable rather than block disruptive innovations to achieve higher quality, lower-cost, more convenient care.
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USER-CENTRIC INNOVATIONS IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT — SYSTEMATIC IDENTIFICATION OF LEAD USERS HARNESSING INTERACTIVE AND COLLABORATIVE ONLINE-TOOLS
Companies reduce innovation failure by involving external customers, especially lead users, in product development. This paper identifies key characteristics for systematically finding lead users online through Web 2.0 tools and communities. The research reveals that effective lead users demonstrate market trend awareness, high expected benefits, expertise, extreme needs, opinion leadership, and active online engagement.
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Measuring the Quality of Regional Innovation Systems: A Knowledge Production Function Approach
This paper measures the quality of regional innovation systems across eleven European regions using a knowledge production function approach. The author finds significant differences in R&D productivity between regions, with firms in well-functioning innovation systems showing higher innovation propensity. Results support a center-periphery pattern, demonstrating that agglomeration economies substantially benefit R&D activities.
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Introduction of shared electronic records: multi-site case study using diffusion of innovation theory
This study examined how four English healthcare sites implemented a shared electronic patient record system. The implementation succeeded or failed based on eight interconnected factors: the technology's technical maturity and perceived benefits, staff concerns about workload and privacy, influence from opinion leaders, organizational experience with IT projects, readiness for change, implementation quality, system integration, and political context. The research shows that electronic health records require acceptance from both patients and staff and must fit into existing organizational workflows.
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A Fad or a Phenomenon?: The Adoption of Open Innovation Practices in Large Firms
This paper examines whether open innovation practices represent a lasting shift in how large firms operate or merely a temporary trend. The authors analyze adoption patterns across major companies to determine if open innovation has become a fundamental business phenomenon or remains a passing fad in corporate strategy.
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The impact of outside‐in open innovation on innovation performance
Companies that adopt open innovation strategies—collaborating with customers, suppliers, and universities—significantly improve their innovation performance. However, collaboration with cross-sector companies negatively affects results. This empirical study of 141 R&D managers in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria demonstrates that openness in outside-in innovation processes directly drives both direct and indirect innovation outputs.
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Absorptive Capacity in the Software Industry: Identifying Dimensions That Affect Knowledge and Knowledge Creation Activities
Absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to use external knowledge effectively—comprises three dimensions: relationships with the external environment, internal structure and knowledge base of value creation groups, and individual absorptive abilities. The authors demonstrate that each dimension independently contributes to increased knowledge and knowledge creation activities in software firms.
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Where and how to search? Search paths in open innovation
This paper identifies four distinct search paths firms use to find external knowledge for innovation: situated, analogical, sophisticated, and scientific paths. These paths combine two dimensions—whether firms search locally or distantly, and whether they rely on experience or cognitive reasoning. The study of 18 open innovation projects reveals how problem framing and boundary spanning mechanisms operate within each path to solve technology problems, providing a structured framework for understanding how firms conduct external knowledge searches.
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COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS AND THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS
This paper combines diffusion of innovations theory with complex adaptive systems theory to create a hybrid model for predicting and guiding behavior change in populations. Using the STOP AIDS campaign in San Francisco as an example, the authors show how heterogeneous social networks and weak ties between diverse groups can catalyze innovation adoption. The integrated framework offers practical tools for public sector innovators seeking to understand and influence how innovations spread through social systems.
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Open innovation in SMEs: a systematic literature review
Open innovation adoption improves innovation performance in small and medium-sized enterprises. This systematic review synthesizes scattered literature on the topic, finding that quantitative studies dominate the field. European researchers, along with scholars from Korea and China, have driven research development, while North American contributions remain limited. The review identifies research gaps and proposes directions for future investigation.
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Absorptive Capacity: A Process Perspective
Absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge—remains poorly understood despite decades of research. This paper argues that quantitative studies have failed to reveal how absorptive capacity actually works. Using case studies across three sectors, the authors demonstrate that a process-based approach must account for power dynamics and organizational boundaries to explain how knowledge truly gets absorbed and used.
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Open Collaboration for Innovation: Principles and Performance
Open collaboration—where participants create goods, reuse each other's work, coordinate loosely, and allow anyone to contribute—drives innovation across software, medicine, science, and everyday ventures. Using computational modeling, the authors show that open collaboration performs well even under difficult conditions: when cooperators are outnumbered, free riders exist, diversity is low, or resources are scarce. The model reveals that cooperativeness, participant diversity, and resource rivalry shape performance. Open collaboration represents a viable organizational form likely to expand beyond its current domains.
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Open Innovation – The Dutch Treat: Challenges in Thinking in Business Models
Dutch innovative companies have successfully adopted open innovation principles for culture and importing external knowledge, but struggle with exporting mechanisms and flexible business models. The study reveals that while Dutch firms embrace collaborative innovation practices, they face significant challenges in adapting their business models to support truly open innovation approaches.
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Frugal Innovation: Core Competencies to Address Global Sustainability
Frugal innovation represents a core competency for addressing global sustainability challenges. The paper examines how resource-constrained approaches to innovation can deliver effective solutions to pressing environmental and social problems worldwide, positioning frugal methods as essential capabilities for organizations committed to sustainable development.
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Who captures value in a global innovation network?
This paper examines how value is distributed across the global supply chain for Apple's iPod. The authors analyze which companies—designers, manufacturers, and retailers—capture profits from the product's innovation and sales. Their findings reveal that Apple captures the largest share of value despite outsourcing most production, while component suppliers and manufacturers earn significantly less, demonstrating how innovation networks concentrate economic returns.
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Exploring the boundaries of open innovation: Evidence from social media mining
This study analyzes Twitter conversations about open innovation using machine learning and topic modeling to identify public sentiment and key themes. The analysis of nearly 600,000 tweets reveals eight major topics, with negative sentiment concentrated in culture and business model discussions, positive sentiment in community and creative projects, and neutral sentiment in entrepreneurship and technology. The researchers identify 20 limitations of open innovation based on this social media evidence.
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Where are the politics in responsible innovation? European governance, technology assessments, and beyond
Responsible innovation frameworks aim to make science and technology development more socially responsive by incorporating public input. However, this paper finds that both European Union policy and Flemish technology assessment approaches to responsible innovation largely ignore political dimensions—specifically how power is constituted, contested, and allocated through deliberation. The author argues these frameworks must explicitly address political questions to be genuinely responsive to societal needs.
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The Effects of Mainstream and Emerging Customer Orientations on Radical and Disruptive Innovations
Customer orientation affects innovation differently depending on the type. Mainstream customer focus drives radical innovations using new technology but hinders disruptive innovations targeting emerging markets. Emerging customer orientation boosts disruptive innovation but doesn't affect radical innovation. Technology scanning supports radical innovation, while willingness to cannibalize supports disruptive innovation. Firms can pursue both mainstream and emerging customer orientations simultaneously.
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Diffusion of innovation theory for clinical change
Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory explains how evidence-based clinical practices spread among healthcare providers. The theory identifies key factors affecting adoption: the innovation's characteristics, promotion by influential peers, complexity, compatibility with existing values, and the ability to test changes before full implementation. Understanding these factors helps explain why some practices change while others persist, and guides efforts to implement best-evidence medicine.
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Will It Spread or Not? The Effects of Social Influences and Network Topology on Innovation Diffusion
This paper uses agent-based modeling to test how social influence and network structure affect whether new products succeed or fail. The research finds that markets with strong social influence create uncertainty and make it harder for innovations to reach critical mass. Highly connected people (VIPs) matter mainly for spreading information widely, not for persuasive power. Network constraints on hub connections significantly hamper diffusion.
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Absorptive Capacity in High-Technology Markets: The Competitive Advantage of the Haves
Firms in high-technology markets must constantly renew their technological knowledge to stay competitive. This paper identifies absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire and use external technological know-how—as a critical dynamic capability. The authors find that marketing, R&D, and operations capabilities significantly strengthen absorptive capacity, which in turn boosts profitability. The faster the pace of technological change, the greater the profit advantage from strong absorptive capacity.
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Factors Affecting Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in Online Food Delivery Service during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Its Relation with Open Innovation
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, online food delivery services saw surging demand. This study surveyed 253 customers to identify what drives satisfaction and loyalty. Hedonic motivation—the enjoyment of using the service—had the strongest impact, followed by price, information quality, and promotions. Surprisingly, ease of use and navigation design did not significantly affect satisfaction, challenging conventional assumptions about digital service design.
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Co-creation and user innovation: The role of online 3D printing platforms
Online 3D printing platforms enable new forms of user involvement in production and co-creation. The authors develop a framework for understanding prosumption and categorize co-creation activities, then analyze 22 platforms to show how different service models support different types of co-creation. The findings reveal how these platforms reshape user innovation by changing who participates in design and manufacturing.
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Teacher motivation to implement an educational innovation: factors differentiating users and non-users of cooperative learning
This study identifies why teachers adopt or reject cooperative learning in classrooms. Using expectancy theory, researchers surveyed 933 teachers and found that teachers' belief in their ability to successfully implement the innovation matters most. The study shows that professional development programs should focus on building teacher confidence and providing ongoing support tailored to individual classroom contexts.
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The Open Innovation in Science research field: a collaborative conceptualisation approach
This paper develops a unified framework for understanding open and collaborative practices in scientific research. Forty-seven scholars from multiple disciplines collaborated to integrate fragmented knowledge about open innovation and open science, identifying factors at individual, team, organizational, field, and societal levels that shape these practices. The framework connects research antecedents, contingencies, and consequences across the entire process of generating, disseminating, and translating scientific insights into innovation.
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Core Knowledge Employee Creativity and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Riskiness Orientation, Firm Size, and Realized Absorptive Capacity
This study examines how employee creativity affects firm performance in high-technology companies, finding that the relationship depends on three factors: firms with high risk tolerance see creativity hurt performance, while firms with strong absorptive capacity see it improve performance, and small firms benefit more from creativity than large firms do.
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Identification of competencies for professionals in open innovation teams
This study identifies key competencies that professionals need to succeed in open innovation teams through interviews and focus groups. The research reveals that brokering solutions, social competence, knowledge generation, trust-building, and managing low reciprocal commitment are critical skills. Companies should actively develop these competencies in employees participating in collaborative innovation efforts.
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Complex Thinking in the Framework of Education 4.0 and Open Innovation—A Systematic Literature Review
This systematic review of 35 studies examines how complex thinking—including critical, systemic, scientific, and innovative thinking—develops in Education 4.0 environments. The research finds that critical thinking receives the most attention, qualitative methods dominate studies, and teaching methods are the primary Education 4.0 component. Key challenges include project feasibility, research gaps, and skill development needed for reasoning in complex systems.
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Big data for open innovation in SMEs and large corporations: Trends, opportunities, and challenges
Big Data enables open innovation by providing organizations access to external information sources for creating new solutions and business opportunities. This paper reviews how small-to-medium enterprises and large corporations use Big Data in open innovation strategies, identifying key trends, opportunities, and challenges each type of organization faces when implementing these approaches.
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Open Innovation 4.0 as an Enhancer of Sustainable Innovation Ecosystems
Open innovation frameworks strengthen sustainable innovation ecosystems by connecting universities, industry, government, and communities through knowledge flows and collaborative networks. The study demonstrates that public policy supporting open innovation environments—including legal frameworks, innovation procurement, and shared R&D risk—drives regional digitalization, startup emergence, and digital transition. Universities play a central role in promoting smart, responsible innovation cycles that benefit entire ecosystems.
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Open innovation in the automotive industry
Automotive manufacturers traditionally relied on internal R&D to drive innovation, but rising costs and competitive pressure force them to seek external sources. This study demonstrates that open innovation—collaborating with external partners—delivers better R&D productivity than closed, internally-focused approaches for automotive companies.
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Innovating Pedagogy 2020: Open University Innovation Report 8
This report identifies ten pedagogical innovations with potential to transform educational practice. Researchers from the Open University in the UK and University of Cape Town in South Africa reviewed published studies and expert input to select innovations in teaching, learning, and assessment designed for interactive learning environments. The report aims to guide teachers and policymakers in adopting productive educational innovations.
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Flexibility-Oriented HRM Systems, Absorptive Capacity, and Market Responsiveness and Firm Innovativeness
Flexibility-oriented human resource management systems boost firm innovation and market responsiveness by enhancing absorptive capacity. The study examined high-technology firms and found that HRM systems designed for resource and coordination flexibility increase both the firm's potential to learn and its ability to apply that learning. This improved learning capacity directly strengthens market responsiveness and innovation performance.
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Implementing innovation in construction: contexts, relative boundedness and actor‐network theory
This paper examines why construction projects struggle to implement new technologies and innovations. The author argues that construction work lacks a central coordinating force to drive change and resolve conflicts, making innovation adoption difficult. Using actor-network theory, the study analyzes how both people and technologies interact during implementation, showing that existing practices, technological design choices, and actor mobilization all shape whether innovations succeed or fail.
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Benefiting from Open Innovation: A Multidimensional Model of Absorptive Capacity*
Firms benefit from external innovation sources through absorptive capacity—their ability to recognize, assimilate, and exploit outside knowledge. This study shows that recognition capacity helps firms identify external technologies, assimilation capacity determines whether they can integrate that knowledge, and exploitation capacity directly boosts competitive advantage in product innovation. Together, these three capacities explain why some firms succeed at open innovation while others struggle.
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User Roles and Contributions in Innovation-Contest Communities
This study identifies six distinct user types in online innovation-contest communities by analyzing behavioral patterns, communication styles, and contribution quality. The researchers found that participants vary significantly in how they engage with contests and interact with others. Understanding these user roles helps organizations design better contest platforms and reward structures to encourage participation and improve innovation outcomes.
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How open is innovation? A retrospective and ideas forward
This paper updates a foundational 2010 framework on open innovation by examining how technological, organizational, and societal changes over the past decade reshape innovation practices. The authors confirm their original four types of openness—sourcing, acquiring, selling, and revealing—remain relevant but identify emerging questions about tradeoffs between openness modes, data governance, new organizational designs, legal instruments, and multilevel factors affecting how open innovation operates.
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Managing the Challenges of Becoming an Open Innovation Company: Experiences from Living Labs
Companies increasingly integrate users directly into innovation processes through living labs, recognizing that user feedback and experiences drive valuable ideas and competitive advantage. This paper examines how organizations manage the transition to open innovation models where users actively participate in developing and testing new technologies across industries.
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The Evolution of Technologies in Time and Space: From National and Regional to Spatial Innovation Systems
This paper proposes spatial innovation systems (SISs) as a framework that extends beyond national and regional innovation systems. SISs track how specific technologies evolve across locations over time, showing how technological development depends on path-dependent histories and how specialized regions collaborate across national borders. The approach emphasizes external relationships between actors as crucial connectors that link different innovation systems together.
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Connecting the Parts with the Whole: Toward an Information Ecology Theory of Digital Innovation Ecosystems
Digital innovation ecosystems bring together diverse autonomous actors across organizational boundaries to create innovations of significant social and economic value. This paper develops an information ecology theory explaining how digital technologies integrate the efforts of independent parties into coherent wholes. The theory identifies key functions digital technologies serve in providing information to support interactions and tasks across ecosystems of varying scales, offering insights into managing part-whole relations and multilevel interactions.
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Hand in Glove: Open Innovation and the Dynamic Capabilities Framework
Open innovation represents a critical strategic function that companies must integrate into broader management frameworks. This paper connects open innovation to dynamic capabilities theory, showing how firms build and leverage capabilities to manage external knowledge and partnerships. A case study of China's Haier demonstrates how treating open innovation as a dynamic capability strengthens enterprise strategy and competitive advantage.
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The capacity to innovate: a meta-analysis of absorptive capacity
This meta-analysis of 241 studies confirms that absorptive capacity strongly predicts innovation and knowledge transfer, with effects on financial performance fully mediated through these outcomes. The research reveals that absorptive capacity benefits small firms but harms larger ones, and negatively affects mature firms while showing no significant impact on young firms. These findings challenge traditional assumptions about organizational innovation patterns and firm size and age dynamics.
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Co-creation and open innovation: Systematic literature review
This systematic literature review of 168 open-access articles from 2014–2017 examines the relationship between open science, co-creation of knowledge, and open innovation. The research identifies that the United States and Brazil lead in publishing on this topic, primarily in business and academic sectors. The study concludes that collaborative practices and context are essential for driving innovation and open science, while highlighting challenges around opening research and innovation processes.
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Network-Independent Partner Selection and the Evolution of Innovation Networks
This paper argues that firms select innovation partners based on complementary knowledge stocks rather than social capital or network position. The authors build a model where companies form alliances to learn and innovate, requiring compatible knowledge bases. Despite ignoring social network effects entirely, the model reproduces the firm behavior, network structures, and performance patterns documented in empirical alliance research.
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The politics of networked innovation
This paper examines how power dynamics shape networked innovation processes. Through three case studies of technology development, the authors show that innovation success depends not just on network structure but on understanding how power over resources, meaning, and processes affects knowledge integration. Network coordination, not just formation, proves critical for productive innovation outcomes.
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Community energy storage: A responsible innovation towards a sustainable energy system?
Community energy storage systems can help transition to sustainable energy by storing power locally and meeting citizen needs. However, integrating these systems into centralized energy infrastructure requires coordinating multiple actors and technologies. The authors argue that responsible research and innovation frameworks should guide the design and implementation of community energy storage to ensure the transition is sustainable, reliable, inclusive, and affordable.
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Looking through a responsible innovation lens at uneven engagements with digital farming
Digital farming platforms in North America are built on narrow values that favor large-scale commodity crop farmers over organic and smaller operations. Designers and engineers select agricultural data that prioritizes agronomic metrics while excluding data relevant to diverse farming practices. The paper argues that responsible innovation in agricultural technology requires engaging a wider range of food system actors and incorporating diverse values into data infrastructure decisions from the outset.
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The Determinants of Green Radical and Incremental Innovation Performance: Green Shared Vision, Green Absorptive Capacity, and Green Organizational Ambidexterity
This study introduces green organizational ambidexterity—balancing exploration and exploitation learning—as a framework for driving green innovation. The research shows that green shared vision and absorptive capacity drive both radical and incremental green innovation performance through exploration and exploitation learning pathways. Firms must strengthen these capabilities to improve their environmental innovation outcomes.
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Sustainable Tourism in the Open Innovation Realm: A Bibliometric Analysis
This bibliometric analysis examines how sustainable tourism and open innovation intersect in academic research. The authors map the field's conceptual structure, identify leading trends, key journals, influential papers and authors, and track geographic contributions. The findings reveal the current state of sustainable tourism research in the digital era and highlight emerging themes to guide future scholarship and practice.
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Dynamics from open innovation to evolutionary change
The authors develop conceptual and simulation models to analyze how open innovation drives evolutionary change in industries. Using the smartphone sector as a case study, they integrate open innovation theory with complex adaptive systems thinking to forecast dynamic effects and help organizations select future strategies.
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Learning how to restructure: absorptive capacity and improvisational views of restructuring actions and performance
This paper examines how organizational learning shapes corporate restructuring decisions and outcomes. Companies with repeated experience in sell-offs adopt similar strategies and achieve better financial results, reflecting absorptive capacity. Conversely, recent spin-off experience drives subsequent spin-offs and performance gains, reflecting organizational improvisation. The study shows that different types of restructuring experience produce different strategic choices and financial outcomes.
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Ethics of healthcare robotics: Towards responsible research and innovation
This paper argues that addressing ethical issues in healthcare robotics requires more than traditional ethics analysis. The authors propose embedded ethical reflection directly within innovation practices and development contexts. They identify internal and external forms of dialogue between ethicists and technologists, discuss limitations of these approaches, and recommend policy support at national and supranational levels to integrate responsible innovation into healthcare robotics research.
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The evolution of intellectual property strategy in innovation ecosystems: Uncovering complementary and substitute appropriability regimes
This paper examines how intellectual property strategy evolves within innovation ecosystems by analyzing four generations of mobile telecommunications systems from 1980 to 2015. The authors show that firms strategically manage IP through complementary and substitute appropriability regimes, balancing openness and protection across different technologies and actors. The findings demonstrate that competitive advantage depends on understanding the broader ecosystem context, not just individual IP strategies or assets.
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The User Innovation Paradigm: Impacts on Markets and Welfare
Individual users and consumers drive significant innovation alongside traditional producer-led research. This paper models markets where both users and firms innovate, showing that firms often delay adopting user-innovation strategies too long despite social welfare gains. When firms support and harvest user innovations, markets achieve better outcomes through complementary investments. Policy intervention may be needed to align private incentives with social welfare in mixed user-producer innovation economies.
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Examining the Complementary Effect of Political Networking Capability With Absorptive Capacity on the Innovative Performance of Emerging-Market Firms
In emerging-market firms, political networking capability with government officials complements absorptive capacity to boost innovation. A survey of 108 Chinese executives shows this combination helps firms overcome resource constraints and organizational disadvantages. The effect is stronger for radical innovation than incremental innovation, and intensifies when firms face intense competition.
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RETHINKING THE ROLE OF INTERMEDIARIES AS AN ARCHITECT OF COLLECTIVE EXPLORATION AND CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN OPEN INNOVATION
Intermediaries in open innovation do more than broker connections or facilitate networks. This paper studies two traffic safety innovation cases where intermediaries actively shaped collaborative knowledge creation by designing exploration processes and providing leadership. Rather than passive facilitators, these intermediaries acted as architects, structuring joint problem-solving when no single organization could tackle challenges alone.
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Opinion Leaders' Role in Innovation Diffusion: A Simulation Study
Opinion leaders accelerate product adoption by combining central network positions with superior product knowledge and greater innovativeness. Using agent-based modeling, the study shows opinion leaders increase adoption speed, information flow velocity, and maximum adoption rates. Targeting opinion leaders remains an effective marketing strategy for driving innovation diffusion.
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Market Formation in Technological Innovation Systems—Diffusion of Photovoltaic Applications in Germany
This paper develops a framework for analyzing how technological innovation systems create and mature end-user markets, using photovoltaic applications in Germany as a case study. The authors argue that existing innovation systems research neglects market formation structures, which become critical as technologies mature. They propose a conceptual approach to examine market-related substructures and demonstrate how different photovoltaic market segments developed in Germany.
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Responsible Urban Innovation with Local Government Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda
This paper examines how local governments can responsibly adopt artificial intelligence systems to address urban challenges. The authors develop a conceptual framework for responsible urban innovation with AI, arguing that technology deployment must balance costs, benefits, risks, and impacts to avoid creating new problems. They review existing literature and applications, then propose a research agenda to help policymakers understand how to implement local government AI systems responsibly.
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Mandate Versus Championship: Vertical government intervention and diffusion of innovation in public services in authoritarian China
In authoritarian China, vertical government intervention drives public service innovation through two distinct mechanisms. Administrative mandates create rapid, uniform policy diffusion across regions, while competition in performance-based personnel systems encourages local governments to diverge and customize policies. The study challenges conventional theories about how geography, competition, and hierarchical control shape innovation spread.
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Investigating the role of social capital in innovation: sparse versus dense network
Social capital facilitates knowledge search and sharing, driving innovation performance. The paper reviews how two network structures—sparse and dense—affect innovation differently. Sparse networks enable access to diverse external knowledge, while dense networks strengthen internal knowledge sharing. Both configurations offer benefits and drawbacks depending on whether firms pursue radical or incremental innovation. The authors recommend tailoring social capital strategies to match organizational innovation goals.
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Finding, Forming, and Performing: Creating Networks for Discontinuous Innovation
Firms facing rapid technological and market shifts must develop capacity for discontinuous innovation—implementing radically new technologies, products, or business models that depart dramatically from industry norms. This paper examines how companies create new networks with customers, suppliers, and partners to build this capacity, using examples like Lego and GSK adapting to competition from digital and biotechnology firms.
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Storm Clouds and Silver Linings: Responding to Disruptive Innovations Through Cognitive Resilience
Small incumbent firms respond differently to disruptive business model innovations depending on how managers cognitively frame the threat and opportunity. The study finds that managers' prior risk experience shapes how they perceive opportunities, while perceived urgency influences how they assess threats. Analysis of 126 real estate brokers facing discount broker competition confirms this framework, showing that cognitive resilience—balancing threat and opportunity perception—determines whether small firms adopt, resist, or adapt to disruption.
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What influences the diffusion of grassroots innovations for sustainability? Investigating community currency niches
Community currencies like Local Exchange Trading Schemes and time banks represent grassroots innovations for sustainability. This study of 12 community currency niches across multiple countries tests whether strategic niche management theory predicts their diffusion success. The researchers find that niche-level activity does correlate with diffusion, but identify additional factors that existing theory misses. They develop an adapted model specifically for grassroots innovations and offer recommendations for practitioners and policymakers supporting these civil society initiatives.
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How useful is the theory of disruptive innovation
This paper critically examines Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation, which has influenced business strategy and social problem-solving. The authors argue that while disruption theory offers useful warnings, it cannot replace rigorous analysis of competition and competitive advantage. Managers should not rely on simple theories or quick analogies when making strategic decisions about innovation and organizational change.
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Information technology innovations: general diffusion patterns and its relationships to innovation characteristics
This study examines how characteristics of information technology innovations predict their adoption patterns across large American firms. Analyzing 20 IT innovations in 313 companies, the researchers found that internal influence (imitation among firms) dominates diffusion, while external influence (marketing) remains minimal. Five distinct technology clusters emerged based on adoption speed and saturation levels, suggesting that innovation characteristics can help predict how quickly IT solutions spread through organizations.
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3D printed Mg-NiTi interpenetrating-phase composites with high strength, damping capacity, and energy absorption efficiency
Researchers developed a magnesium-nickel-titanium composite using 3D printing and melt infiltration that overcomes the typical trade-off between strength and damping in metals. The material combines high strength across temperature ranges, excellent damage tolerance, strong damping capacity, and efficient energy absorption. Heat treatment can recover both shape and strength after deformation, opening new possibilities for structural and biomedical applications.
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Mapping, analyzing and designing innovation ecosystems: The Ecosystem Pie Model
This paper develops the Ecosystem Pie Model, a visual strategy tool that helps managers map, analyze, and design innovation ecosystems. The tool captures how different actors interact to create and capture value together. The authors ground the model in scholarly literature and provide application guidelines, demonstrating how firms can use it to make strategic decisions about ecosystem participation and structure.
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Innovation network
Technological progress builds cumulatively as innovations in one field enable advances in related fields. Using 1.8 million US patents and citation patterns from 1975–1994, the authors map how innovation networks function. They show that the strength of existing connections between technology fields predicts future innovation after 1995. Technology classes with more upstream innovations to build upon subsequently innovate more.
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Adoption of<i>Moringa oleifera</i>to Combat Under-Nutrition Viewed Through the Lens of the “Diffusion of Innovations” Theory
Moringa oleifera, a nutrient-rich tree grown in tropical regions, is rapidly spreading as a treatment for under-nutrition despite lacking rigorous clinical evidence. The paper applies diffusion of innovations theory to explain why adoption continues to grow among healthcare practitioners and community leaders. The analysis reveals the need for scientific validation of moringa's nutritional benefits to support informed decision-making.
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An Individual‐Based Model of Innovation Diffusion Mixing Social Value and Individual Benefit
This paper presents a computational model showing how innovations spread through populations when people balance social value against personal benefit. Innovations perceived as socially valuable but offering low personal gain succeed more often than those with high personal benefit but low social value. Minority groups with extreme views can significantly influence adoption by shifting how others perceive an innovation's social worth.
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The past, present and future of open innovation
This literature review analyzes 1,772 open innovation papers published between 2003 and 2018 to identify major research themes and their evolution. The authors identify nine key thematic areas: context-dependency, collaborative frameworks, organizational dimensions, performance outcomes, external search strategies, SME applications, pharmaceutical industry focus, intellectual property considerations, and technology. The review provides recommendations for future research directions across these established areas.
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Innovation as an interactive process: From user-producer interaction to national systems of innovation
Innovation emerges from interaction between producers and users responding to technological opportunities and market needs. The paper develops a framework of national innovation systems that emphasizes interactive learning processes across firms, institutions, and policies. This approach moves beyond neoclassical economics to explain how economic structure and institutional arrangements shape innovation outcomes.
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Role Models for Radical Innovations in Times of Open Innovation
This study examines how different innovator roles affect success in highly innovative ventures, analyzing 146 new product development projects. The research finds that innovator roles significantly influence innovation outcomes, but their impact varies depending on the type and degree of innovativeness. External linking roles become more critical as technological innovativeness increases, while surprisingly, support from senior organizational members negatively affects success in highly innovative projects.
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Disrupting College: How Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary Education.
Online learning is disrupting higher education by enabling affordable, quality postsecondary options. The authors document rapid growth in online course enrollment from 10 percent of students in 2003 to nearly 30 percent by 2009, projecting 50 percent by 2014. This technology shift explains the rise of for-profit institutions while traditional colleges struggle financially.
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Eco-innovation: Definition, Measurement and Open Research Issues
This paper examines eco-innovation as a concept distinct from environmental technology, establishing a typology and measurement framework. It discusses push-pull mechanisms driving different eco-innovation types and analyzes patterns showing a shift toward cleaner products alongside continued end-of-pipe solutions. The work reveals national differences in eco-innovation adoption and emphasizes system-level innovation. The author concludes that statistical measurement remains inadequate and recommends improvements to data collection.
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Marketing-Mix Variables and the Diffusion of Successive Generations of a Technological Innovation
This paper develops a model showing how marketing-mix variables, particularly pricing, affect the adoption of successive generations of technological innovations. Using cellular telephone data from a European country, the authors find that price elasticity patterns differ significantly when considering multiple generations together versus single generations alone. Pricing decisions for one generation substantially influence adoption rates of the next generation, revealing interaction effects that single-generation models miss.
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The Adoption of Open Innovation in Large Firms
Large firms widely adopt open innovation practices, with 80 percent of surveyed companies engaging in the approach. Firms predominantly practice outside-in innovation, acquiring external knowledge while protecting their own intellectual property through outbound restrictions. At the project level, companies selectively manage knowledge flows and formalize processes as they progress from problem definition to execution, facing organizational challenges in this transition.
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Openness of technology adoption, top management support and service innovation: a social innovation perspective
This study examines how technology adoption openness and top management support drive service innovation in IT firms. Using survey data from 176 Taiwanese IT companies, the researchers found that openness to technology adoption directly enhances service innovation. Importantly, top management support strengthens this relationship. The findings suggest firms should invest in open technologies and ensure leadership actively supports service innovation initiatives to address social challenges.
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Analyzing the determinants of firm's absorptive capacity: beyond R&D
This paper develops a new model explaining how firms absorb external knowledge. The authors argue that absorptive capacity depends on more than just R&D spending. Instead, organizational knowledge, formalization, and social integration mechanisms all shape a firm's ability to absorb knowledge. The type of knowledge being absorbed matters—these factors can help or hinder depending on whether the knowledge fits the firm's existing capabilities. The paper provides empirical evidence supporting this expanded framework.
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Effects of Technology Absorptive Capacity and Technology Proactivity on Organizational Learning, Innovation and Performance: An Empirical Examination
This study examines how Spanish technology firms absorb and proactively adopt technology to drive organizational learning and innovation. Using data from 246 firms, the researchers found that absorptive capacity and technology proactivity both strengthen organizational learning, which then boosts innovation and overall performance. The results show technology adoption directly influences how firms learn and innovate, with important implications for technology-driven businesses.
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Disruptive innovations for designing and diffusing evidence-based interventions.
Evidence-based interventions remain underadopted in the United States despite rapid growth. The authors argue that applying disruptive innovation principles—simplifying interventions, reducing costs, and improving accessibility—can accelerate EBI diffusion. They propose four research approaches: synthesizing common elements across interventions, experimenting with new delivery formats including technology and paraprofessionals, adopting market strategies for promotion, and implementing continuous quality improvement based on monitoring data.
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From user-generated data to data-driven innovation: A research agenda to understand user privacy in digital markets
This paper examines how user privacy concerns affect data-driven innovation in digital markets. Through systematic literature review, interviews, and topic modeling, the authors identify 14 key topics related to user-generated data and data-driven innovation strategies. They propose 14 research questions and 7 propositions to guide future study of privacy issues in digital markets, emphasizing privacy's critical role in sustainable data-driven business models.
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Innovating innovation policy: the emergence of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’
The paper traces how the European Union developed 'Responsible Research and Innovation' (RRI) as a policy framework, starting from a 2011 European Commission workshop. Through analysis of EU documents, the author shows how RRI became embedded in Horizon 2020 to direct technological innovation toward social benefits. The paper identifies tensions between RRI and other EU policies that may undermine its effectiveness.
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An Empirical Study on Entrepreneurial Orientation, Absorptive Capacity, and SMEs’ Innovation Performance: A Sustainable Perspective
This study surveyed 324 small and medium-sized enterprises in China's Yangtze River Delta region to examine how entrepreneurial orientation drives innovation performance. The research found that entrepreneurial orientation directly boosts innovation, and this effect strengthens when firms have higher absorptive capacity. In highly dynamic external environments, absorptive capacity becomes an even more powerful moderator of this relationship.
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The temporal effects of relative and firm‐level absorptive capacity on interorganizational learning
This study examines how absorptive capacity affects knowledge sharing between allied firms over time. Using patent data, the researchers found that technological similarity has modest early benefits but stronger effects later, while high diversity accelerates initial learning but diminishes over time. R&D intensity surprisingly hinders early learning but helps later stages. The findings suggest early alliances are limited by absorption capacity, while later success depends on the ability to exploit knowledge.
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A Tool to Analyze, Ideate and Develop Circular Innovation Ecosystems
This paper presents the Circularity Deck, a card-based tool designed to help organizations analyze and develop circular economy innovations across their ecosystems. The tool organizes circular economy principles by strategy type (narrowing, slowing, closing, regenerating material flows) and innovation scope (product, business model, ecosystem level). Tested with 136 participants across 62 organizations in 12 workshops, the Circularity Deck enables groups of loosely coupled organizations to collectively redesign their interactions and resource flows.
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The paradox of openness revisited: Collaborative innovation and patenting by UK innovators
UK firms face a paradox: they simultaneously patent and engage in open innovation collaboration. This study shows both decisions are interconnected and depend on market position. Leading firms increase patenting more when collaborating openly because they risk greater knowledge spillovers to competitors. Followers show weaker patenting responses to collaboration. The relationship between openness and patenting is therefore contingent on whether firms lead or follow their rivals.
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How does technological diversity in supplier network drive buyer innovation? Relational process and contingencies
Technological diversity in supplier networks drives buyer firm innovation through novel information sharing. A survey of 202 Chinese manufacturing firms shows that stronger buyer-supplier relationships amplify this effect, while dense supplier networks reduce it. Competitive intensity strengthens the relationship, but technological turbulence weakens it. Firms can leverage diverse supplier networks to improve new product creativity.
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An unfinished journey? Reflections on a decade of responsible research and innovation
This paper reviews ten years of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as a policy framework developed by the European Commission. The authors trace RRI's evolution from its initial conception through the Seventh Framework Programme to Horizon 2020, examining how it became organized around five key pillars: gender equality, open access, science communication, ethics, and public engagement. They assess RRI's impact on discussions about science, innovation, and society, and consider its future role within the EC's Open Science agenda and Horizon Europe programme.
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Ethics of smart farming: Current questions and directions for responsible innovation towards the future
Smart farming technologies like sensors, drones, and robots raise three major ethical challenges: data ownership and access, power distribution, and impacts on human life and society. The paper finds that current discussions lack resolution because stakeholders hold conflicting views about digital farming's purpose. The authors recommend future research prioritize clarifying societal and commercial goals, then use those goals to determine data sharing practices, build stakeholder trust, and establish guidelines for responsible farm digitalization.
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Understanding the human side of openness: the fit between open innovation modes and CEO characteristics
CEO characteristics significantly influence open innovation adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises. Using Korean SME data, the study finds that CEO attitudes, entrepreneurial orientation, patience, and education facilitate open innovation adoption. However, different CEO traits affect different innovation modes differently—for example, patience and entrepreneurial orientation impact adoption differently depending on uncertainty levels. The research suggests CEOs should recruit complementary management teams to offset their own characteristic gaps.
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Managing business and innovation networks—From strategic nets to business fields and ecosystems
This paper reviews network management research from 2000 to 2016 and proposes a unified theory explaining how environmental, network, and actor-level factors shape management activities. The authors consolidate fragmented knowledge across business fields, ecosystems, and platform networks, identifying activity configuration patterns that guide effective network management. The framework advances understanding of how organizations coordinate complex business networks.
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How Frugal Innovation Promotes Social Sustainability
Frugal innovation—developing solutions with minimal resources—directly supports social sustainability by addressing key social themes. The paper builds a framework connecting both concepts and demonstrates how frugal innovation approaches help achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. This positions frugal innovation as a practical pathway to realizing social sustainability in practice.
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Nonstate Actors and the Diffusion of Innovations: The Case of Suicide Terrorism
This paper examines how terrorist groups adopt suicide tactics as an innovation, showing that organizational capabilities and external linkages between groups significantly influence adoption patterns. The study finds that occupation, previously considered a key predictor, does not reliably explain which groups adopt suicide terrorism. By treating suicide tactics as a military innovation diffusion problem, the paper connects terrorism studies to broader innovation theory.
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How open innovation can help you cope in lean times
During economic downturns, companies can maintain innovation despite cutting R&D budgets by adopting open innovation strategies. The authors identify five strategic moves that externalize certain assets and projects, allowing outside firms to invest in and develop them or enabling spin-offs that retain partial equity. This inside-out approach preserves growth opportunities while reducing costs, though it requires holistic implementation and senior executive leadership to overcome organizational and cultural barriers.
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Measuring the Efficiency of China's Regional Innovation Systems: Application of Network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)
This study evaluates the efficiency of China's regional innovation systems by analyzing technological development and commercialization as connected processes. Only one-fifth of China's regional innovation systems operate at best-practice efficiency across the full innovation cycle. Most regions show significant gaps between their technological development and commercialization capabilities, with commercialization capacity proving more critical to overall innovation performance.
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An absorptive capacity model for green innovation and performance in the construction industry
Swedish construction companies can improve their capacity to adopt green innovations and boost business performance by focusing on three key processes: acquiring new environmental knowledge, assimilating it into operations, and transforming it into practice. The study applies absorptive capacity theory to construction and develops a revised framework called green ACAP that identifies specific mechanisms driving environmental innovation and performance improvements.
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Digital transformation of healthcare sector. What is impeding adoption and continued usage of technology-driven innovations by end-users?
Healthcare providers in the United Kingdom resist adopting and using digital health innovations due to multiple barriers. The study identifies task-related, patient-care, and system barriers from providers; threat perception and infrastructure issues from organizations; usability and resource problems from patients; and self-efficacy, tradition, and image concerns from end-users generally. The authors propose a framework grounded in innovation resistance theory to explain this resistance and offer practical recommendations to accelerate digital health adoption.
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Entrepreneurial orientation‐as‐experimentation and firm performance: The enabling role of absorptive capacity
Entrepreneurial orientation increases variability in innovation outcomes, which can either boost or harm firm performance. The paper shows that absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to acquire and use new knowledge—plays a critical role. Potential absorptive capacity amplifies the innovation variability from entrepreneurial orientation, while realized absorptive capacity helps firms convert that variability into actual performance gains.
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Responsible research and innovation: The role of privacy in an emerging framework
This paper defines responsible research and innovation (RRI) as a meta-responsibility framework that coordinates researchers, industry, policymakers, and civil society to ensure desirable research outcomes. It examines privacy's critical role within RRI, discusses current framework dimensions and weaknesses, and proposes directions for integrating privacy and data protection into RRI governance.
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Investigating the structure of regional innovation system research through keyword co-occurrence and social network analysis
This paper analyzes 432 research papers on regional innovation systems from 36 countries using social network analysis and bibliometrics. The authors map keyword co-occurrence and author networks to visualize how RIS research has evolved and identify publication trends. The analysis reveals knowledge development patterns across countries, institutions, and researchers, providing insights into how the RIS framework has developed as a foundation for innovation policy.
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Linking transformational leadership and frugal innovation: the mediating role of tacit and explicit knowledge sharing
Transformational leadership drives frugal innovation in Vietnamese firms through knowledge sharing mechanisms. The study of 339 employees across 120 companies shows that transformational leaders boost frugal functionality and cost reduction by facilitating both tacit and explicit knowledge sharing. These knowledge-sharing processes mediate the relationship between leadership style and innovation outcomes, offering developing-country firms a practical pathway to enhance innovation capability.
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Innovation networks in economics: from the incentive‐based to the knowledge‐based approaches
Innovation networks are persistent organizational structures in industrial innovation, but traditional economics viewed them only as temporary hybrids between markets and firms, focusing narrowly on R&D cost reduction. Evolutionary economics shifts focus to knowledge, learning, and synergistic partnerships. The paper develops an evolutionary theory of innovation networks that accounts for uncertainty, heterogeneity, and historical time as essential to understanding why networks self-organize and persist.
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Grand Societal Challenges and Responsible Innovation
Grand societal challenges require innovation from businesses, governments, and nonprofits working together. The paper argues that responsible innovation—a framework evaluating innovations for harmful consequences and societal benefits—offers a better approach than traditional corporate social responsibility. The authors call for research linking responsible innovation governance to addressing complex, multi-level societal problems.
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How start-ups successfully organize and manage open innovation with large companies
Start-ups successfully manage open innovation partnerships with large companies through practices that differ significantly from those of established firms. Managers with prior large-company experience prove crucial for navigating these collaborations. Both inbound and outbound open innovation help start-ups overcome their newness and small size, though each approach presents distinct advantages and challenges that require careful orchestration.
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Social Media: A Tool for Open Innovation
Companies increasingly use social media for open innovation but lack clear strategies for implementation. This study examines how firms organize and deploy social media across the full innovation cycle—from generating ideas through research and development to bringing products to market. The authors identify specific organizational and technological changes managers need to adopt to capture innovation benefits from social media engagement.
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Consensus + innovations distributed inference over networks: cooperation and sensing in networked systems
This paper presents distributed inference algorithms that combine consensus mechanisms with real-time sensing innovations across networked agents without central coordination. Agents communicate locally over sparse networks while simultaneously sensing new observations, rather than iterating to consensus between measurements. The authors develop asymptotically optimal approaches that match centralized inference performance by balancing collaboration potential against local innovation potential through mixed-scale stochastic approximation.
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Innovation in the Mining Industry: Technological Trends and a Case Study of the Challenges of Disruptive Innovation
Innovation drives efficiency and cost reduction in mining while addressing environmental and social concerns. The paper reviews how mining companies pursue innovation through various mechanisms and actors, examines digital transformation trends, and analyzes a case study showing the technical and economic challenges of implementing disruptive innovations in mining operations.
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Perspectives on Disruptive Innovations
This paper examines disruptive innovation from multiple theoretical perspectives—evolutionary, relational, temporal, and framing—to understand how innovations render existing business models obsolete and reshape value networks. Rather than predicting disruption, the authors propose a performative approach that helps researchers and practitioners manage in environments of continual change.
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Exploring innovation ecosystems across science, technology, and business: A case of 3D printing in China
This paper examines China's 3D printing innovation ecosystem by analyzing how science, technology, and business layers interact. The researchers developed a framework assessing innovation capacity across integrated value chains and interactive networks. They found that China's 3D printing sector performs strongly in science and technology, with potential development pathways emerging from basic research and technological innovation rather than technology duplication and cost-cutting strategies.
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Citizensourcing : Applying the Concept of Open Innovation to the Public Sector
Open innovation principles from the private sector can transform public administration by engaging citizens as external collaborators. Using internet technology, governments can integrate citizen knowledge into service development and policy decisions, creating public value and strengthening democratic participation beyond traditional e-government approaches.
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Exporting, R&D, and absorptive capacity in UK establishments
This study examines what drives UK establishments to export and how much they export. Using innovation survey data, the researchers find that firm size matters significantly. R&D activities and absorptive capacity—the ability to understand and use scientific knowledge, collaborate internationally, and organize effectively—help firms enter export markets. However, once firms export, only absorptive capacity linked to scientific knowledge boosts their export performance; R&D spending alone does not.
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Technological Capabilities, Open Innovation, and Eco-Innovation: Dynamic Capabilities to Increase Corporate Performance of SMEs
Small and medium enterprises in Mexico improve corporate performance through technological capabilities that enable open innovation and eco-innovation practices. The study of 684 SMEs shows technological capability does not directly boost performance, but works through open innovation or eco-innovation. Both open and eco-innovation independently strengthen corporate performance, demonstrating that encouraging these practices in SMEs yields measurable business benefits.
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Impact of knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity on project performance: the moderating role of social processes
Knowledge governance and sharing improve project performance in software companies by strengthening teams' ability to absorb and apply new knowledge. Social processes amplify these effects. The study of 133 Pakistani IT firms shows that organizations investing in knowledge governance systems and encouraging knowledge sharing across projects achieve better outcomes.
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How do we conquer the growth limits of capitalism? Schumpeterian Dynamics of Open Innovation
This paper proposes a dynamic model of an open innovation economy system to address capitalism's growth limits. The model integrates open innovation, closed innovation, and social innovation economies in a circular dynamic process. The author validates the framework through lifecycle simulations and comparative analysis with Schumpeter's economic theory and socialist democracy, establishing theoretical and practical characteristics of how these three economy types interact to sustain economic growth.
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The diffusion of environmental sustainability innovations in North American hotels and ski resorts
This study surveyed North American hotels and ski resorts to identify which environmental sustainability innovations they adopt and what drives adoption rates. Using diffusion of innovations theory, researchers found that perceived simplicity of innovations and strong opinion leadership among resort managers most strongly predicted adoption. Relative advantage and general innovativeness also mattered. The research recommends that sustainability advocates emphasize ease of implementation to accelerate adoption across the hospitality sector.
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Stakeholder Governance for Responsible Innovation: A Theory of Value Creation, Appropriation, and Distribution
Organizations pursuing responsible innovation to address societal challenges lack clear governance mechanisms for distributing created value among stakeholders. This paper proposes a three-stage model of value allocation based on stakeholder governance: deciding what value to create and for whom, protecting against unintended value appropriation, and distributing value among intended stakeholders. Four novel governance mechanisms enable participative processes that align value distribution with responsible innovation intent.
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LIVING LAB: user‐driven innovation for sustainability
This paper presents the conceptual design of LIVING LAB, a research infrastructure that tests sustainable home technologies with real users in actual households. The approach combines laboratory analysis with real-world household systems to develop and evaluate sustainable domestic innovations while prioritizing user needs and environmental performance. The infrastructure enables long-term, user-centered research on sustainable technologies in their actual contexts of use.
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Multi-niche analysis of dynamics and policies in Dutch renewable energy innovation journeys (1970–2006): hype-cycles, closed networks and technology-focused learning
This study examines forty years of renewable energy innovation policy in the Netherlands across wind, biomass, fuel cells, and photovoltaics. The research identifies recurring problems: innovation efforts rely too heavily on technology-focused R&D rather than broader learning, social networks remain narrow and supply-side oriented, and expectations follow hype-disappointment cycles that undermine sustained development. These structural weaknesses explain why all four technologies experienced costly failures and setbacks despite policy support.
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A Strategy for the Analysis of Idea Innovation Networks and Institutions
This paper argues that radical innovations in science-based industries emerge from idea innovation networks spanning six research arenas: basic research, applied research, product development, production, quality control, and commercialization. The authors find that innovation success depends on diversity of knowledge and frequent communication within arenas, plus intense cross-arena communication to transfer tacit knowledge. Institutional environments shape arena size and connectivity, with patterns suggesting either national innovation systems or globalization effects.
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Inter-firm networks and innovation: a survey of literature
This survey reviews literature on how inter-firm networks affect innovation and technological change. The author organizes studies by causality direction—examining both how networks influence firm outcomes and how networks form. The analysis identifies three interconnected themes: network origins, firm performance effects, and network structure. The survey synthesizes theoretical and empirical findings to guide future research on inter-firm networks.
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Actualizing Innovation Effort: The Impact of Market Knowledge Diffusion in a Dynamic System of Competition
Market knowledge diffusion drives innovation effort through three mechanisms: knowledge level, knowledge change, and shared understanding of customers and competitors. However, satisfaction with past performance reduces innovation effort. The study finds that innovation effort alone doesn't improve firm performance; instead, shared market knowledge enables smaller firms to convert innovation into better returns than larger competitors can achieve.
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Understanding innovators' experiences of barriers and facilitators in implementation and diffusion of healthcare service innovations: a qualitative study
Healthcare innovators in the UK identified four key factors affecting whether service innovations succeed and spread: evidence of effectiveness, partnerships between organizations, people-based resources like champions, and contextual conditions. Innovators emphasized that successful implementation requires combining strong evidence, interpersonal networks, organizational support, and favorable external conditions. Champions and innovators themselves drive diffusion across different healthcare settings.
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Managing knowledge assets for open innovation: a systematic literature review
This systematic literature review examines how knowledge management practices support open innovation activities. The authors analyzed 34 articles and organized findings around three open innovation processes: inbound, outbound, and coupled. The review identifies which knowledge management practices best support each type of open innovation activity and highlights understudied areas for future research.
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Frugal innovation: aligning theory, practice, and public policy
Frugal innovation comprises three distinct components: mindset, process, and outcome, each driven by different conditions. Three types of innovators practice frugal innovation—grassroots, domestic enterprises, and multinational subsidiaries—each with unique incentives. Resource scarcity, weak institutions, and uncertainty tolerance encourage frugal mindsets, while poor property rights and lead markets shape frugal processes and outcomes.
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Open innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises: An overview
Open innovation—combining external and internal ideas to advance technology—has become central to firm strategy since 2000. However, research focuses heavily on large multinational corporations. This special issue addresses the gap by examining how small and medium-sized enterprises adopt open innovation practices, exploring collaboration with external knowledge sources and pathways to commercialization in smaller firms.
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An innovation diffusion perspective of e-consumers’ initial adoption of self-collection service via automated parcel station
Automated parcel stations represent a logistics innovation addressing delivery inefficiencies. This study examines why consumers adopt self-collection services via these stations. Using innovation diffusion and attitude theory, researchers surveyed 170 Singapore e-consumers and found that favorable attitudes and perceived relative advantage directly drive adoption intention, while compatibility, trialability, and complexity influence adoption indirectly through attitude formation.
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Responsible innovation across borders: tensions, paradoxes and possibilities
Researchers from Brazil and the UK convened to examine responsible innovation and governance of controversial technologies across cultural contexts. The workshop revealed significant tensions and paradoxes in how responsible innovation is understood and applied differently across regions, highlighting both challenges and opportunities for cross-cultural innovation governance frameworks.
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Intellectual capital and business performance: the role of dimensions of absorptive capacity
This study examines how intellectual capital affects business performance, testing whether absorptive capacity mediates this relationship. Using survey data from 192 managers, the researchers found that realized absorptive capacity—the ability to transform and exploit knowledge—positively mediates the link between intellectual capital and performance. Human and organizational capital strongly predict performance, while social capital has weak effects. Potential absorptive capacity showed no mediating role.
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BIM adoption within Australian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs): an innovation diffusion model
This study examines Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption among Australian small and medium-sized enterprises in construction. Using innovation diffusion theory and surveying 135 SMEs, researchers found that 42% use basic BIM levels, while only 5% use advanced levels. The primary barrier to adoption is not lack of knowledge but uncertainty about return on investment. The study validates a theoretical framework for understanding BIM adoption decisions in Australian construction SMEs.
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Intellectual capital, absorptive capacity and product innovation
Intellectual capital drives product innovation through absorptive capacity in firms. A study of 500 Brazilian companies found that structural and human capital most strongly influence how firms acquire, assimilate, and exploit knowledge. Transformation of knowledge benefits equally from structural and human capital. Absorptive capacity dimensions each affect product innovation differently. These findings help managers develop intangible resources and design innovation strategies.
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Of Mice and Academics: Examining the Effect of Openness on Innovation
Reduced access costs to research materials boost innovation by encouraging new researchers to enter fields and explore diverse research directions. Using NIH agreements that lowered costs for accessing genetically engineered mice in the late 1990s, the authors find that openness increased both researcher entry and research diversity without reducing the creation of new research tools. Strong intellectual property restrictions impose hidden costs by limiting exploration and reducing research output diversity.
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Broadening the scope of open innovation: past research, current state and future directions
This paper reviews how open innovation research has evolved since 2003, showing that the field has expanded across multiple levels of analysis from individual organizations to national systems. The authors identify gaps in the literature and call for open innovation research to integrate with other management disciplines like marketing and human resources, and to connect with established management theories.
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Crafting Sustainable Development Solutions: Frugal Innovations of Grassroots Entrepreneurs
Grassroots entrepreneurs in India create frugal, sustainable innovations using locally available materials and minimal resources. These bottom-of-pyramid solutions address unmet needs while reducing environmental impact and ownership costs. The study argues these grassroots innovations directly advance UN Sustainable Development Goals by improving productivity, sustainability, and poverty reduction in underserved communities.
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New ventures based on open innovation an empirical analysis of start-up firms in embedded Linux
This paper examines how start-up firms in embedded Linux create new ventures using open innovation approaches. The authors propose two conceptual models—the Product Lifecycle Management Model and the Mirrored Spaces Model—to understand how companies manage products across their lifecycle and navigate the technical and organizational challenges that arise when leveraging open-source development practices.
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Measuring Institutions’ Adoption of Artificial Intelligence Applications in Online Learning Environments: Integrating the Innovation Diffusion Theory with Technology Adoption Rate
This study examines how governmental institutions in the Gulf region adopt artificial intelligence applications in online learning environments. Using innovation diffusion theory, researchers found that adoption properties like trialability, observability, and compatibility positively influence ease of doing business and technology export. The findings suggest government authorities should prioritize implementation factors based on their significance to improve service delivery and user accessibility.
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Towards a deliberative framework for responsible innovation in artificial intelligence
The paper proposes a deliberative framework for responsible AI innovation that addresses opacity challenges through discourse principles. It examines how organizations developing AI, civil society actors, and investigative media can collaborate to enable informed public engagement and better governance of AI innovation, ensuring human autonomy, fairness, and justice are protected.
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The Role of Open Innovation and Value Co-creation in the Challenging Transition from Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0: Toward a Theoretical Framework
This paper develops a theoretical framework connecting Industry 4.0 technologies—advanced manufacturing, augmented reality, cloud computing, and big data—to Society 5.0, a vision prioritizing social and global well-being. The authors argue that open innovation and value co-creation are critical mechanisms enabling this transition. The framework helps managers design strategies to capitalize on opportunities and address challenges as firms navigate from technology-focused industrial advancement toward society-wide benefits.
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Introducing responsible innovation in health: a policy-oriented framework
This paper develops a framework for responsible innovation in health that aligns new health technologies with societal values through early stakeholder engagement. The framework identifies nine dimensions organized across five value domains: population health, health system, economic, organizational, and environmental. The authors provide policymakers with a tool to assess whether health innovations address system-level challenges like sustainability and equity.
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Absorptive Capacity: Antecedents, Models and Outcomes
This paper reviews the concept of absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge. The authors synthesize theoretical and empirical contributions to clarify the construct's definition, antecedents, and consequences across different levels of analysis. They assess how the concept has been refined and extended in literature, analyze conceptual models, and identify key research gaps. The paper calls for future work that better integrates multiple levels of analysis and draws on diverse disciplines.
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Coping with Open Innovation: Responding to the Challenges of External Engagement in R&D
R&D professionals face significant challenges when engaging in open innovation, including managing external relationships and coordinating across organizational boundaries. This paper identifies four specific challenges that individuals encounter in daily open innovation work and describes coping strategies they use. The authors recommend organizational practices that help staff effectively manage external engagement and collaboration.
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A vision of Responsible Innovation
The paper presents a framework for responsible innovation and proposes how governments and institutions should implement it through public policy. Von Schomberg defines what responsible innovation means and offers concrete strategies for putting this vision into practice across sectors and organizations.
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Innovation processes in online newsrooms as actor-networks and communities of practice
This paper examines how innovation happens in online newsrooms using two theoretical frameworks: actor-network theory and community of practice. Through four newsroom case studies, the authors show how these theories explain which actors influence innovation decisions, how journalists negotiate and learn together, and what factors help or hinder the adoption of new practices in newsrooms.
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Innovation performance: The effect of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities in cross-country innovation ecosystems
Knowledge-based dynamic capabilities drive innovation performance across different economies. The study identifies four key capabilities: knowledge creation, knowledge diffusion, knowledge absorption, and knowledge impact. Knowledge creation is the strongest driver of innovation performance in developed and developing economies, while knowledge absorption matters most in transition economies. The research proposes a framework showing how these capabilities create competitive advantage within innovation ecosystems.
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Absorptive capacity for need knowledge: Antecedents and effects for employee innovativeness
This study examines how employees absorb two distinct types of knowledge—understanding customer needs and understanding technological solutions—and how this absorption affects their innovativeness. Using 864 employees from a home appliance company, the researchers found that absorptive capacity for needs and solutions are separate capabilities, both boosting innovation. Interestingly, prior solution knowledge helps employees understand customer needs, but prior need knowledge actually hinders their ability to absorb solution knowledge.
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Responsible Development and Application of Surgical Innovations: A Position Statement of the Society of University Surgeons
This position statement from the Society of University Surgeons addresses the responsible development and application of surgical innovations. The authors establish principles and guidelines for how surgical innovations should be developed, tested, and implemented in clinical practice to ensure patient safety and ethical standards while advancing surgical care.
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Benefits of involving users in service innovation
Users generate more creative and useful service innovations than professional developers, according to an empirical study comparing service ideas for mobile telephony. While professional suggestions were easier to implement, ordinary users contributed novel ideas with greater creative value. The research demonstrates that consumers can serve as effective co-inventors in service innovation, though organizational factors affect their contribution potential.
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Global Diffusion of Technological Innovations: A Coupled-Hazard Approach
This paper develops a coupled-hazard methodology to analyze how technological innovations spread globally across countries. The approach distinguishes between when a country first introduces a technology and when it achieves full adoption. Applied to digital telecommunications switches across 160+ countries, the method captures discontinuous diffusion patterns and reveals the separate dynamics of implementation and confirmation stages in technology adoption.
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Innovation capacity: working towards a mechanism for improving innovation within an inter‐organizational network
Firms improve innovation capacity by combining innovation resources and accumulated knowledge within inter-organizational networks. This paper examines how one firm enhanced its innovation capacity through collaboration with a network partner on R&D projects. The study shows that resource supply and knowledge accumulation interact dynamically within networks, creating continuous improvement cycles that strengthen organizational competitiveness and enable firms to meet customer needs and create new markets.
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The limits to open innovation and its impact on innovation performance
This study examines how open innovation affects UK firm performance across sectors and regions. Using data from nearly 20,000 firm observations, the researchers find that limits to open knowledge collaboration vary significantly by industry and geography. Creative sectors face the greatest barriers to collaborating on knowledge both domestically and internationally. The findings reveal that transaction costs and knowledge protection concerns constrain open innovation differently depending on sector type and location.
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Valuing Value in Innovation Ecosystems: How Cross-Sector Actors Overcome Tensions in Collaborative Sustainable Business Model Development
Cross-sector innovation ecosystems pursuing sustainability goals face three key tensions: balancing value creation against value capture, collective versus individual benefits, and gains versus losses for different actors. This study of four collaborative projects identifies two patterns—collective orchestration and continuous search—that ecosystems use to navigate these tensions and develop sustainable business models that satisfy all partners.
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Open innovation, information, and entrepreneurship within platform ecosystems
Companies use platform ecosystems as open innovation strategies to encourage developers to create complementary products. This study examines what information within these ecosystems drives entrepreneurs to commercialize free products. The research finds that product-specific information correlates with commercialization decisions, while market information does not. Platform designers can strategically manage information to encourage commercial activity among complementors.
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Strategic agency and institutional change: investigating the role of universities in regional innovation systems (RISs)
Universities shape regional innovation systems through strategic leadership and institutional entrepreneurship. The paper argues that understanding how regional innovation develops requires examining not just organizational actors but their internal dynamics and competing interests. Place-based leadership—how actors intentionally drive regional change—remains undertheorized without accounting for these organizational complexities.
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The influence of responsible leadership on environmental innovation and environmental performance: The moderating role of managerial discretion
Responsible leadership drives environmental innovation in manufacturing firms. The study found that relationship building, relational governance, and sharing orientation boost incremental environmental innovation, while relational governance and sharing orientation increase radical environmental innovation. Both innovation types improve environmental performance. Managerial discretion strengthens these relationships, particularly between sharing orientation and both innovation types, and between relational governance and radical innovation.
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Anticipating Disruptive Innovation
Organizations must balance efficient current operations with future innovation, managing both disruptive and sustaining innovations simultaneously. The paper identifies three distinct patterns of substitution that show how customer needs and technological capabilities interact to drive innovation. Understanding these dynamics helps companies anticipate and navigate disruptive change.
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The Impacts of Emerging Technologies on Accountants’ Role and Skills: Connecting to Open Innovation—A Systematic Literature Review
This systematic literature review examines how emerging technologies reshape accountants' roles and required skills. The authors analyzed 157 articles to identify which technologies receive research attention and their specific impacts on accounting professionals. The findings clarify what skills modern accountants need and what roles they should perform. The results inform professional bodies, regulators, and educational institutions in updating standards and curriculum to match employer expectations.
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Smart specialisation, innovation policy and regional innovation systems: what about new path development in less innovative regions?
Smart specialisation strategies work best when grounded in regional innovation systems that support learning and competitiveness. The paper argues that less innovative regions should pursue transformative new path development through unrelated knowledge combinations and radical path creation, not just incremental diversification. These high-risk strategies can generate structural transformation opportunities and should be included in policy design, even though they carry greater uncertainty than safer alternatives.
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Responsible innovation as an endorsement of public values: the need for interdisciplinary research
Responsible innovation requires systematically including public values in technological development. The authors argue that understanding this process demands interdisciplinary research combining ethics, institutional theory, and science-technology-society studies to examine how institutions and stakeholders shape innovation. They propose using public debate as a method to identify emerging public values and address questions about whose opinions matter and how competing values should be balanced.
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Energy transitions from the cradle to the grave: A meta-theoretical framework integrating responsible innovation, social practices, and energy justice
This paper integrates three theoretical approaches—responsible innovation, social practice theory, and energy justice—to analyze energy transitions comprehensively from design through use to end-of-life impacts. The authors apply this framework to four case studies: French nuclear power, Greek wind energy, Papua New Guinean solar energy, and Estonian oil shale. The integrated approach reveals how energy transitions create injustices and inequalities across their full lifecycle.
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Exploring open innovation practice in firm‐nonprofit engagements: a corporate social responsibility perspective
This study examines how corporations and nonprofits collaborate to drive innovation through open innovation practices. Eight UK partnerships show two distinct approaches: exploratory engagement that generates emergent innovation, and focused resource exploitation that follows planned processes. Boundary-spanning roles differ based on organizational linkage strength—formal management roles in loosely connected dyads versus informal facilitation roles in highly connected ones. Open innovation driven by social issues, rather than purely economic motives, broadens corporate search activities and generates innovations while building social legitimacy.
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Propagation of innovations in networked groups.
This paper examines how network structure affects groups' ability to discover and share solutions. Researchers created laboratory groups where participants made guesses and shared scores with network neighbors. Results show groups converge on similar solutions even when alternatives exist. The optimal network structure depends on the problem: clustered networks excel at broad exploration, while highly connected networks work better for focused problems.
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Frontier Technology and Absorptive Capacity: Evidence from OECD Manufacturing Industries*
This paper examines why productivity differs across OECD countries by analyzing how well manufacturing industries absorb frontier technology. Using data from 12 OECD countries between 1973 and 1991, the authors find that countries with higher human capital absorb new technology more effectively and achieve better productivity. R&D investment shows weaker evidence of improving technology absorption.
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Analysis of the relationship between open innovation, knowledge management capability and dual innovation
Open innovation and knowledge management capability both positively influence dual innovation (exploration and exploitation). Inward-oriented open innovation more strongly drives exploitation innovation, while outward-oriented open innovation more strongly drives exploration innovation. Knowledge management capability partially mediates the relationship between open innovation and dual innovation outcomes.
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Technology Transfer across Organizational Boundaries: Absorptive Capacity and Desorptive Capacity
This paper introduces the concept of desorptive capacity—a firm's ability to identify and transfer technology outward to other organizations. While research typically focuses on absorptive capacity (the recipient's ability to receive technology), the authors argue that understanding the technology source's capabilities is equally critical for successful technology transfer through alliances and licensing. Market knowledge and desorptive capacity explain why firms struggle with outbound technology transfer strategies.
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The many faces of absorptive capacity: spillovers of copper interconnect technology for semiconductor chips
This case study of copper interconnect technology in semiconductors identifies three forms of absorptive capacity: disciplinary, domain-specific, and encoded. Firms build disciplinary capacity by engaging with scientific communities while protecting proprietary knowledge. Domain-specific capacity develops through influencing university research and hiring talent. As technology matures, encoded capacity becomes critical, requiring firms to integrate supplier knowledge. Absorptive capacity is multifaceted and shaped by technology type and maturity.
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Hybrid Orchestration in Multi-stakeholder Innovation Networks: Practices of mobilizing multiple, diverse stakeholders across organizational boundaries
This study examines how orchestrators manage multi-stakeholder innovation networks by identifying three core practices: connecting, facilitating, and governing. The research finds that successful orchestrators switch between dominating and consensus-based approaches depending on emerging network challenges. These hybrid orchestration strategies help orchestrators navigate the complexity of coordinating diverse stakeholders across organizational boundaries and achieve distinct innovation outcomes over time.
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Information technology for supporting the development and maintenance of open innovation capabilities
This paper examines how information technology supports open innovation by developing two types of organizational capabilities: strategic capabilities that enable companies to adopt open innovation strategies effectively, and operational capabilities that improve daily implementation. The authors connect specific ICT tools to required functions across the entire open innovation process, emphasizing collaboration, data analysis, and technology integration within organizational workflows.
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The innovative performance of firms in heterogeneous environments: The interplay between external knowledge and internal absorptive capacities
Firms in knowledge-rich environments innovate more effectively when they develop both potential and realized absorptive capacities—the ability to recognize and integrate external knowledge. Using English firm data combined with patent records, the study shows that organizational ambidexterity enables companies to leverage clustering of knowledgeable workers and external knowledge sources to boost innovation performance.
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Responsible innovation, the art and craft of anticipation
This paper examines anticipation as a core principle of responsible innovation and anticipatory governance. The author argues that anticipation need not predict an entirely transformed future world. Instead, anticipation can meaningfully operate within our current understanding of how the world works, even when emerging technologies may eventually change that world fundamentally. This distinction matters for how we actually practice responsible innovation.
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When Does Search Openness Really Matter? A Contingency Study of Health‐Care Innovation Projects
Open innovation strategies for healthcare product development show an inverted U-shaped relationship with success—too little or too much external knowledge sourcing hurts outcomes. The effectiveness of open search depends on project type, leader experience, and organizational support. Exploratory projects benefit most from openness, while experienced leaders and creative work environments maximize returns from external knowledge.
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THE ROLE OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY IN FACILITATING "OPEN INNOVATION" OUTCOMES: A STUDY OF AUSTRALIAN SMEs IN THE MANUFACTURING SECTOR
Australian manufacturing SMEs that pursue open innovation strategies achieve better innovation outcomes when they possess strong absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge. The study shows that simply accessing external knowledge through open innovation is insufficient; firms must develop internal capabilities to effectively transform and use that knowledge.
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Advanced Introduction to Regional Innovation Systems
This advanced introduction examines regional innovation systems as a framework for understanding how innovation develops and spreads across geographic areas. The work synthesizes key concepts and theories that explain how regions build competitive advantage through interconnected networks of firms, institutions, and knowledge flows.
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Market failure in the diffusion of consumer-developed innovations: Patterns in Finland
Consumer-developed innovations in Finland often fail to spread beyond their creators because developers lack incentives to support diffusion when others benefit. The study confirms that market failure prevents socially optimal spread of user innovations. Developers don't invest in sharing products that could help others, even when those innovations have clear value to broader populations.
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Innovation Types and Network Relationships
Small innovative firms commercialize different types of innovations through distinct network relationships. The study identifies four innovation types and shows that radical systemic and autonomous innovations require strong collaborative ties with customers, while incremental innovations succeed through different downstream networks. A portfolio of relationships with suppliers, distributors, customers, and research institutes helps small firms access critical resources.
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The Effects of Market Network Heterogeneity on Innovation Diffusion: An Agent‐Based Modeling Approach
This paper uses agent-based modeling to examine how network structure affects innovation diffusion. The researchers find that how consumers connect to each other and communicate within market segments significantly influences how quickly innovations spread. Identifying key communicator nodes in networks allows organizations to better target their innovation strategies to different market segments and accelerate adoption.
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Exploring the Role of Islamic Fintech in Combating the Aftershocks of COVID-19: The Open Social Innovation of the Islamic Financial System
Islamic financial technology can help economies recover from COVID-19 by combining ethical Islamic finance principles with fintech innovation. The study argues that Islamic finance's emphasis on corporate social responsibility and financial stability makes it well-suited to address pandemic-related economic disruption. Open innovation approaches in Islamic fintech enable faster, more reliable solutions than conventional finance, offering governments and policymakers a sustainable tool for economic recovery.
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Managing open innovation
Empowering leadership styles boost both inbound and outbound open innovation in firms. The study surveyed managers in northern India and found that empowering leaders help employees seek, integrate, and share new ideas. Employee involvement climate mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and inbound innovation, meaning leaders create environments where employees participate in decisions that enhance innovation performance.
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Entrepreneurship and open innovation in an emerging economy
This study surveyed Peruvian company managers to examine how entrepreneurial orientation and open innovation affect firm performance. The research found that higher sales growth did not require strong entrepreneurial orientation. However, firms engaged in open innovation reported significantly higher sales growth and used double loop learning more effectively. The findings suggest emerging economy firms can sustain growth through open innovation practices rather than relying primarily on entrepreneurial behavior.
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Diffusion of innovations
This fourth edition of a foundational health behavior textbook provides comprehensive analysis of health behavior theories relevant to health education and practice. The work synthesizes theory, research, and practical applications to guide health professionals in understanding and influencing health behaviors across populations.
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Sustainability, Social Media Driven Open Innovation, and New Product Development Performance*
Firms with strong sustainability orientation achieve better new product development performance, partly through increased customer focus. Social media-driven open innovation amplifies these benefits in two ways: activities gathering market insights directly strengthen customer focus, while those acquiring technical expertise enhance how customer focus translates into product performance. Companies should strategically integrate sustainability into product development and carefully manage social media innovation activities.
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Externalities of openness in innovation
Open innovation practices generate positive externalities that benefit firms beyond their direct participants, improving knowledge diffusion and innovation performance across industries. Using Irish manufacturing data from 1994–2008, the authors find that these externalities significantly boost firms' innovation outputs through increased knowledge spread and competition, not through adoption of open practices alone. The gap between private and social returns to openness suggests firms adopt it suboptimally, justifying public policies that encourage open innovation.
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The antecedents and innovation effects of domestic and offshore R&D outsourcing: The contingent impact of cognitive distance and absorptive capacity
Firms with stronger internal R&D capabilities can effectively manage offshore outsourcing despite greater cognitive distance between partners. Offshore R&D outsourcing produces better innovation results than domestic outsourcing, particularly for product innovation. Absorptive capacity—built through internal R&D investment—enables companies to successfully integrate knowledge from distant offshore partners.
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On the Identity of Technological Objects and User Innovations in Function
This paper develops a theory explaining how technological objects gain identity through both their physical form and intended function. The authors use this framework to categorize different types of technological change and highlight user-driven innovations that modify how objects are used, an area previous research largely overlooked.
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Triple helix circulation: the heart of innovation and development
The triple helix model—involving universities, industry, and government—drives innovation and development through the movement of people and knowledge across these sectors. Universities now function as key socio-economic actors beyond their traditional role as knowledge providers. The paper argues that removing barriers to circulation and strengthening cooperation among these development actors is essential for achieving sustainable, knowledge-based development in resource-constrained societies.
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Frugal innovation: Conception, development, diffusion, and outcome
Frugal innovation enables resource-constrained entrepreneurs in low-income countries to develop and commercialize products for underserved markets. This study examines how grassroots innovators conceptualize, develop, and diffuse frugal innovations, identifying the motivations, processes, and challenges from inception to commercial success. The research reveals that frugal innovations create new markets, drive sustainability, and require dual-business models to serve low-income customers effectively in emerging economies.
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Value Cocreation and Wealth Spillover in Open Innovation Alliances1
Open innovation alliances where competitors collaborate on technology development create significant economic value. Firms entering these alliances experience positive stock returns, with even greater gains when market leaders join late. Surprisingly, rival firms outside the alliance also benefit financially, with non-participating incumbents gaining the most. Innovation type and alliance openness affect returns, while partner diversity does not.
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Grassroots Innovation for Urban Sustainability: Comparing the Diffusion Pathways of Three Ecovillage Projects
Three ecovillage projects successfully spread sustainable practices through education and outreach activities. One project achieved broader impact by partnering with municipal planners to create a new zoning category, enabling mainstream developers to adopt ecovillage concepts. The research shows that grassroots innovation projects bridge niche and mainstream sectors most effectively when they operate simultaneously in two distinct action domains.
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Online Communities and Open Innovation
Online communities enable users and customers to participate in innovation at low cost through internet-based collaboration. These communities operate independently of corporate control, yet companies increasingly seek to harness their creative output through open innovation strategies. The paper examines how technological and symbolic value is created when online communities interact with firms across software, services, and manufacturing sectors, challenging traditional business models.
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Responsible research and innovation in the digital age
Responsible research and innovation demands that scientists prioritize creating solutions that benefit society, not merely advancing knowledge for its own sake. The paper argues that RRI frameworks must shift focus from pursuing excellence in isolation to ensuring research outcomes serve real-world needs and address global challenges.
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Being a Catalyst of Innovation: The Role of Knowledge Diversity and Network Closure
This study identifies innovation catalysts—people who support and promote colleagues' innovativeness—within organizational research teams. The researchers found that individuals with access to diverse knowledge through closed networks become effective catalysts. Analyzing 276 R&D researchers at a multinational tech company, they show catalysts significantly boost their colleagues' patent applications, revealing an important but overlooked role in the innovation process beyond inventors themselves.
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Impact of organizational inertia on business model innovation, open innovation and corporate performance
Organizational inertia—resistance to change—undermines business model innovation and open innovation in IT firms, reducing corporate performance. The study surveyed 160 information technology companies in Tehran and found that reducing organizational inertia enables firms to adopt innovative business models and embrace open innovation practices, both of which directly improve performance outcomes.
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A comprehensive concept of social innovation and its implications for the local context – on the growing importance of social innovation ecosystems and infrastructures
This paper develops a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding social innovation and its role in addressing twenty-first-century challenges. The authors ground social innovation in social theory, examine its relationship to social change, and introduce social innovation ecosystems as a model for understanding local-level initiatives. Drawing on global mapping data from the SI-DRIVE research project, they demonstrate the diversity of social innovation efforts across multiple sectors and contexts.
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Digital Health Innovation Ecosystems: From Systematic Literature Review to Conceptual Framework
This systematic literature review identifies key components of digital health innovation ecosystems by synthesizing research on digital health, innovation, and digital ecosystems. The authors develop a conceptual framework and comprehensive definition for digital health innovation ecosystems, drawing from academic databases and practitioner case reports. The framework aims to establish common understanding among healthcare professionals, practitioners, and academics working in digital health innovation.
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Triple Helix or Quadruple Helix: Which Model of Innovation to Choose for Empirical Studies?
This paper compares the Triple Helix and Quadruple Helix models of innovation to clarify which researchers should use in empirical studies. The authors review how these models appear in existing literature and find three different views on how they relate to each other, ranging from treating them as separate to fully integrated. They identify strengths and weaknesses of each model and conclude the models are largely complementary, offering potential for combined use in analyzing modern innovation processes.
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Which factors hinder the adoption of open innovation in SMEs?
This study identifies four main barriers preventing small and medium-sized enterprises from adopting open innovation: knowledge gaps, collaboration challenges, organizational constraints, and financial/strategic limitations. Using survey data from 157 Italian SMEs, the researchers found that different firm types perceive these barriers differently depending on their industry's innovativeness level. Some barriers directly impede open innovation adoption while others do not.
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Regional Innovation Systems: How to Assess Performance
This paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis to evaluate regional innovation system performance across European regions using 2002-2003 data. High-technology regions rank differently under DEA than traditional scorecards, revealing that advanced regions need stronger system coordination to maintain efficiency. The authors propose combining quantitative and qualitative analysis to improve policy decisions for regional innovation systems.
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Networking and knowledge creation: Social capital and collaborative innovation in responding to the COVID-19 crisis
Social capital drives collaborative innovation and collective intelligence in manufacturing firms during crises. A study of 289 managers at Jordan's top 50 manufacturers found that strong social networks significantly boost collaborative innovation, collective problem-solving, and organizational sustainability during COVID-19. Collective intelligence itself further strengthens both innovation and sustainability, demonstrating how dynamic capabilities help organizations survive and recover from unprecedented disruptions.
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Network Dynamics of Innovation Processes
This paper presents a mathematical model explaining how innovations emerge through random walks on networks of interconnected ideas. The model shows that innovations occur when cognitive processes first reach new concepts, with network connections strengthening through repeated use. The framework successfully predicts both the rate at which new discoveries appear and how they correlate with each other across scientific disciplines.
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Universities’ contributions to social innovation: reflections in theory & practice
Universities contribute to knowledge-based urban development through social innovation by gaining tacit knowledge, material resources, and symbolic legitimacy. The paper argues that universities must modify internal processes to enable diverse actors to benefit from participation. Policy-makers should avoid creating disincentives through teaching and research activities that prevent universities from making substantive contributions to urban development.
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Absorptive Capacity in Buyer–supplier Relationships: Empirical Evidence of Its Mediating Role
Absorptive capacity—the ability to identify, assimilate, and exploit external knowledge—mediates the relationship between organizational compatibility and performance outcomes in buyer-supplier relationships. Analysis of 153 and 199 companies supplying major retailers and distributors shows that compatibility alone does not ensure innovation and efficiency gains. Absorptive capacity drives these improvements, particularly for innovation under high demand uncertainty. Managers must prioritize partners' learning capabilities, not just compatibility.
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R&D/Returns Causality: Absorptive Capacity or Organizational IQ
This paper challenges the absorptive capacity theory by arguing that firms' ability to benefit from R&D spending reflects innate organizational capability rather than investment behavior. The author finds that when accounting for differences in firm quality, the interaction between a firm's own R&D and rivals' R&D becomes insignificant. Higher-performing firms invest more in R&D, but R&D spending itself does not improve a firm's capacity to learn from competitors' innovations.
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Knowledge transfer in open innovation
This paper develops a framework for understanding how knowledge flows among diverse actors in healthcare ecosystems to support open innovation. The framework identifies four key components: player categories, knowledge flows across exploration and exploitation stages, player motivations, and positions in the innovation process. The research highlights that patients, doctors, and nurses—not just R&D professionals—play critical roles in knowledge transfer and innovation development within healthcare networks.
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Green absorptive capacity: A mediation‐moderation model of knowledge for innovation
This study examines how environmental and organizational factors drive green innovation in Brazil's electric power industry. The research finds that organizational factors mediate the relationship between environmental pressures and green innovation performance. Green absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply environmental knowledge—strengthens this entire process. The findings demonstrate that firms better equipped to absorb green knowledge achieve superior innovation outcomes.
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Enhancing Green Absorptive Capacity, Green Dynamic Capacities and Green Service Innovation to Improve Firm Performance: An Analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
This study examines how green absorptive capacity and green dynamic capacities drive green service innovation and improve firm performance. The research finds that green absorptive capacity directly boosts dynamic capacities, service innovation, and performance. Green dynamic capacities similarly enhance both innovation and performance. The analysis reveals that dynamic capacities and service innovation mediate the relationship between absorptive capacity and firm performance outcomes.
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Breakthrough innovation: the roles of dynamic innovation capabilities and open innovation activities
Dynamic innovation capabilities show an inverted U-shaped relationship with breakthrough innovation—too much or too little hurts performance. Open innovation activities strengthen this relationship by helping firms coordinate their capabilities effectively. The study surveyed 218 Taiwanese firms with recent breakthrough innovation experience, finding that managers must balance their dynamic capabilities and engage in open innovation to succeed.
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Interactive Effects of Network Capability, ICT Capability, and Financial Slack on Technology-Based Small Firm Innovation Performance
Network capability, ICT capability, and financial slack together influence innovation performance in technology-based small firms. The study shows that these three factors interact to affect how well small firms innovate. Firms that combine strong external relationships, strategic use of technology, and available financial resources achieve better innovation outcomes than those lacking these elements.
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Managing Potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity: How do Organizational Antecedents Matter?
This study examines how organizational structures affect a company's ability to absorb and use new knowledge. The researchers found that coordination mechanisms like cross-functional teams and job rotation build potential absorptive capacity, while socialization mechanisms like employee connectedness and mentoring increase realized absorptive capacity. The findings explain why organizations struggle to balance these two components and differ in extracting value from acquired knowledge.
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Smart Production Workers in Terms of Creativity and Innovation: The Implication for Open Innovation
This paper develops a framework of skills and competencies needed by employees in companies transitioning to Industry 4.0, focusing on creativity and innovation. The authors analyzed job recruitment offers from Polish steel companies implementing smart manufacturing and educational programs from Polish technical universities in metallurgy. They found that the paper establishes an occupational profile for Industry 4.0 workers and examines how much Polish metallurgical companies and universities emphasize creativity and innovation in hiring and training.
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User Involvement throughout the Innovation Process in High‐Tech Industries
High-tech firms increasingly collect user feedback throughout entire innovation cycles rather than in isolated phases. This study of eight high-tech companies reveals how firms use technology and social media to gather and apply user input across all stages of product development. The authors develop a framework identifying different types of user involvement and methods for integrating customer feedback systematically into innovation processes.
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OPEN INNOVATION PRACTICES AND THEIR EFFECT ON INNOVATION PERFORMANCE
Open innovation practices significantly boost innovation performance across European firms. Broad-based approaches combining multiple open innovation strategies deliver stronger results than individual practices alone. Internal research investments remain essential alongside external collaboration, showing that open innovation complements rather than replaces in-house knowledge development.
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Diffusion of Innovations and Network Segmentation: The Part Played by People in Promoting Health
This paper demonstrates how diffusion of innovations theory integrates mass media, interpersonal communication, and social network analysis to improve health promotion. The authors review studies on STD/HIV prevention and find that interventions using interpersonal communication successfully increase safer sex behaviors. They conclude that social network analysis enables more effective and tailored health promotion program design.
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Digital entrepreneurship: The role of entrepreneurial orientation and digitalization for disruptive innovation
Entrepreneurial orientation significantly boosts firms' ability to develop disruptive innovation. However, digitalization strategy works differently depending on a firm's entrepreneurial orientation: it hinders disruptive innovation in highly entrepreneurial firms but supports it in less entrepreneurial ones. Firms should calibrate their digitalization investments based on their entrepreneurial orientation level to maximize disruptive innovation.
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Rational Learning and Bounded Learning in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations
Countries adopt policy innovations by learning from neighbors and successful examples, not through purely rational analysis. The paper shows that bounded learning and rational learning produce identical results when information gathering carries real costs. This reconciles two competing theories and explains how policy innovations spread across developing nations, particularly regarding trade liberalization decisions.
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Artificial intelligence for supply chain management: Disruptive innovation or innovative disruption?
This paper examines how artificial intelligence integration transforms supply chain management. The author proposes the AI Integration framework, which considers the depth of AI adoption across supply chains and AI's role in decision-making, alongside human interpretation of AI systems. Different integration approaches produce different types of disruption. The paper argues that supply chain management needs cross-disciplinary collaboration and sociotechnical perspectives to prepare for AI-driven transformation.
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Tackling Societal Challenges with Open Innovation
Open innovation—combining external knowledge and market pathways with internal processes—has traditionally served business goals. This paper argues that open innovation can address societal challenges, though doing so creates trade-offs and tensions. The authors introduce articles from the World Open Innovation Conference examining how organizations deploy open innovation to tackle broader social problems beyond profit.
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Ego-Network Stability and Innovation in Alliances
This study examines how stable alliance networks affect firm innovation in biopharmaceutical companies. The researchers find that stable ego-networks actually reduce innovation outcomes. However, firms can mitigate this negative effect by spanning structural holes across their alliance partners. Geographic concentration of inventive activities in a single country worsens the innovation penalty from network stability.
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In Search of Precision in Absorptive Capacity Research: A Synthesis of the Literature and Consolidation of Findings
This paper clarifies what absorptive capacity means and how it affects firm performance. The authors identify three core dimensions: absorptive effort (knowledge investments), absorptive knowledge base (existing knowledge stock), and absorptive process (internal knowledge practices). Meta-analysis shows absorptive capacity significantly improves firm outcomes, with knowledge acquisition and innovation generation as key mechanisms. Effects vary depending on external knowledge conditions.
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VALUES-BASED NETWORK AND BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION
Innovation management must harness networks and shared values to solve societal problems. This paper argues that values-based network and business model innovation can address complex challenges like unsustainable energy systems. The authors present a theoretical framework and facilitation methods, tested through a workshop on regional energy networks in Germany, demonstrating that values-based networks and business models create starting points for systemic sustainability innovations.
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Quality criteria and indicators for responsible research and innovation: learning from transdisciplinarity
This paper develops quality criteria and performance indicators for responsible research and innovation (RRI) to make the concept more concrete and actionable. Drawing on transdisciplinary research experience and stakeholder deliberation around nanoremediation, the authors create an evaluative rubric with specific criteria and indicators. While developed for nanoparticle environmental remediation, they argue this framework can guide how other fields develop their own RRI evaluation approaches.
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Knowledge absorptive capacity and innovation performance in KIBS
Knowledge input, spillover, and absorptive capacity all boost innovation performance in Taiwan's IC design industry. The study shows that absorptive capacity—defined as the interaction between knowledge input and spillover—directly strengthens how firms innovate. The research distinguishes four types of knowledge spillover and absorptive capacity sources, providing empirical evidence that firms leveraging multiple knowledge sources achieve better innovation outcomes.
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An innovation diffusion model of TQM implementation
This paper models Total Quality Management (TQM) as an organizational innovation that spreads through four stages: adoption by top management, adaptation of employee capabilities and attitudes, acceptance demonstrated through teamwork and supplier relationships, and routinization of quality practices. Testing the framework on 407 automobile parts supplier plants, the authors found that successful TQM implementation requires preparing employees and suppliers technically and behaviorally, and integrating all sociotechnical elements throughout the organization.
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Open Government Data as an Innovation Process: Lessons from a Living Lab Experiment
A living lab experiment in the Netherlands tested open government data as an innovation process over two years. While interventions successfully increased data use and government awareness, scaling remained blocked by organizational barriers. The research finds that realizing open data's potential requires strong management commitment and systemic changes to rules, technology, and practices—not just making data available.
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The Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Maturity Model: Linking Theory and Practice
This paper develops a maturity model for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) that helps companies integrate ethical and sustainable practices into their R&D processes. The authors tested the model across three industrial settings and found it practical and effective for corporate innovation management. The model bridges RRI theory with real-world business implementation, offering companies a structured framework to ensure their research is acceptable, sustainable, and socially desirable.
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Innovation, diffusion and adoption of total quality management (TQM)
This paper examines whether Total Quality Management (TQM) remains a viable management philosophy or has become a passing fad. Through literature review, the authors trace TQM's innovation, diffusion, and adoption across organizations globally. They find that despite declining media coverage, TQM continues gaining academic attention and organizational adoption worldwide. The authors argue TQM remains relevant but warn against treating it as a generic technique—organizations must adapt it to their specific cultural contexts, leadership styles, and employee needs to prevent it from becoming a fad.
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INNOVATION NETWORKS-A SIMULATION APPROACH
This paper presents a multi-agent simulation model of innovation networks where firms, research labs, and policy actors generate new ideas and products. Agents improve their innovations either independently or by partnering with others to combine knowledge. The simulation successfully reproduces real-world innovation network characteristics observed in telecommunications and biotechnology sectors, offering insights for policy decisions.
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A call for action: The impact of business model innovation on business ecosystems, society and planet
Business model innovation significantly affects companies, their ecosystems, and the environment. This paper distinguishes between standard business model innovation, sustainable variants, and ecosystem-level approaches. The authors argue that research must examine how these innovations create or destroy value and evolve over time, particularly as sustainability pressures intensify.
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IP Models to Orchestrate Innovation Ecosystems: IMEC, a Public Research Institute in Nano-Electronics
Public research institutes can orchestrate innovation ecosystems through intellectual property governance models. IMEC, a nano-electronics research institute, demonstrates how IP policies determine how ecosystem partners capture value from collaborative research. The institute's multi-party model involving public and private firms shows that IP governance directly influences ecosystem success and partner participation.
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Perspectives on Supply Network–Enabled Innovations
Organizations increasingly rely on their supply networks to drive innovation success. This paper presents two frameworks showing how firms can integrate their internal knowledge with supply network expertise to improve innovation performance. The frameworks draw on absorptive capacity and ambidexterity theories to explain how companies align internal research efforts with external supply network knowledge.
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Linking Digital Capacity to Innovation Performance: the Mediating Role of Absorptive Capacity
Digital technologies boost firm innovation, but their effectiveness depends on absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to acquire and use external knowledge. A survey of 1,014 Greek manufacturing firms shows digital capacity directly improves innovation performance, but this effect strengthens significantly when firms possess strong absorptive capacity. The findings suggest digital investment alone is insufficient; firms must also invest in R&D, training, and knowledge networks to maximize innovation gains.
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How Does Innovation Emerge in a Service Ecosystem?
This study examines how innovation emerges within service ecosystems using four years of case study data on an Internet-of-Things technology solution. The research identifies institutional reconciliation as a previously overlooked phase in innovation development, showing that ideas are refined through four types of institutional pressures and shaped by plasticity in four distinct ways. The findings establish innovation as a systemic process and recommend that managers cultivate organizational norms, rules, and beliefs to support innovation emergence.
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Absorptive capacity, knowledge sharing, and innovative behaviour of R&D employees
This study examines how absorptive capacity and knowledge sharing drive innovative behavior among R&D employees. Using survey data from 138 employees at a multinational electronics company, the researchers found that both potential and realized absorptive capacity directly influence innovation. Knowledge sharing indirectly affects innovation through realized absorptive capacity. The findings show that organizations should simultaneously develop employee absorptive capacity and encourage knowledge sharing, external exposure, and internal communication to foster innovation.
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BENEFITING FROM SUPPLIER OPERATIONAL INNOVATIVENESS: THE INFLUENCE OF SUPPLIER EVALUATIONS AND ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY
Manufacturers benefit from suppliers' operational innovations, but capturing this value requires two strategies: evaluating supplier performance and developing absorptive capacity to learn from suppliers. A survey of 136 manufacturers and 272 suppliers shows both approaches significantly enhance the benefits of supplier innovation, particularly when suppliers handle knowledge-intensive tasks. Supplier evaluation and learning capacity work together to unlock innovation value.
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Transformative innovation policy to meet the challenge of climate change: sociotechnical networks aligned with consumption and end-use as new transition arenas for a low-carbon society or green economy
The paper argues that climate policy must shift from incremental innovation to transformative change through sociotechnical transitions. Rather than focusing on technology supply or macroeconomic approaches, innovation policy should target consumption and end-use patterns organized around fundamental societal functions. The author shows that current policy mixes new demand-driven systemic initiatives with outdated supply-side approaches, and proposes that energy system visualization reveals consumption categories offering better frameworks for designing sociotechnical experiments toward a low-carbon society.
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Responsible Innovation: A Pilot Study with the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council piloted a risk register requirement for research funding applicants, asking them to identify potential impacts and risks of proposed innovations in nanoscience. Most applicants identified only immediate occupational health risks, while few anticipated broader environmental or societal impacts. Proposals that succeeded in addressing wider impacts included multidisciplinary teams, life cycle assessments, and public engagement, enabling continuous reflexivity and real-time adjustment of research direction.
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The intertwining of knowledge sharing and creation in the digital platform based ecosystem. A conceptual study on the lens of the open innovation approach
This paper develops a theoretical framework showing how knowledge sharing and creation intertwine within digital platform ecosystems under open innovation principles. The authors propose that digital platforms function as dynamic spaces where knowledge sharing and creation continuously interact, introducing the concept of "ba-sho" as a foundational element. The framework applies across micro, meso, and macro organizational levels.
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Innovation Alignment and Project Network Dynamics: An Integrative Model for Change
This paper examines how project networks affect innovation adoption using data from 3D CAD technology diffusion across 82 firms in three countries. The authors develop a two-stage model showing that innovation success depends first on alignment with existing work allocation, then on network factors including relational stability, shared interests, boundary permeability, and change agents. The model resolves conflicting theories about whether networks promote or hinder innovation.
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Open innovation in the face of the COVID‐19 grand challenge: insights from the Pan‐European hackathon ‘EUvsVirus’
The EUvsVirus hackathon mobilized thousands of participants across Europe to develop COVID-19 solutions through open innovation. The 3-day online event combined broad problem scope, participatory design, digital access, and community building to tap distributed knowledge beyond traditional organizations. The hackathon successfully engaged atypical innovators—retired experts, students, and the public—demonstrating that grand challenges require openness at societal level, not just across organizational boundaries.
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Organisational institutionalisation of responsible innovation
This paper examines how responsible innovation became institutionalized at the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and its funded universities between 2010 and 2020. The authors find that while the EPSRC successfully embedded responsible innovation practices before publishing its 2013 policy, universities struggled to adopt it due to competing institutional priorities and different research cultures. The process remains incomplete and contested.
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Traditional ecological knowledge in innovation governance: a framework for responsible and just innovation
Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is often eroded by Western innovation focused on economic growth and technological modernization. This paper argues that innovation governance must shift away from growth-oriented definitions toward frameworks emphasizing societal goals. The authors contend that responsible innovation approaches alone cannot address TEK integration without confronting underlying decolonization and social justice issues that shape how traditional communities experience and control change.
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Regional Innovation Systems in Hungary: The Failing Synergy at the National Level
This paper measures synergies in Hungary's regional innovation systems using entropy statistics across firm categories, sub-regions, industrial sectors, and firm sizes. The analysis reveals three distinct regimes: Budapest functions as a knowledge-based innovation hub, northwestern regions show foreign company influence on knowledge organization, and southeastern regions depend on government spending patterns. The results demonstrate failing national-level synergy despite these regional dynamics.
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How leadership matters in organizational innovation: a perspective of openness
Transformational leadership enhances organizational innovation while transactional leadership reduces it. The study reveals that leadership styles work through two mechanisms: openness breadth (absorbing diverse external knowledge) and openness depth (integrating that knowledge deeply). Both mechanisms mediate how different leadership approaches affect innovation performance in organizations.
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Patient Perceptions of a Personal Health Record: A Test of the Diffusion of Innovation Model
This study applies diffusion of innovation theory to understand how patients perceive personal health records (PHRs). Surveying 760 patients, researchers found that PHR users valued ease of use and relative advantage more than non-users. Computer literacy and personal innovativeness in technology distinguished users from non-adopters. The diffusion of innovation model successfully predicted which factors drive PHR adoption and perceived value for doctor communication.
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Is it too complex? The curious case of supply network complexity and focal firm innovation
Supply network complexity affects how well firms innovate. Using data from 201 firms across six industries, the authors find that horizontal and vertical complexity boost innovation but with diminishing returns, while spreading suppliers across many locations harms innovation. A firm's strategic focus and power over suppliers shapes these relationships. The findings guide managers on sourcing decisions.
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Networking capability in supplier relationships and its impact on product innovation and firm performance
Networking capability—the ability to initiate, develop, and end supplier relationships—drives product innovation and firm performance in automotive parts manufacturing. Firms employ two distinct approaches: some focus on deepening existing relationships, while others balance relationship development with actively seeking new partners and exiting poor relationships. Organizational readiness to engage in networking amplifies these effects.
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Organizing for Inbound Open Innovation: How External Consultants and a Dedicated <scp>R</scp>&<scp>D</scp> Unit Influence Product Innovation Performance
Spanish manufacturing firms using external consultants in R&D activities gain stronger innovation performance from outsourced R&D, while dedicated internal R&D units reduce sensitivity to outsourcing levels. External consultants lower the optimal amount of outside knowledge needed, whereas formal R&D units require higher levels of external acquisition to achieve peak performance. Organizational structure shapes how effectively firms convert external technological knowledge into innovation.
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Whose Innovation Performance Benefits More from External Networks: Entrepreneurial or Conservative Firms?
External networks boost innovation performance more for conservative, risk-averse firms than for entrepreneurial ones. Using data from 1,978 U.S. firms, the research shows that firms with weak entrepreneurial orientation gain greater innovation benefits from learning through external networks than firms with strong entrepreneurial orientation. This effect is stronger in small and medium-sized enterprises than in large firms.
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The Disruption Machine: What the gospel of innovation gets wrong
Lepore critiques the widespread adoption of disruption theory in business and innovation discourse, arguing that the concept has become oversold and misapplied. She examines how disruption rhetoric dominates consulting, education, and venture capital, often promoting panic and exaggerated claims about technological and market change without grounding these ideas in rigorous evidence or historical context.
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Innovation intermediaries: a process view on open innovation coordination
Innovation intermediaries play a crucial role in coordinating collaborative innovation projects across organizational networks. The study identifies three strategic capabilities that distinguish intermediaries from traditional project managers and online marketplaces: matchmaking and innovation process design, collaborative project management, and project valuation with portfolio management. These intermediaries facilitate co-creation and economic exchange in nested innovation processes.
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Diffusion of innovations in social networks
This paper examines how innovations spread through social networks using the linear threshold model, where individuals adopt innovations only after exposure from multiple neighbors. The authors find that innovations spread further in networks with lower clustering, contradicting existing literature. They provide analytical evidence and simulations supporting this claim, and extend the model to account for path dependence, showing how small shocks can significantly alter diffusion outcomes.
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A business strategy, operational efficiency, ownership structure, and manufacturing performance: The moderating role of market uncertainty and competition intensity and its implication on open innovation
This study examines how business strategy, operational efficiency, and ownership structure affect manufacturing performance in Indonesian firms, with market uncertainty and competition intensity as moderating factors. Proactive strategies outperform defensive ones. Foreign-owned firms gain competitive advantages under intense competition. Operational efficiency increases when competition intensifies, directly improving manufacturing performance.
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How Central Is Too Central? Organizing Interorganizational Collaboration Networks for Breakthrough Innovation
In the U.S. pharmaceutical industry between 1985 and 2001, firms achieved breakthrough innovation by collaborating with central alliance partners, but only up to a point. Beyond optimal centrality, innovation performance declined. Firms with more private partners relative to public partners experienced less performance loss from excessive central partner collaboration. The findings show that strategic partner selection in alliance networks directly shapes breakthrough innovation outcomes.
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Open innovation: a new classification and its impact on firm performance in innovative SMEs
Open innovation practices boost performance in Korean small and medium-sized enterprises. The study of 306 innovative SMEs found that broad engagement with external partners, particularly through joint R&D, user involvement, and open sourcing, improves firm performance. SMEs gain most from collaborating with non-competing partners like customers, consultants, and public research institutes. The research proposes a new classification framework for studying how SMEs adopt and implement open innovation.
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The linkage between open innovation, absorptive capacity and managerial ties: A cross-country perspective
Managerial ties and absorptive capacity drive open innovation across France, Malaysia, and the UAE. The study of 530 companies shows that managers' external relationships directly enable inbound open innovation in all three countries, while outbound innovation depends on managerial ties in France and the UAE. Absorptive capacity mediates these relationships in France and the UAE, meaning companies must develop internal knowledge-absorption capabilities to convert external connections into innovation.
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Perceptions toward Artificial Intelligence among Academic Library Employees and Alignment with the Diffusion of Innovations’ Adopter Categories
This study surveyed academic librarians about their perceptions of artificial intelligence and how they adopt new technologies. Researchers matched librarians' adoption patterns to Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations model categories—innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The findings show how librarians' self-identified adoption categories relate to their knowledge and attitudes toward AI in library settings, offering insights for managing technology adoption among library staff.
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Organizational learning ambidexterity and openness, as determinants of SMEs' innovation performance
Small and medium enterprises in Ghana achieve stronger innovation performance by combining both exploitative and exploratory learning strategies simultaneously—a practice called organizational learning ambidexterity—rather than relying on either approach alone. Openness to external knowledge further strengthens this effect. SME managers should adopt both learning strategies together to gain competitive advantage.
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The Diffusion and Adoption of Public Sector Innovations: A Meta-Synthesis of the Literature
This meta-synthesis examines how public sector innovations spread and get adopted across three research areas: public management, public policy, and e-government. The authors find these fields operate independently with different models and rarely define key terms clearly. They identify that macro-institutional factors dominate public management and policy research, while e-government scholars focus more on individual-level factors. The paper proposes an integrated framework of adoption drivers and recommends future research combine multiple organizational levels, distinguish between innovation generation and adoption, and incorporate collaborative innovation approaches.
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“Open innovation” and “triple helix” models of innovation: can synergy in innovation systems be measured?
This paper compares open innovation and triple helix models as frameworks for generating innovation value. While open innovation centers on firms, the triple helix distributes leadership across firms, universities, and regional governments. The authors argue that measuring redundancy—the variety of perspectives from different coordination mechanisms—indicates an innovation system's capacity to generate new options and self-organize. Higher redundancy reduces uncertainty and increases system synergy and innovativeness.
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The generative and developmental roles of universities in regional innovation systems
Universities play multiple roles in developing regional innovation systems beyond technology transfer. This paper proposes an analytical framework to understand how universities contribute to regional innovation and why their roles vary across different regions. The framework moves beyond narrow institutional analysis to capture universities' broader developmental contributions to regional systems.
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Diffusion of Innovations and HIV/AIDS
This paper applies Diffusion of Innovations theory to HIV/AIDS prevention, analyzing why behavior change interventions succeed or fail across Western and developing countries. The author examines how communication channels, opinion leaders, and innovation attributes—relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability—shape adoption of preventive measures. The paper identifies barriers limiting DOI's use in developing-world HIV prevention programs and argues the framework offers valuable insights for improving intervention design.
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The Penetration of Green Innovation on Firm Performance: Effects of Absorptive Capacity and Managerial Environmental Concern
Green innovation significantly improves firm performance across operational, financial, and environmental dimensions in Chinese companies. A firm's ability to absorb new knowledge and managers' environmental commitment both strengthen this positive relationship. The study demonstrates that combining green innovation with organizational capacity and leadership values creates integrated benefits for business performance.
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Open innovation modes and the role of internal R&D
European companies adopt open innovation strategies at varying levels, with 30% highly open and 39% semi-open to external collaboration. Inbound open innovation—acquiring external knowledge—is more prevalent than outbound approaches. The study reveals that companies can reduce internal R&D spending through inbound open innovation, while the choice between vertically integrated, inbound, outbound, or mixed innovation strategies directly correlates with R&D investment intensity.
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Learning and innovation in inter‐organizational network collaboration
This study examines how small and medium-sized firms' learning approaches affect their collaboration in business networks. The research finds that exploratory learning—seeking new knowledge—drives firms to collaborate with partners on product innovation. Exploitative learning—refining existing processes—encourages internal improvement but discourages external networking. The findings show that product innovation requires learning with network partners, while process improvements happen within individual firms.
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Managing Open Innovation in Biotechnology
Innovation requires matching customer needs with enabling technologies. The paper defines innovation as commercializing technology that gives customers new capability, identifying two key requirements: understanding unmet customer needs and knowing available technologies. Roche Diagnostics demonstrates how companies can source external technologies by systematically evaluating them through these innovation drivers.
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Competing Through Innovation in Network Markets: Strategies for Challengers
Challenger firms can compete against dominant companies in network markets through strategic innovation. The paper develops a typology showing that radical and incompatible innovations often generate higher profits than incremental or compatible alternatives. Radical-incompatible innovation proves both more profitable and less risky than incremental-compatible approaches, suggesting that greater risk can be prudent depending on market conditions.
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Cryptocurrency Market Analysis from the Open Innovation Perspective
This paper analyzes the cryptocurrency market through an open innovation lens, proposing a pool complexity approach to identify promising digital currencies. The analysis examines social activity, trading parameters, and technical indicators across cryptocurrencies. The study identifies EOS as the most effective cryptocurrency due to its low complexity and commission levels, making it suitable for third-party applications.
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Open innovation actions and innovation performance
This systematic review of European empirical studies reveals that open innovation practices significantly boost innovation performance. Coupled open innovation activities—combining internal and external knowledge—consistently improve both product and process innovation. However, outbound open innovation receives little research attention. The paper identifies measurement inconsistencies in how scholars assess innovation performance and provides managers with strategic guidance for leveraging open innovation to enhance organizational outcomes.
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How Early Implementations Influence Later Adoptions of Innovation: Social Positioning and Skill Reproduction in the Diffusion of Robotic Surgery
This study tracks robotic surgery adoption across Italian hospitals from 1999 to 2010. Early adopters at peripheral hospitals used persuasion and skill-sharing to position themselves as exemplary users, which then drove other hospitals to adopt the technology through social pressure rather than proven technical or economic benefits. Early implementation experiences shaped the entire diffusion pattern.
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The Diffusion of Innovation
This paper examines how innovations spread through populations by focusing on influentials—key individuals who drive adoption. Taylor argues that understanding and targeting these influential actors is critical to accelerating the diffusion of new ideas and practices across communities.
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Do Frugal and Reverse Innovation Foster Sustainability? Introduction of a Conceptual Framework
This paper examines how frugal and reverse innovation relate to sustainability performance. The authors establish connections between these innovation approaches and sustainability across three dimensions: resource sustainability in value creation, process sustainability, and outcome sustainability. They argue that improvements in these sustainability dimensions drive better market performance for companies.
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DEVELOPING CROSS‐BORDER REGIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEMS: KEY FACTORS AND CHALLENGES
Cross-border regions face distinct challenges in developing integrated innovation systems compared to regions within single nations. Geographical proximity and local institutions matter for knowledge creation, but cross-border areas show vastly different capacities to build unified innovation spaces. The paper identifies critical conditions necessary for transfrontier innovation systems to emerge, revealing that the regional innovation systems framework applies differently across borders.
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Exploring How Peer Communities Enable Lead User Innovations to Become Standard Equipment in the Industry: Community Pull Effects
Lead users in medical and sporting equipment industries develop innovations that become industry standards through active peer community engagement. Community members provide critical feedback, contribute to product development, test prototypes, and drive diffusion. Two key mechanisms emerge: communities demand and facilitate prototype development, and they bridge the gap between early adopters and mainstream markets. Peer communities function as essential social networks that actively shape entrepreneurial innovation processes.
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Introducing the dilemma of societal alignment for inclusive and responsible research and innovation
This paper identifies a critical governance challenge in research and innovation: the 'dilemma of societal alignment.' The authors argue that while inclusive and responsible innovation requires alignment between research goals and societal values, this alignment remains scattered and overlooked in science and technology policy. They build on Collingridge's technology control dilemma to propose a framework for addressing how governance can better integrate social considerations into innovation development and uptake.
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How information systems help create OM capabilities: Consequents and antecedents of operational absorptive capacity
Organizations use information systems to build knowledge management capabilities in operations departments. This study examines how technical IS design (integrated systems) and strategic alignment between business and IT enhance operational absorptive capacity—the ability to create and use operational knowledge. Analysis of 153 manufacturing firms shows that integrated IS capability strengthens both potential and realized absorptive capacity, with business-IT alignment amplifying these effects.
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The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most
This paper critiques the widespread adoption of 'innovation-speak'—a Silicon Valley ideology that prioritizes disruptive change over maintenance and care. The authors argue that this rhetoric has infected cultural institutions like archives and libraries, creating a false hierarchy that devalues essential maintenance work. They demonstrate how this ideology damages organizations by neglecting the unglamorous but critical labor that keeps systems functioning, and call for institutions to adopt a 'maintenance mindset' instead.
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Disruptive Innovation: Conceptual Foundations, Empirical Evidence, and Research Opportunities in the Digital Age
This paper examines disruptive innovation as a concept, reviewing its theoretical foundations and empirical evidence in the digital age. The authors analyze how disruptive innovations emerge and transform markets, identifying research gaps and opportunities for future study. They provide a comprehensive framework for understanding when and how innovations fundamentally reshape industries and competitive landscapes.
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Short- and Long-Term Performance Feedback and Absorptive Capacity
Organizations learn differently from performance feedback depending on their time horizons. This study of 129 Israeli high-tech startups shows that short-term performance gaps drive immediate absorptive capacity improvements, while long-term performance gaps drive strategic capability building. Performance relative to aspiration levels influences both short-term tactical actions and long-term strategic decisions, contradicting the view that organizations focus only on immediate goals.
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Putting academic ideas into practice: technological progress and the absorptive capacity of construction organizations
Construction firms in the UK vary widely in their ability to absorb academic research. Large firms with qualified staff, specialist focus, and university partnerships directly implement research findings. Most firms learn through publications and professional networks instead. Professional institutions help share knowledge but sometimes block innovation by enforcing outdated practices. Government-sponsored collaboration between researchers and practitioners accelerates adoption. Construction organizations need stronger feedback loops, continuous learning, and training to improve their capacity to use new ideas.
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Openness and firm innovation performance: the moderating effect of ambidextrous knowledge search strategy
External knowledge openness improves firm innovation performance, but only up to a point—the relationship follows an inverted-U curve. A balanced knowledge search strategy that pursues both depth and breadth of external knowledge strengthens this relationship. High-technology firms that strategically combine deep and broad external knowledge searches gain the most innovation benefits from opening their boundaries.
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The effects of geographic and network ties on exploitative and exploratory product innovation
Industrial clusters boost firms' exploitative innovation but reduce exploratory innovation. Network ties with suppliers and buyers within clusters strengthen the positive effect on exploitative innovation. Buyer ties specifically help mitigate the negative cluster effect on exploratory innovation, while supplier ties do not.
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Business model innovation from an open systems perspective: structural challenges and managerial solutions
Business model innovation requires firms to navigate interdependencies across organizational boundaries rather than focus solely on internal capabilities. The authors argue that because business models are systemic and span firm boundaries, companies lack complete control over their networks. They propose that managers should develop shared knowledge, build trust-based appropriability regimes, maintain network stability, and align diverse stakeholder interests to overcome these structural constraints.
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Diffusion of Innovations Under Supply Constraints
This paper develops a model for firms selling innovative products under production capacity constraints. The authors modify the Bass diffusion model to account for unmet demand affecting future sales. They show that immediately selling maximum output is suboptimal, and instead recommend a "build-up" strategy where firms delay sales to accumulate inventory, ensuring no lost sales once market entry begins. The analysis provides optimal timing and inventory levels for product rollout.
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Effects of sources of knowledge on frugal innovation: moderating role of environmental turbulence
Internal and external knowledge sources both significantly drive frugal innovation in small and medium enterprises. Technological turbulence strengthens the impact of both knowledge sources on frugal innovation. Market turbulence amplifies the effect of external knowledge but surprisingly weakens the effect of internal knowledge. Managers must strategically choose which knowledge sources to prioritize depending on market conditions.
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How family firms execute open innovation strategies: the Loccioni case
This case study of Loccioni, an Italian family firm, reveals how family businesses execute open innovation strategies by managing knowledge flows. The firm developed two distinctive capabilities—imprinting and fraternization—that overcome barriers to acquiring and transferring external knowledge. These capabilities leverage the family firm's unique social capital and goals, demonstrating that family business characteristics can actually enable rather than hinder open innovation success.
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A structural equation modeling approach for the acceptance of driverless automated shuttles based on constructs from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the Diffusion of Innovation Theory
This study examined public acceptance of automated shuttles through surveys of 340 people who experienced a driverless shuttle in Berlin. Compatibility with existing travel habits emerged as the strongest predictor of willingness to use automated shuttles, surpassing expected performance benefits. Trust and willingness to share rides also increased acceptance. Participants found the shuttles easy to use but expressed safety concerns without onboard supervision, preferring remote control room monitoring instead.
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Rare Earths: Market Disruption, Innovation, and Global Supply Chains
A 2010-2011 rare earth price spike triggered innovation across geoscience, process engineering, and materials science. Researchers improved understanding of mineral deposits, made production and recycling more efficient, and developed substitutes requiring fewer rare earths. Though global supply chains remain largely unchanged, this innovation wave will reshape rare earth markets and supply chains in unpredictable ways.
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How open innovation affects the drivers of competitive advantage
Open innovation fundamentally reshapes how firms compete. While competitive advantage models remain valid, open innovation eliminates economic rents from property rights and reduces those from scale and capital requirements. However, rents from experience, differentiation, distribution, switching costs, networks, and reputation survive. Firms relying on innovation barriers, proprietary designs, or exclusive skills face long-term competitive losses under open innovation models.
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Responsible innovation: bringing together technology assessment, applied ethics, and STS research
Responsible innovation integrates technology assessment, applied ethics, and science-technology-society studies to embed ethical reflection into research and development processes. The framework brings together established practices in assessing technology impacts, involving stakeholders, and evaluating outcomes with explicit ethical responsibility. Research institutions and funding agencies increasingly adopt this integrative approach to shape how innovation develops, creating opportunities for broader actor participation and reflection in R&D governance.
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Information technology innovation diffusion: an information requirements paradigm
This paper explains why some manufacturing industries adopt internet-based innovations faster than others. The authors argue that information processing requirements—driven by process complexity, operational speed, and supply chain complexity—determine IT adoption rates. Analysis of US wood products and beverage manufacturing shows industries with higher information processing needs adopt IT innovations more extensively, with downstream supply chain structure playing a key role in adoption decisions.
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Managing innovation networks in the knowledge-driven economy
Innovation in the knowledge-driven economy requires networks rather than individual organizations because modern innovations demand diverse, complex competencies no one company can develop alone. The paper identifies success factors for managing innovation networks and proposes innovation roadmapping as a methodology to help networks identify ideas, align efforts, and deliver complete solutions across complementary competencies.
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The spatiotemporal evolution of global innovation networks and the changing position of China: a social network analysis based on cooperative patents
Global innovation networks expanded significantly from 1999 to 2020, becoming more accessible and showing scale-free characteristics. Developed countries in Europe and the United States remain central nodes, though polarization weakened. Four distinct subgroups emerged. Economic and technological factors drive network formation more strongly than demographic factors. China's position strengthened substantially, increasingly serving as a transit hub connecting innovation partners.
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Administrative environmental innovations, supply network structure, and environmental disclosure
Administrative environmental innovations help firms track and manage environmental impacts, leading to greater environmental disclosure. The relationship strengthens when firms implement both internal and external innovations together. A firm's position within its supply network—measured by accessibility, control, and interconnectedness—moderates this relationship, affecting how network learning and status influence environmental reporting.
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Measurement framework for assessing disruptive innovations
This paper develops a multidimensional framework for measuring whether product innovations will be disruptive. The framework evaluates technological features, marketplace dynamics, and external environment across ten indicators. Testing on WeChat, modularized mobile phones, and virtual/augmented reality, the authors surveyed engineering experts and found the framework reliably predicted which innovations succeeded or failed, helping companies make better decisions about product launches and resource allocation.
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An integrated perspective of TOE framework and innovation diffusion in broadband mobile applications adoption by enterprises
This study identifies critical factors influencing enterprise adoption of broadband mobile applications using the Technology-Organization-Environment framework combined with Diffusion of Innovation Theory. Analysis reveals that technological, organizational, and environmental contexts significantly affect adoption decisions. The research identifies eleven critical factors across these three dimensions plus two control variables, providing guidance for enterprises seeking competitive advantage through mobile broadband technology.
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Social Capital and Learning Advantages: A Problem of Absorptive Capacity
Social capital and network relationships don't directly improve firm performance. Instead, absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—mediates and moderates how learning through networks translates into business results. The study challenges the assumption that new firms automatically gain performance advantages from their social connections.
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OPEN INNOVATION MATURITY FRAMEWORK
Researchers developed a maturity framework for open innovation by working with 15 companies. The framework measures and benchmarks how well organizations conduct open innovation across multiple dimensions. It identifies areas where companies excel and where they need improvement to advance their open innovation capabilities.
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Transformation Networks in Innovation Alliances – The Development of Volvo C70
This paper examines how Volvo developed the C70 car through learning alliances spanning multiple organizational levels. The researchers identify 'transformation networks' that enable knowledge transfer and integration across exploration and exploitation phases of innovation. These networks operate differently at various organizational levels and prove essential for converting research into commercial products.
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Innovation in the public sector: Towards an open and collaborative approach
Public sector innovation has shifted from an internal organizational process to an open, collaborative effort involving multiple stakeholders across organizations. The paper argues that scholars must now study how to engage stakeholders in innovation and integrate insights from network governance, leadership, and design thinking to produce socially relevant research.
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Exploring the Relationships between Strategy, Innovation, and Management Control Systems: The Roles of Social Networking, Organic Innovative Culture, and Formal Controls
Product differentiation strategy drives innovation in enterprises through three management control mechanisms: social networking, organic innovative culture, and formal controls. A survey of Russian enterprises confirms that differentiation strategies increase innovation activity. Organic culture and formal controls directly boost innovation, while social networking indirectly supports innovation by strengthening innovative culture. These control systems act as the pathway linking strategic choices to innovation outcomes.
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The evolution of Norway's national innovation system
This paper examines how Norway's science, technology, and innovation policies evolved alongside its industrial structure over time. It develops a historical approach to studying innovation policy development and focuses on resource-based industries rather than high-tech sectors. The analysis reveals how institutions and politics shaped Norway's national innovation system, offering insights often missing from snapshot studies of innovation systems.
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Social cognitive theory in technological innovations
Australian youth show limited intention to adopt wireless banking technology, according to a social cognitive theory framework. The research reveals that WAP banking technology remains immature and not yet ready for widespread youth adoption. Young people serve as early technology adopters whose behavior patterns indicate future market potential for digital banking innovations.
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A systematic literature review of open innovation in the public sector: comparing barriers and governance strategies of digital and non-digital open innovation
This systematic review examines how barriers and governance strategies differ between digital and non-digital open innovation in the public sector. Relational barriers dominate non-digital initiatives, while capacity and technical barriers challenge digital ones. Political commitment and intermediaries work universally, but coercive strategies only suit inter-governmental contexts. Offline participation requires persuasive, relationship-focused governance; online participation demands technical capacity building.
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Translocal empowerment in transformative social innovation networks
This paper examines how people gain power and capacity to achieve goals through both local and transnational social innovation networks. The authors analyze five global networks—FEBEA, DESIS, Global Ecovillage Network, Impact Hub, and Slow Food—to understand empowerment mechanisms. They find that translocal connections, linking local initiatives with global networks, enable actors to mobilize resources and drive social change through intrinsic motivation and self-determination.
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Extending the technology acceptance model to mobile telecommunication innovation: The existence of network externalities
This study extends the Technology Acceptance Model to mobile telecommunications by examining how network externalities influence consumer adoption of Multimedia Messaging Services. The research confirms that perceived usefulness and ease of use drive acceptance, and adds that the number of existing users significantly affects adoption decisions. The findings show the Technology Acceptance Model effectively predicts consumer behavior for mobile innovations when network effects are present.
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Disruptive information system innovation: the case of internet computing
This paper develops a theory of disruptive information system innovation, defined as novel organizational applications of digital technologies that create radical breaks from expected trajectories. The authors argue that internet computing exemplifies disruptive IS innovation because it fundamentally transformed application portfolios, development practices, and IS services across organizations. They demonstrate that disruptive innovations are both pervasive—spanning all aspects of IS innovation—and radical, departing significantly from existing alternatives and requiring new cognitive models of computing.
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Potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity as Complementary Drivers of Green Product and Process Innovation Performance
Companies absorb external environmental knowledge through two mechanisms—potential capacity (acquiring and assimilating knowledge) and realized capacity (transforming and exploiting it)—to develop green innovations. A study of 112 Spanish automotive component manufacturers found that both dimensions of absorptive capacity directly drive performance in green product and process innovation, showing how firms convert external knowledge into environmental improvements.
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“Open” disclosure of innovations, incentives and follow-on reuse: Theory on processes of cumulative innovation and a field experiment in computational biology
The paper examines how timing of knowledge disclosure—whether innovators share intermediate progress or only final results—affects subsequent innovation. Using theory and experiments in computational biology, the authors show that intermediate disclosure efficiently guides development toward existing solutions but reduces experimentation and technological diversity. Final disclosure encourages broader exploration. The findings reveal a fundamental tradeoff between steering innovation efficiently and enabling diverse technological search paths.
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The Role of Public and Private Protection in Disruptive Innovation: The Automotive Industry and the Emergence of Low‐Emission Vehicles
Car manufacturers pursuing low-emission vehicles face challenges making disruptive technology attractive to mainstream customers. This study examines how public protection levers—regulation, tax incentives, and public-private partnerships—and private levers—resource allocation, niche occupation, and collaboration—shape manufacturer strategies. Analysis of Daimler, General Motors, and Toyota across European, Japanese, and U.S. markets reveals two distinct trajectories: public protection initially drove commercialization but stalled due to systemic barriers, while private protection strategies subsequently gained momentum.
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Evolutionary Plasticity and Innovations in Complex Metabolic Reaction Networks
This paper studies how metabolic networks in bacteria evolve and adapt. The researchers found that these networks are robust to gene mutations and can rapidly acquire new metabolic abilities through gene loss and horizontal gene transfer. Networks with identical metabolic functions differ substantially in their reactions, yet can be connected through single mutations. This robustness enables evolutionary innovation by allowing organisms to explore new metabolic capabilities while maintaining survival.
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Topology and evolution of technology innovation networks
Patent citation networks from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reveal how technological innovations connect and evolve over time. The network exhibits scaling patterns consistent with preferential attachment and aging effects, similar to scientific citation networks. This suggests a universal mechanism governs how innovations build on prior ideas and designs.
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Investigating factors of students' behavioral intentions to adopt chatbot technologies in higher education: Perspective from expanded diffusion theory of innovation
This study examines what drives undergraduate students to adopt chatbots for learning. Using diffusion of innovation theory, researchers surveyed 842 students and found that perceived benefits, compatibility with student needs, and opportunities to try chatbots all increase adoption intention. Trust in the technology also matters. Surprisingly, ease of use did not directly influence adoption, suggesting other factors shape students' decisions to use AI tools in education.
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New developments in innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems
This special section examines innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems through multi-level analysis of agents, institutions, and regions. The authors synthesize research across the section, identifying key questions, theories, and methods used to study how ecosystems shape innovation and entrepreneurship. They propose a research agenda addressing context, process, and impact of these ecosystems.
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Frugal innovation for supply chain sustainability in SMEs: multi-method research design
This study links frugal innovation with supply chain sustainability in small and medium enterprises, particularly in emerging markets facing institutional barriers and resource constraints. The researchers developed a conceptual framework showing how frugal innovation enables sustainable supply chains and validated it through survey data. The findings demonstrate that frugal innovation capabilities help organizations achieve supply chain sustainability despite limited resources.
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Open innovation web-based platforms: The impact of different forms of motivation on collaboration
Open innovation web-based platforms enable collaboration between individuals and companies. This study analyzes 116 platforms to understand what motivates people to participate. The research finds that motivations vary depending on the innovation stage and type of participant. Platforms should design their reward systems differently for different phases of innovation and shift from workplace-focused to social-focused approaches to encourage participation.
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Creating shared value through open innovation approaches: Opportunities and challenges for corporate sustainability
Open innovation—where businesses collaborate with external partners—can advance corporate sustainability across economic, social, and environmental goals. External stakeholders help companies develop sustainable innovations, enter new markets, and create revenue streams while addressing social deficits. However, open innovation exposes organizations to risks including information leakage and difficulty controlling partner conduct, making trust and governance challenging.
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Social Business Model Innovation: A Quadruple/Quintuple Helix-Based Social Innovation Ecosystem
This paper proposes an ecosystem framework for social business model innovation using quadruple and quintuple helix models. The framework integrates civil society, political structures, environment, and sustainability to enable social innovation that improves human well-being. Case studies demonstrate that open innovation and clearly defined social missions drive successful social business models through collaborative knowledge creation and exploitation.
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Under the Wide Umbrella of Open Innovation
This paper examines open innovation as a broad framework encompassing how organizations collaborate with external partners to develop new products and services. The authors analyze how companies leverage external knowledge sources, partnerships, and ecosystems to accelerate innovation processes. They demonstrate that open innovation practices span diverse industries and organizational contexts, creating value through systematic engagement with external stakeholders and resources.
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Open collaborative innovation and digital platforms
Digital platforms enable open collaborative innovation by reducing transaction costs and improving coordination between partners. The study uses contract theory to show how platform governance affects firm operations and ambidexterity. A case analysis of TIM OPEN demonstrates that combining digital platforms with collaborative innovation strategies drives operational synergies and enhances creative processes through selective and free information sharing.
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Frugal and reverse innovation - Literature overview and case study insights from a German MNC in India and China
Western multinational corporations operating in India and China develop affordable products with essential features through frugal and reverse innovation, then introduce these solutions to developed markets. A German MNC case study shows that success in emerging markets requires complete localization, identifying core customer values, and balancing both innovation types in the product portfolio.
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The Effect of COVID-19 on the Hospitality Industry: The Implication for Open Innovation
COVID-19 devastated the hospitality industry, creating severe job insecurity among employees and damaging their mental health. A survey of 372 hospitality workers found that perceived job insecurity mediates the relationship between economic crisis fears and mental health problems, with COVID-19 fear strengthening this effect. The research recommends managers address psychological factors affecting employees and invest in digital infrastructure and smart technologies to build industry resilience.
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Anticipatory life-cycle assessment for responsible research and innovation
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) can guide innovation toward beneficial outcomes, but current approaches rely on mature industries and lack stakeholder engagement. This paper proposes anticipatory LCA—a forward-looking method that explores uncertain future scenarios for emerging technologies without claiming prediction. By identifying key uncertainties and engaging decision-makers, anticipatory LCA can help researchers prioritize environmental considerations and promote responsible innovation.
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Knowledge creation capability, absorptive capacity, and product innovativeness
Knowledge creation capability and absorptive capacity both independently boost product innovativeness in firms. Together, they create a synergistic effect that strengthens innovation outcomes. In highly turbulent technological environments, knowledge creation capability becomes even more critical, while absorptive capacity's impact weakens. The study surveyed 212 Chinese firms to reach these conclusions.
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The new age of innovation. Driving co-created value through global networks
This paper discusses how innovation is created through collaborative networks that span globally. The author argues that modern innovation increasingly depends on co-creating value across organizational and geographic boundaries rather than developing solutions in isolation. The work emphasizes the role of interconnected networks in driving innovation forward.
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Relationships between knowledge acquisition, absorptive capacity and innovation capability: an empirical study on Taiwan’s financial and manufacturing industries
This study examines how knowledge acquisition drives innovation in Taiwan's financial and manufacturing sectors. Using structural equation modeling on 362 companies, the research finds that absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between knowledge acquisition and innovation capability. Knowledge acquisition directly strengthens absorptive capacity, and industry type moderates how knowledge acquisition translates into innovation. The findings reveal distinct patterns across financial and manufacturing firms.
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SELECTIVE REVEALING IN OPEN INNOVATION PROCESSES: THE CASE OF EMBEDDED LINUX.
Firms developing embedded Linux software selectively reveal their innovations to public projects while protecting proprietary intellectual property. This voluntary contribution strategy generates informal development support benefits. The study finds revealing practices vary significantly across firms based on their characteristics, demonstrating how companies balance open innovation participation with competitive advantage protection.
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External knowledge sharing and radical innovation: the downsides of uncontrolled openness
Uncontrolled sharing of business-critical knowledge with external partners damages firms' radical innovation performance through accidental knowledge leakage. A study of 150 Finnish technology firms found that excessive openness in knowledge sharing significantly reduces radical innovation outcomes, though incremental innovation remains unaffected. Firms pursuing radical innovation must carefully manage what knowledge employees share externally and with whom.
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User Service Innovation on Mobile Phone Platforms: Investigating Impacts of Lead Userness, Toolkit Support, and Design Autonomy1
This study examines how user characteristics, platform design features, and autonomy levels affect service innovation on mobile phone platforms like iOS and Android. Lead users with strong expertise, combined with toolkits that ease effort and enable exploration, plus decision-making and work-method autonomy, drive higher innovation output. The interactions between these factors matter more than individual effects alone.
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Implications of Frugal Innovations on Sustainable Development: Evaluating Water and Energy Innovations
This paper evaluates four frugal innovations in water and energy sectors against sustainability criteria covering ecological, social, and economic dimensions. The innovations outperformed existing low-income solutions in energy production and water purification capacity. However, social sustainability varied significantly: energy solutions emphasized capacity building and inclusion, while water solutions relied on traditional corporate responsibility. The authors identify three major challenges: integrating material efficiency into systems, promoting inclusive employment, and supporting local industrialization. They conclude that frugality and sustainability, though related, should not be treated as equivalent concepts.
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Open Innovation and Firm Performance: The Mediating Role of Social Capital
Open innovation practices improve firm performance through two pathways: direct effects and indirect effects mediated by social capital. The study shows that when firms implement open innovation instruments, they build stronger social networks and relationships. These enhanced social connections then drive better firm performance. Social capital acts as a crucial mechanism linking innovation practices to business outcomes.
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Factors that influence the development and diffusion of technical innovations in the construction industry
The paper examines why some technical innovations spread quickly through construction while others languish. Researchers surveyed 233 innovations from construction industry sources and identified statistically significant factors that motivate initial investment, enable or block diffusion, and affect project outcomes. Successful innovations required an average of 38 months, 4,700 worker-hours, and $836,000 to develop, implement, and diffuse.
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Managing Open Innovation: Exploring Challenges at the Interfaces of an Open Innovation Arena
Open innovation arenas—organizations that facilitate collaboration while competing as key players themselves—face distinct management challenges. A Swedish traffic safety research unit with 22 partners experienced three types of challenges: managing relationships with partner organizations, coordinating collaboration between partners, and maintaining the arena's own operations. These challenges differ from those faced by firms simply collaborating with external actors.
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Knowledge arbitrage in global pharma: a synthetic view of absorptive capacity and open innovation
This case study of a global pharmaceutical company reveals how open innovation operates in practice. The company focuses on building OI capabilities, sharing external information, and leveraging knowledge arbitrage across networks. Notably absent are value capture models and technology evaluation criteria common in OI literature. The researchers propose that absorptive capacity works bidirectionally with open innovation, enabling firms to both acquire and contribute knowledge effectively.
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Digital transformation of industrial firms: an innovation diffusion perspective
This paper applies innovation diffusion theory to explain digital transformation in large industrial firms. By studying General Electric and Siemens, the authors identify common drivers and inhibitors of successful digital transformation. The innovation diffusion framework effectively identifies factors that help or hinder firms' transformation processes, offering researchers and managers better tools to analyze and plan digital transformation strategies.
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Open innovation for sustainability through creating shared value-role of knowledge management system, openness and organizational structure
Open innovation for sustainability requires three critical conditions working together: knowledge management systems, organizational openness, and appropriate organizational structure. Manufacturing micro, small, and medium enterprises must configure these elements at different levels to create shared value with partners and stakeholders. Organizations succeed by expanding beyond internal resources to collaborate actively with manufacturers, retailers, and other stakeholders on sustainability problem-solving.
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Frugal innovation in a crisis: the digital fabrication maker response to COVID‐19
During COVID-19, maker communities used digital fabrication tools to produce critical items like masks and ventilators, demonstrating frugal innovation—doing more with less for more people. Case studies from Italy and India show makers employed similar resource-constrained approaches despite different economic contexts. The research expands frugal innovation theory beyond emerging markets, establishing digital fabrication as a key enabler for distributed innovation networks responding to crises.
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Who Are Your Neighbors? The Role of Ideology and Decline of Geographic Proximity in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations
This study examines how U.S. states adopt policy innovations between 1960 and 2014, analyzing 556 policies to understand what drives adoption decisions. The research finds that ideological similarity between states remains a stable predictor of policy adoption, while geographic proximity to neighboring states has become less influential over time. Political polarization strengthens the role of ideology in shaping which states copy each other's policies.
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Involving Consumers: The Role of Digital Technologies in Promoting ‘Prosumption’ and User Innovation
Digital technologies enable consumers to shift from passive buyers to active producers—a phenomenon called prosumption. The paper develops a framework showing how different digital tools (mobile networks, 3D printing) enable different types of consumer involvement in design, manufacturing, and distribution. Examples include user innovation, DIY production, the makers movement, and sharing economy platforms. The authors argue understanding prosumption's nature is critical for anticipating market disruptions.
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An Advantage of Newness: Vicarious Learning Despite Limited Absorptive Capacity
New firms entering markets typically lack the knowledge and capabilities of established competitors, but they can overcome this disadvantage through vicarious learning from incumbents. This study shows that new entrants actually learn more effectively from external knowledge during their own experiential learning processes than established firms do. Using data from U.S. commercial banking, the researchers find that entrants gain twice as much vicarious learning relative to their experiential learning compared to incumbents, suggesting newness creates a learning advantage rather than just a liability.
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Diffusion of Innovation Theory: A Bridge for the Research‐Practice Gap in Counseling
This paper applies diffusion of innovation theory to explain why counseling research findings fail to reach practitioners. The author outlines the research-practice gap in counseling and uses diffusion theory's core principles to propose research practices and questions that could help new evidence spread more effectively through the profession.
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Knowledge sharing in international markets for product and process innovation: moderating role of firm's absorptive capacity
Knowledge sharing between subsidiaries of multinational firms drives product and process innovation. A firm's absorptive capacity—its ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—strengthens this relationship. The study validates a model showing that knowledge-sharing activities enhance dynamic capabilities like sensing, seizing, and transforming, ultimately improving competitiveness in international markets.
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Influence of Technological Assets on Organizational Performance through Absorptive Capacity, Organizational Innovation and Internal Labour Flexibility
Technological assets drive organizational performance in European technology companies through two mechanisms: absorptive capacity and internal labor flexibility. The study finds that technological skills and competencies strengthen both potential and realized absorptive capacity, which then enhance labor flexibility and organizational innovation. Internal labor flexibility further boosts performance by enabling innovation. These relationships prove especially valuable in dynamic, turbulent technological environments.
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Diffusion of digital innovation in construction: a case study of a UK engineering firm
A UK engineering firm adopted building information modelling (BIM) technology over four years in response to government mandates for large public projects. The study reveals that digital innovation diffused through three phases: centralizing technology management, standardizing digital practices, and globalizing digital resources. Diffusion occurred along multiple, overlapping paths within the firm's complex organization, following a non-linear process shaped by changing organizational context and uncertainty.
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Linking properties of knowledge with innovation performance: the moderate role of absorptive capacity
This study examines how knowledge characteristics affect innovation performance in Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises, finding that most knowledge properties boost innovation. The research shows that absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—strengthens the relationship between knowledge properties and innovation outcomes. Companies with higher absorptive capacity gain more innovation benefit from their knowledge assets.
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User involvement in radical innovation: are consumers conservative?
Consumers reject radical innovations for reasons beyond mere ignorance. This study of food product concepts shows that resistance stems from concerns about instrumentalism, loss of autonomy, organizational complexity, and systemic effects. Companies should take consumer objections seriously during early-stage development rather than treating concept testing as a simple pass/fail screen, using it instead to understand how innovations affect daily life and society.
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The nexus between dynamic capabilities and competitive firm performance: the mediating role of open innovation
This study examines how firms' dynamic capabilities drive competitive performance through open innovation. Using structural equation modeling on 465 firms across innovative and non-innovative industries, the researchers found that dynamic capabilities significantly boost open innovation performance, which in turn improves competitive performance. Open innovation partially mediates the relationship between dynamic capabilities and firm competitiveness, suggesting that investing in innovation capacity, customer engagement, and innovation management strengthens competitive outcomes.
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Antecedents and effects of individual absorptive capacity: a micro-foundational perspective on open innovation
Individual employees vary in their ability to recognize and use external knowledge—called absorptive capacity—based on three factors: their prior knowledge diversity, external network diversity, and cognitive style. A bisociative thinking style (connecting unrelated ideas) matters most. This individual absorptive capacity directly affects how well employees innovate and mediates between their personal characteristics and innovation performance, making it crucial for organizations pursuing open innovation.
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(Re-)designing higher education curricula in times of systemic dysfunction: a responsible research and innovation perspective
Higher education must embed Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) into curricula to prepare students for sustainability challenges. This paper proposes design principles and a competence framework for redesigning curricula and teaching practices. It argues that universities should reject neoliberal, market-driven approaches in favor of more ethical, responsible education that equips students to become responsible innovators addressing complex global problems.
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Rogers Theory on Diffusion of Innovation-The Most Appropriate Theoretical Model in the Study of Factors Influencing the Integration of Sustainability in Tourism Businesses
The paper examines theoretical frameworks for understanding why tourism businesses adopt sustainable practices. After reviewing multiple models used across industries, the author concludes that Rogers's diffusion of innovation theory best explains the factors influencing tourism businesses to integrate sustainability into their operations. This framework helps identify barriers and motivations for adopting sustainable tourism practices.
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Social Networks for Innovation and New Product Development
This article introduces social network analysis and examines how social networks drive innovation and new product development across four levels: within firms, across firm boundaries, between firms, and external to firms. The authors review existing research and position eight special issue papers within this multilevel framework, demonstrating how network structures and connections influence innovation outcomes.
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Inter‐firm market orientation as antecedent of knowledge transfer, innovation and value creation in networks
Inter-firm market orientation—how companies in partnerships focus on understanding each other's markets—drives knowledge transfer, innovation, and value creation in strategic networks. The research shows that when firms adopt this collaborative market perspective, they improve performance through better knowledge sharing, increased innovation, and expanded market access.
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The Innovator's guide to growth: putting disruptive innovation to work
This guide presents frameworks for applying disruptive innovation theory to drive organizational growth. It covers identifying customer needs and non-consumers, developing solutions that fit market patterns, managing innovation teams and projects, organizing for innovation at the leadership level, and measuring innovation success. The work addresses common pitfalls that trap companies attempting innovation.
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Modeling innovation, manufacturing, diffusion and adoption/rejection processes
The paper argues that new product development success depends on understanding complex feedback loops and interconnected processes rather than identifying individual success factors. Using system dynamics modeling and comparative case studies, the authors show that multiple different pathways lead to success or failure in innovation, manufacturing, diffusion, and adoption. Executives must think systemically about hidden weak linkages with large downstream impacts rather than relying on checklists of isolated factors.
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Networks of Innovation: Science, Technology and Development in the Triple Helix Era
Universities, industry, and government must collaborate through triple helix networks to drive knowledge-based development. Universities expand their missions beyond research to include economic and social development, shifting from individual to organizational focus. This networked approach fills technology and social capital gaps. Examples from the European Union, Canada, and Brazil demonstrate how triple helix models support firm formation and innovation incubation.
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Innovation Ecosystems vs. Innovation Systems in Terms of Collaboration and Co-creation of Value
This paper distinguishes innovation ecosystems from traditional innovation systems, emphasizing how collaborative networks create value together. The authors survey ecosystem research to identify key features and show how regional clusters, global value chains, and platforms operate as innovation ecosystems. They provide policy recommendations for governments seeking to foster innovation-conducive environments through ecosystem approaches.
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Driving innovation through big open linked data (BOLD): Exploring antecedents using interpretive structural modelling
This paper identifies and maps nineteen factors that drive innovation through big open linked data (BOLD). Using expert input and structural modeling, the research reveals that technical infrastructure, data quality, and external pressure form the foundation for BOLD-enabled innovation. Most factors show high interdependence, indicating the process is volatile and complex. The work provides a framework for organizations seeking to encourage and manage innovation through open data.
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Visualization of Communication Patterns in Collaborative Innovation Networks - Analysis of Some W3C Working Groups
This paper analyzes communication patterns in collaborative innovation networks by examining email archives from W3C working groups. The researchers developed visualization tools to map how information flows through these global internet-based teams over time. They found that different groups displayed distinct communication structures and identified both formal and informal leadership patterns that shaped how innovation networks organized themselves.
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How to convert green entrepreneurial orientation into green innovation: The role of knowledge creation process and green absorptive capacity
Green entrepreneurial orientation drives green innovation through knowledge creation processes. The study surveyed 173 managers and found that companies with strong green entrepreneurial orientation generate more knowledge exchange and integration. Green absorptive capacity strengthens this relationship. Both knowledge exchange and integration mediate the path from entrepreneurial orientation to green product and process innovation, offering enterprises a practical framework for implementing green innovation.
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Differential moderating effects of strategic and operational reconfiguration on the relationship between open innovation practices and innovation performance
This study examines how open innovation practices affect innovation performance in service firms. Using UK survey data, the researchers find that strategic reconfiguration capability enhances the impact of coupled open innovation on radical innovation, while operational reconfiguration capability strengthens its effect on incremental innovation. The results show that firms need different internal capabilities depending on the type of innovation they pursue.
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The adoption of 4D BIM in the UK construction industry: an innovation diffusion approach
The UK construction industry faces project delays, prompting government targets to reduce timeframes by 50 percent through 4D Building Information Modelling (BIM). This study surveyed 97 construction planning practitioners to measure 4D BIM adoption using Rogers' Innovation Diffusion theory. Results show increasing adoption rates with a characteristic time lag between awareness and first use. The research identifies system compatibility and safe trialling as critical factors for facilitating adoption across the UK construction industry.
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Enabling Open Innovation in Small and Medium Enterprises: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach
Small and medium manufacturing enterprises with strong dynamic capabilities—particularly in sensing market opportunities, seizing them, and reconfiguring resources—are more likely to adopt open innovation practices. The study identifies which internal capabilities enable SMEs to successfully implement collaborative innovation approaches, linking organizational competencies directly to open innovation adoption.
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Creating Employee Networks That Deliver Open Innovation
A small group of employees—designated as 'idea scouts' and 'idea connectors'—drive disproportionate success in open innovation initiatives. These individuals are critical to generating valuable outcomes, and companies that deliberately connect and leverage these key people achieve better innovation results.
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With a Little Help from Our Colleagues: A Longitudinal Study of Social Networks for Innovation
This longitudinal study tracks social networks within new product development teams across two research laboratories. The research challenges the conventional wisdom that sparse networks with weak ties drive innovation. Instead, the authors find that strong ties, network density, and cross-unit relationships significantly improve idea adoption chances during early development phases. They recommend organizations actively promote communication between colleagues across different units to enhance innovation outcomes.
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Frugal innovation and sustainable business models
Frugal innovations emerging from grassroots communities in developing countries create sustainable business models that serve underserved customers. The study examines how individuals with limited education and resources develop affordable products through creative thinking, analyzing value proposition, creation, and capture across three cases. These innovations transform poor customers into viable consumer groups and contribute to sustainable development.
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The intervention of organizational sustainability in the effect of organizational culture on open innovation performance: A case of thai and chinese SMEs
This study examines 300 SMEs in Thailand and China to understand how organizational culture drives open innovation performance. The research finds that organizational sustainability acts as a critical mediator between culture and innovation outcomes. Companies with strong cultural foundations in leadership, teamwork, and climate that invest in sustainability practices across marketing, operations, and customer orientation achieve better open innovation results.
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Advancing regional innovation systems: What does evolutionary economic geography bring to the policy table?
Evolutionary economic geography offers valuable insights for regional innovation policy by explaining how firms' knowledge bases and co-location drive long-term regional development. The authors argue this approach strengthens regional innovation system frameworks, particularly for designing policies that support new economic paths and regional resilience. However, they caution that evolutionary frameworks risk downplaying institutions and agency without explicit attention to social factors.
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Frontier Technology, Absorptive Capacity and Distance*
This study examines how foreign technology affects productivity in OECD manufacturing industries, finding that a country's ability to absorb and use new technology matters more than physical distance. Distance had stronger effects early in the study period and in high-tech industries with localized trade. Absorptive capacity emerged as the dominant factor explaining productivity differences across countries.
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Responsible innovation ecosystems: Ethical implications of the application of the ecosystem concept to artificial intelligence
This paper argues that innovation ecosystem frameworks lack ethical guidance and proposes integrating responsible research and innovation principles to create responsible innovation systems. Using artificial intelligence as a case study, the author demonstrates how ethical and social concerns can be embedded into innovation ecosystems to ensure technology development aligns with human values and rights.
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Inbound open innovation and firm performance
This study examines how inbound open innovation affects firm performance across European companies from 2008–2013. The researchers find that both internal development and external acquisition of intangible assets positively impact firm turnover. However, only internal development significantly improves financial performance and employment. The effects vary by firm size: internal development boosts economic performance for larger firms and employment for smaller firms, but shows no financial impact across all sizes.
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Open innovation and intellectual property rights
Small and medium-sized enterprises benefit differently from open innovation and intellectual property protection than larger firms. Using Spanish innovation survey data from 2008-2013, the study finds that SMEs gain more from industrial designs than patents when collaborating openly. The effectiveness of different IP tools—patents, trademarks, copyrights, and designs—varies by company size, suggesting SMEs need tailored IP strategies to maximize innovation efficiency.
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Managerial ties and open innovation: examining the role of absorptive capacity
Managerial relationships with external partners facilitate both inbound and outbound open innovation in firms. The study of 259 managers in the United Arab Emirates shows that a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new information from external sources mediates this relationship. Managers should actively build ties with peers in other firms, universities, and government to improve innovation outcomes.
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The Identification and Characterization of Open Innovation Profiles in Italian Small and Medium‐sized Enterprises
Italian small and medium-sized manufacturers adopt three distinct open innovation approaches: selective low open, unselective open upstream, and mid-partners integrated open. The study surveyed 105 firms and found that these profiles differ significantly in their collaboration breadth, motivations, barriers, and performance outcomes. Companies vary in how openly they source external innovation across different phases of their innovation processes.
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Using Open Innovation to Identify the Best Ideas
Open innovation—sourcing ideas and selection from outside organizations—offers companies access to diverse knowledge and higher-quality solutions. The authors identify three strategic choices: opening idea generation, idea selection, or both. Success requires understanding what to open and managing new challenges like contracting with external contributors, shifting cost and risk to idea generators, and aligning outsider incentives with company goals.
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Open Innovation and Stakeholder Engagement
Open innovation creates tension between gaining external knowledge and protecting intellectual property. This paper proposes a process-based model integrating stakeholder engagement with open innovation. By involving stakeholders directly, organizations can better understand and manage the risks of sharing knowledge while generating broader value beyond acquiring specific external expertise.
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Spatial and Social Networks in Organizational Innovation
This paper examines how physical workspace layout influences social networks and organizational innovation. The authors argue that spatial design—through boundaries, accessibility, and visibility—shapes how people circulate, interact, and become aware of each other, which in turn affects the social networks that drive innovation. The paper reviews relevant theories and presents preliminary findings on how spatial arrangement supports or hinders innovation in organizations.
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ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY AND INNOVATION IN THE KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE BUSINESS SERVICE SECTOR
Knowledge-intensive business service firms innovate through absorptive capacity—their ability to access and use external knowledge. The study finds that networking and cooperation drive both incremental and radical innovation. Universities and research institutions matter most for radical innovation regardless of formality, while client and supplier knowledge only drives innovation through formal partnerships. Manufacturing clients particularly stimulate innovation in KIBS firms.
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Social Innovation in Smart Tourism Ecosystems: How Technology and Institutions Shape Sustainable Value Co-Creation
This paper develops an integrated model of smart service ecosystems that combines service-dominant logic and service science to explain how actors, resources, technology, and institutions work together to create value in tourism. Through interviews with tourism stakeholders, the authors identify key dimensions for managing value co-creation and sustainability, showing how smart service ecosystems enable the transition from innovation to social innovation in experience-based sectors.
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Unravelling appropriability mechanisms and openness depth effects on firm performance across stages in the innovation process
This study examines how intellectual property protection mechanisms and collaborative openness affect innovation performance across different stages of the innovation process. Using data from 340 European manufacturing firms, the research finds that semi-formal protections like contracts boost efficiency in early stages, while formal patents actually hinder it due to imitation risks. Informal mechanisms support novelty throughout. University partnerships consistently drive novelty, while supplier and competitor collaborations show stage-dependent effects on performance.
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The Impact of Living Lab Methodology on Open Innovation Contributions and Outcomes
Living lab methodology enhances open innovation by creating structured environments where external stakeholders contribute to innovation processes. The paper argues that organizations must balance open and closed innovation approaches rather than pursuing purely open models. Living labs provide practical frameworks for managing this balance and improving innovation outcomes through collaborative participation.
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Beyond absorptive capacity in open innovation process: the relationships between openness, capacities and firm performance
This study examines how open innovation affects firm performance in Korean companies. The researchers found that openness and innovation capacities directly influence performance, with desorptive capacity (sharing knowledge outward) playing a critical role. Knowledge management capacity strongly supports this outbound process. The findings reveal that successful open innovation depends on specific organizational capacities and demonstrate how firms across different industries adopt open innovation strategies.
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Innovating not-for-profit social ventures: Exploring the microfoundations of internal and external absorptive capacity routines
Not-for-profit organizations pursuing social innovation develop distinctive capabilities by combining internal and external absorptive capacity routines. Analysis of 14 case studies from Australia and the UK shows these organizations mediate social innovation by configuring routines that blend user knowledge with technological knowledge flows. The study reveals how social ventures build and sustain the organizational capabilities needed to innovate effectively.
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The Scientific Trajectory of the French School of Proximity: Interaction- and Institution-based Approaches to Regional Innovation Systems
French regional scientists developed the concept of proximity in the early 1990s to study industrial and spatial dynamics. They organized collectively through the research group 'Proximity Dynamics,' which expanded the concept's theoretical scope and institutional reach. This paper traces how the group's structured approach enabled investigation of regional innovation systems through interaction- and institution-based frameworks.
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Integrating Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) into classroom instruction: teaching tips for hospitality educators from a diffusion of innovation approach
This paper examines barriers preventing university academics from adopting ICT in teaching and identifies practical solutions to overcome resistance. Using Diffusion of Innovation theory, the authors analyze why educators hesitate to integrate new technologies into classroom instruction and provide teaching tips to guide academics in adopting ICT-enhanced pedagogical practices.
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Does international entrepreneurial orientation foster innovation performance? The mediating role of social media and open innovation
International entrepreneurial orientation drives innovation performance in small and medium-sized enterprises through two mechanisms: open innovation and social media usage. The study of 128 SMEs shows that social media usage enables open innovation, which in turn translates entrepreneurial orientation into better innovation outcomes. Companies pursuing international expansion with entrepreneurial mindsets achieve stronger innovation results when they embrace open innovation practices and leverage social media.
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Responsible innovation in business: a critical reflection on deliberative engagement as a central governance mechanism
This paper examines whether deliberative engagement with stakeholders can effectively govern responsible innovation in business settings. The authors identify tensions between the responsible innovation framework's ideals and competitive market realities. They conclude that responsible innovation in business requires either fundamental market changes, modified engagement approaches, or a pragmatic balance between these options.
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Process Innovation: Open Innovation and the Moderating Role of the Motivation to Achieve Legitimacy
Organizations that engage in open innovation are more likely to introduce new processes. The motivation to achieve legitimacy moderates this relationship differently depending on how firms engage externally. Cooperation with external parties combined with legitimacy motivation increases process innovation likelihood, while using external information combined with legitimacy motivation decreases it. The study uses European innovation survey data to test these relationships.
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Open innovation in multinational companies' subsidiaries: the role of internal and external knowledge
Multinational company subsidiaries innovate more effectively when they combine external knowledge from outside sources with internal knowledge from other parts of the parent company. This study surveyed 163 subsidiaries and found that openness to both external and internal knowledge sources independently boosts innovation performance. When subsidiaries simultaneously embrace both types of knowledge, the effect multiplies, creating stronger innovation outcomes than either approach alone.
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Frugal innovation-past, present, and future
Frugal innovation has evolved from targeting low-income customers in emerging markets to a global approach addressing environmental and demographic challenges. The concept now emphasizes resourceful, sustainable solutions with strong value propositions rather than simply cheap products. Advanced economies increasingly adopt frugal principles driven by resource constraints and changing consumption patterns, positioning frugal innovation as a worldwide phenomenon with significant socio-economic impact.
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Exploring the impact of open innovation on firm performances
This study examines how open innovation practices affect firm performance in bio-pharmaceutical companies. Analyzing 110 major R&D spenders from 2008-2012, the researchers found that increased openness reduces R&D productivity and patent revenue ratios, but boosts sales growth. Operating profit shows an inverted U-relationship with inbound innovation and a U-shape with outbound innovation. The findings reveal that openness produces mixed financial and innovation outcomes, requiring managers to carefully balance collaborative innovation strategies.
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Limits to responsible innovation
Responsible Innovation (RI) is widely promoted but has significant blind spots. A case study of biofuel innovation in South India reveals major barriers to implementing RI principles: material constraints, power imbalances, unclear responsibilities, strategic behavior, and conflicting interests. These factors can make responsible innovation impossible, suggesting RI frameworks must either address these obstacles or accept that some innovations cannot proceed responsibly.
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The inconvenient truth of the relationship between open innovation activities and innovation performance
Open innovation activities affect firm performance differently depending on type and combination. Inbound activities boost radical innovation but reduce incremental innovation, while outbound activities show opposite effects. Knowledge learning and organizational capabilities mediate these relationships. Combining inbound and outbound activities can actually harm performance. Managers must strategically choose which open innovation approach fits their innovation goals.
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A CONTINGENT PERSPECTIVE OF OPEN INNOVATION IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
This paper develops a framework for managing open innovation in new product development projects. Rather than treating openness as a single strategic choice, the authors identify three dimensions managers must calibrate: breadth (range of external partners), depth (relationship intensity), and ambidexterity (balance between new and established relationships). The appropriate calibration depends on whether the innovation is radical or incremental, the product's complexity, and the strength of intellectual property protection.
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Fiat: Open Innovation in a Downturn (1993–2003)
Fiat's research center adopted open innovation practices during the 1990s automotive industry downturn, enabling the company to maintain technological development despite severe budget constraints. By restructuring its organization, roles, planning systems, and culture to embrace external partnerships and knowledge sources, Fiat preserved innovation capability and positioned itself for recovery. Senior leadership commitment proved essential to implementing open innovation successfully during economic crisis.
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Finding collaborative innovation networks through correlating performance with social network structure
This paper examines how social network structure relates to team performance in virtual collaborative settings. Researchers studied student teams from two universities working remotely on communication analysis tasks and compared their findings with data from online gamers. They found that for knowledge worker teams, balanced contribution among members predicts performance better than the number of communication links alone. The study provides recommendations for effective virtual team communication.
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Developing Absorptive Capacity in Mature Organizations
This paper examines how mature organizations absorb new knowledge and skills by studying a Welsh manufacturing firm that lost its major defense contract. The owner hired a middle manager with mass production experience who acted as a change agent, improving communications and workplace efficiency. The research extends existing absorptive capacity theory by identifying key roles—gatekeepers, boundary spanners, and change agents—that facilitate knowledge transfer during organizational change.
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Digital transformation as a catalyst for sustainability and open innovation
Digital transformation enables and fosters both open innovation and sustainability, according to this conceptual framework study. The authors reviewed literature to map how these three concepts interconnect and evolve. They found digital transformation acts as a catalyst for sustainability and open innovation, though it can negatively impact environmental sustainability in some cases.
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Higher Education in Innovation Ecosystems
Universities drive innovation and sustainability through their participation in innovation ecosystems. This editorial synthesizes 16 articles to establish a framework showing how higher education institutions function within these ecosystems. The authors define innovation ecosystems and identify three distinct roles universities play in fostering innovation and sustainable development across various contexts.
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Why Do Incumbents Respond Heterogeneously to Disruptive Innovations? The Interplay of Domain Identity and Role Identity
German publishing houses responded differently to digital disruption based on two identity factors: domain identity (what business they're in) and role identity (their market position). When digitalization threatened one identity while strengthening the other, companies experienced internal conflict and slower, less innovative responses. Companies with aligned identities adapted faster and more creatively.
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The openness of open innovation in ecosystems – Integrating innovation and management literature on knowledge linkages
This paper examines how knowledge transfers work in open innovation ecosystems by reviewing existing literature. The authors connect open innovation research with management theory to categorize linkages between organizations based on their openness levels and knowledge management approaches. They find that openness operates across multiple dimensions, each producing different knowledge management outcomes. The work helps firms understand which collaboration mechanisms suit their needs.
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Fostering radical innovations with open innovation
Companies using inside-out open innovation—sharing and commercializing internal technologies externally—create more radical innovations and launch more new products than those using closed innovation approaches. Closed innovation strategies instead produce more incremental product improvements. This empirical study of 141 R&D managers in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria from 2004–2008 demonstrates that open innovation strategies drive fundamentally different innovation outcomes.
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Enriching Absorptive Capacity through Social Interaction
Social interaction is essential for subsidiaries to absorb and apply new knowledge transferred from headquarters in multinational enterprises. The study shows that employees need to participate together in adapting knowledge to local contexts and developing practical applications. Organizational conditions at the subsidiary level either enable or restrict these interaction patterns, directly affecting the subsidiary's capacity to use new knowledge effectively.
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Innovation diffusion: a stakeholder and social network view
This paper examines why XBRL adoption has struggled in Australia using stakeholder and social network theory. Interviews with stakeholders revealed that while they have legitimate reasons to adopt XBRL, most lack power or urgency to drive its diffusion. The authors recommend instrumental measures like knowledge building, subsidies, and mobilization strategies to strengthen stakeholder influence and accelerate adoption of network innovations.
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Reverse innovation: a global growth strategy that could pre‐empt disruption at home
Western companies typically innovate in wealthy markets then adapt products for emerging economies. Reverse innovation flips this approach: companies develop low-cost solutions for emerging markets that later find profitable applications in wealthy countries. GE's portable ultrasound machine exemplifies this—created for China, it generated a $250 million global business with new uses in the USA and other advanced economies.
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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION: THE DIFFUSION OF NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTO DANISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT
This study examines why Danish local governments adopted New Public Management innovations. Leadership attitudes toward change, management's rejection of traditional bureaucracy, and the electorate's ability to set clear goals all influenced adoption. Organizational size emerged as the strongest predictor. The research distinguishes between marketization-focused and generic managerial innovations, finding different factors drove adoption of each type.
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Reversing “drift”: Innovation and diffusion in the London diphthong system
This paper examines phonetic changes in London English diphthongs to test Sapir's theory of linguistic 'drift'—the idea that language changes naturally and unconsciously. The researchers found that London reversed a diphthong shift that continued uninterrupted in New Zealand English, disproving drift theory. They argue that social factors and dialect contact, not natural processes, drive language change, particularly in diverse urban centers.
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The critical factors for technology absorptive capacity
This study identifies critical factors that determine how well firms absorb and apply external technology. Research shows that technology diffusion channels, interaction mechanisms, and R&D resources significantly influence absorptive capacity, which in turn affects technology transfer performance. Organizational culture shapes these mechanisms and resources. The findings apply particularly to firms implementing technology transfer in developing countries.
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Re‐storying the Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Concepts: The Model‐Narrative Review Method
This paper introduces a model-narrative review method to systematically analyze how business, innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystem concepts are constructed and communicated in academic literature. The authors examine seminal works through thematic, enstoried, and rhetorical reading to reveal dominant narratives, hidden assumptions, and underlying meanings. The method exposes how researchers construct plots, characters, and moral lessons around ecosystems, enhancing conceptual clarity and enabling critical comparison across related concepts.
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External knowledge sourcing from innovation cooperation and the role of absorptive capacity: empirical evidence from Norway and Sweden
Firms cannot freely access external knowledge for innovation. Using data from Norway and Sweden, this study shows that companies with strong absorptive capacity—measured by internal R&D spending, employee training, and educated workforces—successfully engage in innovation cooperation with external partners. Firms lacking these internal investments struggle to adopt open innovation approaches, revealing that sourcing external knowledge requires substantial upfront costs.
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User–producer interaction as a driver of innovation: costs and advantages in an open innovation model
Customer knowledge drives innovation, but excessive reliance on it can limit firms to incremental improvements because customers tend toward conservative solutions. The paper demonstrates an inverse U-shaped relationship between customer knowledge intensity and innovation performance. Firms that balance customer input with broad external search across multiple innovation sources achieve better results, gaining customer insights while pursuing genuinely novel opportunities.
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The impact of regional absorptive capacity on spatial knowledge spillovers: the Cohen and Levinthal model revisited
Regional absorptive capacity—the cognitive skills and knowledge infrastructure available in a region—determines how effectively regions adopt and benefit from new knowledge. Using European regional data from 1999-2006, the authors find that regions with lower absorptive capacity experience greater knowledge spillovers to neighboring areas, losing the ability to decode and exploit both locally produced and external knowledge efficiently.
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ADVANCING A TYPOLOGY OF OPEN INNOVATION
This paper develops a typology of open innovation strategies by reviewing existing research and identifying four distinct approaches: innovation seekers, innovation providers, intermediaries, and open innovators. Each strategy combines different sources of innovation, firm characteristics, and inter-organizational exchange mechanisms to produce different outcomes. The typology provides a conceptual framework for understanding how organizations pursue open innovation and suggests directions for future research.
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Networks of innovation and modularity: a dynamic perspective
This paper argues that innovation networks must evolve alongside technology development. Early-stage technologies require connections to research institutions to explore uncertain solutions. As technologies mature and become modularized, firms shift toward supplier and customer networks. During the transition, firms must engage startups experimenting with new configurations and third-party firms whose investments determine industry standards. Network relationships are ultimately governed by modular product interfaces.
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Measuring open innovation practices through topic modelling: Revisiting their impact on firm financial performance
This study uses topic modelling and natural language processing to analyze companies' open innovation practices and their effect on financial performance. The researchers find that overall openness improves firm performance, but specific practices show mixed results with some displaying inverted U-shaped relationships. The impact of open innovation varies by sector and by how well internal R&D complements individual practices. The findings show open innovation's effects are nuanced with no universal best practices.
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User idea implementation in open innovation communities: Evidence from a new product development crowdsourcing community
This study examines what determines whether user-generated ideas get implemented in crowdsourcing communities for product development. Using data from Xiaomi's MIUI community with over 43,000 ideas, the researchers found that users' past success follows an inverted U-shape with implementation likelihood, longer idea descriptions increase chances of adoption, supporting evidence shows an inverted U-shape relationship, and negative feedback paradoxically increases implementation odds while positive feedback decreases them.
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Which pathway to good ideas? <scp>A</scp> n attention‐based view of innovation in social networks
People embedded in constrained networks generate good ideas through interrogation—deeply focusing attention on information from a single contact to develop domain-specific insights. Those in less constrained networks produce ideas through recombination, dividing attention across multiple contacts. In constrained networks, interrogation proves more reliable than recombination for generating good ideas.
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The construct of absorptive capacity in knowledge management and intellectual capital research: content and text analyses
This paper reviews 186 articles from knowledge management and intellectual capital journals between 1990 and 2013 to examine how absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—was studied in these fields. The analysis finds that absorptive capacity remained underdeveloped in knowledge management and intellectual capital research, with knowledge transfer and innovation emerging as the primary research areas investigating this concept.
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Exploring The Diffusion Of Innovation Among High And Low Innovative Localities
This study tests Berry and Berry's framework for policy innovation diffusion across English local governments over four years. The researchers find that learning, competition, public pressure, and mandates do drive total innovation adoption. However, high-innovating and low-innovating localities operate differently, and the framework poorly explains management innovation specifically. The findings suggest existing diffusion theory works for overall innovation but needs refinement for specific innovation types.
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How do Latecomer Firms Capture Value From Disruptive Technologies? A Secondary Business-Model Innovation Perspective
Latecomer firms in emerging economies successfully adopt disruptive technologies from advanced countries through secondary business-model innovation. They create cheaper, simpler products suited to local customers' needs and budgets, leveraging partnerships and local knowledge to build unique value networks. This approach lets them compete against multinational incumbents by targeting mass markets and nonconsumers previously underserved.
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The Difficulties involved in Developing Business Models open to Innovation Communities: the Case of a Crowdsourcing Platform
Firms using crowdsourcing platforms to capture external innovation face significant strategic challenges. This study of CrowdSpirit, a collaborative product design platform, reveals that companies must develop multi-level incentive systems for diverse contributors, manage knowledge and intellectual property transfers across multiple stakeholders, and treat business model design as continuous learning rather than fixed strategy.
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Configuring ecosystem strategies for digitally enabled process innovation: A framework for equipment suppliers in the process industries
Equipment suppliers in process industries can adopt digitalization to drive innovation, but must navigate complex ecosystems involving multiple actors. This study identifies four ecosystem strategies—orchestrator, dominator, complementor, and protector—that suppliers should match to specific customer contexts. The research provides a decision framework helping suppliers choose appropriate roles (leader or follower) and competitive approaches based on their industrial customers' needs.
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The Three Stages of Disruptive Innovation: Idea Generation, Incubation, and Scaling
Large established firms can successfully develop disruptive innovations by mastering three distinct disciplines: generating new business ideas through ideation, validating those ideas in the market through incubation, and growing successful ventures through scaling. Amazon and IBM demonstrate effective approaches across all three stages.
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Road Map For Diffusion Of Innovation In Health Care
Healthcare providers either adopt innovations too slowly or too quickly without proper testing, causing harm. This paper examines clinical failures from premature adoption and proposes an integrated roadmap for safely diffusing medical innovations. The framework emphasizes translating knowledge into practice, assessing changes systematically, standardizing intervention descriptions, and using technology to manage knowledge sharing across institutions.
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The role of employee autonomy for open innovation performance
Employee autonomy is essential for firms to realize financial benefits from open innovation. The study of 307 companies shows that giving employees time, freedom, and independence fully mediates the relationship between openness and innovation sales. Both inbound and outbound open innovation practices require high flexibility and experimentation, which managers must enable through discretionary job design to achieve new product introduction and revenue growth.
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Policy Diffusion and the Pro-innovation Bias
This paper examines policy diffusion across U.S. states using interstate compacts as a case study. The authors find that existing diffusion research focuses only on widely adopted policies, creating a bias that distorts findings. By analyzing all interstate compacts with variable adoption rates, they show this bias leads researchers to overestimate geographic and policy factors while underestimating professional networks and learning from prior adoptions.
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Understanding the influence of absorptive capacity and ambidexterity on the process of business model change – the case of on‐premise and cloud‐computing software
This study examines how six incumbent enterprise software firms adapted their business models when cloud-based Software as a Service disrupted the traditional on-premise software market. The research identifies absorptive capacity and organizational ambidexterity as key factors enabling firms to change business models in response to disruptive innovation. The findings reveal technological and organizational factors that determine the pace and path of business model adaptation in the software industry.
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Why Firm-established User Communities Work for Innovation: The Personal Attributes of Innovative Users in the Case of Computer-controlled Music
Firms establish user communities to capture innovations developed by users. This study of 442 computer-controlled music users identifies two key attributes of innovative users: they tend to be hobbyists willing to share innovations freely, and they respond to firm recognition as motivation to participate. These characteristics explain why firm-established user communities succeed—hobbyists contribute willingly while seeking acknowledgment, allowing firms to access innovations for product development and user sharing.
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Emerging needs of social innovators and social innovation ecosystems
Social innovators tackle major societal challenges but receive little research attention compared to profit-oriented entrepreneurs. This study interviewed 28 social innovators to identify their distinct needs and developed a social innovation ecosystem model based on Isenberg's entrepreneurial ecosystem framework. The findings reveal both similarities and differences between social and entrepreneurial ecosystems, showing that social innovators require tailored support structures beyond traditional business models.
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Networking to accelerate the pace of SME innovations
Early innovation by small and medium enterprises builds capabilities that accelerate their future innovation pace. Firms that innovate quickly initially maintain faster innovation rates. Companies that start innovating late can catch up by actively networking to access external resources and capabilities. The study of 203 SMEs shows that networking behavior moderates the relationship between time to first innovation and subsequent innovation speed.
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Knowledge collaboration between organizations and online communities: the role of open innovation intermediaries
Open innovation intermediaries facilitate knowledge collaboration between organizations and online communities through three boundary management mechanisms: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. These mechanisms enable knowledge transfer, translation, and transformation respectively. The pragmatic mechanism—building organizational commitment to community engagement—proves most critical. Intermediaries must implement all three mechanisms and move beyond digital platforms to achieve effective knowledge collaboration in community-based innovation.
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Fintech Frontiers in Quantum Computing, Fractals, and Blockchain Distributed Ledger: Paradigm Shifts and Open Innovation
This paper examines how emerging technologies—quantum computing, fractals, and blockchain—could reshape the financial industry. The authors conduct a SWOT analysis to assess the potential impact of these technologies on fintech. They conclude that rapid technological advancement drives economic shifts, but warn that high development costs may concentrate market power among a few large corporations, limiting broader competition.
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Responsible innovation: motivations for a new journal
This paper introduces the concept of responsible innovation as a framework for understanding technology's role in shaping society. The authors argue that technology is not a neutral tool but an active force that reshapes the world, requiring deliberate governance and stakeholder engagement to ensure innovation serves broader social values and addresses potential harms.
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Open Innovation in SMEs: From Closed Boundaries to Networked Paradigm
This paper examines how small and medium-sized enterprises transition from closed innovation models to open, networked approaches. The authors argue that SMEs benefit from breaking traditional boundaries and engaging in collaborative innovation networks. The shift enables smaller firms to access external knowledge, resources, and partnerships that enhance their competitive capacity and innovation outcomes.
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Crowdsourcing, open innovation and collective intelligence in the scientific method : a research agenda and operational framework
This paper develops a research framework for understanding how crowdsourcing, open innovation, and collective intelligence reshape scientific research methods. The authors propose an operational framework that integrates these approaches into scientific practice, establishing a research agenda for studying how distributed participation and collaborative knowledge-building improve scientific discovery and problem-solving.
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The Challenges of Collaborative Knowledge Creation in Open Innovation Teams
Open innovation teams bring together people from different organizations to develop new products and services. While organizational diversity can boost collaborative knowledge creation, it also creates obstacles. This paper reviews literature on how individuals interact and create knowledge together in these teams, identifying key challenges that arise from their different backgrounds and organizational contexts.
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TOWARD A DYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE ON OPEN INNOVATION: A LONGITUDINAL ASSESSMENT OF THE ADOPTION OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL INNOVATION STRATEGIES IN THE NETHERLANDS
This longitudinal study tracks Dutch companies across 1996, 2004, and 2004 to document how firms shifted from closed to open innovation strategies. The research reveals this transition occurred in sudden shifts rather than gradually, with timing varying by industry. Internal and external innovation approaches complement each other rather than compete, providing the first large-scale evidence of a fundamental change in how companies innovate.
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Knowledge Portfolios and The Organization of Innovation Networks
Firms form strategic alliances based on knowledge compatibility rather than social capital alone. A model demonstrates that requiring sufficient shared knowledge between partners naturally produces network features like small-world structures and unequal connection patterns, explaining alliance network organization without invoking social capital theory.
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THE DYNAMICS OF USER INNOVATION: DRIVERS AND IMPEDIMENTS OF INNOVATION ACTIVITIES
User innovation in sports equipment evolves dynamically over time rather than following a single trajectory. Studying sailboat design innovations over decades, the authors find that user innovation activity levels fluctuate based on contextual factors. When conditions are favorable, user-driven innovation can persist sustainably for extended periods, challenging linear models of how users contribute to product development.
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Open innovation in SMEs: A process view towards business model innovation
Small and medium-sized enterprises transform their business models through open innovation by collaborating with external partners. This study examines European SMEs undergoing business model transformation, identifying key triggers including market turbulence, competition, and production scaling. The research reveals how SMEs navigate challenges in adopting open business models to overcome their size disadvantages and remain competitive.
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The influence of open innovation on firm performance
Open innovation—acquiring external technology, exploiting technology externally, and coupled innovation—drives firm growth and competitiveness. This literature review examines how open innovation practices influence business performance and identifies key research themes, offering directions for future investigation into the relationship between open innovation strategies and firm outcomes.
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The role of contracts and intellectual property rights in open innovation
Firms engaged in open innovation strongly prefer formal contracts to govern their collaborative relationships with other firms. Despite open innovation's collaborative nature, companies still view intellectual property rights as critical for protecting their innovations. The study finds that firms' openness, legal orientation, competitive market conditions, and internal R&D strength all influence how much firms prioritize intellectual property protection in open innovation partnerships.
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The Role of Ego Network Structure in Facilitating Ego Network Innovations
This paper examines how the structure of a firm's supply chain network affects innovation output. Using patent data from manufacturing joint ventures, the researchers find that network characteristics like betweenness, density, brokerage, and tie weakness significantly influence innovation. The study shows that firms innovate more effectively when they strategically leverage their network connections, not just through individual capability or knowledge.
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Knowledge management practices and absorptive capacity in small and medium‐sized enterprises: is there really a linkage?
Portuguese SMEs engage in knowledge management practices that build absorptive capacity, enabling them to adapt strategically and innovate. The study surveyed 260 SMEs and found they prioritize tacit knowledge through employee learning, collaboration with business partners, and knowledge transfer. These practices help SMEs overcome resource constraints, improve efficiency, and launch new products and services despite vulnerability to globalization and technological change.
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Supply chain innovation diffusion: going beyond adoption
This paper develops a unified framework for understanding how supply chain innovations move beyond initial adoption to become fully embedded in organizations. The authors identify 17 activities across three post-adoption stages—acceptance, routinization, and assimilation—and map relationships between them. The framework guides both researchers and supply chain managers in implementing innovations completely rather than simply adopting them.
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Integrated Roadmaps for Open Innovation
Firms increasingly acquire and commercialize technologies from external sources through open innovation practices. Many struggle to manage external technology exploitation effectively. The paper argues that firms need strategic technology-planning processes, specifically integrated roadmaps that extend beyond traditional product-technology roadmapping to encompass open innovation activities including outlicensing. Technology managers must evaluate returns from technologies holistically, not just product sales.
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Social Innovation and New Industrial Contexts: Can Designers “Industrialize” Socially Responsible Solutions?
Designers have long faced calls to address social and environmental problems, but mainstream industrial production has largely ignored these responsibilities. The paper argues that design has been trapped between market-driven approaches and isolated socially responsible initiatives, with little exploration of middle ground. Recent sustainability studies and environmental targets like Kyoto demonstrate the urgent need for designers to integrate social responsibility into industrial production rather than treating it as separate from economic logic.
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What's Wrong with the Diffusion of Innovation Theory: The Case of a Complex and Networked Technology
This paper critiques diffusion of innovation theory for failing to account for complex, networked technologies like EDI systems. The authors argue that DOI theory overlooks how complex IT solutions are socially constructed, learning-intensive, and adopted for varied reasons within unstable markets. They call for richer theoretical frameworks that recognize institutional contexts, process histories, key actors, and multiple analytical perspectives across different scales and locations.
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Making a Reality of Evidence-Based Practice: Some Lessons from the Diffusion of Innovations
Evidence-based practice in the public sector requires more than simply sharing research findings. The authors examine diffusion of innovations literature to identify strategies that encourage organizations to actually adopt and use evidence. They outline lessons for how public sector organizations can learn and implement research-informed practices effectively.
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Identifying and describing constituents of innovation ecosystems
This paper systematically reviews 30 publications on innovation ecosystems to clarify how scholars define and study them. The authors identify different approaches across industries and organizational levels, examining how value is created and captured, the role of orchestrators, and success factors. They find European and American scholars emphasize different aspects, and note that most research focuses on European contexts. The review provides practitioners with management guidance for establishing and managing innovation ecosystems.
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Co-Creation for Social Innovation in the Ecosystem Context: The Role of Higher Educational Institutions
Higher educational institutions can drive social innovation by adopting co-creation approaches that emphasize collaborative learning, systemic thinking, and engagement with communities. The study identifies key activities—mutual learning, knowledge sharing across disciplines, technology-enabled collaboration, and relational transformation—that enable HEIs to move beyond traditional teaching and research roles to address socio-economic problems through open platforms for collective action.
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Company Strategies for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): A Conceptual Model
Companies rarely integrate responsible research and innovation (RRI) into their business strategies despite growing academic and policy interest. This paper presents a conceptual model showing how companies can embed RRI into corporate social responsibility and business strategy. It provides a framework linking RRI strategy to organizational context and practical activities, plus a process for developing company-specific performance indicators to measure RRI outcomes.
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Institutional Complexity as a Driver for Innovation in Service Ecosystems
Institutional complexity—when actors face conflicting institutional arrangements—drives innovation in service ecosystems. The paper argues that this complexity activates problem-solving and provides multiple cultural and material toolkits that actors use to jointly reconstruct value creation practices and change institutional arrangements. This reconciles institutional stability with actor-driven creation of novel solutions.
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Interorganizational network and innovation: a bibliometric study and proposed research agenda
This bibliometric study analyzes 67 management research papers on interorganizational networks and innovation published between 1996 and 2012. The authors identify six main research themes: networks supporting firm innovation in specific contexts, network dimensions and knowledge processes, resource and knowledge sharing, firm-network characteristics and innovation effects, empirical research in dynamic industries, and industry-specific network characteristics. The analysis maps the intellectual structure of the field and identifies gaps in current knowledge.
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The Effect of Selective Openness on Value Creation in User Innovation Communities
This study examines how selective openness in product design affects value creation in user innovation communities. Analyzing 309 members across 20 online communities in consumer electronics and IT hardware, the researchers found that openness increases community members' involvement and contributions. However, different forms of openness—transparency, accessibility, and replicability—have varying impacts. Users value openness in areas where they have capabilities and incentives to contribute, suggesting firms can balance external value creation with internal value capture more effectively than previously thought.
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A study of contingency relationships between supplier involvement, absorptive capacity and agile product innovation
This paper examines how supplier involvement affects product innovation performance, with absorptive capacity acting as a moderating factor. The research uses agility as a key performance dimension, showing that a firm's ability to absorb external knowledge influences the strength of the relationship between supplier partnerships and successful product innovation outcomes.
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How Do Low-Income Urban African Americans and Latinos Feel about Telemedicine? A Diffusion of Innovation Analysis
Low-income African American and Latino urban residents view telemedicine as improving access to specialists and reducing wait times. However, African Americans express greater concerns about privacy and the lack of in-person contact, likely due to historical medical mistrust, while Latino immigrants show more openness. Successful telemedicine adoption requires tailored strategies that address these distinct community perspectives.
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A Firm‐Level Analysis on the Relative Difference between Technology‐Driven and Market‐Driven Disruptive Business Model Innovations
This study compares how technology-driven and market-driven innovations disrupt markets by analyzing four firms over 5–15 years. Technology-driven innovations follow predicted disruption patterns, while market-driven innovations hit a bottleneck where initial strategic choices and costs limit further disruption potential. The findings show that market-driven innovations face constraints that technology-driven ones do not.
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IS Integration and Business Performance: The Mediation Effect of Organizational Absorptive Capacity in SMEs
This study examines how organizational absorptive capacity—the ability to learn and integrate new knowledge—mediates the relationship between IT system integration and business performance in small and medium enterprises. Using data from 466 Italian export-focused SMEs, the researchers found that absorptive capacity significantly mediates this relationship, meaning IT investments improve performance primarily when companies develop stronger learning and integration capabilities.
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Network structure and innovation: The leveraging of a dual network as a distinctive relational capability
This study examines how network structure affects innovation in alliance networks. Using 30+ years of data from three furniture manufacturers and their design firm partnerships, the research shows that firms combining a core of strong ties with a large periphery of weak ties—a 'dual network'—develop superior innovative capabilities. This dual network architecture creates a distinctive competitive advantage by enabling knowledge integration and dynamic innovation.
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Fostering product innovation in industry networks: the mediating role of knowledge integration
Firms innovating together in networks outperform isolated competitors. The study identifies knowledge integration—combining expertise across organizational boundaries—as the key driver of successful new product development. Resource complementarity, market orientation, and information sharing all strengthen knowledge integration, which then directly improves innovation outcomes.
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Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage Through Collaborative Innovation Networks
Collaborative innovation networks create competitive advantage through what the author calls 'swarm creativity'—the collective problem-solving power of interconnected innovators working together. Rather than isolated R&D efforts, organizations that build and leverage these networks generate superior innovation outcomes by combining diverse expertise and perspectives across organizational boundaries.
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Internet, innovation, and open source: Actors in the network
This paper examines how Linux developed through open source collaboration, analyzing the socio-technical dynamics that enabled its growth. The author combines community learning theory with actor-network theory to explain how open source development works, showing how the Linux development community evolved into an interconnected ecology of community-centered practices.
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Frugal innovation as a source of sustainable entrepreneurship to tackle social and environmental challenges
Frugal innovation drives sustainable entrepreneurship in developing countries by enabling businesses to achieve social and environmental goals simultaneously. The study found that frugal innovation-based ventures deliver female empowerment, improved healthcare access, better living standards, and sustainable production methods while creating new markets and inclusive growth. This approach shifts focus from barriers to enablers of sustainable entrepreneurship.
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The Interactive Effect of Uncertainty Avoidance Cultural Values and Leadership Styles on Open Service Innovation: A Look at Malaysian Healthcare Sector
This study examined how leadership styles and cultural attitudes toward uncertainty affect open service innovation in Malaysian hospitals. Researchers surveyed 422 medical professionals and found that paternalistic, authentic, and democratic leadership all positively encourage open service innovation. Malaysia's low uncertainty avoidance culture supports greater adoption of open service innovation. The study also validated a four-dimensional model of open service innovation specific to Eastern contexts.
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The effectiveness of involving users in digital innovation: Measuring the impact of living labs
Living labs engage users directly in digital innovation development. This study measures their economic impact on participants and finds significant positive effects. The authors develop practical evaluation methods suitable for living labs' flexible, evolving nature and provide methodological recommendations for future impact assessments of similar innovation tools.
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Networks and Innovation: Accounting for Structural and Institutional Sources of Recombination in Brokerage Triads
This paper examines how firms combine knowledge across structural and institutional boundaries to drive innovation. Using biotechnology R&D alliances, the authors show that different network configurations produce different innovation outcomes: domestic partnerships increase innovation volume, foreign partnerships boost radical innovation, and mixed partnerships balance both. The findings reveal that institutional boundaries matter as much as network structure in shaping how firms recombine knowledge.
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Examining Absorptive Capacity in Supply Chains: Linking Responsive Strategy and Firm Performance
This study examines how manufacturing firms use absorptive capacity—their ability to process information from customers and suppliers—to improve performance. Analysis of 711 firms shows that absorptive capacity fully mediates the link between responsive strategy and firm performance, making it essential for delivering innovative products. Firms blending efficient and responsive strategies struggle to develop absorptive capacity, following a U-shaped relationship pattern.
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The role of cultural barriers in the relationship between open‐mindedness and organizational innovation
This study examines 133 small and medium-sized enterprises to understand how cultural barriers affect the relationship between open-mindedness and organizational innovation. The research finds that firms must overcome cultural barriers—particularly outdated knowledge—before open-mindedness can translate into actual innovation. Organizations that fail to address these barriers cannot effectively adopt new configurations or incorporate new knowledge into products and services.
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The effects of open innovation activity on performance of SMEs: the case of Korea
Open innovation strategies work differently for small and medium-sized enterprises than for large companies. This study analyzed Korean SMEs and found that external innovation activities do not uniformly boost innovation output. Some open innovation practices benefit SMEs, while others do not, suggesting that SMEs need selective approaches to external collaboration rather than adopting all open innovation tactics.
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Enhancing sustainable development: Innovation ecosystem coopetition, environmental resource orchestration, and disruptive green innovation
Manufacturing firms in China that balance cooperation and competition within innovation ecosystems develop stronger environmental resource management capabilities, which drives disruptive green innovation. Big data analytics amplifies the cooperation-to-resource-orchestration pathway but not the competition pathway. Both ecosystem cooperation and competition independently boost environmental resource orchestration, which then enables breakthrough green innovations.
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Open supply chain innovation: an extended view on supply chain collaboration
This paper develops a framework for fostering innovation in supply chains through collaboration between firms and their partners. The authors identify three key capabilities—purpose (balancing exploration and exploitation of knowledge), span (horizontal and vertical partnerships), and orientation (incremental and radical innovation)—that enable supply chains to innovate more effectively. The framework integrates open innovation and supply chain collaboration concepts to show how firms can leverage external relationships to drive continuous innovation.
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Changing the game to compete: Innovations in the fashion retail industry from the disruptive business model
This paper examines how disruptive business models are transforming the fashion retail industry. Three key innovations—born-digital brands, AI-enabled demand forecasting and design, and collaborative consumption—successfully address unmet customer needs like affordable quality and sustainability. These models also solve operational challenges in demand uncertainty and inventory management that plague traditional push-based supply chains, offering retailers more responsive and efficient alternatives.
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Values in responsible research and innovation: from entities to practices
This paper critiques how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) frameworks understand values. The authors argue that mainstream RRI approaches treat values as fixed entities available for direct reflection, missing the interpretive work required to identify them. They propose instead viewing values as dynamic outcomes of ongoing valuing processes, lived and interactive. This practice-based approach better captures the complexity of how values actually function in research and innovation contexts.
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Innovation Ecosystems as Structures for Value Co-Creation
Innovation ecosystems enable value creation through collaborative networks rather than isolated firm activities. The paper argues that both service providers and customers participate in large external networks to generate value together. This shift moves away from viewing innovation as something companies do alone toward recognizing it as a dynamic, interconnected process involving multiple stakeholders working in concert.
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Unpacking the social innovation ecosystem: an empirically grounded typology of empowering network constellations
Social innovation networks require three key elements to empower initiatives addressing societal challenges: local embedding, transnational connectivity, and discursive resonance. This study analyzed 20 transnational social innovation networks across countries and developed a typology identifying five ecosystem types, ranging from locally focused co-creation hubs to globally connected political movements. The findings show that effective social innovation ecosystems vary significantly in structure and scope.
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The hermeneutic side of responsible research and innovation
This paper argues that hermeneutic analysis—uncovering contested meanings—must be central to responsible research and innovation (RRI) debates, particularly for emerging technologies. The author contends that understanding how different groups interpret technological futures and visions should be a primary focus rather than a secondary concern. The paper proposes a framework for hermeneutic orientation to analyze these meanings systematically.
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AI for managing open innovation: Opportunities, challenges, and a research agenda
This paper presents a framework for using artificial intelligence to improve open innovation collaboration between organizations. The authors create a 3x3 matrix connecting three open innovation stages (initiation, development, realization) with three AI management functions (mapping, coordinating, controlling). The framework shows how AI applications can augment or automate human tasks to address open innovation challenges and help organizations manage knowledge exchanges more effectively.
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Constructs of Project Programme Management Supporting Open Innovation at the Strategic Level of the Organisation
This study identifies four key constructs of programme management that support open innovation at the organizational strategic level: cooperation with the environment, knowledge and technology transfer, organizational maturity, and implementation capacity. Through quantitative analysis of 578 programme management experts internationally, the authors demonstrate that structured programme management approaches enable organizations to achieve strategic innovation outcomes and reshape organizational structures accordingly.
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Managing knowledge in open innovation processes: an intellectual property perspective
Firms collaborating with external partners in open innovation face challenges managing knowledge through intellectual property rights. This study identifies success drivers for knowledge management across five groups and develops an Open Innovation Life Cycle covering three stages and levels. Analysis of pharmaceutical industry cases shows that intellectual property rights have an ambivalent relationship with open innovation, and firms must carefully manage knowledge during preparation and termination phases to prevent unintended knowledge loss.
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A multi-platform collaboration innovation ecosystem: the case of China
This paper analyzes Insigma Group's multi-platform innovation ecosystem in China using a triple-layer core-periphery framework. The ecosystem integrates four platforms—ideation, entrepreneurship, financing, and innovation—that collaborate toward shared goals. The study reveals how these platforms interact and function together, and examines government policy's role in shaping enterprise-level innovation ecosystems. The framework offers a tool for analyzing heterogeneity within similar ecosystems.
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Appropriation strategies and open innovation in SMEs
UK small and medium-sized enterprises use appropriation mechanisms—both formal and informal—as a threshold to shift from closed to open innovation strategies. The study finds that emphasizing appropriation helps firms decide whether to engage in open innovation, but neither formal nor informal approaches significantly increase the depth of open innovation activities. Only informal IP protection correlates with greater inbound open innovation.
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Open to a Select Few? Matching Partners and Knowledge Content for Open Innovation Performance
Firms collaborating with external partners on innovation achieve better performance when they work deeply with carefully selected partners rather than spreading efforts across many partners. The type of knowledge exchanged—whether exploratory or exploitative—matters significantly. Successful firms match specific knowledge types to particular partner categories, balancing the benefits of external ideas against the costs of managing diverse collaborations.
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Networks for Innovation – But What Networks and What Innovation?
This paper tests two competing theories about how network structures affect innovation. Using data from a service industry, the authors find that network characteristics significantly predict innovation outcomes, but their effects differ dramatically depending on whether innovation is incremental (implementing employee ideas) or radical (developing new services). The paper argues researchers must use precise, fine-grained measures of both networks and innovation types rather than treating them as generic concepts.
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TURNING OPEN INNOVATION INTO PRACTICE: OPEN INNOVATION RESEARCH THROUGH THE LENS OF MANAGERS
This literature review identifies four key managerial challenges in implementing open innovation: organizing for openness, co-creating value, leading diverse teams, and managing intellectual property. The authors synthesize research from 2003 to 2009 to provide practical guidance for innovation managers navigating open innovation adoption, while highlighting gaps in existing research that need further investigation.
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Web 2.0 revisited: user-generated content as a social innovation
This paper argues that Web 2.0's core innovation is user-generated content functioning as a new social routine, not a technological breakthrough. Easy-to-use software and widespread internet access enable this social practice, with technology acting as a catalyst rather than the innovation itself. The authors reject narrow definitions of Web 2.0 and emphasize the social dimension of how people communicate and share content online.
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Open innovation proclivity, entrepreneurial orientation, and perceived firm performance
Taiwanese electronics manufacturers that embrace open innovation—using external ideas and selling intellectual property to outsiders—report better firm performance. Companies with stronger entrepreneurial orientation show even stronger performance gains from open innovation practices. The study surveyed 122 manufacturers and found that openness to external innovation sources directly improves perceived business outcomes.
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Managing Peer-to-Peer Conflicts in Disruptive Information Technology Innovations: The Case of Software Reuse1
Software reuse represents a disruptive innovation in development organizations that triggers peer-to-peer conflicts. The paper develops a model explaining these conflicts and shows that managerial interventions—including coordination mechanisms and organizational learning practices—reduce conflict and improve program success. A study of four organizations confirmed that companies implementing these interventions achieved better outcomes with software reuse adoption.
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National Innovation System - Scientific Concept or Political Rhetoric
This paper examines whether the national innovation system is a genuine scientific concept or primarily political rhetoric. The author analyzes how the term functions in academic and policy discourse, questioning whether it provides meaningful analytical value or serves mainly as a rhetorical device for justifying innovation policy decisions.
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How Artificial Intelligence Drives Sustainable Frugal Innovation: A Multitheoretical Perspective
This paper examines how artificial intelligence can drive sustainable frugal innovation—doing more with fewer resources while considering environmental and social impacts. Using grey DEMATEL analysis and a Danish case study, the authors identify critical success factors for integrating AI with frugal innovation. Understanding AI concepts and investment levels emerge as most influential. The findings help industries adopt AI-enabled frugal practices to maintain competitiveness during disruptions while advancing sustainability.
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Higher Education Response in the Time of Coronavirus: Perceptions of Teachers and Students, and Open Innovation
During COVID-19 lockdowns, universities in Spain, Italy, and Ecuador shifted to virtual learning. Surveys of 573 teachers and students in journalism and communication programs revealed that while both groups acknowledged the necessity of remote education, they preferred in-person instruction. Virtual teaching did not increase teacher-student interaction; tutorials became shorter and less frequent. Students wanted diverse learning resources including podcasts and alternative assessments, but universities relied heavily on text-based materials and traditional exams.
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Digital innovation management for entrepreneurial ecosystems: services and functionalities as drivers of innovation management software adoption
Innovation Management Software adoption among German firms is driven primarily by idea management functionalities and vendor services for updates and upgrades. Surprisingly, bundling consulting services with software reduces adoption likelihood. The study surveyed 199 innovation managers and found that IMS adoption improves new product development efficiency, helping strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems through digitalized innovation processes.
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How Does Outside-In Open Innovation Influence Innovation Performance? Analyzing the Mediating Roles of Knowledge Sharing and Innovation Strategy
Outside-in open innovation improves organizational innovation performance, but the effect depends on two critical mediating factors: knowledge sharing and innovation strategy. Analysis of 112 firms across industries shows that external knowledge only translates into better innovation performance when organizations actively share that knowledge internally and align it with a deliberate innovation strategy.
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Towards innovation in Living Labs networks
Living Labs are open, user-centered environments that enable networked innovation through collaboration between organizations, users, and other participants. This study examines a regional Living Labs initiative to identify key participants, their roles, motivations, and outcomes. The research finds that Living Labs successfully facilitate open innovation by integrating users as co-producers in product development, which uncovers hidden user needs and generates unexpected results.
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Developing and Validating Field Measurement Scales for Absorptive Capacity and Experienced Community of Practice
Researchers developed and validated survey measurement scales for absorptive capacity (the ability to transform new knowledge into usable knowledge) and experienced community of practice (engagement with a practice community). Testing with nearly 600 engineers across two Fortune 100 technology companies, they confirmed the scales are internally consistent, relate meaningfully to organizational variables, and provide distinct explanatory power for studying knowledge transfer in organizations.
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Bridging Scales in Innovation Policies: How to Link Regional, National and International Innovation Systems
This paper examines how innovation systems operating at different geographic scales—international, national, and regional—can be effectively linked and coordinated through policy. The author identifies which innovation system functions work best at each scale and proposes a policy framework that integrates support across all three levels to strengthen technology-based economic development.
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Sharing User Experiences in the Product Innovation Process: Participatory Design Needs Participatory Communication
This paper develops a participatory communication model for sharing user experiences with design teams during product innovation. The model emphasizes three qualities: enhancing empathy, providing inspiration, and supporting engagement. Two empirical studies show that when designers actively participate in communicating user insights rather than passively receiving them, they develop deeper understanding, greater acceptance, and more intensive use of those insights in the creative process.
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Digitalization needs a cultural change – examples of applying Agility and Open Innovation to drive the digital transformation
Companies pursuing digital transformation need cultural change, not just new tools and processes. This paper examines two approaches—Agility and Open Innovation—that foster the customer-centric, fast-moving culture required for successful digitalization. The authors draw on real-world applications to show how opening development processes to external stakeholders and adopting agile methods accelerate digital transformation and market responsiveness.
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Managerial Social Networks and Ambidexterity of SMEs: The Moderating Role of a Proactive Commitment to Innovation
Top managers' extensive social networks inside and outside their firms help small and medium-sized technology companies achieve ambidexterity—the ability to pursue both existing and new business directions simultaneously. However, networks only drive innovation when managers actively commit to pursuing innovative opportunities. The study of SME leaders confirms that network breadth matters, but only when paired with genuine proactive commitment to innovation.
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The interaction between external and internal knowledge sources: an open innovation view
Firms combining external and internal knowledge sources innovate more effectively than those relying solely on either approach. The study finds an inverted U-shaped relationship: firms with excessive internal knowledge experience organizational inertia and reduced innovation. External knowledge sources initially substitute for internal capacity but eventually complement it, improving product innovation. Firms must strategically match their external knowledge acquisition to their existing internal knowledge base to maximize innovation outcomes.
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Exploring How Lead Users Develop Radical Innovation: Opportunity Recognition and Exploitation in the Field of Medical Equipment Technology
Lead users in medical equipment—primarily surgeons—develop radical innovations independently when manufacturers won't invest in them. These users create functional prototypes, build networks of collaborators, and test feasibility before convincing established manufacturers to commercialize their ideas. Lead users effectively perform the coordination and knowledge-gathering work that manufacturers typically handle, bridging gaps in the innovation pipeline and enabling radical breakthroughs.
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User-led Innovation Processes: The Development of Professional Car Sharing by Environmentally Concerned Citizens
User-led innovation drives early technology development and diffusion. Citizen groups shape technological characteristics, costs, and use forms, creating 'technological niches' where essential learning occurs. This case study traces organized car sharing in Switzerland from neighborhood experiments in the late 1980s to a professional service serving 50,000 customers. The research shows how users' initial contributions became difficult for professional actors to replicate, and examines how user roles shifted during market expansion toward sustainable transport.
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Intention to Receive the COVID-19 Vaccination in China: Application of the Diffusion of Innovations Theory and the Moderating Role of Openness to Experience
Among 6,922 Chinese university students, perceived vaccine efficacy, social media use for vaccine information, openness to experience, and descriptive norms all positively predicted intention to receive COVID-19 vaccination. Free vaccination intention reached 78.9% while self-paid vaccination reached 60.2%. Openness to experience moderated the relationship between efficacy/norms and vaccination intention, with stronger associations among those less open to experience.
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Process innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises: The critical roles of external knowledge sourcing and absorptive capacity
External knowledge sourcing and absorptive capacity drive process innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises. A study of 124 automotive SMEs in challenging institutional environments found that broad external knowledge search—but not deep search—correlates with process innovation development. Process innovation subsequently improves firm performance.
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Perspective: Leveraging Open Innovation through Paradox
Open innovation collaborations between firms and external contributors often fail due to conflicting demands: firms seek controlled participation and selective idea adoption, while contributors want open participation and unrestricted knowledge sharing. This paper reframes these tensions as productive paradoxes rather than problems, proposing that firms can leverage open innovation by combining differentiation and integration practices to balance control and openness simultaneously.
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Responsible Research and Innovation in Industry—Challenges, Insights and Perspectives
This editorial examines Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as a framework for balancing industry's competitive pressures with social and environmental accountability. The collection of papers explores why companies adopt RRI practices, how they implement them, stakeholder involvement in innovation processes, and obstacles to wider adoption. The findings show RRI applies across different firm sizes and sectors, offering practical guidance for managers, policymakers, and researchers integrating responsibility into innovation strategies.
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Equilibrium Innovation Ecosystems: The Dark Side of Collaborating with Complementors
Firms selling complementary products increasingly collaborate to improve system quality, but this cooperation creates a prisoner's dilemma in saturated markets. While collaboration reduces investment costs and generates more total value, firms capture no greater share of that value relative to competitors, reducing overall profitability. The paper examines how open versus closed interfaces affect firm strategy and platform emergence in competitive environments.
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Linking strategy with open innovation and performance in SMEs
This study examines how business strategy influences open innovation practices and performance in small and medium enterprises. Using survey data from 107 Italian manufacturing firms, the researchers found that companies pursuing innovation strategies invest heavily in technical skills, diversification-focused firms rely on managerial open innovation practices, and efficiency-focused firms adopt open innovation with less emphasis on core competencies. The results demonstrate clear linkages between strategic choices, openness levels, and firm performance.
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Diffusion of Safety Innovations in the Construction Industry
Construction firms have widely adopted traditional safety innovations like worksite inspections and safety training, but adoption rates plateau for newer strategies like substance abuse programs and site safety manager positions. Internal organizational factors drive adoption more than external influences. The industry has saturated with conventional injury prevention approaches and needs novel safety innovations to continue improving performance.
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The effects of network embeddedness on service innovation performance
Network embeddedness significantly drives service innovation performance. The study analyzed questionnaire data from service industry firms and found that connections to business partners, suppliers, and customers—but not research institutes—directly improve innovation outcomes. Enterprises achieve better service innovation by strengthening ties with their business networks.
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Diffusion of surgical innovation among patients with kidney cancer
Surgical innovation adoption for kidney cancer depends primarily on surgeon practice styles rather than patient characteristics. Among 5,483 Medicare patients who underwent kidney cancer surgery between 1997 and 2002, surgeon factors accounted for 18% of variation in partial nephrectomy use and 37% of variation in laparoscopic surgery use—substantially more than patient or tumor factors. Removing barriers to surgeon adoption of these techniques could improve care quality.
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Spatial mobility of knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity: analysis and measurement of the impact within the geoeconomic space
Knowledge and technology transfer effectiveness declines as distance from research sources increases, following a damped pattern. Small businesses in industrial districts successfully acquire external scientific knowledge through interactions with public research institutions and collective learning mechanisms, rather than conducting their own research. Industrial proximity and collaborative networks enable knowledge absorption without requiring in-house research capacity.
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NETWORK STRUCTURE AND INNOVATION AMBIGUITY EFFECTS ON DIFFUSION IN DYNAMIC ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS.
Computational modeling shows how network structures affect innovation diffusion differently depending on whether innovations have clear or ambiguous benefits. Regional constraints slow diffusion of ambiguous innovations but help spread clearly beneficial ones. Partnering patterns and interregional connections significantly influence which innovations spread through organizational fields.
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Alliances, Networks and Competitive Strategy: Rethinking Clusters of Innovation
This paper examines how networks of firms drive innovation and competitiveness through alliances and knowledge sharing. The authors argue that successful innovation requires flexible network structures that adapt over time, and that geography plays a crucial role in how these networks form and operate. They contend that effective innovation networks are increasingly international rather than locally confined.
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A THEMATIC ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY RESEARCH.
This paper reviews 189 absorptive capacity studies across major journals and conferences, identifying seven research themes: definitions, knowledge characteristics, knowledge transfer, organizational learning, innovation, corporate scope, and alliances. The authors find three critical problems: researchers no longer question the construct's original assumptions, the term has become a catch-all phrase for any knowledge acquisition, and few studies examine the actual organizational processes underlying absorptive capacity dimensions.
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Focusing the ecosystem lens on innovation studies
This paper reviews how innovation research has shifted toward understanding innovation as embedded in ecosystems of interconnected actors—firms, organizations, and individuals—that create value together through modular interfaces. The authors synthesize nine articles examining how ecosystem actors coordinate, create joint value, and capture returns, while proposing future research directions that combine ecosystem perspectives with other innovation frameworks and develop new methodologies for studying ecosystem dynamics.
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Investigation of open educational resources adoption in higher education using Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory
Faculty adoption of open educational resources in higher education depends on perceived relative advantage, observability, and complexity, according to Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory. Survey data from 422 faculty members reveals that trialability correlates positively with complexity and compatibility, while relative advantage improves complexity but reduces perceived compatibility. The study concludes that institutional leaders must implement initiatives addressing trialability, complexity, and compatibility barriers to increase OER adoption rates.
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Triple Helix Twins: A Framework for Achieving Innovation and UN Sustainable Development Goals
This paper proposes a 'Triple Helix Twins' framework combining two models: one linking university-industry-government for innovation, and another linking university-public-government for sustainable development. The framework addresses environmental protection, resource management, and social equality by enabling cross-border collaborations. The authors suggest solar photovoltaics development as an example of how this integrated approach can help achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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Favourable social innovation ecosystem(s)? – An explorative approach
Social innovation ecosystems differ fundamentally from business-focused innovation systems. This research identifies three key requirements for effective social innovation ecosystems: integrated governance involving civil society and multiple sectors, intermediary institutions like hubs and labs that accelerate activities, and strategies combining different innovation modes. The study finds no single best model exists due to the diversity and local nature of social innovation work across Europe.
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Unveiling the Microfoundations of Absorptive Capacity: A Study of Coleman’s Bathtub Model
This study examines how firms develop absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize and use new knowledge. Using data from 342 employees across 106 medical technology companies, the research shows that formal and informal integration mechanisms strengthen absorptive capacity. The effect works through individual-level processes: employees' perspective-taking and creative behavior drive organizational capability. Key employees play a critical role in explaining why some firms absorb knowledge better than others.
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Moral “Lock-In” in Responsible Innovation: The Ethical and Social Aspects of Killing Day-Old Chicks and Its Alternatives
This paper examines the ethical problems with killing day-old male chicks in poultry production and evaluates two alternative approaches. The authors develop a framework showing how the industry faces a moral lock-in that perpetuates the practice despite ethical concerns. Both alternatives address some objections but introduce new dilemmas. The framework enables structured stakeholder engagement and reflection on responsible innovation dimensions.
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Accessing resources for service innovation – the critical role of network relationships
Companies access resources for service innovation through different types of network relationships. The study identifies four resource access strategies: absorption, acquisition, sharing, and co-creation. Easily transferable resources come through weak relationships and low-intensity collaboration, while difficult-to-transfer resources like tacit knowledge require strong relationships and intensive collaboration. Managers should recognize that key innovation resources are accessible through diverse actors and relationships.
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Diffusion of Innovation: Embedding Simulation into Nursing Curricula
Nursing programs face resistance when adopting simulation-based teaching despite documented learning benefits. This paper describes how one large, multi-site nursing program successfully embedded simulation into its undergraduate curriculum by using Diffusion of Innovation theory to guide faculty adoption. The authors identify techniques that overcame barriers and achieved widespread integration, offering practical strategies for other nursing programs seeking to implement similar innovations.
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Knowledge creation: absorptive capacity, organizational mechanisms, and knowledge storage/retrieval capabilities
This study develops a framework showing how individual absorptive capacity, organizational mechanisms, and IT capabilities for storing and retrieving knowledge affect knowledge creation in firms. Using survey data from 271 respondents across manufacturing, trade, transportation, service, and academic organizations, the research identifies how absorptive capacity and organizational structures influence knowledge creation, with organizational memory playing a moderating role.
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Joining forces to create value: The emergence of an innovation ecosystem
During rapid technological change, firms form alliances to access new resources and capabilities. This study traces how Volvo Car Group's autonomous driving development evolved from internal constraints into a collaborative innovation ecosystem. Resource limitations drove the company to seek partnerships, which transformed their technology platform from closed to modular. This modularity enabled multiple actors to co-create value around shared standards and interfaces, establishing an innovation ecosystem.
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Innovation Ecosystem framework directed to Sustainable Development Goal #17 partnerships implementation
This paper examines how innovation ecosystems can support the implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goal #17, which calls for strengthened global partnerships. The authors analyze UN documents and literature to identify four core drivers—geographical governance, collaboration, knowledge transmission, and value co-creation—that enable multi-stakeholder networks to address sustainability challenges. The framework positions SDGs as the unifying purpose that engages diverse stakeholder groups in co-creating solutions.
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The structure of an innovation ecosystem: foundations for future research
This systematic review examines how innovation ecosystems are structured by analyzing 26 years of peer-reviewed research. The authors identify three main structural classifications: ecosystem life cycles (birth through self-renewal), hierarchical levels (macroscopic to microscopic), and layered architectures including core-periphery and triple-layer models. The review reveals that ecosystem structure research remains concentrated among few authors and proposes the triple-layer core-periphery framework and 6C framework as benchmarks for future studies.
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How does open innovation lead competitive advantage? A dynamic capability view perspective
Open innovation creates competitive advantage through product innovation, but only when organizations develop the right capabilities. The study identifies three critical capabilities: transforming capability acts as a foundation that enables sensing and seizing capabilities, which together drive product innovation and competitive advantage. Organizations pursuing open innovation must deliberately build these interconnected capabilities to succeed.
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The influence of platform service innovation on value co-creation activities and the network effect
Platform service innovation evolves through three stages—emergence, expansion, and maturity—each with different strategies for creating value and network effects. During emergence, platforms build infrastructure and directly stimulate network effects through innovation. During expansion, they build relationships and shift to indirect stimulation through value co-creation. At maturity, platforms create ecosystems and continue indirect stimulation. Platform managers must align their innovation focus with their developmental stage to succeed.
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The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's commitment to a framework for responsible innovation
The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council adopted a formal responsible innovation framework in 2013 after four years of development. The paper traces how this framework evolved, identifies the key influences that shaped it, and discusses implementation challenges as the council moves from defining responsible innovation to putting it into practice.
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Look who's talking: responsible innovation, the paradox of dialogue and the voice of the other in communication and negotiation processes
This paper develops a theoretical framework for stakeholder dialogue in responsible innovation processes. Rather than assuming communication succeeds through openness and harmony, the authors argue dialogue must accommodate fundamentally different interests and values. They identify four key characteristics: dialogical responsiveness enhances self-criticism, involves transformation of participant identities, exists only through actual enactment, and responds to major societal challenges. The work redefines responsiveness as central to responsible innovation.
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<i>Jugaad</i>as systemic risk and disruptive innovation in India
Jugaad, the Indian practice of improvising solutions with limited resources, is celebrated as disruptive innovation and a development tool. This paper argues the opposite: jugaad reflects systemic poverty, poor infrastructure, and unsafe practices that perpetuate India's underlying risks. Rather than an exportable asset, jugaad masks deeper structural problems and should not be separated from the conditions that necessitate it.
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User innovation and everyday practices: micro‐innovation in sports industry development
User innovations in sports like rodeo and freestyle kayaking drive industry development more significantly than previously recognized. The paper examines how users adapt equipment and practices, change activity settings, and engage in various forms of involvement. These micro-innovations reshape user demographics and preferred gear, ultimately influencing industry evolution more than lead-users and user-manufacturers alone.
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Networks, Knowledge and Power: Decision Making, Politics and the Process of Innovation
This paper examines how organizations adopt Enterprise Resource Planning systems, revealing that innovation adoption is fundamentally political. Networks and knowledge prove inseparable because tacit knowledge requires relationship-building to access and use. The research shows that formal authority doesn't automatically translate to power, and that networks and knowledge function as both practical tools for accessing information and political instruments that actors deploy to advance their interests.
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The dawn of an open exploration era: Emergent principles and practices of open science and innovation of university research teams in a digital world
Universities are adopting open science practices—including open data sharing, open access publishing, and participatory design—that reshape how research teams conduct innovation. These practices accelerate knowledge creation, speed solutions to major societal challenges, and develop entrepreneurial researchers. The study identifies emergent principles and mechanisms of open science and innovation at universities, proposing governance models to increase societal value in the digital era.
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Does patenting help or hinder open innovation? Evidence from new entrants in the solar industry
New companies entering the solar industry that build patent portfolios increase their open innovation partnerships overall. However, the effect varies by relationship type. Patents strongly boost partnerships in high-tech collaborations but weaken the effect in lower-tech relationships, actually reducing partnerships in the least technology-intensive ones.
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Rapid innovation diffusion in social networks
This paper establishes that innovations spread rapidly through social networks when the payoff advantage is sufficiently large and agents make noisy decisions. The researchers derive bounds showing diffusion speed depends primarily on payoff gains and decision noise rather than network structure. They demonstrate that with realistic parameters—such as 5% error rates and 150% payoff gains—innovations establish themselves across any network within 80 revision periods on average.
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Eco-innovation, Responsible Leadership and Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability
Organizations pursuing sustainability must integrate environmental and social goals into their operations through eco-innovation and responsible leadership. The paper links corporate sustainability, eco-innovation, responsible leadership, and organizational change as interconnected drivers of corporate sustainability. Research on Romanian organizations shows that visionary management plays a critical role in adopting and implementing sustainability practices, particularly ecological components of sustainable development.
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National innovation systems: the emergence of a new approach
This paper traces the emergence of national innovation systems as a research concept in the late 1980s. The authors identify the three most influential contributions to this literature and analyze citation patterns in scholarly journals to understand how the concept developed within innovation studies. They characterize national innovation systems research relative to other research areas.
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The power of social innovation: how civic entrepreneurs ignite community networks for good
Civic entrepreneurs drive social innovation by building community networks and catalyzing change through collaborative approaches. The book examines how market makers and service providers use open-source methods, citizen engagement, and risk-taking to create sustainable systems change. It demonstrates that measuring public value, mobilizing community assets, and leveraging social networks produce measurable results in education, family services, and local governance.
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Absorptive Capacity in a Non-Market Environment
This paper applies absorptive capacity theory to explain performance in public sector organizations. The authors argue that absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge—offers a valuable framework for understanding why some public organizations succeed while others fail. They review conceptual and methodological implications of this approach and propose testable propositions for future empirical research on public sector performance.
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Deep Learning Meets Deep Democracy: Deliberative Governance and Responsible Innovation in Artificial Intelligence
The paper argues that responsible AI innovation requires public deliberation involving industry, government, and civil society actors. It identifies opacity and knowledge gaps between experts and citizens as barriers to informed democratic debate about AI. The authors propose a deliberative governance framework that enables AI industry actors to engage effectively with experts and the public across different venues, building trust and enabling democratic oversight of AI systems.
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Organizational change and the dynamics of innovation: Formal R&D structure and intrafirm inventor networks
Centralizing R&D budget authority in diversified firms increases connections between internal inventors, leading to broader innovation that spans more technologies. Decentralization does not reverse this effect. The paper shows that formal organizational structure influences innovation outcomes through changes in inventor collaboration networks, though organizational inertia creates time lags in these effects.
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The function of ability, benevolence, and integrity-based trust in innovation networks
This study examines how trust operates in Norwegian innovation networks, analyzing three trust dimensions: perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity. Using mixed methods across five networks, the researchers found that benevolence-based trust proves most critical for fostering open communication and knowledge sharing at both organizational and network levels. Trust functions differently depending on whether it operates between individual organizations or across the entire network, with benevolence-based trust driving successful collaboration and innovation outcomes.
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Open innovation and firm performance: Evidence from the Chinese mechanical manufacturing industry
Open innovation's effect on firm profitability follows an inverted U-shape curve in Chinese mechanical manufacturing. Employee education amplifies open innovation's benefits in technology-oriented firms but not production-oriented ones. Higher ratios of technical to production staff improve financial performance from open innovation in tech-oriented firms, while the opposite occurs in production-oriented firms.
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Technology convergence, open innovation, and dynamic economy
Open innovation and technology convergence—particularly through emerging technologies like IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence—can drive economic growth and sustainable development. When these concepts operate within networks, they generate increasing returns and create new market demand, addressing global economic stagnation and supporting the transition to a dynamic fourth industrial revolution economy.
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Orchestrating Innovation Ecosystems: A Qualitative Analysis of Ecosystem Positioning Strategies
This paper analyzes how organizations position themselves within innovation ecosystems through inter-organizational relationships and networks. The authors examine ecosystem positioning strategies and value co-creation through boundary-spanning activities, revealing how collaborative innovation practices vary across different organizational contexts and ecosystem structures.
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The mediating role of absorptive capacity on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and technological innovation capabilities
This study examines how absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and technological innovation capabilities in small and medium enterprises. Using survey data from 432 SMEs in Kurdistan, Iraq, the research finds that both entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity significantly influence innovation capabilities. Absorptive capacity acts as a mechanism through which entrepreneurial orientation strengthens technological innovation, enabling firms to leverage external knowledge for innovation.
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Match and manage: the use of knowledge matching and project management to integrate knowledge in collaborative inbound open innovation
Firms using inbound open innovation need more than just absorptive capacity to succeed. This study shows that how companies actively manage incoming knowledge—through project management and knowledge matching procedures—directly affects their innovation performance. The choice of governance approach matters as much as the firm's existing knowledge foundation.
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How open innovation processes vary between urban and remote environments: slow innovators, market-sourced information and frequency of interaction
The paper challenges the assumption that innovation happens mainly in cities. It shows that remote areas do produce first-to-market innovations, but through different mechanisms. Slow innovators in isolated locations rely on non-market information and infrequent contact with others, while fast innovators cluster near cities using market-sourced information and frequent interactions. This difference explains why innovation occurs in both settings.
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Determinants of absorptive capacity: the value of technology and market orientation for external knowledge acquisition
Firms acquire external technological knowledge through alliances and licensing, but success depends on internal capabilities. This paper argues that technology orientation and market orientation directly determine absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to explore, retain, and exploit external knowledge. The framework links these orientations to three absorptive capacity stages under varying environmental conditions, showing that internal technological and market knowledge are critical for effective external knowledge acquisition.
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Diffusion of Innovations and the Theory of Planned Behavior in Information Systems Research: A Metaanalysis
This meta-analysis examines how well Diffusion of Innovations and Theory of Planned Behavior predict technology adoption in information systems research. Analyzing 58 empirical studies, the authors found that attitude toward behavior, relative advantage, and compatibility are the strongest predictors of adoption, while complexity negatively affects it. These relationships hold consistently across different studies, validating core assumptions in IS innovation research.
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Open innovation and new issues in R&D organization and personnel management
Open innovation practices reshape how companies organize R&D and manage researchers. Italian multinational firms in pharmaceuticals, food, chemicals, and aerospace increasingly collaborate with universities and external research centers, adopt matrix and network structures, and hire knowledge integrators rather than traditional scientists. Personnel management and training models shift away from Anglo-American approaches toward Japanese and German practices emphasizing collaborative expertise.
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Curiosity on Cutting-Edge Technology via Theory of Planned Behavior and Diffusion of Innovation Theory
This study examines what drives consumer adoption of smartwatches by combining two behavioral theories. Researchers surveyed 291 smartwatch users and found that both psychological factors (like perceived control and curiosity) and technical factors (compatibility and complexity) shape whether people intend to use the technology. Compatibility emerged as the strongest predictor of adoption intent, while curiosity and complexity showed the highest performance impact.
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Circular economy practices and environmental performance: Analysing the role of big data analytics capability and responsible research and innovation
This study examines how big data analytics capability and responsible research and innovation drive circular economy practices in manufacturing, ultimately improving environmental performance. Using survey data from 326 manufacturers, the research finds that responsible research and innovation has the strongest influence on environmental outcomes. Circular economy practices partially mediate the effects of both big data analytics and responsible innovation on environmental performance, though resource commitment does not significantly moderate these relationships.
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Environmental collaboration, responsible innovation, and firm performance: The moderating role of stakeholder pressure
Environmental collaboration drives responsible innovation in firms, which improves performance. This effect strengthens when stakeholder pressure increases. The study of 225 firms demonstrates that responsible innovation mediates the relationship between environmental collaboration and firm performance, advancing understanding of how companies can leverage environmental strategies to achieve business success.
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Investigating open innovation strategies and firm performance: the moderating role of technological capability and market information management capability
This study examines how technological capability and market information management capability influence the relationship between open innovation strategies and firm performance. Using survey data from 238 Chinese high-tech enterprises, the researchers found that technological capability strengthens inbound open innovation's impact on performance. For outbound open innovation, high technological capability combined with high market information management capability produces superior results. The findings reveal specific capability combinations that maximize the performance benefits of different open innovation approaches.
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Sustainability Condition of Open Innovation: Dynamic Growth of Alibaba from SME to Large Enterprise
Alibaba rapidly became a global e-commerce leader by adopting open innovation business models while managing the complexity and transaction costs these models create. The company succeeded through developing an open-innovation-friendly culture rooted in consumer confidence and relationship-building (Guanxi), combined with an expanding feedback loop platform that continuously strengthened its business model. This cultural foundation allowed Alibaba to control complexity costs inherent in open innovation.
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Open data outcomes: U.S. cities between product and process innovation
U.S. cities have created open data portals to increase government transparency, but this generates broader innovation outcomes than typically recognized. Research with 15 city managers reveals that open data drives two types of innovation: external product innovation (apps, websites, services) and internal process innovation (procedural changes, cultural shifts). The study recommends structural, procedural, and cultural changes to maximize open data initiative success.
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Reconciling the Dilemma of Knowledge Sharing: A Network Pluralism Framework of Firms’ R&D Alliance Network and Innovation Performance
Firms face a dilemma: R&D alliances provide access to external knowledge but risk knowledge leakage. This study shows that industrial networks strengthen the relationship between alliance networks and innovation performance in an inverted U-shape, while political connections weaken it. A firm's technological capability amplifies these network effects.
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How does organisational absorptive capacity matter in the assimilation of enterprise information systems?
Organizations adopt enterprise resource planning systems through both internal learning capabilities and external institutional pressures. This study shows that absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to learn and apply new knowledge—moderates how institutional pressures influence ERP adoption. Potential absorptive capacity strengthens responses to competitive mimicry, while realized absorptive capacity strengthens responses to professional norms. Both dimensions directly improve system assimilation.
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National Intervention and the Diffusion of Policy Innovations
National legislation influences whether states adopt policy innovations in human services, even without mandates or financial incentives. Using event history analysis of three policy innovations—individual development accounts, family caps, and medical savings accounts—the study finds that national intervention affects state adoption by either reducing obstacles to innovation or providing resources to overcome them. National action that addresses neither factor has no significant effect on state decisions.
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The process of user-innovation: a case study in a consumer goods setting
Users developing new products in kitesurfing follow a structured two-stage process: idea generation and idea realisation. Unlike manufacturers' formal development phases, users employ intuition-driven approaches but still follow identifiable sequences. Manufacturers can improve innovation by closely observing how users actually invent and develop products.
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Disrupting the Technology Innovation Efficiency of Manufacturing Enterprises Through Digital Technology Promotion: An Evidence of 5G Technology Construction in China
China's 5G Technology Pilot Construction policy in 2018 significantly improved manufacturing enterprises' technology innovation efficiency. The positive effect was strongest in cities with higher digital financial capabilities and among enterprises with lower initial technology capabilities. The findings suggest that promoting 5G infrastructure can enhance innovation performance across manufacturing sectors.
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The circular economy, environmental performance and environmental management systems: the role of absorptive capacity
Organizations struggle to implement circular economy practices, but developing absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit knowledge—significantly improves their success. Analysis of over 800 European certified organizations shows that absorptive capacity directly enables circular economy implementation and environmental management systems adoption, which together enhance organizational performance. Environmental pressure from peers does not drive commitment to circularity.
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The Role of Natural and Human Resources on Economic Growth and Regional Development: With Discussion of Open Innovation Dynamics
Natural resources alone do not drive economic growth in Bulukumba Regency, Indonesia. The study finds that combining natural resource optimization with human resource development significantly boosts regional economic growth, accounting for 47.2% of variation. Community culture and regulation also matter. The authors recommend strengthening human capacity through technology adoption and cultural change to accelerate economic development.
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Managing Open Innovation: A Project-Level Perspective
This study examines how innovation project characteristics—specifically complexity and uncertainty—influence successful open innovation management. Using survey data from 201 American innovation projects, the authors identify five key management factors: openness level, external partner selection, mechanism choice, collaboration formalization, and internal practices. The research demonstrates that project-level attributes matter more than firm-level characteristics alone for managing open innovation effectively.
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From computer ethics to responsible research and innovation in ICT
Computer ethics has shaped information systems research, but responsible research and innovation (RRI) offers a broader framework for governing ICT development. RRI addresses limitations in traditional computer ethics by expanding governance approaches beyond individual ethical concerns to encompass systemic oversight of technology and innovation. Adopting RRI strengthens IS research relevance and builds on existing ethical foundations.
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Open Innovation Implementation to Sustain Indonesian SMEs
Indonesian small and medium enterprises face challenges in marketing, technology, capital access, and human resources despite their economic importance. Open innovation offers a solution by leveraging SMEs' existing agility and adaptability. The authors apply an innovation value chain framework to demonstrate how open innovation methodology can help Indonesian SMEs compete with larger firms and sustain economic growth.
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Using innovation diffusion theory to guide collaboration technology evaluation: work in progress
Researchers developed a survey instrument based on innovation diffusion theory to evaluate collaboration technology adoption. The survey measures five key attributes—relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability—that influence whether groups adopt new systems. The team tested whether face-to-face versus distributed use affects adoption attitudes and refined the survey's reliability and validity for early-stage technology evaluation.
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Sustainable Business Performance: Examining the Role of Green HRM Practices, Green Innovation and Responsible Leadership through the Lens of Pro-Environmental Behavior
Green human resource management practices, responsible leadership, and green innovation all positively influence sustainable business performance in Pakistan's banking sector. Pro-environmental behavior partially mediates the relationship between responsible leadership and sustainable performance. The study surveyed 396 banking professionals and used structural equation modeling to demonstrate that these green management strategies effectively drive business sustainability in developing country contexts.
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Insights on entrepreneurial bricolage and frugal innovation for sustainable performance
Sustainable leadership drives sustainable performance in emerging markets through frugal innovation and entrepreneurial bricolage. The paper proposes that leaders who practice sustainable leadership influence organizational performance by enabling frugal innovation—doing more with less—particularly when combined with entrepreneurial bricolage. The framework addresses poverty alleviation, sustainable education, and community development as pathways to economic growth and environmental protection.
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Entrepreneurial co‐creation: societal impact through open innovation
This paper examines how for-profit and not-for-profit entrepreneurs collaborate through open innovation initiatives like accelerators and living labs to create both business and social value. The authors find that different entrepreneur types pursuing shared opportunities generate competing social and business values. They identify four propositions showing how entrepreneurs' profit orientation and resource contributions determine what kinds of social value emerge from co-creation efforts.
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How Firms Develop Capabilities for Crowdsourcing to Increase Open Innovation Performance: The Interplay between Organizational Roles and Knowledge Processes
Firms using crowdsourcing for innovation perform differently based on their internal capabilities. This study identifies how informal roles, formal roles, and knowledge processes work together to build crowdsourcing capability. The research finds that both types of organizational roles operate through knowledge articulation and codification to strengthen a firm's ability to benefit from crowdsourced solutions to technical problems.
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Effects of absorptive capacity, trust and information systems on product innovation
Trust and information systems drive product innovation in manufacturing firms, but their effects work primarily through absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge. Trust and information systems also strengthen absorptive capacity itself. The study of 276 Chinese manufacturers shows that absorptive capacity amplifies innovation when trust and information systems are strong, revealing how organizational systems and knowledge management interact to boost new product development.
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How Individuals Engage in the Absorption of New External Knowledge: A Process Model of Absorptive Capacity
This paper presents a process model showing how individuals absorb external knowledge through three stages: recognizing value by assessing motivation and feasibility, corroborating value through legitimacy and shared understanding, and championing integration by securing resources. The model reveals that individual engagement determines whether knowledge gets exploited, terminated, or stalls. The findings highlight individuals' critical role in converting potential absorptive capacity into realized organizational learning.
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Does Information Technology Improve Open Innovation Performance? An Examination of Manufacturers in Spain
Spanish manufacturing firms using open innovation models achieve better patent and product innovation outcomes when they invest in information technology. The study finds an inverted U-shaped relationship between external R&D spending and innovation performance. IT investments reduce the costs of identifying, assimilating, and utilizing external knowledge, making open innovation a viable strategic alternative to traditional in-house R&D.
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Network Closure or Structural Hole? The Conditioning Effects of Network–Level Social Capital on Innovation Performance
This study examines how network-level social capital affects firm innovation performance. Using simulation data, the researchers found that network density moderates the impact of firm-level social capital measures on innovation. In sparse networks, both direct connections and bridging positions enhance innovation. In dense networks, direct connections become less valuable and bridging positions actually harm innovation performance.
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Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and the Diffusion of Innovations
Punctuated equilibrium theory explains how public policy innovations spread across U.S. states through three distinct mechanisms: gradual emulation, rapid imitation between states, and immediate responses to shared external shocks. Using the Bass diffusion model on 81 policy innovations, the research measures how external and internal influences drive adoption patterns and shows that policy image and federal involvement shape diffusion timing and speed.
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The Effect of Employer Networks on Workplace Innovation and Training
Establishments whose managers participate in industry associations, civic organizations, and multi-unit firm networks adopt high-performance work practices and employee training programs more frequently and intensively than isolated firms. Managers embedded in multiple networks show the strongest commitment to work reorganization and training. Social ties between organizations drive organizational learning and innovation diffusion.
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Financialized Corporations in a National Innovation System: The U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry
U.S. pharmaceutical companies face a productivity crisis despite favorable institutional conditions for drug development. The paper argues that financialization—prioritizing shareholder returns through stock buybacks and dividends over R&D investment—explains this paradox. Driven by stock-based executive compensation, major U.S. firms extract value for shareholders at innovation's expense, while less-financialized European competitors successfully exploit the U.S. innovation system. The authors contend that corporate governance prioritizing innovation could unlock greater pharmaceutical productivity.
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The Role of Early Adopters in the Diffusion of New Products: Differences between Platform and Nonplatform Innovations
Early adopters play different roles in spreading platform versus nonplatform innovations. For platform innovations, early adopters drive diffusion by sharing their opinions and experiences with others. For nonplatform innovations, early adopters drive diffusion through imitation—later buyers adopt simply because competitors have adopted. Firms should target different early adopter segments based on innovation type to maximize diffusion success.
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Frugal-based innovation model for sustainable development: technological and market turbulence
This study examines how sustainable leadership drives frugal innovation in small and medium enterprises across emerging markets. Using data from 500 SMEs in China and India, the researchers found that market and technological turbulence strengthen the relationship between sustainable leadership and frugal innovation. Frugal innovation mediates the connection between sustainable leadership and business performance in these contexts.
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Unpacking Open Innovation: Absorptive Capacity, Exploratory and Exploitative Openness, and the Growth of Entrepreneurial Biopharmaceutical Firms
Absorptive capacity and external relationships drive growth in small biopharmaceutical firms. A study of 349 firms across the US, UK, France, and Germany shows that a firm's ability to recognize and use external knowledge matters significantly for expansion. Exploratory partnerships depend on sustained R&D investment, while exploitative partnerships require stronger internal knowledge absorption capabilities.
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User-driven Innovation in Tourism—A Review of Methodologies
This literature review identifies sixteen distinct methodologies for user-driven innovation in tourism, ranging from active user involvement to passive information collection. The authors examine how companies engage customers in innovation processes and the quality of dialogue between them. They find that tourism research lacks comprehensive follow-up on whether user-driven innovation actually improves quality outcomes, and they outline priority areas for future investigation.
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Linking Resilience Theory and Diffusion of Innovations Theory to Understand the Potential for Perennials in the U.S. Corn Belt
This paper combines resilience theory with diffusion of innovations theory to analyze how perennial crops could be adopted in the U.S. Corn Belt. The authors examine the conditions and barriers that affect whether farmers will shift from annual commodity crops to perennial alternatives, using theoretical frameworks to understand both the ecological benefits of such transitions and the social factors driving agricultural innovation adoption.
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Diffusion of complex health innovations--implementation of primary health care reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina successfully scaled family-medicine-centered primary health care reforms to cover over 25% of the country despite post-war devastation and resource constraints. The reforms succeeded because they aligned with stakeholder expectations, created perceived benefits for physicians, nurses, and policymakers, and involved multifaceted interventions across the health system. The post-conflict context enabled transformational change, and consensus-building among diverse adopters reduced resistance to implementation.
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A service ecosystem perspective on the diffusion of sustainability-oriented user innovations
This paper argues that service ecosystem theory better explains how sustainability-focused user innovations spread through markets and communities. The authors identify three key insights: diffusion involves multiple levels and actors working together, user innovators must be integrated as active ecosystem participants, and innovation spreads through ongoing co-creation rather than one-way adoption. The findings suggest policymakers should build innovation infrastructure that recognizes and supports users as drivers of sustainable change.
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Interfirm Exchange and Innovation in Platform Ecosystems: Evidence from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference creates opportunities for app developers to exchange knowledge and collaborate. The study finds that developers attending the conference released more major app updates with positive consumer feedback. Larger and more established firms benefited most, likely because they had greater resources and experience to leverage these exchanges. Learning and collaboration accounted for part of these innovation gains.
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Investigating the impact of networking capability on firm innovation performance: using the resource-action-performance framework
Networking capability drives firm innovation performance through a self-reinforcing cycle involving inter-organizational knowledge mechanisms and co-learning. The study examined Iranian automotive companies and found that these three elements work together cumulatively to boost innovation outcomes. Firms that effectively apply knowledge-sharing mechanisms within networks achieve stronger innovation performance than those focusing on isolated capabilities.
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Determinants of Retailers’ Cross-channel Integration: An Innovation Diffusion Perspective on Omni-channel Retailing
Retailers in the U.S. adopt cross-channel integration based on their information-technology capabilities and private-label offerings, according to an innovation diffusion framework. Moderate product diversity supports integration better than high or low diversity. Financial resources matter more when industry concentration is high. The study identifies technology, organizational, and environmental factors driving omni-channel retail adoption.
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An alter-centric perspective on employee innovation: The importance of alters’ creative self-efficacy and network structure.
Employee innovation depends on the creative self-efficacy and innovation behavior of their social network contacts. A study of 144 U.S. product development workers found that employees with network contacts who have high creative self-efficacy and strong innovation behavior generate and implement more novel ideas themselves. This effect strengthens when those contacts have less densely connected networks. Employees with initially low creative self-efficacy also gain confidence when connected to high-efficacy contacts.
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Exploring users motivation in innovation communities
Users participate in online innovation communities for different reasons depending on the community type and technology they adopt. The study finds that learning is a key motivational factor driving participation in innovation intermediary communities. Understanding user characteristics and motivations helps organizations effectively engage virtual communities in their innovation processes.
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DEA PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF THE NATIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEM IN ASIA AND EUROPE
This study measures the efficiency of national innovation systems across 33 Asian and European countries using data envelopment analysis. Korea and Taiwan rank highest in Asia, while Romania leads Europe. Asian countries generally outperform European countries in innovation production. Technical inefficiencies stem primarily from pure technical factors rather than scale issues. The analysis identifies key inputs and outputs driving each country's innovation system performance.
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Attributes required for profiting from open innovation in networks
Individual and organizational attributes determine success in open innovation networks. A study of EURADOS, a European research network on radiation dosimetry with 200 members across 31 countries, found that members profit unequally from participation. Openness and the ability to contribute are equally important attributes for gaining value from the network in terms of increased innovativeness, reduced costs, and improved task fulfillment.
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Information–Communication Technologies Open up Innovation
Information and communication technologies enable open innovation by connecting organizations with external sources like customers, suppliers, and vendors to generate, develop, test, and commercialize ideas. ICTs support the entire innovation process from initial ideation through commercialization, moving beyond internal use to facilitate distributed innovation across organizational boundaries.
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Towards technological rules for designing innovation networks: a dynamic capabilities view
Inter-organizational innovation networks allow firms to access complementary resources beyond their boundaries. This paper develops design-oriented knowledge for configuring these networks effectively. The research addresses how firms can build dynamic capabilities to leverage external resources for competitive advantage as innovation increasingly shifts away from individual companies.
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The Role and Meaning of the Digital Transformation As a Disruptive Innovation on Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises
Digital transformation acts as disruptive innovation in manufacturing SMEs, reshaping product development, production methods, and organizational structures. A Delphi study of 49 experts across eleven EU countries identified three key drivers: technological changes, innovative business models, and organizational culture. Success requires clear understanding of disruptive innovation, internal and external enablers, and mitigation strategies for obstacles. SMEs that fail to adopt disruptive innovations will not survive within 5-10 years.
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Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and Its Implication for Open Innovation
This bibliometric analysis examines 1,419 international publications on activity-based costing (ABC) systems from Web of Science and Scopus databases. The study identifies growing publication trends, collaborative networks between authors and institutions, and research themes across countries. ABC systems help organizations allocate indirect costs more accurately than traditional methods, enabling better resource management and cost control in modern economic contexts.
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Asymmetry of the technological cycle of disruptive innovations
This paper develops a model to measure how disruptive technologies grow relative to established technologies in competitive markets. Using the US music recording industry as a case study, the research finds that disruptive technologies grow disproportionately fast, follow an asymmetric cycle with longer growth phases than decline phases, and undergo multiple technological advances that enable market dominance. The findings expand disruptive innovation theory and offer management guidance.
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Disruptive innovation from a process view: A systematic literature review
This systematic literature review examines how disruptive innovation unfolds over time rather than treating it as a fixed outcome. The authors identify three key dynamics: timing of market entry, synchronization of events and actions, and adaptability of strategic responses. They argue disruptive innovation emerges through complex, non-linear processes shaped by these interconnected factors, offering managers better tools to recognize and guide disruption as it develops.
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Antitrust and Innovation: Welcoming and Protecting Disruption
Antitrust policy should protect competition because rivalry drives firms to innovate. Horizontal mergers between competitors reduce innovation incentives by eliminating parallel R&D efforts, though merger synergies may offset this harm. Dominant firms may use exclusionary conduct to suppress disruptive competitors, which reduces both the threat of disruption and incumbent incentives to innovate. The authors develop a taxonomy of merger cases and exclusionary strategies using US and EU examples.
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The Role of Stakeholders in the Context of Responsible Innovation: A Meta-Synthesis
This meta-synthesis of seven empirical studies examines how stakeholders participate in responsible research and innovation (RRI) projects. The authors find that stakeholders typically join late in the innovation process, during market launch, limiting their influence on design. Academic researchers and multi-institutional project leaders orchestrate participation. The paper argues that innovation management practices—particularly early user involvement—should be integrated into RRI governance to enable more responsible outcomes and meaningful stakeholder influence.
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A triple helix model of medical innovation: <em>Supply</em>, <em>demand</em>, and <em>technological capabilities</em> in terms of Medical Subject Headings
This paper develops a triple helix model to understand medical innovation by analyzing interactions between disease demand, drug supply, and technological capabilities. Using medical research publications from MEDLINE/PubMed, the authors identify periods when these three dimensions align synergistically. They find that the strongest innovation driver is the connection between disease needs and available technologies, followed by supply-demand and supply-technology links. The model helps reduce uncertainty in medical innovation governance.
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Evidence and Experience of Open Sustainability Innovation Practices in the Food Sector
Open sustainability innovation practices in the food sector reduce costs, accelerate time to market, and improve environmental performance while addressing food security. Analysis of ten case studies demonstrates how food companies strategically adopt these collaborative approaches to compete effectively while meeting sustainability goals.
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OPEN FOR BUSINESS: UNIVERSITIES, ENTREPRENEURIAL ACADEMICS AND OPEN INNOVATION
Universities are adopting open innovation models to engage academics with industry and society, but research shows these new collaboration activities fail to motivate entrepreneurial academics to participate. The study reveals a gap between policy intentions for open innovation and what actually drives academics to engage in knowledge transfer, suggesting universities may struggle to become truly open institutions without better understanding what motivates their researchers.
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Openness and Innovation Performance: Are Small Firms Different?
Small manufacturing plants benefit more from diverse innovation partnerships than larger plants do. Using Irish manufacturing data, the study finds that small plants gain significantly from broadening their innovation linkages, though they face diminishing returns at lower diversity levels than larger firms. Small plants also benefit more from supply chain partnerships. The research suggests small firms must choose partners carefully when expanding their innovation networks.
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Barriers to Open Innovation: Case China
This paper examines why Chinese firms hesitate to adopt open innovation practices. The researchers identify three main barriers: internal company factors, institutional weaknesses (particularly intellectual property protection), and cultural differences. They find that economic systems and IPR protection significantly influence whether firms engage in open innovation, that knowledge-buying and knowledge-selling face different appropriability challenges, and that national cultural traits shape which open innovation elements companies actually adopt.
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Extending the Environment–Strategy–Performance Framework: The Roles of Multinational Corporation Network Strength, Market Responsiveness, and Product Innovation
This study examines how multinational corporations operating in China use their internal networks to manage market and technological turbulence while pursuing market responsiveness and product innovation strategies. Analysis of 140 foreign firms reveals that different environmental pressures affect these strategic approaches unequally, and that while network strength, market responsiveness, and product innovation each independently boost performance, their combined effects produce mixed results.
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Conditioning Factors for Fertility Decline in Bengal: History, Language Identity, and Openness to Innovations
Colonial education and modernization created early elite adoption of new ideas in Bengal. Strong Bengali language identity paradoxically reinforced diffusion of modern concepts across Bangladesh and West Bengal, facilitating mass mobilization for social change. Language identity and cultural commonality, shaped by historical processes, made these regions more receptive to fertility decline and social innovation than other South Asian areas.
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Species in the wild: a typology of innovation ecosystems
This paper develops a comprehensive typology of innovation ecosystems by analyzing systematic literature reviews and identifying 50 distinct varieties. The authors extract 14 typology criteria from existing research and consolidate them into five organizing dimensions: life cycle stage, structural characteristics, innovation focus, scope of activities, and performance outcomes. This framework enables systematic classification and comparison of different innovation ecosystem types.
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Knowledge infrastructure capability, absorptive capacity and inbound open innovation: evidence from SMEs in France
French SMEs with stronger knowledge infrastructure capabilities—spanning technology, structure, and culture—absorb external knowledge more effectively and implement open innovation more successfully. Absorptive capacity partially mediates this relationship. The study validates a measurement instrument for knowledge infrastructure capability and demonstrates its direct positive impact on both absorptive capacity and inbound open innovation performance in small and medium enterprises.
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Motivation Gaps and Implementation Traps: The Paradoxical and Time‐Varying Effects of Family Ownership on Firm Absorptive Capacity
Family ownership affects how firms absorb and use external knowledge in contradictory ways. The authors identify two gaps—motivation and implementation—that explain why family ownership can either strengthen or weaken a firm's capacity to acquire and exploit new knowledge. The effects depend on specific conditions and change over time, particularly during ownership succession periods.
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International migration and innovation diffusion: an eclectic survey
Highly skilled migrants drive innovation diffusion across countries through multiple pathways. This survey examines how migration enables knowledge transfer from origin to host countries and vice versa, as well as among destination countries. The paper emphasizes that social ties among migrants and the distinction between accessing general information versus exchanging specialized knowledge are critical factors in understanding how migration spreads innovation globally.
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Patenting motives, technology strategies, and open innovation
Swedish firms with higher levels of open innovation place greater importance on patenting, particularly for protecting product technologies and freedom to operate, and for bargaining purposes. The study surveyed large firms and SMEs, finding that open innovation strengthens most patenting motives compared to closed innovation strategies, except for attracting customers.
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Implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Practices in Industry: Providing the Right Incentives
This paper examines how to encourage industrial companies to adopt Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)—research that is ethically sound and socially beneficial. The authors propose a framework of incentives organized by type: external versus internal, instrumental versus non-instrumental, and direct versus indirect. They identify specific incentives including corporate reputation, consumer demand, certification, employee engagement, and governance structures. The paper argues that RRI adoption benefits both business competitiveness and society, and outlines conditions necessary for successful implementation in industrial settings.
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The social network side of individual innovation
This meta-analysis examines how social network properties affect individual innovation. Brokerage—having connections across different groups—most strongly predicts innovation, followed by network size and diversity. Closure and strong ties show weaker effects. The study reveals that network size and strength influence innovation indirectly through brokerage and diversity, and that strong ties create tradeoffs with both positive and negative innovation effects.
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Stock Market Reaction to COVID-19: Evidence in Customer Goods Sector with the Implication for Open Innovation
This paper analyzes stock market reactions in the consumer goods sector before and after COVID-19 emerged. Using daily stock price and trading volume data from 90 days before and after the pandemic's onset, researchers found significant differences in market behavior. The findings support the efficient market hypothesis and suggest investors should prioritize consumer goods companies producing essential products like food, beverages, and pharmaceuticals during economic crises.
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Interdependence, Perception, and Investment Choices: An Experimental Approach to Decision Making in Innovation Ecosystems
Decision makers systematically overestimate success in interdependent innovation projects. When success probabilities are presented separately for each partner rather than as a combined probability, people become more optimistic, especially with more partners involved. This leads to inflated project valuations, adding unnecessary partners, and overinvestment in individual components. The pattern holds across different risk contexts and participant groups from students to executives.
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Open innovation in the food and beverage industry
Open innovation practices boost firm performance in food and beverage companies, but differently than in other sectors. The study of 10,771 European firms from 2004-2011 shows that food and beverage companies achieve optimal innovation results using fewer external knowledge sources than firms in other industries, despite following the same inverted U-shaped relationship between open innovation intensity and performance.
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Motivation and sorting of human capital in open innovation
This paper examines how open innovation projects attract and retain contributors with different motivations. Using open source software data, the authors show that developers sort themselves based on project characteristics, particularly licensing choices. Intrinsic motivation, reputation building, and career signaling drive contributions more than reciprocity. Project managers can strategically design business models to attract the right talent and improve performance.
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Absorptive capacity: a proposed operationalization
This paper develops a practical framework for measuring absorptive capacity—a company's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit new knowledge. The authors examine ten innovative companies to test their operationalization approach, connecting absorptive capacity to dynamic capabilities and business strategy. The research provides concrete methods for assessing how firms actually absorb and use external knowledge.
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Entrepreneurial opportunities with toolkits for user innovation and design
User innovation toolkits shift product design from manufacturers to customers, enabling companies to develop products that precisely match customer needs while avoiding costly market research. The paper identifies two entrepreneurial strategies: high-end toolkits for radical innovation and low-end toolkits for mature markets. Startups are best positioned to exploit these opportunities, either as manufacturers or as intermediaries between users and established producers.
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The role of open innovation in fostering SMEs’ business model innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic
Open innovation practices enabled small and medium enterprises to transform their business models during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examined six SMEs across traditional sectors and found that external pressure from the crisis drove business model innovation, with open innovation management playing a central role in this transformation. Digital transformation often accompanied these changes.
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Containing the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome in external knowledge absorption and open innovation: The role of indirect countermeasures
The Not-Invented-Here Syndrome causes organizations to reject external knowledge, harming innovation. This paper identifies two types of countermeasures: direct approaches that change negative attitudes toward external knowledge, and indirect approaches that reduce the behavioral impact of those attitudes without changing them. Research across 32 interviews and 565 R&D projects shows perspective-taking effectively reduces NIHS effects and improves external knowledge absorption and project success.
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Explaining high and low performers in complex intervention trials: a new model based on diffusion of innovations theory
This study examined why some general practices in London successfully implemented a rapid HIV testing intervention while others struggled. Using ethnographic observation and interviews, researchers found that high-performing practices had strong leadership, good management relations, staff training culture, and available resources. Staff in these practices believed the test benefited patients and felt comfortable using it. Low-performing practices lacked these characteristics and experienced resource constraints. The diffusion of innovations theory effectively explained performance variation across organizations.
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Applying Theory of Diffusion of Innovations to Evaluate Technology Acceptance and Sustainability
The paper presents IASAM2, an improved model for evaluating technology acceptance and sustainability by applying Rogers' Theory of Diffusion of Innovations. The model combines socio-economic and socio-technical factors to assess how technologies are adopted and sustained. This approach simplifies earlier evaluation methods while addressing the critical challenge of predicting technology acceptance across different contexts.
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Network Structures in Regional Innovation Systems
This paper bridges regional innovation systems theory with social network analysis to clarify how knowledge networks actually function in regions. The authors connect network-theoretical concepts to established RIS typologies, demonstrating that applying precise network analysis methods reveals interaction patterns obscured by the RIS literature's metaphorical use of 'network'. The work shows how both fields strengthen each other through cross-disciplinary insights.
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Knowledge withholding: psychological hindrance to the innovation diffusion within an organisation
Knowledge withholding—both intentional hiding and unintentional hoarding—disrupts innovation diffusion within organizations. The paper distinguishes knowledge withholding from knowledge sharing using Herzberg's two-factor theory and identifies four territorial behaviors that drive knowledge withholding. Research has overlooked this barrier while focusing on knowledge sharing, leaving a gap in understanding what prevents innovation spread across organizational members.
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Managing learning in informal innovation networks: overcoming the Daphne‐dilemma
Informal innovation networks—collaborative arrangements between organizations developing new products or processes—offer unique advantages for early-stage innovation work. However, they face a fundamental tension: insufficient management wastes their potential and reduces productivity, while excessive management destroys the informality that enables their creative and exploratory strength. The authors examine this 'Daphne-dilemma' through network theory and knowledge management perspectives.
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Supply chain innovation research: A bibliometric network analysis and literature review
This bibliometric analysis of 230 supply chain innovation articles identifies 12 research clusters spanning 1997–2021, including green supply chain innovation, knowledge management, and supply chain integration. The authors develop a matrix linking operational and management practices to innovation outcomes, revealing that modern supply chain innovation emphasizes eco-innovation, digitalization, and collaboration. The framework helps practitioners design supply chain innovation strategies and measure performance impacts.
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The Impact of Enterprise Resource Planning on Business Performance: With the Discussion on Its Relationship with Open Innovation
Enterprise resource planning systems improve financial and non-financial performance in Saudi small and medium enterprises. The study surveyed 120 Saudi SMEs and found that management support, user satisfaction, and training significantly drive effective ERP adoption. These systems enhance overall business performance, helping SMEs compete in increasingly crowded markets.
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Implications of Open Innovation for Organizational Boundaries and the Governance of Contractual Relations
This paper examines how firms balance openness with control in collaborative innovation. It argues that value creation requires managing multiple organizational boundaries—competence, power, identity, and efficiency—while value capture depends on relational contract design rather than formal appropriation alone. The authors propose that firms use dynamic capabilities to strategically configure boundaries and contractual mechanisms to enable knowledge exchange while preventing unintended leakage.
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Evolution of strategic interactions from the triple to quad helix innovation models for sustainable development in the era of globalization
The paper argues that sustainable economic development requires strategic interaction between government, universities, and industry—the triple helix model. As globalization and the service sector expanded, civil society emerged as a necessary fourth actor, creating the quad helix model. The author contends that developing and middle-income countries must adopt global best practices in science park creation within this quad helix framework to strengthen technological innovation and build competitive economic capacity.
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Sources of Variation in the Efficiency of Adopting Management Innovation: The Role of Absorptive Capacity Routines, Managerial Attention and Organizational Legitimacy
This paper examines how firms efficiently adopt management innovations through two case studies of offshore business service sourcing. The research shows that absorptive capacity routines—the processes firms use to learn and implement new practices—vary in their effectiveness depending on their sequence, adequacy, and interdependencies. Managerial attention and organizational legitimacy emerge as critical factors determining adoption speed and success. Top-level change agents prove more effective than local problem-solving at directing attention and building support for both the innovation and the routines needed to implement it.
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Fast and expensive: the diffusion of a disappointing innovation
Firms often imitate innovations adopted by competitors, but this study shows that when an innovation underperforms expectations, observing other firms actually use or abandon it deters further adoption. The research demonstrates that negative information from early adopters halts diffusion of disappointing innovations, even though firms initially imitate the adoption decision itself.
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Realized and Potential Absorptive Capacity: Understanding Their Antecedents and Performance in the Sourcing Context
This paper develops a conceptual model explaining how companies successfully absorb knowledge from sourcing relationships. It distinguishes between potential absorptive capacity at the interorganizational level and realized absorptive capacity at the intraorganizational level. The model identifies knowledge, relational, and institutional contexts as drivers of potential capacity, while social embeddedness and interfunctional coupling within organizations enable knowledge integration and realization.
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Economic Development and National System of Innovation Approach
This paper examines how national systems of innovation drive economic development. The authors analyze the institutional frameworks, policies, and networks that enable countries to generate and adopt innovations. They argue that understanding innovation systems is essential for developing effective economic strategies, particularly for nations seeking to improve competitiveness and prosperity through technological advancement and knowledge creation.
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Exploring University Students’ Adoption of ChatGPT Using the Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Sentiment Analysis With Gender Dimension
This study examines how university students adopt ChatGPT using diffusion of innovation theory and sentiment analysis. Five innovation attributes—relative advantage, compatibility, ease of use, observability, and trialability—significantly influence student adoption. Gen Z students view ChatGPT as innovative and user-friendly for independent learning. Gender differences emerge: male students prioritize compatibility and observability, while female students emphasize ease of use and trialability. The findings highlight the need for demographic-sensitive design in AI technologies for educational contexts.
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Investigating the Research Trends on Strategic Ambidexterity, Agility, and Open Innovation in SMEs: Perceptions from Bibliometric Analysis
This bibliometric analysis of 606 articles from 2008–2021 examines how small and medium enterprises can combine strategic ambidexterity, agility, and open innovation to survive crises like COVID-19. The authors propose a business model integrating these three elements, showing that open innovation helps SMEs develop ambidexterity and agility for competitive advantage. British scholars dominate citations on this topic.
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Extended Reality in Higher Education, a Responsible Innovation Approach for Generation Y and Generation Z
This study examines how extended reality (XR) technologies can enhance higher education for younger generations. Researchers surveyed 103 students in Serbia and Romania about their knowledge of and attitudes toward XR in universities. Results show XR improves teaching by letting students control their learning strategies and increases interactivity. Generation Z students view XR more positively, focusing on opportunities rather than challenges.
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Multiplex Network Ties and the Spatial Diffusion of Radical Innovations: Martin Luther’s Leadership in the Early Reformation
Martin Luther's personal networks drove the Reformation's spread across Europe. The study reconstructs Luther's influence network using his correspondence, visits, and student enrollments to show that cities with direct personal ties to Luther—through multiple relationship types—adopted Protestantism at higher rates. Combined with existing trade routes, these multiplex personal connections enabled the Reformation to expand from a regional movement into a continent-wide institutional transformation.
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Open Innovation Engineering—Preliminary Study on New Entrance of Technology to Market
This paper develops a conceptual model of open innovation engineering to address how technology reaches markets in the fourth industrial revolution. The authors identify open innovation channels that function as knowledge funnels to overcome capitalism's growth limits. They validate the model through literature review and apply it to papers from a 2019 special issue, establishing a foundation for further research on innovation channels and market entry mechanisms.
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Innovation as the key to gain performance from absorptive capacity and human capital
This study examines how Spanish wine companies achieve strong organizational performance through innovation, absorptive capacity, and human capital. The research of 138 firms shows that absorptive capacity and human capital enable businesses to fully realize the benefits of innovation. The findings demonstrate that these three resources—absorptive capacity, human capital, and innovation—drive performance and competitive advantage.
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Knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity: interdependency and complementarity
This study resolves contradictions about how knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity relate to each other. The authors show that absorptive capacity has two dimensions—potential and realized—and that knowledge sharing bridges between them. Knowledge donation emerges as an output of absorptive capacity rather than just an input. The findings apply to team and firm-level management, emphasizing knowledge collection's central role in leveraging organizational learning.
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Goal Multiplicity and Innovation: How Social and Economic Goals Affect Open Innovation and Innovation Performance
Commercial firms pursuing both social and economic goals source external knowledge more effectively and achieve better innovation performance than those focused on economics alone. Analysis of 1,257 Belgian firms shows social and economic goals are independent, not conflicting. Firms benefit most when both goal types are strongly emphasized together. Social goals uniquely drive external collaboration, while economic goals alone limit open innovation adoption.
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Impact of knowledge sharing, learning adaptability and organizational commitment on absorptive capacity in pharmaceutical firms based in Pakistan
Pakistani pharmaceutical firms depend on absorbing external knowledge from foreign technology sources. This study shows that employee behaviors—specifically knowledge sharing, learning adaptability, and organizational commitment—significantly strengthen a firm's absorptive capacity. Knowledge acquisition functions as routine work, while adaptability and commitment matter most during strategic planning. Human capital, not just technology infrastructure, drives a firm's ability to absorb and compete with new knowledge.
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New shapes and new stakes: a portrait of open innovation as a promising phenomenon
This paper examines open innovation as a concept in innovation management and economics. The authors clarify what makes open innovation distinct from related earlier concepts, identify different forms open innovation takes in practice, and analyze the benefits and costs of various open innovation approaches. The work synthesizes existing research and identifies future research directions for understanding this innovation model.
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Good Practices in Open Innovation
Open innovation has become standard practice in firms establishing dedicated groups and budgets. This paper identifies twelve good practices that drive high-quality open innovation efforts. The authors argue these practices are essential inputs to an effective organizational open innovation system and provide guidance for managers to implement and continuously improve their open innovation processes.
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Absorptive Capacity and Source‐Recipient Complementarity in Designing New Products: An Empirically Derived Framework<sup>*</sup>
This paper examines how firms absorb external design knowledge from sources outside their organization and use it in new product development. Analyzing cases in clothing and construction industries, the authors identify three distinct absorption processes and show that complementarity between the recipient firm's existing knowledge and the source's design knowledge critically determines NPD success. Design knowledge combined with prior marketing or technological knowledge drives better product innovation outcomes.
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Wither Core Competency for the Large Corporation in an Open Innovation World
Large corporations have shifted from focusing on internal core competencies to acting as system integrators and market coordinators in open innovation networks. Companies now outsource manufacturing and component innovation while broadening their technology base, vertically disintegrating their operations. This transformation reflects a move from closed, internal innovation models to distributed value chains where large firms orchestrate external partners rather than controlling all capabilities internally.
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The Changing Structure of American Cities: A Study of the Diffusion of Innovation
American cities have restructured over 50 years following innovation diffusion patterns. Mayor-council cities adopted council-manager features to improve efficiency, while council-manager cities adopted mayor-council features to increase responsiveness. The result is a convergence toward hybrid governance models that blur traditional distinctions between the two forms.
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Examining the Impact of Adoption of Emerging Technology and Supply Chain Resilience on Firm Performance: Moderating Role of Absorptive Capacity and Leadership Support
Firms with stronger intellectual capability, agility, and integration adopt emerging technologies more readily, which improves supply chain resilience and performance. Absorptive capacity strengthens the link between intellectual capital and technology adoption, while leadership support amplifies the positive effect of technology adoption on firm performance. The study validates this model across multiple firms.
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Reconciling Models of Diffusion and Innovation: A Theory of the Productivity Distribution and Technology Frontier
This paper develops a theory explaining how firms' choices to innovate, adopt new technology, or continue with existing methods shape the overall productivity distribution and drive economic growth. Innovation stretches the productivity gap between best and worst firms, while technology adoption compresses it. The balance between these forces determines growth rates. Adoption conditions influence innovation incentives through technology licensing and the value of waiting to adopt, ultimately affecting long-run growth.
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Variety of national innovation systems (NIS) and alternative pathways to growth beyond the middle-income stage: Balanced, imbalanced, catching-up, and trapped NIS
This study analyzes national innovation systems across 32–35 economies using patent data to identify pathways for growth beyond middle-income status. The research identifies five distinct innovation system clusters and confirms two successful catching-up pathways: balanced systems (Ireland, Spain, Hong Kong, Singapore) and imbalanced systems (Korea, Taiwan, China). Other economies remain trapped in middle-income status due to opposite characteristics in technology cycle time, originality, localization, and diversification.
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Re-designing the business organization using disruptive innovations based on blockchain-IoT integrated architecture for improving agility in future Industry 4.0
This paper proposes integrating blockchain and Internet of Things technologies to redesign business operations for greater agility in Industry 4.0. The authors demonstrate their approach using a sensorized industrial pump that monitors operations in real time and enables predictive asset management. They argue that combining blockchain's decentralization, security, and autonomous coordination features with IoT capabilities helps manufacturing, oil and gas, engineering, construction, and utility companies operate more agilely.
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Technology, Value Co-Creation and Innovation in Service Ecosystems: Toward Sustainable Co-Innovation
This paper develops a framework for managing value co-creation and sustainable innovation in service ecosystems through technology-mediated resource and knowledge integration. The framework identifies four key drivers—co-design, co-development, co-delivery, and co-learning—operating across micro, meso, and macro levels. A case study of an Italian wood packaging company demonstrates how managers can leverage these mechanisms to enable continuous sustainable innovation and knowledge renewal.
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Responsible innovation by social entrepreneurs: an exploratory study of values integration in innovations
Social entrepreneurs integrate ethical values into their innovations by creating direct socio-ethical value for beneficiaries, coordinating stakeholder action, and evaluating impact. This study of 42 social enterprises reveals they develop bottom-up solutions that scale through institutional support, enabling systems-level change. The research provides a practical model for implementing and scaling responsible innovation in business contexts.
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Expanding the field of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) – from responsible research to responsible innovation
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has become prominent in policy but remains narrow and top-down. This special issue broadens RRI by examining how researchers, firms, and other actors actually practice responsible innovation across sectors and regions. The authors expand RRI beyond research processes to include how knowledge becomes innovation in society, and encompass non-research-driven innovation. Ten case studies reveal heterogeneous responsibility practices, leading to recommendations for a multidimensional, multi-scale RRI framework.
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How do Scientists Contribute to the Performance of Innovative Start‐ups? An Imprinting Perspective on Open Innovation
Scientists boost innovative startup performance by promoting open innovation through broad and deep external search, but only when multiple scientist founders work together to transfer their lab-based career experiences. This advantage strengthens further when startups adopt strategic planning and commercial goals. However, scientist founders can become a liability if startups neglect strategic planning or prioritize non-commercial objectives.
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Innovation network, technological learning and innovation performance of high-tech cluster enterprises
High-tech cluster enterprises in China improve their innovation performance through strong innovation networks and technological learning. Network position and relationship strength directly boost technology acquisition, digestion, and exploitation. These technological learning stages build sequentially, with each stage enhancing the next, ultimately driving innovation performance. Enterprises should strengthen both their innovation networks and technological learning capabilities.
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Absorptive capacity and small family firm performance: exploring the mediation processes
Small family firms in India improve performance by developing absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire and apply new knowledge. The study shows this works indirectly: absorptive capacity enables firms to adopt entrepreneurial, market, and technology orientations, which then drive better performance. Strategic orientation acts as the mechanism linking knowledge investment to business results.
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Absorptive capacity and mass customization capability
Manufacturing firms in China improve their mass customization capabilities by absorbing knowledge from customers and suppliers. The study identifies four absorptive capacity processes—acquiring knowledge from customers and suppliers, assimilating it, and applying it—that work together to enhance customization. Knowledge from external sources drives improvements both directly and indirectly through internal knowledge management practices.
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The Effects of Diversity and Network Ties on Innovations
This study analyzes how diversity affects innovation in scientific collaboration. Using data from 1,354 researchers who created the Oncofertility field through 469 publications, the authors find that innovation benefits from both homophily and diversity. Shared country residence and prior collaborations reduce uncertainty, while cognitive diversity enables the knowledge recombination necessary for breakthrough innovation.
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The empathic care robot: A prototype of responsible research and innovation
This paper presents a prototype care robot with emotional capabilities to explore ethical issues in emerging technologies. The authors use this fictional scenario to demonstrate how responsible research and innovation practices can anticipate and address ethical problems before technologies are deployed. They argue that integrating ethical considerations into technology development from the start helps ensure innovations are socially acceptable and desirable.
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Distributed Innovation in Classes of Networks
Digital technologies reshape innovation by reducing communication costs and enabling convergence, creating distributed innovation networks. The authors propose a framework identifying four network types: singular innovation, open source innovation, internal markets of innovation, and doubly distributed innovation networks. These emerge from increasing distribution of control among actors and growing heterogeneity in knowledge resources mobilized during innovation processes.
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Do knowledge sharing and big data analytics capabilities matter for green absorptive capacity and green entrepreneurship orientation? Implications for green innovation
Big data analytics capabilities directly strengthen firms' ability to absorb green knowledge and adopt green entrepreneurship practices. Knowledge sharing amplifies these effects. Together, these factors drive green innovation in manufacturing. The study demonstrates that aligning data analytics with green business strategies creates a foundation for sustainable competitive advantage.
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The interactive effect of innovation capability and potential absorptive capacity on innovation performance
This study examined how innovation capability and absorptive capacity work together to improve firm performance. Researchers surveyed 238 firms in Peru's cultural tourism destinations and found that the combination of these two factors significantly boosts innovation performance. The findings help companies in tourism-dependent regions develop strategies to enhance competitiveness and sustainability.
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Stimulating frugal innovation via information technology resources, knowledge sources and market turbulence: a mediation-moderation approach
IT resources directly boost frugal innovation in small and medium enterprises, and this effect is partly mediated by knowledge sources. Market turbulence strengthens how knowledge sources drive innovation in functionality and ecosystem design, but weakens their impact on cost reduction. The study surveyed 355 Pakistani SME employees and identifies IT investment and knowledge management as levers for developing-country firms to build frugal innovation capabilities.
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How frugal innovation shape global sustainable supply chains during the pandemic crisis: lessons from the COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic, frugal innovation emerged informally across global supply chains to address critical shortages of medical equipment and supplies. This study identifies key drivers of frugal-oriented sustainable supply chains in emerging countries, finding that government support, policies, and regulations—mediated by leadership and moderated by national culture—drive adoption of new technologies, volunteering, and ethical practices, which in turn strengthen supply chain talent and frugal engineering capabilities.
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The evolution of cooperation in the face of conflict: Evidence from the innovation ecosystem for mobile telecom standards development
This study examines how firms cooperate within innovation ecosystems despite patent litigation conflicts. Using data from mobile telecom standards development, the authors find that firms increase cooperation with litigation opponents while simultaneously strengthening ties with other partners to influence standards direction. Technological complementarities and network position determine whether firms pursue direct cooperation with adversaries or alternative partnerships.
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Multilingual English users’ linguistic innovation
This paper examines whether non-native English speakers can innovate linguistically in English. Using social media data from multilingual users in the Sinophone world, the author demonstrates that creative language mixing combining English with other languages and semiotic resources constitutes genuine linguistic innovation rather than error. A translanguaging perspective reveals these expressions as socio-politically meaningful innovations and challenges traditional notions of discrete named languages.
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Information technology and firm performance: mediation role of absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship in manufacturing SMEs
This study examines how information technology capabilities improve performance in manufacturing SMEs in Pakistan. The research finds that absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship partially explain this relationship. IT technical skills that flow through absorptive capacity and then corporate entrepreneurship most strongly predict firm performance, revealing the mechanisms through which technology investments translate into business success.
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Do Individual Employees' Learning Goal Orientation and Civic Virtue Matter? A Micro‐Foundations Perspective on Firm Absorptive Capacity
Individual employee characteristics drive firm absorptive capacity—the ability to identify, assimilate, and exploit external knowledge. Employees with learning goal orientation strengthen both potential and realized absorptive capacity. Civic virtue, employees' discretionary involvement in company issues, acts as a social integration mechanism that bridges the gap between potential and realized absorptive capacity in high-technology firms.
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The team absorptive capacity triad: a configurational study of individual, enabling, and motivating factors
Knowledge-intensive teams develop absorptive capacity through three complementary factors: individual team members' knowledge absorption abilities, organizational systems enabling knowledge integration, and motivational structures encouraging knowledge sharing. The study of 48 teams across four Dutch firms shows that weakness in any single factor reduces overall team performance, and these factors function as complements rather than substitutes.
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Consumers' Creative Talent: Which Characteristics Qualify Consumers for Open Innovation Projects? An Exploration of Asymmetrical Effects
This study examines which consumer characteristics enable effective participation in open innovation projects. The researchers tested how different creativity components affect consumers' ability to generate ideas, develop concepts, and build prototypes, plus their interest in co-creation. They found that creativity components have asymmetrical effects: some characteristics only matter above certain thresholds, while others show diminishing returns beyond specific levels.
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Open innovation management: challenges and prospects
South Korean companies practice open innovation differently than Western firms studied in existing literature. A survey of 85 South Korean companies found significant variations in open innovation activities based on industry type, company size, market type, and R&D intensity. The research identifies gaps between South Korean open innovation practices and established theoretical trends, revealing that context-specific factors shape how companies adopt open innovation strategies.
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Identification of Lead User Characteristics Driving the Quality of Service Innovation Ideas
This study identifies which lead user characteristics produce higher-quality service innovation ideas. Analyzing 120 ideas from an online services innovation contest for soccer clubs, the researchers found that dissatisfied customers and highly experienced users generate the best ideas. Companies should recruit dissatisfied users from complaint databases and experienced users into closed-membership idea contests to improve innovation outcomes.
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Forecasting the market diffusion of disruptive and discontinuous innovation
This paper develops a forecasting model for disruptive and discontinuous innovations that accounts for multiple markets and learning curve effects. The model integrates diffusion forecasting theory with disruptive innovation literature and provides practical guidelines for application. The work addresses the growing need to predict market adoption of disruptive innovations as technological convergence accelerates.
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Digital Servitization and Business Model Innovation in SMEs: A Model to Escape From Market Disruption
Small and medium manufacturing enterprises face market disruption from rapid digital technology adoption. This study develops a digital servitization model that enables SMEs to redesign their business models by delivering smart, connected products and services. The model helps SMEs overcome disruption and compete effectively despite their limited resources, offering practical guidance for manufacturing firms transitioning to service-based operations.
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Modeling nonlinear systems using the tensor network B‐spline and the multi‐innovation identification theory
This paper develops a tensor network B-spline method to model nonlinear autoregressive exogenous systems with high dimensions. The approach uses multi-innovation identification theory and hierarchical principles to create a recursive algorithm that handles Gaussian noise. The method outperforms traditional polynomial and neural network approaches by reducing computational burden while maintaining strong fitting capacity for highly nonlinear systems.
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Innovation of Startups, the Key to Unlocking Post-Crisis Sustainable Growth in Romanian Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Romanian startups face significant vulnerability during crises like COVID-19. The paper surveyed 168 students about entrepreneurial opportunities and found that startups must innovate through ICT-based businesses and social entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable growth. Building strong relationships with employees, industry peers, public sector, academia, and citizens, combined with green business practices, enables startups to recover and develop a resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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Determinants of frugal innovation for firms in emerging markets: the roles of leadership, knowledge sharing and collaborative culture
Transformational leadership and knowledge sharing drive frugal innovation in emerging market firms. The study of 381 participants across 116 manufacturing and service firms found that transformational leadership directly boosts frugal innovation and indirectly strengthens it through knowledge sharing. Collaborative culture amplifies how knowledge sharing translates into frugal innovation capability. Leaders practicing transformational styles and fostering organizational collaboration significantly enhance firms' ability to innovate frugally.
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Modifying UTAUT and innovation diffusion theory to reveal online shopping behavior
This study combines technology acceptance and innovation diffusion theories to understand online shopping behavior for smartphones. The research finds that website performance and ease of use increase familiarity with the site, while virtual communities and product trials boost product familiarity. Perceived risk reduces purchase intention. Website and product familiarity mediate the relationship between these factors and buying decisions. Managers should build online communities and provide detailed product trial information to increase consumer familiarity and purchase intent.
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Open innovation strategies in the food and drink industry: determinants and impact on innovation performance
Food and drink companies adopt three distinct open innovation strategies, from limited collaboration with traditional partners to broad engagement with diverse external sources. Technology pressures drive companies toward greater openness. The research shows that more open collaboration approaches significantly improve innovation performance, but only when companies establish dedicated structures to manage and leverage external knowledge effectively.
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The Adoption of ISO 9000 Standards within the Egyptian Context: A Diffusion of Innovation Approach
This study examines why Egyptian manufacturing companies adopt ISO 9000 quality standards. The researchers surveyed 239 firms and found that three factors drive adoption: how companies perceive the standards' advantages and complexity, external pressures like competition and regulatory demands, and internal organizational features such as management support and company size. All three factor groups significantly influence whether firms implement these standards.
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Knowledge Diffusion, Trade, and Innovation across Countries and Sectors
This paper develops a framework showing how trade, innovation, and knowledge diffusion interact across countries and sectors. Using an economic model calibrated to real-world data, the authors find that reducing trade costs shifts research and development investment between sectors and changes comparative advantage. Knowledge diffusion varies across sectors and amplifies these specialization effects, creating significant welfare gains.
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Idea Convergence Quality in Open Innovation Crowdsourcing: A Cognitive Load Perspective
Open innovation crowdsourcing generates many ideas but struggles to identify quality ones for development. This study tested how different types of cognitive load affect idea convergence quality using laboratory experiments. Germane cognitive load—mental effort directly supporting the task—improved convergence quality and satisfaction, while intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads reduced satisfaction. Knowledge self-efficacy, goal clarity, and need for cognition strengthened these positive effects, offering practical guidance for designing crowdsourcing tasks.
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Understanding the diffusion and adoption of digital finance innovation in emerging economies: M-Pesa money mobile transfer service in Kenya
M-Pesa's rapid adoption in Kenya demonstrates how digital financial innovations succeed in emerging economies. The study applies technological innovation systems theory to explain M-Pesa's growth, finding that local adaptation, coordination, learning, and localized capabilities drive diffusion. The research reveals that standard innovation frameworks miss critical factors specific to emerging markets, and recommends policies to stimulate digital financial innovation across Africa.
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When do states disrupt industries? Electric cars and the politics of innovation
States successfully drive technological change in mature industries when political competition among interest groups and agencies allows policymakers to build coalitions supporting new technologies, rather than relying on bureaucratic autonomy alone. Comparing Germany and the United States, the authors show that Germany's consensus-based coordination between government and incumbent automakers resulted in weak electric vehicle policy, while the United States' competitive political environment enabled strong intervention that disrupted the auto sector despite industry opposition.
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Applying social innovation theory to examine how community co-designed health services develop: using a case study approach and mixed methods
Community co-designed health services in rural Australia emerge when local participants combine contextual knowledge with external facilitation, but require manager and policymaker support to sustain. Social innovation theory effectively explains how grassroots innovations develop through three stages: growth, development, and diffusion. Political relationships and compatibility with existing health systems determine whether innovations survive beyond pilot phases.
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Absorptive capacity and knowledge management in small and medium enterprises
Small and medium enterprises need to access external knowledge through relationships, but research has not adequately examined how these relationships support knowledge management. This paper develops a framework using absorptive capacity to explain how SMEs manage external knowledge. It applies this framework to understand how new ventures build capabilities during startup and how knowledge flows within geographical clusters.
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Openness in innovation and business models: lessons from the newspaper industry
This paper examines how open business models affect the newspaper industry in Denmark. Using interviews with major media companies and data from 2002-2011, the authors show that internet technology disrupted traditional newspaper business models. They argue that openness in business models is more complex than existing literature suggests, with different implications for business viability than previously reported.
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Developing innovation capability through learning networks
Learning networks significantly enhance innovation capability in organizations. The paper examines how firms develop and strengthen their capacity to innovate by participating in collaborative learning networks. These networks facilitate knowledge exchange, skill development, and capability building across participating organizations, enabling them to generate and implement innovations more effectively than isolated competitors.
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Venture team human capital and absorptive capacity in high technology new ventures
High-technology startups use acquisitions and joint ventures to acquire new knowledge as existing knowledge becomes obsolete. This study of 340 U.S. high-tech ventures finds that the diversity of skills and experience on the top management team strengthens how well these ventures learn from venturing activities and convert that learning into innovation and financial performance. However, the overall level of management team experience alone does not matter.
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Green innovation networks: A research agenda
Green innovations emerge from organizational collaborations, yet little research examines the networks driving them. This literature review of 63 papers identifies green innovations across products, services, processes, business models, and marketing. The authors map different actor types, network structures, and engagement motivations. They propose three research priorities: horizontal collaborations among peers, cross-sectoral partnerships including public-private arrangements, and the role of users as active network participants in developing green innovations.
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Big data analytics capabilities and MSME innovation and performance: A double mediation model of digital platform and network capabilities
Big data analytics capabilities directly improve financial performance in small and medium manufacturing enterprises by strengthening their digital platform and network capabilities. Network capabilities mediate the relationship between analytics and both supply chain innovation and financial performance, while digital platforms specifically enhance supply chain innovation. These findings demonstrate how data analytics drives MSME performance through interconnected digital and networking infrastructure.
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Aligning firm's value system and open innovation: a new framework of business process management beyond the business model innovation
This paper develops a framework integrating open innovation principles with business process management to improve how firms create and capture value. The authors connect strategic value systems with operational processes, showing how firms can align their internal value creation with external innovation ecosystems. The framework bridges the gap between strategy and operations literature, offering a comprehensive approach to managing value co-creation beyond traditional business model innovation.
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MOOCs, disruptive innovation and the future of higher education: A conceptual analysis
This paper examines whether MOOCs truly constitute disruptive innovation in higher education. By comparing MOOC characteristics against established criteria for disruptive innovation across performance, benefits, and market dimensions, the authors find that MOOCs do not fully meet the definition of disruptive innovation. Instead, MOOCs function as sustaining innovation, creating new educational markets for learners traditionally underserved by universities.
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Novel Negative Poisson’s Ratio Lattice Structures with Enhanced Stiffness and Energy Absorption Capacity
This paper develops three new lattice structures with negative Poisson's ratio by modifying a re-entrant design with embedded ribs. The novel lattices significantly increase stiffness, strength, and energy absorption capacity compared to standard negative Poisson's ratio materials. Researchers validated the designs through simulation and physical prototypes made via additive manufacturing, confirming the structures perform as predicted and show promise for engineering applications.
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Towards building internal social network architecture that drives innovation: a social exchange theory perspective
Organizations spread across multiple locations can drive innovation by deliberately building internal social networks that encourage employee interactions and knowledge sharing. The paper argues that social capital and relationship-building should be prioritized alongside formal organizational structures. By fostering both strong bonds within teams and bridges across departments, companies can improve collaboration, knowledge flow, and innovation capacity in dispersed workforces.
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How venture capital became a component of the US National System of Innovation
Venture capital emerged as a key institution within the US national innovation system through a combination of government policies, technological trajectories in information and biomedical industries, and regional concentration. The paper traces how VC became integrated into the broader innovation ecosystem, showing that neither government action alone nor market forces alone explain its rise, but rather their interaction shaped this institutional development.
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OPEN INNOVATION, GENERATIVITY AND THE SUPPLIER AS PEER: THE CASE OF IPHONE AND ANDROID
This paper examines how suppliers in open innovation networks shift from passive contractors to active creative peers. Using iPhone and Android as case studies, the authors argue that generative capacity—not mere openness—drives platform wealth creation. Both platforms achieve generativity through different balances of openness and control, demonstrating that suppliers contribute most effectively when platforms enable creative participation alongside strategic governance.
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Six sigma, absorptive capacity and organisational learning orientation
Six sigma quality management practices strengthen firms' absorptive capacity—their ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge. The study of 237 European firms, including 58 using six sigma, shows that six sigma teamwork and process management directly boost absorptive capacity, which in turn enhances organizational learning. These findings explain why six sigma implementation drives competitive advantage and organizational performance.
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Firms' open innovation policies, laboratories' external collaborations, and laboratories' R&D performance
This study analyzes 203 laboratories in Japanese firms to measure how open innovation policies at the firm and laboratory levels affect R&D performance. The research finds that firm-level open innovation policies significantly boost laboratory collaborations with universities and businesses, which in turn improves R&D performance. The impact varies depending on the type of R&D work being conducted, offering insights for managing research and development effectively.
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A new case of fish‐eating in Japanese macaques: implications for social constraints on the diffusion of feeding innovation
Japanese macaques on Koshima island discovered and consumed a new fish species, with 16 individuals feeding in turns. Social factors shaped access to the food: spatial position determined rank order, dominance controlled monopolization duration, and kinship influenced tolerance among nearby feeders. The behavior persisted along maternal lineages, demonstrating how social structure constrains the spread of feeding innovations in wild primate groups.
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Exploring the role of organizational creativity and open innovation in enhancing SMEs performance
This study examines how organizational creativity and open innovation affect small and medium enterprise performance in Indonesia. Using data from 206 SMEs, the research found that both organizational creativity and open innovation significantly improve business performance. The study defines organizational creativity as combining individual creativity, group creativity, internal environment, and knowledge creation—a broader framework than previous research. The findings counter the perception that research and development is too costly, demonstrating direct performance benefits.
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The differential effects of potential and realized absorptive capacity on imitation and innovation strategies, and its impact on sustained competitive advantage
This study examines how firms' ability to absorb external knowledge—both potential and realized absorptive capacity—influences their choice between imitation and innovation strategies. Using survey data from 211 managers and structural equation modeling, the authors find that imitation and innovation are complementary strategies rather than opposing ones. Organizations that effectively absorb external knowledge can leverage both strategies together to achieve sustained competitive advantage.
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Smart City 4.0 from the Perspective of Open Innovation
Smart cities can solve urban problems and improve quality of life by leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies and open innovation platforms. The paper argues that cities function as platforms where connectivity and innovation drive economic value creation. Through digital twins, cloud computing, and citizen participation via mobile devices, cities self-organize like complex adaptive systems. The authors propose a self-organizing city model based on a Smart City Tech-Socio framework to guide implementation strategies.
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Green Governance: New Perspective from Open Innovation
This paper proposes a green governance framework that uses open innovation to balance economic development with environmental protection. The framework involves cooperation among enterprises, governments, social organizations, the public, and nature. It examines how open innovation activities can address resource and environmental externalities while coordinating economic and environmental values. The authors suggest countries and regions can adapt this framework to suit their environmental capacity and enterprises can use it to develop sustainable strategies.
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Insights for orchestrating innovation ecosystems: the case of EIT ICT Labs and data-driven network visualisations
This paper demonstrates how data-driven network visualization and social network analysis can help orchestrate innovation ecosystems. Using EIT ICT Labs as a case study, the authors reveal key actors, connections, and characteristics within Europe's ICT innovation ecosystem. Their framework enables decision-makers to develop shared vision and strategically guide ecosystem transformation through continuous visual and quantitative analysis.
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The impact of clean energy consumption, green innovation, and technological diffusion on environmental sustainability: New evidence from load capacity curve hypothesis for 10 European Union countries
This study analyzes how clean energy consumption, green innovation, and technological diffusion affect environmental sustainability across ten European Union countries from 1990 to 2018. Using the load capacity curve hypothesis framework, researchers found that green innovation and technological diffusion significantly support environmental sustainability, with the hypothesis validated for Denmark, France, Portugal, and Spain. The findings demonstrate that these factors are critical for promoting environmentally friendly practices.
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Economic, Functional, and Social Factors Influencing Electric Vehicles’ Adoption: An Empirical Study Based on the Diffusion of Innovation Theory
This study identifies factors driving electric vehicle adoption using diffusion of innovation theory. Survey data from 375 respondents reveals that perceived compatibility, complexity, and relative advantage predict EV adoption. Economic factors like subsidies and price risk, functional factors like intelligent features and sustainability concerns, and social factors like status and reputation significantly influence these perceptions. The findings help explain why EV market penetration lags despite environmental benefits.
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The fall of the innovation empire and its possible rise through open science
The innovation system's effectiveness is declining because research costs rise exponentially while researcher productivity falls, resulting in flat innovation output. Three factors drive this decline: growing scientific complexity, misaligned incentives, and fragmented knowledge. Open science partnerships—public-private collaborations using open access publications, shared data and materials, and minimal intellectual property restrictions—can reverse this trend by improving system efficiency.
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Industry 4.0 transition: a systematic literature review combining the absorptive capacity theory and the data–information–knowledge hierarchy
This systematic literature review examines Industry 4.0 digital transformation through a knowledge management lens, using absorptive capacity theory and the data-information-knowledge hierarchy. Analyzing 150 papers, the authors find that big data analytics receives the most research attention across all phases of knowledge acquisition and use, while internet of things technology is explored primarily for data collection. Cybersecurity and smart manufacturing remain understudied despite their relevance to digital transitions.
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Broad Search, Deep Search, and the Absorptive Capacity Performance of Family and Nonfamily Firm R&D
Family firms and nonfamily firms learn differently from their R&D investments. Family influence strengthens the ability to convert R&D into exploitative innovations through deep external search, but weakens the ability to develop exploratory innovations through broad external search. Analysis of 346 Dutch manufacturing firms confirms this pattern.
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Varieties of responsibility: two problems of responsible innovation
This paper examines what responsibilities innovators actually bear toward society and stakeholders. The authors identify two core problems: first, innovation involves many agents and unpredictable causal chains, making it hard to assign responsibility fairly; second, backward-looking blame for failures can discourage forward-looking learning. They resolve these tensions by distinguishing between holding innovators responsible and their willingness to take responsibility, and by clarifying that responsibility applies to both innovation processes and outcomes. Accountability and virtue-based responsibility matter most.
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Intellectual Property Norms in Online Communities: How User-Organized Intellectual Property Regulation Supports Innovation
User-organized intellectual property norms in online communities like Threadless enable innovation by providing legal certainty and protecting creators' work without formal law enforcement. The study identifies an integrated system of established norms that regulate IP use, fostering cooperation and cumulative innovation in anonymous, large-scale communities. These norms-based systems compensate for formal IP law's ineffectiveness online and offer practical guidance for managing crowdsourcing platforms.
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Information systems absorptive capacity for environmentally driven IS‐enabled transformation
Organizations can leverage information systems to address environmental sustainability by developing IS-environmental absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply environmental knowledge through IS. The study identifies that sustainable IS triggers, knowledge exposure, and prior experience build this capacity, which then drives environmentally sustainable IS adoption and improves cost savings, operational performance, and organizational reputation. Survey and case study evidence confirm the model.
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A Holistic Model of Building Innovation Ecosystems
This paper systematizes the lifecycle processes required to build innovation ecosystems. The authors review existing knowledge and identify key factors that influence how these ecosystems evolve over time. They highlight open questions and suggest future research directions for understanding ecosystem development.
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Disruptive Innovation … in Reverse: Adding a Geographical Dimension to Disruptive Innovation Theory
This paper integrates disruptive innovation theory with reverse innovation to explain how emerging economies generate new products and technological solutions. The authors propose a geographical framework for categorizing disruptive innovation, showing that innovations originating in developing regions can challenge established markets globally. The work expands innovation theory by recognizing emerging economies as legitimate sources of disruption rather than mere adopters.
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The combined influence of top and middle management leadership styles on absorptive capacity
This study examines how leadership styles of top and middle managers together influence organizational absorptive capacity—the ability to learn and apply new knowledge. The research finds that different management style combinations work best for different learning types: exploratory learning requires both levels to use transformational leadership, transformative learning works when top management uses transformational and middle management uses transactional styles, and exploitative learning succeeds when both use transactional styles. Organizational context attributes also affect how well these leadership combinations perform.
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The Impact of Absorptive Capacity on Innovation: The Mediating Role of Organizational Learning
This study examines how absorptive capacity drives innovation in small and medium-sized Spanish companies, revealing that organizational learning acts as a critical mediator in this relationship. Using structural equation modeling on 306 company surveys, the research shows that absorptive capacity translates into actual innovation primarily when learning capability is actively engaged. The findings help organizations understand how to manage knowledge more effectively to boost innovation performance.
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On the nexus of innovation, trade openness, financial development and economic growth in European countries: New perspective from a GMM panel VAR approach
This study analyzes relationships between innovation, trade openness, financial development, and economic growth across 11 European countries from 2001 to 2016. The research finds that economic growth drives financial development, and trade drives growth, but innovation and trade both show negative relationships with growth. The authors recommend stronger financial regulation, country-specific innovation policies, improved institutional quality, and targeted incentives for local companies to maximize benefits from trade openness.
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Cross-national knowledge transfer, absorptive capacity, and total factor productivity: the intermediary effect test of international technology spillover
Cross-national knowledge transfer improves total factor productivity across China's provinces by strengthening absorptive capacity through foreign direct investment, trade, and technology spillovers. Domestic infrastructure, R&D investment, human capital, and economic openness enhance a region's ability to absorb and use international knowledge. Import trade generates the strongest spillover effects linking knowledge transfer to productivity gains.
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Regional innovation systems: what can we learn from 25 years of scientific achievements?
This paper reviews 25 years of research on regional innovation systems, identifying four main clusters in the literature: regional knowledge systems, institutional systems, research and development systems, and network systems. The authors map different theoretical approaches to regional innovation systems using bibliometric analysis, providing a foundation for policymakers and researchers to design new territorial innovation policies and guide future research directions.
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The impact of open-border organization culture and employees’ knowledge, attitudes, and rewards with regards to open innovation: an empirical study
Organizations with open-border cultures are significantly more likely to adopt open innovation practices. Employee knowledge and rewards act as key mediators strengthening this relationship. The study analyzed 528 employees across 28 industrial sectors in 37 European countries, finding that organizational openness directly increases open innovation adoption, while employee knowledge and reward systems amplify this effect.
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Innovating Pedagogy 2019: Open University Innovation Report 7
This report identifies ten emerging pedagogical innovations already in use but not yet widely adopted in education systems. The innovations address teaching, learning, and assessment for interactive environments. The report aims to guide teachers and policymakers in implementing these approaches effectively to improve educational outcomes.
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Key settings for successful Open Innovation Arena
This paper identifies the key conditions for establishing successful open innovation arenas within organizations. Through a survey of 25 researchers at a Portuguese engineering institute, the authors find that culture, leadership, and strategy are the primary drivers enabling firms to access external knowledge and collaborate effectively. Culture emerges as the most critical factor, followed by resources, processes, and measurement systems that support open innovation practices.
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Open Service Innovation: The Role of Intermediary Capabilities
Intermediaries with digital service platforms develop three key capabilities—technological, marketing, and co-creation—to help clients innovate their services. Co-creation capabilities act as a higher-order capability that shapes and improves how technological and marketing capabilities work together. These intermediaries enable clients to overcome internal barriers and successfully pursue open service innovation within their service ecosystems.
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Implementing Responsible Research and Innovation Practices in SMEs: Insights into Drivers and Barriers from the Austrian Medical Device Sector
Austrian medical device SMEs largely lack awareness of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as a formal concept, yet many already practice elements of it. The paper identifies drivers and barriers to RRI implementation in small firms, showing that SMEs can build on existing responsible practices to develop more comprehensive RRI approaches tailored to their organizational contexts and constraints.
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How Environmental Innovations Emerge and Proliferate in Supply Networks: A Complex Adaptive Systems Perspective
Environmental innovations in supply networks emerge through self-organizing processes that cross organizational boundaries, according to this qualitative study of two firms. The research shows that once innovations enter the network, they spread through decentralized coordination rather than top-down control by dominant firms. The authors develop a process model explaining how environmental innovations come into being and proliferate across supply networks over time.
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Evolution, roots and influence of the literature on National Systems of Innovation: a bibliometric account
This bibliometric analysis traces the National Systems of Innovation literature from its roots in innovation economics and science policy research through its evolution over 20 years. The field shows irregular publication patterns and lacks a unified analytical framework. While NSI research concentrates in the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the United States, its influence spreads globally across economics, geography, environmental studies, and business disciplines, with citations from scholars worldwide particularly in Latin America and Asia.
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Leveraging Open Innovation Using Intermediary Networks
Open innovation intermediary networks like InnoCentive connect firms seeking solutions with external knowledge holders through one-off transactions. The paper shows that companies successfully source codified and uncodified knowledge through these platforms by applying procurement and design engineering processes to create organizational learning routines. These routines enable effective knowledge transfer and competitive advantage despite theoretical challenges in knowledge search and transfer.
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OPENNESS IN PRODUCT AND PROCESS INNOVATION
Open innovation benefits both product and process innovation in Australian firms, but external information sources show diminishing returns over time. Internal and external knowledge complement each other primarily for new products and services rather than process innovation. Investment in absorptive capacity yields declining marginal returns for process innovation but not for product innovation.
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Managing knowledge within networked innovation
Firms succeed in networked innovation by adopting strategic knowledge management practices. The paper identifies two types of innovation networks: those exchanging explicit knowledge and intellectual property, and those co-creating new knowledge and opportunities. Success requires firms to understand their partners' business models and strategic motivations, enabling effective knowledge management across collaborative relationships.
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Enabling knowledge creation through outsiders: towards a push model of open innovation
This paper introduces a push model of open innovation where external individuals and organizations voluntarily create and contribute knowledge to firms' projects. Analyzing the Eclipse Development Platform, the authors find that outsiders invest as much effort as the founding firm. They identify four enabling conditions: preemptive generosity, continuous commitment, adaptive governance, and low entry barriers that facilitate this external knowledge creation and contribution.
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Open innovation models adopted in practice: an extensive study in Italy
Italian manufacturing companies adopt open innovation in four distinct models, varying by how many external partners they collaborate with and how many innovation process phases they open to outsiders. The study identifies 'open and closed innovators,' 'integrated collaborators,' and 'specialized collaborators,' showing that openness is not a binary choice but a spectrum companies calibrate to their specific contexts and performance goals.
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Industry Convergence and Its Implications for the Front End of Innovation: A Problem of Absorptive Capacity
When industries converge, companies struggle with idea generation and selection because they must integrate knowledge from different sectors. This study analyzed 54 R&D projects to understand how firms innovate during convergence. The research reveals that companies use different approaches to manage convergence innovation, and firms must develop absorptive capacity on both market and technological dimensions to succeed.
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How does smart technology, artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, and algorithms (STAARA) awareness affect hotel employees’ career perceptions? A disruptive innovation theory perspective
Hotel employees who perceive smart technology and AI negatively report higher job insecurity and desire to leave. Career progression opportunities reduce this effect. The study shows that employees with strong advancement prospects feel less threatened by automation, regardless of their views on the technology. Career development emerges as a practical strategy to help workers adapt to technological disruption in hospitality.
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The role of digital business transformation in frugal innovation and SMEs’ resilience in emerging markets
Digital business transformation significantly strengthens frugal innovation and SME resilience in emerging markets. Organizational learning drives all three factors. The study surveyed 214 SME owners and managers, finding that companies must develop dynamic capabilities in digital transformation, frugal innovation, and organizational learning to survive and thrive in emerging market conditions.
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To walk in beauty: Sustainable leadership, frugal innovation and environmental performance
This study examines how sustainable leadership affects environmental performance in large Pakistani manufacturing firms, with frugal innovation playing a mediating role. Researchers surveyed 500 employees and found that frugal innovation partially explains the relationship between sustainable leadership and improved environmental outcomes. The findings suggest that leaders adopting sustainable practices and resource-efficient innovation strategies can enhance their firms' environmental performance.
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The impact of knowledge management on performance in nonprofit sports clubs: the mediating role of attitude toward innovation, open innovation, and innovativeness
Knowledge management directly improves performance in nonprofit sports clubs and indirectly boosts it by fostering positive attitudes toward innovation and open innovation practices. Clubs that systematically develop and share knowledge—from both internal and external sources—enhance their ability to adopt external ideas, build innovation-friendly cultures, and ultimately innovate more effectively and perform better organizationally.
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Exploring Innovation Ecosystem from the Perspective of Sustainability: Towards a Conceptual Framework
This paper develops a conceptual framework connecting innovation and sustainability across three levels: individual firms, supply chains, and broader ecosystems. The authors argue that achieving sustainable innovation requires involving multiple stakeholders—customers, partners, government, and universities—working together systematically. The framework emerges from literature review and case studies, identifying how different actors can collaborate to embed sustainability into innovation processes.
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When do firms undertake open, collaborative activities? Introduction to the special section on open innovation and open business models
This introductory article frames the intellectual context of the World Open Innovation Conference, summarizing four leading papers on open innovation and open business models. The authors synthesize conference submissions and sessions to establish a research agenda for understanding when and why firms engage in collaborative, open innovation activities.
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Organising for reverse innovation in Western MNCs: the role of frugal product innovation capabilities
Western multinational companies in healthcare and electronics develop reverse innovations—products first adopted in developing countries—by locating design and development in resource-constrained subsidiaries. The study of four companies shows that frugal product innovation capabilities, not headquarters location, determine success in reverse innovation. Building these capabilities in subsidiaries operating under resource constraints proves critical for generating innovations that work in developing markets.
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Start-up absorptive capacity: Does the owner’s human and social capital matter?
Owner human and social capital significantly influence how new ventures absorb external information. Analysis of 199 Flemish start-ups shows that owner experience and bridging social capital boost absorptive capacity. Management experience helps in dynamic environments but hinders performance in stable ones. The effect of owner human capital decreases as environmental turbulence increases.
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Networking Democracy? Social Media Innovations And Participatory Politics
Social media platforms offer new possibilities for democratic participation through open, collaborative networking, but evidence suggests a more cautious view is warranted. The paper examines claims about social media's capacity to strengthen participatory democracy, acknowledging both its potential to disrupt traditional power structures and its limitations in delivering genuine democratic renewal.
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Knowledge Ecologies and Ecosystems? An Empirically Grounded Reflection on Recent Developments in Innovation Systems Theory
This paper critiques the shift from innovation systems theory toward knowledge ecology and ecosystem frameworks. Using Cambridge's biotech sector as evidence, the authors argue these biological metaphors create conceptual problems including reductionism and functionalism. They contend that understanding innovation requires grounding analysis in historical socioeconomic development and the social division of labor, rather than applying abstract ecological concepts.
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Prospects for Developing Absorptive Capacity Through Internal Information Provision
Managers can build organizational absorptive capacity by distributing knowledge internally to employees who might adopt new practices. The effectiveness of this information provision depends on what employees already know from other sources. Prior experience with related practices strengthens the impact of managerial information, while knowledge from previous adopters weakens it. This clarifies when absorptive capacity creates lasting competitive advantage.
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Clinical Team Functioning and IT Innovation: A Study of the Diffusion of a Point-of-care Online Evidence System
Clinical team functioning significantly affects whether healthcare teams effectively use online evidence systems to improve patient care, though it doesn't determine initial awareness or adoption. Small teams showed greater awareness of the system than large teams. The study of 180 clinicians across three Australian hospitals demonstrates that team climate matters most at the implementation stage of innovation diffusion, supporting Rogers' diffusion theory.
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Innovation and users: virtual reality in the construction sector
Construction firms act as users of virtual reality technology developed outside their sector, shaping how the technology evolves through their practical needs. A study of 11 construction organizations found that project characteristics—particularly project size and design reuse—drive different technological requirements for virtual reality use. These divergent user needs, communicated to suppliers, generate distinct solutions tailored to different project types.
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Consumer Behavior in Clothing Industry and Its Relationship with Open Innovation Dynamics during the COVID-19 Pandemic
This study examined how Filipino consumers' clothing purchases changed during COVID-19. Using surveys of 457 respondents, researchers found that marketing mix strategies—including advertisements, promotions, and sales—most strongly influenced actual purchase behavior. COVID-19 severity and consumer self-efficacy also shaped purchasing decisions. The findings show that innovation in marketing approaches and health safety measures drove clothing sales during the pandemic.
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Ecosystem effectuation: creating new value through open innovation during a pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, AirAsia transformed its grounded airline operations by building an open innovation ecosystem rather than pursuing incremental improvements. The company created new value by reconfiguring its business model based on available resources and capabilities, introducing the concept of ecosystem effectuation. This case demonstrates how organizations facing financial distress can use radical ambidexterity and open innovation to survive and generate opportunities.
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Absorptive capacity, marketing capabilities, and innovation commercialisation in Nigeria
Nigerian manufacturing and service firms that invest in absorptive capacity—through openness to external knowledge and formal training—and develop marketing capabilities for new products commercialize innovations more successfully. The study reveals that learning capacity and marketing skills directly drive innovation performance, suggesting government policies should support both knowledge absorption and marketing innovation to help firms capture value from their innovations.
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Aligning sustainability assessment with responsible research and innovation: Towards a framework for Constructive Sustainability Assessment
This paper develops a Constructive Sustainability Assessment framework that combines life-cycle thinking with responsible research and innovation principles to evaluate emerging technologies. The framework uses four design principles—transdisciplinarity, opening-up, exploring uncertainty, and anticipation—and a three-step process involving stakeholder collaboration, sustainability evaluation, and deliberative interpretation. The approach enables scientists, engineers, and policymakers to govern emerging technologies toward sustainability outcomes.
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Benefits and costs of open innovation: the BeCO framework
This study examines whether the benefits of open innovation outweigh its costs for small and medium manufacturing enterprises. The authors developed a framework identifying twelve propositions about benefits and costs of inbound and outbound open innovation. Testing this framework on 96 firms, they found that most companies experience the identified benefits and costs, but surprisingly few suffer from not-invented-here syndrome or loss of competitive advantage.
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Open innovation based knowledge management implementation: a mediating role of knowledge management design
Open innovation drives successful knowledge management implementation in organizations. The study shows that open innovation processes significantly influence how knowledge management systems should be designed, which in turn determines implementation success. Knowledge management processes reinforce each other through interaction effects. Organizations must adapt their knowledge management design based on their chosen open innovation approach to achieve effective knowledge management outcomes.
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Evaluating the adoption of evidence-based practice using Rogers’s diffusion of innovation theory: a model testing study
This study applies Rogers's diffusion of innovation theory to understand evidence-based practice adoption in healthcare settings. The research identifies that attitude toward innovation has the strongest influence on adoption, alongside individual innovation capacity, knowledge, and perceived attributes of the practices themselves. The findings provide guidance for designing training programs that effectively promote evidence-based practice adoption.
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Responsible Innovation: A Complementary View from Industry with Proposals for Bridging Different Perspectives
Industry leaders argue that academic research on Responsible Research and Innovation fails to influence industrial practice because concepts and tools don't align with how companies actually operate. The authors propose bridging the gap between academic RRI frameworks and industry innovation processes by integrating related fields like corporate social responsibility, ethical leadership, and sustainable investment. They call for clearer terminology and methodologies that guide industrial innovation toward better societal outcomes.
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Inbound and Outbound Open Innovation: Organization and Performances
This study examines how open innovation practices relate to company characteristics, R&D organization, and financial performance in 126 major bio-pharmaceutical firms from 2008-2012. Small and young companies adopt open innovation most frequently. Inbound practices (acquiring external knowledge) substitute for internal R&D and show an inverted-U relationship with performance, while outbound practices (licensing out technology) complement internal R&D but correlate with declining financial performance.
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Efficiency and effectiveness between open and closed innovation: empirical evidence in South Korean manufacturers
This study compares open and closed innovation approaches in South Korean manufacturers, introducing new performance measures called efficiency and effectiveness. The research finds that firms using open innovation—acquiring technology and knowledge from external sources—demonstrate significantly higher efficiency and effectiveness than closed innovation firms. The findings demonstrate that external knowledge acquisition positively impacts firm performance.
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Communication channels, innovation tasks and NPD project outcomes in innovation‐driven horizontal networks
This study examines how communication channels affect new product development in inter-organizational networks. Analyzing 93 innovation-driven horizontal networks with 372 respondents, the researchers found that tasks requiring less analysis use richer communication channels, which in turn strengthen network ties and reduce development time. Communication channel richness partially mediates the relationship between task complexity and project outcomes.
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Innovation Diffusion Modeling in the Construction Industry
This study examines how technological and administrative innovations spread through Turkey's construction industry using a flexible diffusion model. The research tracks adoption of CAD technology in architectural design and ISO 9000 certification in precast concrete firms. Internal influence—firms copying peers—drives adoption more than external factors like marketing. The strength of internal influence changes over time differently for each innovation type, offering construction firms practical insights into how imitation shapes technology adoption.
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MANAGING WITHIN DISTRIBUTED INNOVATION NETWORKS
Effective innovation requires management across organizational networks involving suppliers, customers, and partners. This paper identifies relational capabilities needed for distributed innovation management—where multiple organizations collaborate to co-design, co-produce, and co-service customer needs. The authors present a framework and tools supporting innovation from individual employees to network level, illustrated through a case study of six biotechnology organizations working together.
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Modeling diffusion of innovations in a social network
This paper presents a mathematical model showing how innovations spread through social networks when people must weigh upgrade benefits against costs. Agents decide whether to improve their technology level based on local information and economic trade-offs. The model identifies a critical threshold where technological adoption follows power-law patterns, and this threshold maximizes long-term technological growth across the network.
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Digitalizing business models in hospitality ecosystems: toward data-driven innovation
Hospitality businesses must adopt data-driven business models to innovate and create value in digital ecosystems. This study interviewed managers at hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and guesthouses to identify how they use data strategically. The research reveals that strategy is central to enabling data-driven innovation in hospitality, and develops a framework applicable to other service industries and small-to-medium enterprises seeking to leverage data for competitive advantage.
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How does IT capability affect open innovation performance? The mediating effect of absorptive capacity
This study examines how information technology capability drives open innovation performance in Chinese firms. Using survey data from 232 companies, the researchers found that both internal and external IT capabilities boost open innovation performance. Absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—mediates this relationship. The findings suggest Chinese businesses should strengthen the connection between IT investment, knowledge absorption, and innovation outcomes.
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Frugal or Fair? The Unfulfilled Promises of Frugal Innovation
Frugal innovation has gained widespread attention among academics, practitioners, and corporations over the past two decades. This paper examines whether frugal innovation actually delivers on its promises, questioning the gap between the concept's popularity and its real-world outcomes in addressing development challenges and sustainability.
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Charting the Innovation Ecosystem
Innovation ecosystems represent a fundamental shift in how we understand innovation, moving beyond simpler network and cluster models. Unlike networks with predictable relationships, ecosystems are complex adaptive systems where the same inputs produce different outputs and behavior emerges unpredictably. Strong innovation ecosystems combine dynamic collaboration, trust, and co-creation of value around shared technologies, translating knowledge into increased value while resisting disruption.
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An Actor-Network Theory Analysis of Policy Innovation for Smoke-Free Places: Understanding Change in Complex Systems
This paper uses actor-network theory to analyze how jurisdictions successfully implement smoke-free indoor regulations as a tobacco control policy. The authors identify key attributes that distinguish jurisdictions that adopted this innovation from those that have not, and extract lessons about overcoming systemic barriers to solving complex transnational public health problems like tobacco control, food distribution, and climate change.
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Strategic Alliance Networks and Innovation: A Deterministic and Voluntaristic View Combined
This paper reviews literature on strategic technology alliances and interfirm collaboration in high-tech sectors. It contrasts two perspectives: a structuralist view emphasizing how network embeddedness constrains firms, and a voluntaristic view showing how firms actively shape networks to achieve strategic goals. The authors argue the voluntaristic approach better explains network dynamics and change, addressing a major gap in existing research.
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Diffusion of Innovations as a Theoretical Framework for Telecenters
This paper applies diffusion of innovations theory to understand how rural telecenters—information and communication centers in developing countries—spread and are adopted by local communities. The author examines three key aspects: how people perceive telecenter innovations, how communication drives their adoption, and what consequences result from using them. The framework provides researchers and practitioners with a theoretical foundation for studying telecenter diffusion in rural areas.
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The Triple Helix Model and the Future of Innovation: A Reflection on the Triple Helix Research Agenda
The Triple Helix model explains how academia, industry, and government interact to drive innovation and economic growth in knowledge-based economies. This paper reflects on the model's core concepts and boundary conditions, asking whether it applies universally or only under specific circumstances. The authors examine the model's usefulness for understanding innovation dynamics in changing societies and identify key concepts embedded within Triple Helix research.
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Building Responsible Innovation in International Organizations through Intrapreneurship
International organizations like the UN struggle to innovate despite their mandate for responsible innovation. This study examines eight intrapreneurial initiatives in socially oriented organizations, finding that initiatives originating in country offices scale through two pathways: organic country-by-country expansion or strategic headquarters-driven scaling. Both approaches manage tensions differently to build competence, align structures, and extend organizational mission. Intrapreneurship enables digital transformation and develops organizational capacity for responsible innovation.
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Evolving a Value Chain to an Open Innovation Ecosystem: Cognitive Engagement of Stakeholders in Customizing Medical Implants
A medical device firm transformed its traditional value chain into an open innovation ecosystem to customize orthopedic implants using 3D printing. The company used cognitive artifacts—shared visual and conceptual tools—to help diverse stakeholders develop common understanding and collaborate effectively. This approach enabled the firm to pursue mass customization while avoiding suboptimal local strategies and managing the constraints that external partnerships can impose on innovation strategy.
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How journalists innovate in the newsroom. Proposing a model of the diffusion of innovations in media outlets
Spanish journalists leading newsroom innovation describe how media outlets drive change through innovations in content production, internal organization, distribution, and commercialization. The study identifies key factors that shape how innovations are adopted and implemented in newsrooms, then proposes a model explaining how media innovations spread across the industry.
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Catalyzing capacity: absorptive, adaptive, and generative leadership
This paper proposes a leadership framework for organizations operating in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions. Leaders who develop three capacities—absorptive, adaptive, and generative—can build organizations that continuously adjust to changing environments. The framework emphasizes diversity, learning, reflection, and humility over traditional command-and-control approaches, offering practical steps for leaders to transform their organizations.
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Acceptance Process: The Missing Link between UTAUT and Diffusion of Innovation Theory
This paper argues that the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) lacks a critical component: the actual adoption process that technologies go through. While UTAUT incorporates factors from Diffusion of Innovation theory, it omits the stages and progression of how technologies actually get adopted. The author contends that including adoption processes in UTAUT would improve predictions of technology acceptance and calls for future research to account for the environment and context surrounding technology use.
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Direct and mediated ties to universities: “Scientific” absorptive capacity and innovation performance of pharmaceutical firms
Pharmaceutical firms access university knowledge through direct collaborations or indirect ties via biotech intermediaries. The study finds that firms with strong internal scientific capacity benefit more from direct university partnerships, while firms with weaker capacity perform better using biotech brokers—unless those brokers connect to top universities. Success depends on matching a firm's research organization to its knowledge-sourcing strategy.
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R&D EFFICIENCY AND THE NATIONAL INNOVATION SYSTEM: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON USING THE DISTANCE FUNCTION APPROACH
This study measures research and development efficiency across 24 countries from 1998 to 2005 using advanced statistical methods. The analysis shows that R&D spending and workforce generate patents, publications, and licensing revenues at different rates across nations. Countries with stronger intellectual property protections, better business-to-business cooperation, stronger university-industry links, concentrated R&D facilities, and active government R&D involvement achieve significantly higher R&D efficiency.
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Dynamic structures of control and generativity in digital ecosystem service innovation: the cases of the Apple and Google mobile app stores
This paper analyzes how Apple and Google's mobile app stores manage service innovation through digital ecosystems. Using narrative analysis of web articles, the authors identify core generative and controlling actions that structure innovation within these platforms. They reveal how stakeholders interact to drive service innovation and show that successful ecosystem strategies balance control mechanisms with generative capacity to enable competitive advantage.
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Building Constructive Innovation Networks: Role of Relationship Management
This case study examines how the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation manages relationships across multiple organizations to drive innovation. The research finds that relational governance—based on trust and cooperation rather than contracts—is essential for these networks, though supplemented by other governance approaches. The authors develop a relationship management framework and identify key lessons for designing and operating interorganizational innovation networks effectively.
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DiffuNET: The impact of network structure on diffusion of innovation
This paper develops a model linking network structure to innovation diffusion rates. The researchers show that specific network properties—such as centralization—directly influence how quickly innovations spread through populations via innovation and imitation. By redesigning network structures strategically, managers can accelerate product adoption and diffusion. The model integrates previously separate diffusion research traditions and allows practitioners to predict diffusion potential from measurable network characteristics.
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Doctors on-line: using diffusion of innovations theory to understand internet use.
Family physicians in a northeastern U.S. metropolitan area adopt internet use for medical information when they have time to learn and observe its benefits firsthand. Diffusion of innovations theory predicts adoption patterns: physicians need protected time to develop skills and experience usefulness before internet searching becomes routine. Continuing medical education focused on internet skills could increase adoption, while demographic factors like gender or training recency do not affect adoption rates.
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National innovation systems and the achievement of sustainable development goals: Effect of knowledge-based dynamic capability
Knowledge-based dynamic capabilities in national innovation systems positively impact sustainable development goal achievement across 130 countries. The effect varies by economic development stage, with both direct and indirect pathways. A country's development level moderates the relationship between these capabilities and SDG outcomes, revealing that innovation capacity translates differently into sustainable progress depending on economic context.
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Sustainable leadership and heterogeneous knowledge sharing: the model for frugal innovation
Sustainable leadership drives frugal innovation in Pakistani small businesses by enabling both internal and external knowledge sharing across diverse sources. The study analyzed 263 SME participants and found that leaders promoting sustainability encourage employees and external partners to exchange heterogeneous knowledge, which then facilitates resource-constrained innovation. Knowledge sharing acts as the mechanism connecting leadership style to frugal innovation outcomes.
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Technological Disruptions in Restaurant Services: Impact of Innovations and Delivery Services
This study examines how food delivery innovations have disrupted restaurant services over the past two decades. The research shows that restaurant delivery service terminology has become as common as fast food service since 2014. The author develops a model showing how technological innovations reshape restaurant service hierarchies and identifies major disruptions including changes in industry classification, increased distance between providers and customers, and potential service quality impacts. The work outlines both opportunities and challenges from these technological shifts.
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The design and testing of a tool for developing responsible innovation in start-up enterprises
This paper develops and tests a tool designed to help startup enterprises integrate responsible innovation practices into their operations. The researchers tracked the tool's effectiveness across 12 sustainability-focused startups in agriculture, food, and energy sectors. The tool enables innovators to systematically identify socio-ethical issues through experiential learning cycles. The study demonstrates that completing full learning cycles allows the tool to successfully embed responsible innovation principles into real-world competitive business settings.
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The effect of network structure on radical innovation in living labs
Living labs with a distributed multiplex network structure generate radical innovations, while distributed and centralized structures produce incremental innovations. The study analyzed 24 living labs across four countries and found that radical innovation also depends on the driving actor and strategic objectives. A provider- or utilizer-driven living lab combined with distributed multiplex networks and clear future-oriented goals offers the best conditions for radical innovation.
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The influences of knowledge loss and knowledge retention mechanisms on the absorptive capacity and performance of a MIS department
Knowledge loss damages MIS department performance by reducing absorptive capacity. The study surveyed 191 Taiwanese IT personnel and found that information systems and human resource management practices effectively mitigate knowledge loss. Organizations must invest in knowledge management mechanisms to retain competitive advantages, especially given high employee turnover and rapid technological change.
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Media Innovations, User Innovations, Societal Innovations
Media innovations involve changes in both technology and practices, driven by audiences, users, professionals, and providers. User participation in content creation increasingly shapes media and society together. Understanding media innovation requires examining how changes ripple across interconnected media systems and social structures, recognizing that media innovations are inseparable from broader societal transformations.
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Framework of open innovation in SMEs in an emerging economy: firm characteristics, network openness, and network information
This study examines open innovation practices among small and medium enterprises in China using survey data from 420 firms. The research shows that firm characteristics like innovation capacity and barriers, combined with network openness and information flow, significantly influence how Chinese SMEs engage in open innovation. The findings demonstrate that open innovation represents a viable strategy for emerging market SMEs seeking to overcome resource constraints.
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An empirical study of firm’s absorptive capacity dimensions, supplier involvement and new product development performance
This study examines how manufacturing firms develop new products by analyzing the role of supplier involvement and absorptive capacity—the organization's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge. Using data from 161 firms, the research finds that absorptive capacity dimensions have varying effects on both financial and non-financial new product performance, and that absorptive capacity moderates how supplier involvement influences outcomes.
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An international comparison of R&D efficiency of multiple innovative outputs: The role of the national innovation system
This paper compares R&D efficiency across nations using data envelopment analysis, measuring outputs in patents, royalties, and journal publications. Countries show similar efficiency in patents and royalties but differ significantly in publications. The study finds that R&D intensity, intellectual property protection, knowledge stock, and human capital all boost efficiency. Private sector R&D drives patent and royalty performance, while higher education R&D strengthens publication outcomes.
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User Involvement in Innovation Processes : Strategies and Limitations from a Socio-Technical Perspective
This paper examines how users participate in innovation processes and identifies the strategic approaches and constraints involved from a socio-technical viewpoint. The author analyzes different strategies for involving users in developing new technologies and products, while highlighting the practical and theoretical limitations that affect meaningful user engagement in innovation.
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Adaptive Legal Frameworks and Economic Dynamics in Emerging Tech-nologies: Navigating the Intersection for Responsible Innovation
This paper examines how legal frameworks must adapt to regulate emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and biotechnology responsibly. The authors argue that effective regulation requires flexibility, interdisciplinary collaboration, and balance between stability and innovation incentives. They recommend building corporate responsibility cultures, educating policymakers, and aligning technological progress with ethical standards to enable responsible innovation.
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From Responsible Research and Innovation to responsibility by design
This paper examines how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can create lasting impact beyond funded projects. Drawing on eight years implementing RRI in the Human Brain Project, the authors propose 'responsibility by design'—embedding ethical considerations directly into research outcomes and infrastructure so responsibility becomes inherent rather than temporary.
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Social labs as an inclusive methodology to implement and study social change: the case of responsible research and innovation
This paper proposes a social lab methodology to implement and study responsible research and innovation (RRI) in practice. The methodology combines agility and real-world focus with action research and experiential learning, enabling parallel investigation and promotion of RRI while addressing the circular challenge of needing evidence to establish practices that don't yet exist widely.
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Methodologic Innovation in Creating Clinical Practice Guidelines: Insights From the 2018 Society of Critical Care Medicine Pain, Agitation/Sedation, Delirium, Immobility, and Sleep Disruption Guideline Effort
This paper describes methodological innovations used to develop clinical practice guidelines for critical care patients. The authors involved critical illness survivors throughout the guideline development process, expanded evidence assessment methods, and systematically identified evidence gaps. Their approach combined expert panels, patient perspectives, qualitative analysis, and structured voting to create recommendations that reflect both clinical evidence and patient values.
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Moderating effect of absorptive capacity on the entrepreneurial orientation of international performance of family businesses
Family businesses with stronger entrepreneurial orientation achieve better international performance. Absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire and apply new knowledge—strengthens this relationship. The study of 218 family firms shows that improving international results requires developing entrepreneurial orientation while building the firm's capacity to absorb and use external knowledge effectively.
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Exploring the Relationships of Green Perceived Value, the Diffusion of Innovations, and the Technology Acceptance Model of Green Transportation
This study examines what drives people to use green transportation by testing how perceived value, usefulness, and ease of use affect adoption intentions. Using structural equation modeling, the research finds that perceived usefulness is the strongest predictor of green transportation adoption, while ease of use has a weaker effect. Perceived value alone doesn't directly influence adoption but works through perceived usefulness. The analysis shows early majority adopters dominate green transportation uptake, suggesting governments should emphasize usefulness and value to increase public adoption.
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Innovation in service ecosystems
This paper examines how values resonance drives innovation in service ecosystems by integrating brands, service systems, and experience spaces. Through a case study using narrative analysis, the authors identify four key lessons showing that shared values enable service innovation, strengthen brand integration, facilitate resource integration across system boundaries, and support value co-creation through coherent servicescapes.
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Role of Absorptive Capacity, Digital Capability, Agility, and Resilience in Supply Chain Innovation Performance
This study examines how absorptive capacity drives supply chain innovation performance in Saudi Arabian firms through digital capability, agility, and resilience. Using structural equation modeling on 116 companies, the researchers found that absorptive capacity significantly strengthens digital capability, agility, and resilience, which in turn improve innovation performance. The findings show that agility and resilience partially mediate the relationship between absorptive capacity and supply chain innovation outcomes.
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Researching ecosystems in innovation contexts
The paper clarifies the concept of 'innovation ecosystem' by reviewing how scholars use the term across different contexts. The authors identify three basic types of ecosystems, all centered on producing coherent system-level outputs. They provide a framework to distinguish between different ecosystem types, reducing conceptual confusion and enabling clearer communication among researchers studying innovation.
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Differential Innovativeness Outcomes of User and Employee Participation in an Online User Innovation Community
This study examines how employees and external users contribute differently to online innovation communities. Using data from Salesforce's IdeaExchange platform, the researchers found that employees who access diverse, well-documented user ideas generate and promote more ideas themselves. Critically, ideas contributed by employees get implemented at higher rates than those from external users alone, suggesting employees play a vital but underexamined role in converting community input into actual innovation.
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Open innovation search in manufacturing firms: the role of organizational slack and absorptive capacity
This study examines how organizational slack influences manufacturing firms' openness to external innovation search. Using ten years of data from 298 U.S. manufacturers, the researchers found that absorbed slack discourages open innovation search, while unabsorbed slack encourages it. Absorptive capacity moderates this relationship, reducing the negative effect of absorbed slack. The findings apply across both high-tech and low-tech firms of varying sizes.
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SME innovation and learning: the role of networks and crisis events
Small and medium enterprises learn and innovate primarily through informal networks, mentoring, and coaching rather than formal training. Innovative SMEs show stronger commitment to learning, embrace shared organizational vision, and learn effectively from crisis events through reflection. Access to external mentors and informal networks significantly supports SME innovation and learning.
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Using Diffusion of Innovations Framework to Explain Communal Computing Facilities Adoption Among the Urban Poor
This study applies Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory to explain why urban poor communities in Cape Town, South Africa adopt communal computing facilities like telecenters. The researchers analyzed existing data and found that all five perceived attributes of innovation—relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability—influence adoption decisions. The framework successfully explains adoption patterns and reveals consequences for both users and host institutions.
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Effects of high-performance work systems (HPWSs) on intellectual capital, organizational ambidexterity and knowledge absorptive capacity: evidence from the hotel industry
High-performance work systems in hotels strengthen intellectual capital, which in turn enables organizational ambidexterity and knowledge absorptive capacity. The study surveyed senior managers at four and five-star hotels and found intellectual capital fully mediates the relationship between work systems and these organizational capabilities. This addresses a gap in hospitality research by establishing how HR practices drive innovation capacity.
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Decision-makers’ underestimation of user innovation
Managers and policymakers dramatically underestimate how much innovation comes from users. While research shows users generate 54% of valuable innovations across nine industries, decision-makers estimate only 22%. Academic textbooks and business media rarely mention user innovation, explaining this gap. The authors propose that this misperception leads to poor resource allocation and reduced innovation performance in companies and societies.
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Evolving Absorptive Capacity: The Mediating Role of Systematic Knowledge Management
Absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to acquire and use external knowledge—drives innovation more effectively when supported by systematic knowledge management practices. The study of 127 manufacturing and technology firms in Croatia found that firms with stronger knowledge acquisition and transformation capabilities can build better knowledge management systems, which then produce higher innovation output. This explains why knowledge management alone sometimes fails to boost innovation.
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Organizational Learning of Absorptive Capacity and Innovation: Does Leadership Matter?
This study examines how leadership styles affect the relationship between organizational learning and innovation. Using survey data from the United Arab Emirates, the researchers found that transformational leadership strengthens the connection between exploratory learning and innovation, while transactional leadership does not enhance the link between internal learning and innovation. The findings explain why some firms convert external knowledge into strategic innovations more effectively than others.
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Is There a Doctor in the House? Expert Product Users, Organizational Roles, and Innovation
Surgeon-inventors and board members strengthen innovation in surgical instrument startups, but surgeon-executives often block it. The study of 231 ventures over 25 years shows expert users excel at generating diverse solutions but struggle with selecting the right ones for organizational strategy. Expertise backfires when organizational roles mismatch with expert capabilities, revealing how external dependencies shape young firm innovation.
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Distance to Customers, Absorptive Capacity, and Innovation in High‐Tech Firms: The Dark Face of Geographical Proximity
This study of 158 high-tech firms in Italy finds that geographical proximity to customers does not drive innovation as commonly assumed. Instead, relational proximity to key customers works together with a firm's absorptive capacity to boost innovation. The research challenges the prevailing view that being physically close to customers automatically enhances innovative performance.
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Introduction: knowledge generation and innovation diffusion in the global automotive industry--change and stability during turbulent times
This introduction examines how automotive firms generate knowledge and diffuse innovations while navigating globalization, regulation, and technological change. The papers analyze both transformations and continuities in the industry, particularly how Original Equipment Manufacturers maintain control over product architecture and supply chains despite pressures from electronics, communication, and drivetrain advances. The collection explores why some innovative practices evolve while others persist.
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Twitter’s diffusion in sports journalism: Role models, laggards and followers of the social media innovation
Sports journalists at major news organizations in Australia, India, and the United Kingdom adopted Twitter at different rates and for different reasons. The study used interviews and article analysis to show when and why journalists embraced the platform, and how much Twitter content appeared in sports coverage. Twitter adoption brought benefits to individual journalists and their organizations, with patterns that apply to other countries experiencing similar diffusion.
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An empirical investigation of the National Innovation System (NIS) using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the TOBIT model
This paper measures national innovation system efficiency across 20 emerging and developed countries using DEA Bootstrap analysis. The study identifies which countries perform as innovation leaders by converting inputs into outputs efficiently. For underperforming countries, the research identifies three key factors that could improve innovation efficiency: secondary school enrollment, working-age labor force participation, and business sector credit expansion.
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Use of Social Media in Inbound Open Innovation: Building Capabilities for Absorptive Capacity
Social media use in open innovation strengthens companies' ability to absorb external knowledge. Case studies of two large high-tech firms show that social media enables transparent, multi-directional interactions that build four key capabilities: connectedness, socialization tactics, cross-functionality, and receptivity. Social media acts as a boundary-spanning tool that helps companies access and integrate external ideas more effectively.
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Technology as system innovation: a key informant interview study of the application of the diffusion of innovation model to telecare
This study examined factors influencing adoption and use of telecare technologies through interviews with 16 key participants from organizations developing and providing these services. The research found that successful telecare implementation depends on complex interactions between technology features, individual adopters, organizational readiness, and implementation processes. Critical barriers included user system complexity, insufficient ongoing support after initial adoption, and weak connections between technology designers and end users. Telecare succeeds only when treated as a coordinated system involving multiple stakeholders, not merely as a technology.
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Special Topic Forum On Innovation In Business Networks From A Supply Chain Perspective: Current Status and Opportunities for Future Research
This editorial identifies a significant gap between how businesses value innovation in supply chain networks and the limited academic research addressing this intersection. The authors assess current research status, highlight key issues, and propose a future research agenda while acknowledging the challenges scholars will face in pursuing these directions.
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Imports and TFP at the firm level: the role of absorptive capacity
This paper examines how importing intermediate goods and capital equipment affects firm productivity in Spain between 1991 and 2002. The researchers find that importing boosts total factor productivity, but only for firms with sufficient absorptive capacity—measured by their proportion of skilled workers. Firms lacking skilled labor see minimal productivity gains from imports.
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User innovation and the market
This paper argues that official innovation statistics should include consumers who modify or develop products for their own use and share that knowledge freely. Current OECD definitions exclude consumer user innovation while focusing on market-based innovation. The author proposes redefining innovation to capture this activity, discusses policy implications for both consumer and firm innovation, and outlines how public sector measurement would change.
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Lead-User Research for Breakthrough Innovation
Lead-user research identifies customers whose needs and preferences lead the market, rather than typical users. These lead users modify products creatively to solve their problems. The paper reviews how this systematic method, developed in the late 1990s, has evolved and been adapted using online tools and communities. Lessons from over 20 projects show how companies can capture innovations from these advanced users to develop breakthrough products and services.
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Is disruption theory wearing new clothes or just naked? Analyzing recent critiques of disruptive innovation theory
This paper examines Jill Lepore's critique of Clayton Christensen's disruptive innovation theory. The author identifies three root causes underlying Lepore's criticisms: the theory lacks a precise definition of disruption, fails to maintain consistent units of analysis, and inadequately accounts for managerial agency. The paper proposes solutions to address these methodological problems and suggests how future research on disruptive innovation can advance.
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External knowledge acquisition and innovation: the role of supply chain network-oriented flexibility and organisational awareness
This study examines how companies acquire external knowledge and convert it into product innovation through flexible supply chain networks. The research finds that supply chain flexibility and information sharing structures mediate the relationship between external knowledge and innovation capability. Organizational awareness—employees' understanding and knowledge—strengthens firms' ability to leverage external knowledge and supply chain capabilities to improve product innovation and overall performance.
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The Triple Helix model for innovation: a holistic exploration of barriers and enablers
The Triple Helix model brings together academia, industry, and government to drive innovation and economic development. This paper identifies the key barriers and enablers that affect whether this collaborative approach actually works in practice. The authors examine what factors help or hinder the model's implementation across different economies, emphasizing that successful collaboration requires all three actors to work toward shared long-term goals.
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Diffusion of Surgical Innovations, Patient Safety, and Minimally Invasive Radical Prostatectomy
Minimally invasive radical prostatectomy using the da Vinci robot spread rapidly across U.S. hospitals starting in 2006, but early adoption was associated with worse patient safety outcomes compared to open surgery. Patients undergoing the new procedure in 2005–2007 faced double the risk of safety incidents. The study shows that surgical innovations diffuse without adequate safeguards, exposing patients to harm during the learning phase.
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Analysing organisational context: case studies on the contribution of absorptive capacity theory to understanding inter-organisational variation in performance improvement
This study examines how organizational context affects quality improvement in healthcare using absorptive capacity theory. Three UK NHS organizations with performance problems were studied through interviews with managers and external improvement teams. The organization with the highest absorptive capacity—strong strategic priorities, effective information management, and learning orientation—achieved the fastest and most comprehensive improvements. Internal characteristics enabled better engagement with external knowledge and support, even in challenging environments. Lower absorptive capacity delayed improvement efforts.
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The Geography and Structure of Global Innovation Networks: A Knowledge Base Perspective
This paper examines how global innovation networks are structured and organized geographically across two multinational companies in different industries. Using social network analysis, the authors identify two distinct organizational models: globally-organized and locally-organized networks. The study shows that a company's knowledge base fundamentally shapes both where its innovation network spreads and how it is internally organized.
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Enhancing Innovation Capacity in SMEs through Early Network Relationships
Small firms develop innovation capacity through early network relationships that combine characteristics of both weak and strong ties. A longitudinal case study of a mobile-commerce startup shows that networks formed during the firm's earliest stages proved critical for sustained innovation. The research challenges traditional network theory's weak-strong tie distinction and recommends that entrepreneurs prioritize building strong relationships from the outset of network formation.
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The Application and Adaptation of a Diffusion of Innovation Framework for Information Systems Research in NHS General Medical Practice
This paper adapts the diffusion of innovation framework to study how healthcare organizations adopt information systems. The authors analyzed four existing DOI studies and applied their modified framework to examine ICT adoption across general medical practices in northern England. They found that professional cultures and organizational power structures significantly constrain how innovations are perceived and implemented in healthcare settings.
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Global network configuration for innovation: a study of international fibre innovation
This study examines how firms configure innovation networks in the global fibre industry. The research identifies three types of network configurations and shows that successful innovation depends on firms recognizing where innovation value exists across dispersed networks and developing capabilities to access it. Firms struggle with this because they remain embedded in their own knowledge bases and established relationships.
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Learning from users for radical innovation
Companies need radical innovations to stay competitive, not just incremental improvements. This study examined five medical technology projects—including robots and navigation systems—to identify which users contribute most effectively to radical innovation development. The researchers found that users with high motivation, openness to new technology, diverse skills, and supportive environments substantially advanced innovation. Manufacturers who adopted these users' ideas and prototypes significantly improved their radical innovation capabilities, suggesting firms should systematically identify and engage such users as a learning mechanism.
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Disruptive innovation from the perspective of innovation diffusion theory
This paper examines disruptive innovation through the lens of innovation diffusion theory, focusing on how different adopter categories influence whether innovations successfully disrupt incumbent markets. The authors analyze both high-end and low-end disruptive innovations, arguing that crossing the critical gap between early niche markets and mainstream adoption depends on relative advantage and adopter group characteristics. Case studies of disk drives and computers demonstrate this framework.
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Effect of network embeddedness on innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises
Network embeddedness significantly boosts innovation performance in small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs that combine strong network connections with openness to innovation achieve substantially better innovation outcomes than those relying on networks alone. The study of 388 Ghanaian SMEs shows that organizational structures emphasizing trust and collaborative openness enable effective knowledge transfer and innovation.
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Tackling COVID-19 through Responsible AI Innovation: Five Steps in the Right Direction
AI and machine learning innovations can help combat COVID-19 across biomedical, epidemiological, and socioeconomic challenges, but raise serious ethical concerns around data sharing, surveillance, privacy, and bias. The author proposes five steps for responsible AI innovation: open research, accountable processes, equitable design, democratic governance, and public trust. These practices enable faster global response while protecting civil liberties and preventing harm to vulnerable populations.
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Smart Development of Innovation Ecosystem
This paper applies complexity theory to innovation ecosystem development, treating ecosystems as complex adaptive systems. The authors argue that smart ecosystem development requires combining top-down and bottom-up management approaches, using mechanisms like pattern formation, sense-making, simple rule-setting, attractor modification, and niche mobilization to maintain productive disequilibrium.
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The<scp>S</scp>wedish system of innovation: Regional synergies in a knowledge‐based economy
Sweden's innovation system is highly centralized, with three metropolitan regions—Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö/Lund—generating nearly half of all regional synergy. Using firm-level data and a triple helix framework, the authors measure how geographical, technological, and organizational dimensions interact to create knowledge synergies. The analysis reveals Sweden operates as a hierarchically organized system rather than a distributed regional network.
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Firm R&D, Absorptive Capacity and Learning by Exporting: Firm‐level Evidence from China
Chinese manufacturing firms that invested in R&D before exporting gained significant and sustained productivity improvements from exporting, while firms without prior R&D saw minimal gains. The productivity boost from exporting grew stronger with more years of pre-export R&D investment. This demonstrates that absorptive capacity built through R&D enables firms to learn effectively from international trade.
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From single firm to network-based business model innovation
This paper examines how companies develop network-based business models by studying three networks. The research reveals that network partners have different business models and success criteria, making it difficult to align their value equations during innovation. Partners also face varying demands to change their individual business models depending on how the network is constructed. Understanding these differences is critical for successfully moving network-based innovations from concept to market.
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Voluntary adopters versus forced adopters: integrating the diffusion of innovation theory and the technology acceptance model to study intra-organizational adoption
This study examines how Chinese journalists adopted internet technology in their organizations, distinguishing between voluntary and forced adoption. Voluntary adopters—typically young, male journalists who saw the internet's advantages and ease of use—were driven by diffusion of innovation factors. Forced adopters—high-ranking journalists in large, tech-forward organizations—adopted because they believed it improved job performance. The research integrates two theoretical frameworks to explain different adoption pathways within organizations.
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Innovation in disruptive regulatory environments
This paper examines how regulatory environments shape innovation in the automotive industry, focusing on electric vehicle development in response to US zero-emission standards. The authors analyze patent data and case evidence to show that disruptive innovations require market protection to succeed, and that regulations demanding radical technological change face significant implementation barriers. The paper presents a framework linking regulatory types to the technological capabilities they require.
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Framework to study the social innovation networks
This paper develops a framework for studying how social networks influence economic innovation within organizations. The authors clarify what economic innovation means, identify key questions for researching innovation processes, and propose methods for collecting data about innovations. They argue that understanding innovation requires combining social and psychological factors with organizational material aspects, offering a holistic approach to studying how innovations actually develop.
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Utilization of social science knowledge in science policy: Systems of Innovation, Triple Helix and VINNOVA
This paper examines how Swedish innovation policy agency VINNOVA uses academic theories—Systems of Innovation and Triple Helix—in its policy statements. The analysis shows these academic narratives actively shape policy discourse beyond merely legitimating decisions. Despite criticism of linear knowledge transfer models, understanding how academic knowledge actually influences policy remains valuable for analyzing the science-policy relationship.
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How incumbents realize disruptive circular innovation ‐ Overcoming the innovator's dilemma for a circular economy
Established companies struggle to adopt circular economy innovations because these threaten their existing profitable linear business models. This paper analyzes how incumbents can overcome this dilemma using disruptive innovation theory. Two case studies show that creating separate organizational units helps implement circular innovations, but success requires clear strategy, strategic partnerships, supportive culture, and relevant competencies.
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A comprehensive appraisal of responsible research and innovation: From roots to leaves
This paper analyzes the academic field of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Responsible Innovation (RI) through keyword, collaboration, and reference analysis. The authors identify shared research topics and knowledge bases between these two concepts, tracing their intellectual development over time. They conclude that RRI and RI have matured into a cumulative, interconnected research area with growing scholarly consensus and interconnection, similar to established research fields.
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Policy Innovation Adoption Across the Diffusion Life Course
This study analyzes 566 policies adopted between 1960 and 2016 to understand how states adopt policy innovations across different stages of the diffusion process. The research finds that adoption drivers shift over time: neighboring state adoptions influence early adopters, while ideological learning consistently matters throughout. Less professionalized states adopt later, and wealthier, larger states increasingly drive adoption as policies spread. The findings reveal that predictors of policy adoption vary significantly across the diffusion life course.
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Research on the Regional Differences and Influencing Factors of the Innovation Efficiency of China’s High-Tech Industries: Based on a Shared Inputs Two-Stage Network DEA
This study measures innovation efficiency across China's high-tech industries in 29 provinces from 1999 to 2018 using a two-stage network DEA model. Eastern coastal provinces show significantly higher innovation efficiency than central and western regions. Government support, R&D investment intensity, industry clustering, economic openness, and modern service sector development all influence innovation efficiency levels.
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Integrating Innovation Diffusion Theory and the Technology Acceptance Model: The adoption of blockchain technology from business managers’ perspective
This paper develops a unified model combining Innovation Diffusion Theory and the Technology Acceptance Model to understand why business managers adopt blockchain technology. The researchers examine factors influencing managers' intention to continue using blockchain in financial and commercial applications, moving beyond single-theory approaches to provide a more comprehensive explanation of blockchain adoption decisions.
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Absorptive capacity and firm performance: an integrative framework of benefits and downsides
This paper examines how absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to acquire and use external knowledge—affects financial performance. While absorptive capacity drives innovation and learning, the paper argues it also creates costs and organizational rigidity that can harm performance. The authors propose an inverted U-shaped relationship: moderate absorptive capacity optimizes performance, but excessive capacity generates diminishing returns through increased complexity and reduced internal innovation.
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The impact of internationalization on innovation at countries’ level: the role of absorptive capacity
This study examines how internationalization affects innovation across 40 countries, measuring innovation through patent applications. Outward foreign direct investment boosts patenting, with stronger effects in countries possessing high absorptive capacity, though returns diminish. Inward FDI harms innovation in low-capacity countries by displacing local activities. Countries with weak absorptive capacity benefit from both imports and exports for innovation performance.
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Constructing innovative users and user-inclusive innovation communities
User involvement in innovation requires more than applying standard methods. The paper examines four case studies to show that effective user-inclusive innovation communities take varied forms. User contribution to innovation isn't an inherent user trait but results from how companies foster interaction and respond to user initiatives. Success depends on managing knowledge sharing, using mediating artifacts, and aligning divergent interests between users and producers.
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The Diffusion of Management Innovations: The Possibilities and Limitations of Memetics
This paper applies memetics theory to explain how management innovations spread through organizations as evolutionary processes. Using case studies of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) implementation, the author shows that innovations replicate, mutate, and get selected in ways that function like evolutionary algorithms. The analysis reveals how innovations drive their own replication and why high failure rates in BPR can paradoxically increase the innovation's chances of spreading.
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Forms of host‐country national learning for enhanced MNC absorptive capacity
This study identifies twelve forms of learning that host-country nationals in multinational corporation subsidiaries need to improve knowledge absorption and transfer. Through interviews with managers across three organizational levels, the researchers found that effective learning areas include language skills, cross-cultural awareness, technical management, and understanding MNC strategy and culture. These learning forms enhance the corporation's ability to generate and distribute knowledge globally.
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THE TRIPLE HELIX MODEL AND THE STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE-BASED INNOVATION SYSTEMS
The paper examines how universities, industries, and governments interact to shape knowledge-based innovation systems. It argues that understanding these systems requires analyzing how each sector makes strategic decisions—industries deciding on R&D investment, universities competing in regional and global markets, and governments balancing industrial and science-technology policies. The author proposes combining evolutionary economics with sociological reflexivity to better understand how these overlapping communications reshape innovation systems.
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Japan's national innovation system: current status and problems
Japan's national innovation system drove competitiveness in the 1980s but weakened during the 1990s. The paper examines how an aging population threatens future economic growth and argues that productivity gains through technological progress are essential. It analyzes industry, universities, and government sectors within Japan's innovation system and proposes reforms to restore competitiveness.
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Research on the influence of network embeddedness on innovation performance: Evidence from China's listed firms
Network embeddedness significantly influences innovation performance in Chinese listed firms. Structural embeddedness has a positive effect on innovation, while relational embeddedness shows an inverted U-shaped relationship. Technological diversification mediates these effects. State-owned enterprises depend less on network resources than private firms but benefit more from structural embeddedness.
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Achieving superior performance in international markets: the roles of organizational agility and absorptive capacity
Korean export companies with high organizational agility achieve superior performance in global markets during Industry 4.0 transformation. The study of 228 exporters shows that realized absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to apply acquired knowledge—strengthens this relationship, while potential absorptive capacity has no significant moderating effect. Agility and knowledge application together drive international competitiveness.
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The Novelty of Innovation: Competition, Disruption, and Antitrust Policy
This paper develops a model showing that new entrants pursue more novel innovations than incumbents, but are less likely to disrupt established firms. When incumbents can acquire entrants after innovation, the threat of acquisition reduces innovation novelty because entrants optimize for acquisition value rather than bold innovation. The findings suggest strict antitrust enforcement encourages entrepreneurial firms to innovate more boldly.
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RRI legacies: co-creation for responsible, equitable and fair innovation in Horizon Europe
The paper argues that Horizon Europe's shift from research-focused H2020 to innovation-centered funding requires Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) to evolve. The authors contend that co-creation—particularly fair and equitable approaches—should anchor new policy initiatives like Missions and Open Innovation 2.0. They position co-creation as a bridge connecting open science principles with open innovation practices, embedding responsible innovation methods throughout the funding framework.
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How social capital affects innovation in a cultural network
Bonding and bridging social capital play distinct roles in innovation within cultural networks of firms. Bridging social capital—open relationships across distant sources—enables idea experimentation and combination, while bonding social capital—tight emotional ties—better supports implementing innovations. Both dimensions work together throughout the innovation process, with each contributing uniquely at different stages.
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Enhancing competitive advantage in Hong Kong higher education: Linking knowledge sharing, absorptive capacity and innovation capability
This study examines how knowledge sharing drives competitive advantage in Hong Kong's higher education sector. Research with 166 academics reveals that knowledge sharing strengthens absorptive capacity, which then enhances innovation capability, ultimately boosting competitive advantage. The findings suggest university leaders should prioritize knowledge-sharing strategies and policies to improve institutional competitiveness.
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Teacher education and the GERM: policy entrepreneurship, disruptive innovation and the rhetorics of reform
This paper analyzes how the Institute for Teaching in England, influenced by global education reform movements, rhetorically constructs teacher education as a failing system and positions itself as a disruptive innovator offering practice-based solutions. The authors examine the organization's policy entrepreneurship and neo-liberal framing, concluding that despite sophisticated presentation, its arguments rely on fallacies rather than sound reasoning about complex educational problems.
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Organisational culture and cloud computing: coping with a disruptive innovation
Cloud computing represents a disruptive innovation that fundamentally changes how organizations deliver and consume computing services. The paper applies Christensen's disruptive innovation theory to cloud computing, examining how this shift requires organizations to transform their operational cultures and service delivery models to adapt to flexible cost structures, scalability, and efficiency gains.
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Leveraging micro‐ and macro‐structures of embeddedness in alliance networks for exploratory innovation in biotechnology
This study examines how alliance network structures affect exploratory innovation in biotechnology firms. Using patent data from 455 biotech companies and 2,933 alliances between 1986–1999, the research finds that firms achieving high exploratory innovation have short indirect connections to many other firms within their own alliance portfolios, while operating in dense industry networks centered around key hub firms. These effects follow curvilinear patterns.
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Information and communication technology innovations: radical and disruptive?
This paper examines how well disruption theory and other innovation classifications explain ICT innovations in communications. The author reviews multiple innovation frameworks and finds that while internet and wireless technologies show frequent disruptive changes, the disruption concept has limited applicability in the converged communications sector. Different analysts reach contradictory conclusions because they make different analytical choices, and findings from single firms cannot be reliably generalized.
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The formation of international innovation networks in the multinational corporation: an evolutionary perspective
This paper examines how multinational corporations develop international innovation networks by studying ABB's historical growth. The author argues that existing frameworks overlook how a company's specific history and past events shape its ability to integrate knowledge across global operations. Understanding the actual processes behind network formation matters as much as analyzing the final structure.
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Neo-Triple Helix Model of Innovation Ecosystems: Integrating Triple, Quadruple and Quintuple Helix Models
This paper proposes an integrated neo-Triple Helix model that combines Triple, Quadruple, and Quintuple Helix frameworks to explain innovation ecosystems. The model operates at two levels: university-industry-government interactions at the innovation dynamics level, and the relationship between innovation dynamics, social structures, and the natural environment at the system level. The framework uses neo-institutional and neo-evolutionary perspectives to explain how these elements interact and evolve together.
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Innovation Ecosystem Research: Emerging Trends and Future Research
This systematic review of 136 innovation ecosystem studies identifies five major research streams: technology innovation, platform innovation ecosystems, regional development, conceptualization and theory, and entrepreneurship. The authors map the intellectual structure of innovation ecosystem research, revealing fragmented knowledge across these areas. They provide targeted recommendations for future research directions to advance the field beyond its current conceptual gaps.
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Learning to do responsible innovation in industry: six lessons
Companies can adopt responsible research and innovation (RRI) practices, but require strategic shifts in approach. The authors distill six lessons from engaging industrial partners: prioritize stakeholder engagement, expand assessment methods, emphasize values, experiment iteratively, track progress, and pursue shared value creation. These findings apply to both industrial RRI implementation and broader RRI development.
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Synthesizing an implementation framework for responsible research and innovation
This paper synthesizes existing frameworks for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) into a practical implementation guide. The authors reviewed policy papers, EU projects, and academic literature from 2011-2016 to identify common RRI principles and develop a unified framework that researchers and engineers can actually use. The framework clarifies what RRI means in practice and identifies common pitfalls to avoid, helping move RRI from abstract concept to tangible application.
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Efficiency of National Innovation Systems – Poland and Bulgaria in The Context of the Global Innovation Index
This paper examines how national innovation systems convert innovation inputs into outputs across countries. Using the Global Innovation Index data from 228 countries, the authors find that Poland and Bulgaria fail to follow the expected pattern where higher innovation investment produces higher innovation output. Through detailed comparison of these two cases, the paper investigates why their national innovation systems underperform relative to their resource investments.
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Social Innovation and Human Development—How the Capabilities Approach and Social Innovation Theory Mutually Support Each Other
Social innovations address major social challenges by creating new configurations of social practices that drive social change. The paper grounds social innovation in social theory, examining how it emerges from different actors and cultural contexts. It demonstrates that social innovation and human development concepts mutually reinforce each other, with social practices serving as the mechanism through which innovations generate meaningful social change.
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The relationship between innovation network and innovation capability: a social network perspective
This study examines how a firm's position within innovation networks affects its innovation capability in the semiconductor industry. Using social network analysis, the researchers found that firms occupying central positions in networks and operating in denser networks develop stronger innovation capabilities. However, firms with tighter connections within isolated sub-clusters show weaker innovation capability, suggesting that broader network reach matters more than local clustering.
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Absorptive Capacity and Ambidexterity in R&D: Linking Technology Alliance Diversity and Firm Innovation
Spanish manufacturing firms benefit from diverse technology alliances by leveraging their absorptive capacity and R&D ambidexterity. These internal capabilities act as mediating mechanisms that enable firms to combine knowledge from multiple alliance partners and translate it into innovation. The study demonstrates that firms with stronger knowledge-combining abilities gain greater innovation returns from their alliance portfolios.
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Living Labs for User-Driven Innovation: A Process Reference Model
Living labs bring together software companies, researchers, and users to co-create and test new products and services. The authors studied six living labs to develop a process reference model that outlines effective practices for managing collaboration within these innovation environments. The model helps living labs implement efficient management strategies to maximize benefits for all participants.
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Orchestrating Smart Business Network dynamics for innovation
This paper introduces orchestrating smart business networks as a managerial function that drives innovation by shaping network structure and dynamics. Using commitment and dynamic capabilities, managers can guide networks toward innovation by controlling structural changes, network boundaries, and digital platforms. The author tests this framework through a case study examining centripetal and centrifugal forces within networks.
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Absorptive Capacity in R&D Project Teams: A Conceptualization and Empirical Test
This study develops and tests a multidimensional model of absorptive capacity in R&D project teams using data from 100 innovations. The research finds that teams' ability to evaluate external knowledge directly supports their capacity to assimilate it. Both individual and collective assimilation—particularly reaching shared understanding—matter for applying external knowledge. Prior knowledge reduces the benefit of individual assimilation, while team autonomy strengthens it. The findings clarify how different dimensions of absorptive capacity operate at individual and collective levels.
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Reading the road: challenges and opportunities on the path to responsible innovation in quantum computing
Quantum computing researchers embedded in the UK's quantum programme studied how responsible innovation practices can be integrated into technology development. The team found significant challenges in embedding responsible innovation approaches and fostering dialogue between innovators and society. The authors recommend that policymakers, researchers, and industry prioritize societal considerations alongside commercial interests to ensure quantum technologies develop in ways that serve public needs and maintain public trust.
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Superstar Cities and Left-Behind Places: Disruptive Innovation, Labor Demand, and Interregional Inequality
The paper explains why economic inequality between U.S. regions increased after 1980, reversing decades of convergence. The authors argue that disruptive technologies concentrate demand for skilled workers in certain places initially, then eventually spread that demand elsewhere. Labor supply follows these shifts, creating cycles of regional concentration and dispersal. This theory accounts for observed patterns of rising and falling interregional inequality over time.
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Effect of entrepreneurial orientation on radical innovation performance among manufacturing SMEs: the mediating role of absorptive capacity
Manufacturing SMEs in Ghana that combine entrepreneurial orientation with strong absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire and apply new knowledge—achieve significantly better radical innovation performance. The study shows that both potential absorptive capacity (acquiring knowledge) and realized absorptive capacity (applying knowledge) mediate this relationship, with balance between the two capacities producing the strongest innovation outcomes.
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Disruptive technology and disruptive innovation: ignore at your peril!
This paper examines disruptive technologies reshaping industries worldwide, including digitalization, artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, and renewable energy. These innovations will transform manufacturing, construction, energy systems, education, and retail. The authors warn that while new skills emerge, widespread job displacement will create significant socio-economic and political challenges.
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Technology convergence capability and firm innovation in the manufacturing sector: an approach based on patent network analysis
This study measures how manufacturing firms develop technology convergence capabilities—the ability to combine different technologies—using patent network analysis. The researchers analyzed the top 30 firms across four manufacturing industries and found that firms with high connectivity in their patent networks produce more patents overall, but fewer convergent innovations. Conversely, firms that bridge different technology areas generate more convergent innovations. The findings suggest firms must balance depth in similar technologies with breadth across different technology domains to effectively pursue convergence innovation.
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Experiments in interdisciplinarity: Responsible research and innovation and the public good
European responsible research and innovation (RRI) policy requires scientists, engineers, and social science scholars to collaborate early in research projects to serve the public good. The authors argue that interdisciplinary collaboration between natural scientists and humanities scholars faces real challenges, and that RRI's meaning and implementation must be determined through experimental coresearch rather than assumed in advance.
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Soaking It Up: Absorptive Capacity in Interorganizational New Product Development Teams
This study measures absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire, assimilate, and exploit knowledge—at the team level in interorganizational product development. Analyzing 98 teams across organizations, the researchers found that work-style similarity and moderate knowledge complementarity between partner teams strengthen absorptive capacity, while social similarity does not. Teams with higher absorptive capacity produced more innovative products, demonstrating that knowledge absorption at the team level directly drives innovation outcomes.
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The Role of Absorptive Capacity in Acquisition Knowledge Transfer
This study examines how absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—affects knowledge transfer during company acquisitions. The researchers identify key factors that strengthen absorptive capacity: reducing cultural differences between nations, minimizing employee withdrawal, improving communication during integration, and establishing effective knowledge processing systems. Testing their model on Finnish acquisitions, they demonstrate that absorptive capacity significantly determines whether acquired companies successfully transfer knowledge to their new owners.
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The Diffusion of Medical Innovations: Can Figurational Sociology Contribute?
This paper argues that figurational sociology, developed by Norbert Elias, provides a robust theoretical framework for understanding innovation and change. The author demonstrates how Elias's emphasis on long-term unplanned processes helps explain complex change management, using evidence-based medicine adoption in clinical practice as a case study. The approach offers insights for policymakers managing innovation implementation.
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The Effect of New Product Radicality and Scope on the Extent and Speed of Innovation Diffusion
This study examines how two characteristics of new products—radicality and scope—influence how widely and quickly innovations spread across markets. Using data from 82 product innovations across three industries over sixteen years, the research finds that more radical innovations achieve broader adoption and spread faster, while broader-scope innovations spread faster. The findings apply institutional and bandwagon theories to explain why specific product features drive diffusion rates.
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Green intellectual capital and green business strategy: The role of green absorptive capacity
Green intellectual capital drives manufacturing firms to adopt green business strategies, with this effect mediated by green absorptive capacity and moderated by corporate environmental ethics. Research on 268 Pakistani manufacturing workers shows that organizations with stronger green knowledge and learning capabilities implement more environmentally responsible business practices, regardless of industry type. Knowledge-based resources and environmental regulations emerge as key drivers of green strategy adoption.
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Towards innovation performance of SMEs: investigating the role of digital platforms, innovation culture and frugal innovation in emerging economies
Digital platforms directly boost innovation performance in small and medium enterprises in emerging economies, while innovation culture mediates this relationship. Frugal innovation moderates the link between innovation culture and performance. The study surveyed 387 managers at Pakistani SMEs and found that businesses adopting digital platforms and fostering innovation culture achieve better innovation outcomes, critical for competing in dynamic emerging markets.
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Synergy in Knowledge-Based Innovation Systems at National and Regional Levels: The Triple-Helix Model and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The paper argues that knowledge-based innovation systems operate through dynamic expectations that can be tested and refined. The Triple-Helix model provides a framework to measure synergy between institutions and assess how well innovation systems generate options and reduce uncertainty. The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a shift toward model-based innovation, and the author demonstrates how to empirically evaluate whether technological revolutions are occurring using information-theoretic measures of redundancy.
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Managing Innovation Paradox in the Sustainable Innovation Ecosystem: A Case Study of Ambidextrous Capability in a Focal Firm
A Chinese aerospace company balances competing innovation demands—profit versus breakthrough discoveries, tight versus loose organizational structures, and discipline versus passion-driven work—by developing ambidextrous capabilities across internal departments and external partners. The firm manages these tensions through dual innovation units, strengthened internal-external ties, and shared value creation, demonstrating how focal firms navigate paradoxes within sustainable innovation ecosystems.
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Intervening role of realized absorptive capacity in organizational culture–open innovation relationship
This study examines how organizational culture types influence open innovation adoption in UAE companies. Integrative cultures positively support open innovation, while hierarchical cultures inhibit it. The research shows that realized absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to use acquired knowledge—mediates these relationships. The findings help managers understand which cultural conditions enable successful open innovation initiatives.
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Connecting corporations and communities: Towards a theory of social inclusive open innovation
The paper argues that existing institutions fail to address persistent social needs and unmet challenges. It proposes that corporations must adopt open innovation approaches that blend grassroots ideas with corporate expertise in reciprocal and respectful ways. The authors contend that socio-ecological systems recognizing and rewarding innovation can respond quickly to emerging challenges, and that appropriate manufacturing and supply chain design must integrate with open innovation ecosystems to create jobs, build skills, and generate entrepreneurial opportunities.
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Trustworthiness and Responsible Research and Innovation: The Case of the Bio-Economy
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can advance sustainable bio-economy development in the Netherlands and Europe by building trust among value-chain actors. The paper argues that RRI creates conditions for trustworthiness through personal relationships, third-party guarantors, institutions, and value communication. These mechanisms help address public concerns about sensitive issues like genetic modification, enabling wider adoption of biomass-based technologies across socially complex innovation trajectories.
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Responsible innovation in the light of moral responsibility
This paper examines moral responsibility within responsible innovation frameworks, particularly in supply chains and innovation networks. The authors critique responsible innovation advocates for underdeveloping the concept's normative foundations and neglecting corporate social responsibility approaches. They map ten philosophical meanings of responsibility—distinguishing negative from positive conceptions—and explore how these meanings apply practically to supply chains and innovation networks.
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Exploring Social Network Dynamics Driving Knowledge Management for Innovation
Knowledge management drives innovation, but the process remains complex and poorly understood. This paper examines how social networks facilitate knowledge management for innovation by studying three university-industry partnerships. The research tracks how structural, relational, and cognitive social capital evolve across different innovation phases, identifying which network characteristics matter most at each stage.
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Ranking National Innovation Systems According to their technical Efficiency
This study measures and compares the technical efficiency of national innovation systems across EU27 member states plus Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey. Using data from the 2011 Innovation Union Scoreboard database and data envelopment analysis, the researchers ranked countries by innovation system performance. The analysis reveals how efficiently different nations convert innovation inputs into outputs.
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User-driven innovation? Challenges of user involvement in future technology analysis
Companies increasingly adopt user-driven innovation strategies in information and communications technologies, placing users at the center of product development. This paper identifies two critical challenges: maintaining continuous user involvement and integrating user knowledge into interdisciplinary development processes. The authors demonstrate solutions through the ROMAS project, which tested future mobile applications in a living lab setting with systematic user participation.
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Knowledge Acquisition, Absorptive Capacity, And Innovation Capability: An Empirical Study Of Taiwan'S Knowledge-Intensive Industries
This study examines how knowledge acquisition and absorptive capacity drive innovation in Taiwan's finance and manufacturing sectors. Using survey data from 362 companies, the researchers found that absorptive capacity acts as a mediator between knowledge acquisition and innovation capability. Knowledge acquisition directly strengthens absorptive capacity, which then enables firms to innovate more effectively.
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Web Mash-ups and Patchwork Prototyping: User-driven technological innovation with Web 2.0 and Open Source Software
Users and non-programmers are driving technological innovation by combining open-source software components and web APIs to create functional prototypes and solutions. This mashup approach applies traditional software development techniques in novel ways, enabling creative problem-solving by people without formal programming expertise and reshaping how technology gets designed and produced.
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Innovation and heterogeneous knowledge in managerial contact networks
Managers innovate more effectively when they interact with colleagues who possess diverse knowledge, but only when their local networks are sparse. The study of 106 high-tech managers shows that knowledge diversity alone doesn't guarantee innovation—managers need both exposure to heterogeneous knowledge and enough local autonomy to synthesize new ideas. Sparse networks provide the independence required to develop and implement innovations.
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The adoption of big data analytics in Jordanian SMEs: An extended technology organization environment framework with diffusion of innovation and perceived usefulness
Jordanian small and medium enterprises face barriers to adopting big data analytics despite recognizing its benefits. This study combined two innovation frameworks to identify factors driving adoption among 388 managers. Relative advantage, compatibility, low complexity, top management support, competitive pressure, and security all increased perceived usefulness, which directly boosted adoption rates. The findings provide guidance for SMEs pursuing digital transformation.
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From the Dark Side of Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0: Looking “Beyond the Box” to Developing Human-Centric Innovation Ecosystems
The paper argues that Industry 4.0's purely technology-focused approach has created problems, and proposes moving toward Society 5.0, which balances technology with human needs, sustainability, and resilience. Using the Quintuple Helix Model, the authors provide a framework showing how government, universities, industry, civil society, and the environment can work together to build innovation ecosystems that serve both business and society while addressing pandemic and climate challenges.
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Knowledge management process as a mediator between collaborative culture and frugal innovation: the moderating role of perceived organizational support
Collaborative culture in Pakistani manufacturing and service firms drives frugal innovation through knowledge management processes. Knowledge management partially mediates the relationship between collaborative culture and two types of frugal innovation—functional improvements and cost reduction—but not ecosystem innovation. Perceived organizational support strengthens the effect of collaborative culture on knowledge management and functional innovation, while weakening its effect on cost reduction and ecosystem innovation.
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Orchestrating innovation networks: Alignment and orchestration profile approach
This paper develops an orchestration profile approach for managing inter-organizational innovation networks. The authors identify three generic orchestration profiles—translative, transformative, and transcending—that align management practices with different network types and value-creation logics. These profiles provide practical guidance for managers designing effective orchestration strategies across diverse innovation networks.
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Dual Networking: How Collaborators Network in Their Quest for Innovation
Organizations divide innovation work between specialist and generalist roles. This study finds that collaborating pairs perform better when they network within the same groups but connect to different individuals, rather than splitting into entirely separate networks. This dual networking approach enables partners to interpret information from multiple angles, influence stakeholders more effectively, and champion ideas more successfully than pure divide-and-conquer strategies.
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Linking Transformational Leadership, Absorptive Capacity, and Corporate Entrepreneurship
Transformational leadership directly boosts corporate entrepreneurship in Pakistani small and medium enterprises, and also works indirectly through absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize and use external knowledge. The study tested five entrepreneurship dimensions: innovation, new business venturing, self-renewal, proactivity, and risk-taking. Firms should hire transformational leaders and invest in absorptive capacity to strengthen entrepreneurial activities.
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Building a middle-range theory of Transformative Social Innovation; theoretical pitfalls and methodological responses
This paper develops middle-range theory for transformative social innovation by identifying three theoretical pitfalls and proposing solutions centered on social relations and innovation processes. The authors use iterative cycles between case study research and analysis to build theory that provides practical insights into how social innovation drives transformative change. They emphasize maintaining reflexivity throughout theory development.
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Emotional attachment and multidimensional self-efficacy: extension of innovation diffusion theory in the context of eBook reader
This study extends innovation diffusion theory by incorporating emotional attachment and self-efficacy to explain eBook reader adoption. Research with university students found that relative advantage, trialability, observability, and both human-assisted and individual self-efficacy drive adoption intention. Emotional attachment to paper books, however, weakens the link between positive attitudes toward eBooks and actual adoption. The framework helps managers understand behavioral and emotional barriers when launching new technologies.
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Sustainable Innovation: A Competitive Advantage for Innovation Ecosystems
National and regional innovation systems face pressure to adapt as economies shift from manufacturing to services and socio-technical changes reshape innovation landscapes. The paper argues that sustainable innovation provides a competitive advantage for innovation ecosystems, helping countries, regions, and cities navigate structural economic changes and meet demands of the global competitive environment.
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Network centrality, organizational innovation, and performance: A meta‐analysis
Network centrality—an organization's position within its network—drives both innovation and performance across 15,860 organizations in 40 studies. Small organizations gain stronger innovation benefits from central network positions, while large organizations see stronger performance gains. Organizations in developed institutional environments and knowledge-intensive industries benefit most from network centrality.
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Experiment Earth: responsible innovation in geoengineering
This book examines geoengineering experiments and their implications for responsible science and innovation. Through three years of sociological research with scientists on major geoengineering projects, the author analyzes the politics of experimentation and argues that scientists must reconsider their responsibilities in shaping future outcomes. The work provides a framework for understanding science's role in contemporary society.
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A Qualitative Application of the Diffusion of Innovations Theory to Examine Determinants of Guideline Adherence Among Physical Therapists
Physical therapists in the Netherlands rarely adopt evidence-based guidelines for low back pain after they are disseminated. This study used focus group interviews and Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory to understand why. Therapists had unfavorable views about how guidelines were shared but provided little information about their adoption decisions. The theory proved useful for structuring the research and revealed that guideline implementation remained incomplete among practitioners.
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Innovation, Diffusion, and Institutional Change
This paper examines how technological innovation drives institutional change by connecting diffusion theory with institutional economics. Rather than focusing solely on inventors and technological supply, the author argues for a demand-side perspective that explains why communities accept or reject innovations. The paper reconciles diffusion theory with institutional analysis to better understand how new technologies become embedded in social structures and institutions.
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Strategic orientations and responsible innovation in SMEs: The moderating effects of environmental turbulence
This study examines how strategic orientations drive responsible innovation in Chinese SMEs under different environmental conditions. Using data from 194 firms, the researchers found that digital and environmental orientations both boost responsible innovation, with environmental orientation having stronger effects. Market and technological turbulence strengthen the link between digital orientation and responsible innovation, but weaken the link between environmental orientation and responsible innovation.
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Toward an Evolutionary and Sustainability Perspective of the Innovation Ecosystem: Revisiting the Panarchy Model
This paper applies the Panarchy model to innovation ecosystems, arguing that they evolve through four phases: exploitation, conservation, decline, and reorganization. The framework shows how innovation ecosystems avoid technology lock-in and rigidity by balancing exploitative and generative functions. This evolutionary perspective helps policymakers and practitioners understand how ecosystems build resilience and competitiveness when facing major disruptions.
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Responsible Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals in Business: An Agenda for Cooperative Firms
Responsible Innovation can help cooperative firms and social and solidarity economy businesses implement Sustainable Development Goals. The paper finds that these firms benefit from responsible innovation through business model transformation and contribute to SDGs by enabling partnerships and innovation. Cooperatives extend SDG implementation beyond their traditional principles to become key enablers of sustainable development across business sectors.
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Agglomeration, absorptive capacity and knowledge governance: implications for public–private firm innovation in China
Private enterprises in China innovate more efficiently than state-owned enterprises, even when both possess similar absorptive capacity. Local spillovers from related industries boost innovation, particularly for firms with strong learning abilities. The research shows that absorptive capacity alone doesn't guarantee successful knowledge integration; private firms' superior governance procedures enable them to leverage external knowledge more effectively than state-owned counterparts.
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Frugal innovation in developed markets – Adaption of a criteria-based evaluation model
This paper develops an evaluation model to assess why frugal innovations succeed or fail in developed markets. The authors adapt existing criteria for frugal innovation and introduce the concept of "second-degree frugal innovation" to distinguish developed-market frugal products from those in developing markets. Through three case studies, they demonstrate that frugal innovation success depends heavily on market context, with differences in usability, quality, and pricing. The model provides practitioners with tools like value analysis to optimize frugal product development.
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Industry Platforms and Ecosystem Innovation
This paper distinguishes between internal platforms (company-specific product foundations) and external platforms (industry-wide foundations for ecosystem innovation). The authors analyze how platform leaders like Intel manage innovation, competition, and technological change. They identify design principles, economic factors, and strategic practices that enable effective platform leadership and ecosystem development across diverse industries.
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State and development of innovation networks
Innovation networks are increasingly important in the European automotive industry, enabling companies to access technologies flexibly, strengthen customer relationships, and retain suppliers. A study of 39 networks across large manufacturers and small suppliers found these networks perform well overall, though management practices have room for improvement. The research identifies key formation and governance patterns that could enhance network effectiveness.
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SIMULATING KNOWLEDGE-GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION PROCESSES IN INNOVATION COLLABORATIONS AND NETWORKS
This paper presents an agent-based simulation model that represents how knowledge generation and distribution work in innovation networks. The model captures heterogeneous agents with different knowledge stocks, uncertainty, learning from experience and collaboration, and the effects of failure. The simulation demonstrates that artificial innovation networks exhibit characteristics matching real innovation networks in knowledge-intensive industries, revealing dynamics that traditional economic models cannot capture.
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The diffusion of environmental policy innovations: cornerstones of an analytical framework
This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding how environmental policy innovations spread across countries. The author argues that policy diffusion results from interactions between international forces, national factors, and the characteristics of specific policies. The framework bridges comparative policy analysis and international relations by explaining how countries adopt similar policies even without binding agreements, providing guidance for empirical research on policy innovation diffusion.
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Exploration, Exploitation and Co-evolution in Innovation Networks
This study examines how sectoral innovation systems co-evolve by analyzing the relationships between institutional environments, firm networks, and learning regimes. Using multimedia and pharmaceutical biotechnology sectors in the Netherlands as case studies from the late 1980s to early 2000s, the research identifies a general co-evolutionary pattern while showing that how this pattern manifests in network structures and coordination mechanisms depends on each sector's specific institutional setup.
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The role of absorptive capacity and big data analytics in strategic purchasing and supply chain management decisions
Big data analytics adoption in purchasing and supply chain management remains slow despite widespread use elsewhere. A survey of 222 supply chain managers found that a company's absorptive capacity—its ability to explore, assimilate, and transform information—determines whether big data analytics improves strategic decision-making. Only well-resourced companies fully benefit; applying analytics to routine operational tasks yields limited gains.
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From ego‐systems to open innovation ecosystems: A process model of inter‐firm openness
This study identifies how firms transition from closed innovation systems to open ecosystems through four distinct phases: realization, socialization, strategic alignment, and two-way openness. Based on 54 interviews with Australian business park managers, the research shows that phase transitions begin spontaneously but grow more complex as openness increases. Interdependence, social exchange, and trust drive successful ecosystem development.
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Network Embeddedness and Innovation: Evidence From the Alternative Energy Field
This study examines how network embeddedness affects innovation outcomes in a large U.S. energy company. Using 16 years of patent data from 1,561 inventors, the researchers find that relational and structural embeddedness both strengthen exploitative innovation but show inverted U-shaped relationships with exploratory innovation. The overall network structure matters significantly. The findings suggest innovators should adjust their network embeddedness levels strategically depending on the type of innovation they pursue.
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Responsible innovation in human germline gene editing: Background document to the recommendations of ESHG and ESHRE
This paper examines responsible innovation in human germline gene editing across Europe. The authors review scientific developments, legal regulations, and ethical considerations for gene editing in basic research, pre-clinical work, and clinical applications. They argue that deontological objections to gene editing lack conviction, while consequentialist concerns about safety require further research. The paper supports adapting regulations to technological progress while addressing ethical and societal concerns.
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Responsible innovation as a critique of technology assessment
This paper examines how responsible research and innovation (RRI) relates to technology assessment (TA). While both approaches share similar goals and practices, the authors argue that RRI functions as a critique of TA rather than simply building on it. The paper explores this alternative interpretation of their relationship, particularly in the context of EU policy frameworks like Horizon 2020.
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The Effect of Technological Innovation Capabilities and Absorptive Capacity on Firm Innovativeness: A Conceptual Framework
Firms need technological innovation capabilities and absorptive capacity to survive in changing markets. This paper develops a conceptual framework showing how these two factors drive firm innovativeness and competitive advantage. Technological innovation capabilities enable rapid response to change and new strategies, while absorptive capacity helps firms use external knowledge effectively. The authors propose a model linking these capabilities to innovativeness through literature review.
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Advancing the practice of online psychotherapy: An application of Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory.
This paper applies Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory to understand why psychologists adopt or reject online therapy. The authors identify nine barriers to adoption, including concerns about dehumanizing therapy, startup costs, licensing issues, ethical guidelines, and professional reputation. They propose theory-based strategies to accelerate adoption of online therapy among clinical psychologists.
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SIMULATING KNOWLEDGE DYNAMICS IN INNOVATION NETWORKS (SKIN)
This paper presents SIMKIN, an agent-based simulation model that represents how innovation occurs in knowledge-based industries. The model features heterogeneous agents with different knowledge stocks who interact through markets and knowledge exchange. It captures uncertainty, learning from experience and collaboration, agent failure, and historical change. The simulation allows researchers to explore dynamic innovation processes in complex systems.
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Paradoxes of implementing digital manufacturing systems: A longitudinal study of digital innovation projects for disruptive change
Digital manufacturing technologies promise operational efficiency and business model transformation, yet many established companies achieve only incremental improvements. A longitudinal study of eight manufacturing firms identifies three key tensions blocking success: integrating physical and digital assets, innovating within existing operations, and coordinating internal and external stakeholders. These conflicting forces pull digital projects away from ambitious goals, explaining why digitization remains difficult for established firms.
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Exploring the determinants of adoption of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in India: A study based on diffusion of innovation theory
This study examines why Indian customers adopt the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) mobile payment system using diffusion of innovation theory. The research finds that perceived relative advantage, low complexity, and observability significantly drive users' intention to adopt UPI. Higher usage intention and satisfaction also increase customers' likelihood to recommend UPI to others. The findings reveal key factors that influence both adoption and word-of-mouth promotion of the payment platform.
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Green Innovation Sustainability: How Green Market Orientation and Absorptive Capacity Matter?
This study examines how green market orientation and absorptive capacity drive green innovation in manufacturing firms. Using survey data from 262 Chinese firms, the authors find that green market orientation boosts only green product innovation, while absorptive capacity improves both product and process innovation. The two factors interact positively to enhance both innovation types. The research reveals differential effects of internal capabilities on different forms of green innovation.
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The role of business networks for innovation
Business networks—interconnected companies linked by social and economic ties—shape innovation in two ways: innovations emerge from partner interactions, and innovations must fit within or reshape existing network patterns. This paper categorizes how different network characteristics produce incremental, radical, or disruptive innovations, and how each innovation type affects the network itself. Six case studies reveal that innovation type directly correlates with network role and consequences, filling a gap in research that typically ignores how innovations restructure business networks.
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Absorptive capacity and business performance
A study of 278 Chinese manufacturing firms shows that absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to acquire and use new knowledge—improves business performance through three pathways: directly, and indirectly through innovation and mass customization capabilities. Mass customization proved a stronger mediator than innovation alone, suggesting firms should prioritize both knowledge absorption and the ability to customize production at scale.
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A study of factors influencing disruptive innovation in Chinese SMEs
Chinese SMEs face constraints from limited funding, size, and experience, yet disruptive innovation offers them a path to compete with larger firms. This study identifies distinct factors driving two types of disruption: high-end disruption depends on government support, external knowledge, strategic backing, and strong R&D capabilities, while low-end disruption relies on venture capital partnerships, external knowledge, R&D strength, and entrepreneurial innovation drive.
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The social dynamics of heterogeneous innovation ecosystems
This paper develops a framework for analyzing innovation ecosystems that goes beyond focusing on single organizations. It examines how communities and firms interact through distributed innovation, showing how different levels of openness shape ecosystem dynamics. The authors apply their framework to two cases—the RepRap 3D printer and ARA modular smartphone—demonstrating how openness differences affect community-firm relationships and ecosystem functions.
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The business ecosystem concept in innovation policy context: building a conceptual framework
This conceptual paper examines the business ecosystem concept within innovation policy, comparing it to three established policy approaches. The ecosystem concept distinguishes itself through its focus on innovation and its self-organizing, self-renewing characteristics. The authors establish a framework for future empirical research on how business ecosystems can inform innovation policy.
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The effect of organizational structure on absorptive capacity in single and dual learning modes
This paper examines how organizational structure influences absorptive capacity—an organization's ability to acquire and use new knowledge—in both single and dual learning modes. Through literature review, the authors identify structural design characteristics that enhance absorptive capacity and propose contingency models linking organizational structure to knowledge absorption across initiation and implementation stages. The work advances theory by treating absorptive capacity as an independent variable and focusing on behavioral dimensions.
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Family firm performance: The influence of entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity
This study examines how entrepreneurial orientation affects family firm performance in Spain, finding that absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—mediates this relationship. The research shows that family firms cannot improve performance through entrepreneurial orientation alone; they must develop absorptive capacity to translate entrepreneurial efforts into actual business results.
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Innovation for a steady state: a case for responsible stagnation
This paper argues that responsible innovation frameworks should explicitly consider 'responsible stagnation'—deliberately slowing or halting innovation in certain sectors. Drawing on ecological economics, the authors challenge the growth-driven paradigm and contend that managing resource consumption and development pace in over-productive or risky sectors represents a legitimate form of responsible innovation, not its failure.
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What contextual factors shape ‘innovation in innovation’? Integration of insights from the Triple Helix and the institutional logics perspective
The Triple Helix model of university-industry-government collaboration shapes innovation systems globally, but one-size-fits-all approaches fail. This paper integrates institutional logics with Triple Helix theory to explain how different national contexts produce varying innovation system configurations. The author identifies seven institutional logics that influence Triple Helix interactions and argues that institutional settings enable but don't determine outcomes—innovation policies and key actors ultimately decide Triple Helix development. The framework helps policymakers, especially in developing countries, design context-appropriate innovation strategies.
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Social network analysis in innovation research: using a mixed methods approach to analyze social innovations
Social networks drive innovation diffusion and social change by enabling learning, problem-solving, and idea sharing among actors. This paper demonstrates how mixed-methods social network analysis can reveal how networks foster innovation by connecting resources and knowledge. The author applies this approach to five education networks focused on sustainable development, showing practical implementation of SNA for studying innovation processes.
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Festival Innovation: Complex and Dynamic Network Interaction
Festival innovation emerges through complex, dynamic networks of multiple actors with diverse interests rather than isolated efforts. Swedish case studies reveal that innovation occurs unpredictably through new partnerships and improvisation, resisting formal planning. Some innovations eventually become institutionalized in partnership routines. Festival organizers must strategically understand their networks and leverage partner contributions to drive successful innovation.
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Beyond Regulation: Risk Pricing and Responsible Innovation
The insurance industry can drive responsible technological innovation by pricing risk appropriately, offering an alternative to traditional regulation. The authors argue that insurers' financial incentives to assess and manage emerging technological risks create powerful mechanisms for encouraging safer innovation practices without relying solely on government oversight.
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A structural analysis approach to identify technology innovation and evolution path: a case of m-payment technology ecosystem
This paper analyzes how mobile payment technology has evolved by examining patent citation networks and identifying key innovation trajectories. The researchers map the m-payment ecosystem and identify three main categories: mobile financial transaction systems, payee mobile device payment selection systems, and e-wallet services. The structural analysis approach reveals the systematic patterns through which m-payment technology has developed and provides a method for tracking technological evolution in innovation ecosystems.
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Toward A Theory on the Reproduction of Social Innovations in Subsistence Marketplaces
Social innovations often fail to spread in subsistence contexts despite their potential to address poverty. This paper develops a theory explaining how social innovations get reproduced in sub-Saharan Africa by examining what innovation attributes and actor capacities enable duplication. The authors identify three reproduction archetypes—mimetic, facilitated, and complex—based on the resource and knowledge requirements of innovations versus the capabilities of subsistence users and intermediaries. The framework reveals when users can independently reproduce innovations, when they need external support, and when innovations exceed local capacity.
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A conceptual model of frugal innovation: is environmental munificence a missing link?
This paper proposes a conceptual model explaining frugal innovation and its connection to value creation. The author examines how frugal innovation—creating effective solutions with minimal resources—generates value for organizations and customers. The model identifies environmental munificence, the availability of resources in the business environment, as a potentially critical factor linking frugal innovation practices to successful value creation outcomes.
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Perspective: The Green Innovation Value Chain: A Tool for Evaluating the Diffusion Prospects of Green Products
Green products often fail to replace conventional alternatives at scale despite promotion for climate and sustainability benefits. This paper introduces the green innovation value chain framework to assess financial viability across manufacturers, distributors, consumers, environment, and government. Analysis of hybrid vehicles reveals they remain financially unattractive compared to conventional cars across the entire value chain.
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Analysis of open innovation communities from the perspective of social network analysis
This paper analyzes online open innovation communities using social network analysis to understand how members participate and contribute ideas. The research measures correlations between different participation types and examines how collective intelligence evaluation methods can identify the most valuable user-generated ideas. The findings help organizations and community managers efficiently evaluate large volumes of ideas shared in online innovation platforms.
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Understanding the early stages of the innovation diffusion process: awareness, influence and communication networks
This paper examines how awareness and influence shape early-stage innovation adoption in the UK construction sector. Using social network analysis on data from chartered professionals and a case study organization, the research reveals that awareness and influence networks vary significantly across actors. The findings demonstrate that social network analysis effectively maps how innovations spread through professional networks and identifies key influencers, providing a framework for understanding adoption patterns in construction.
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Tribal mattering spaces: Social-networking sites, celebrity affiliations, and tribal innovations
This paper examines how social-networking sites create tribal communities around celebrity brands. The authors analyze online fan groups to understand how members develop shared identities, interact creatively, and critique marketing practices. They identify tribal innovations that emerge from the sense of belonging and togetherness within these emotional communities.
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The use of social network analysis in innovation studies: Mapping actors and technologies
Social network analysis remains underused in innovation policy and management. This paper identifies three research themes where SNA creates value: collaboration networks, communication networks, and technology networks. The authors examine how applying SNA to these themes generates insights for policy development and organizational management, and outline directions for future research.
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Exploring Factors Influencing Incumbents' Response to Disruptive Innovation
This case study of Hasselblad examines how incumbent firm characteristics shape responses to disruptive innovation. The company's limited resources and niche positioning in professional cameras constrained its ability to experiment with digital technology without damaging its brand. Hasselblad pursued collaborations and hybrid products but ultimately survived the shift from analog to digital through acquisitions. The paper argues that incumbent characteristics significantly influence how firms navigate disruptive threats, and that medium-sized premium firms can survive through strategic partnerships and acquisitions.
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Diffusion of Regional Innovation Capabilities: Evidence from Italian Patent Data
Innovation capabilities spread faster in late-industrializing Italian regions than in early-industrializing ones, driven by learning dynamics within expanding propulsive sectors. The study uses patent data to track how manufacturing innovation diffuses regionally, showing that research and development investment and complementary economic structural changes accelerate this diffusion process.
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How incremental innovation becomes disruptive: the case of technology convergence
This paper challenges the static distinction between incremental and disruptive innovation by showing how convergence of multiple well-established technologies can create disruptive effects. Using mobile telecommunications operators as a case study, the authors demonstrate that incremental improvements across separate technologies can combine to produce market disruption. They argue that understanding this convergence mechanism helps firms manage strategy and technology planning in uncertain environments where disruptive change emerges.
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Ambidextrous Organizations. A Multiple-Level Study of Absorptive Capacity, Exploratory and Exploitative Innovation and Performance
Organizations that balance exploration and exploitation—pursuing both new innovations and refining existing ones—achieve better performance in dynamic environments. The study finds that successful ambidextrous organizations separate exploratory and exploitative activities into different units. Different organizational units need distinct capabilities to absorb knowledge and drive their respective innovation types.
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The influence of persuasion, training and experience on user perceptions and acceptance of IT innovation
User adoption of IT innovations depends on beliefs and attitudes shaped by three key factors: persuasion, training, and direct experience. A longitudinal study found that persuasion strongly influences initial perceptions and adoption intentions, training helps users develop realistic expectations, and hands-on experience substantially changes perceptions and adoption decisions over time. Organizations should strategically manage these three factors to improve IT adoption.
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Impact of organizational learning on sustainable firm performance: Intervening effect of organizational networking and innovation
This study examines how organizational learning drives sustainable performance in small and medium manufacturing enterprises in Laos. Using surveys of 710 SME owners and structural equation modeling, the researchers found that organizational learning directly improves performance, while organizational networking and innovation act as intervening mechanisms. The results show that innovation alone doesn't guarantee better performance—it must be informed by strong information networks and learning processes.
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Measuring green innovation through total quality management and corporate social responsibility within SMEs: green theory under the lens
This study examines how total quality management (TQM) practices drive green innovation in small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in Pakistan. The research finds that TQM significantly improves both green product and process innovation. Corporate social responsibility partially mediates this relationship, meaning CSR practices strengthen the link between TQM and green innovation outcomes. The findings provide manufacturing SMEs with a roadmap for reducing waste and improving innovation through integrated TQM and CSR strategies.
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Fixing Technology with Society: The Coproduction of Democratic Deficits and Responsible Innovation at the OECD and the European Commission
This paper examines how the OECD and European Commission have promoted 'Responsible Innovation' frameworks globally. The authors argue these institutions use a 'democratic deficit' narrative—claiming insufficient public participation in innovation governance—to justify their authority over innovation policy. This approach frames societal engagement as essential to technological adoption while reinforcing market-liberal governance structures.
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External knowledge search and firms’ incremental innovation capability: the joint moderating effect of technological proximity and network embeddedness
External knowledge search strengthens firms' incremental innovation capability, especially when firms share similar technology with their partners and occupy central positions in innovation networks. The study analyzed patents in the unmanned aerial vehicle industry from 2004 to 2018, finding that technological proximity and network embeddedness jointly amplify how external knowledge collaboration drives incremental innovation.
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Online consulting in general practice: making the move from disruptive innovation to mainstream service
Online consulting in general practice represents a shift from experimental innovation to standard healthcare delivery. The authors argue that rigorous evaluation of these services is essential to maximize their benefits while minimizing potential risks, enabling the transition from disruptive innovation to mainstream adoption in primary care.
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Institutional pressure and the implementation of corporate environment practices: examining the mediating role of absorptive capacity
Firms facing similar environmental regulations respond differently based on their absorptive capacity—their ability to acquire and use environmental knowledge. This study of Indian textile and apparel companies shows that absorptive capacity mediates between institutional pressure and actual implementation of environmental practices. Managers must develop internal capabilities to acquire and exploit external environmental knowledge to effectively respond to sustainability demands.
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Diffusion Dynamics of Sustainable Innovation - Insights on Diffusion Patterns Based on the Analysis of 100 Sustainable Product and Service Innovations
This study analyzes 100 sustainable product and service innovations to understand what drives their market adoption. The researchers identified five distinct diffusion patterns, each shaped by different factors, actors, and institutional conditions. The findings show that sustainable innovations follow varied adoption paths, and understanding these differences helps explain why some innovations succeed while others fail.
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Organizational learning, absorptive capacity, imitation and innovation
This study examines how Chinese firms transition from imitation to innovation by analyzing relationships among organizational learning, absorptive capacity, imitation, and innovation. Using survey data from 115 Beijing firms, the research finds that organizational learning and absorptive capacity both directly boost innovation. Imitation strengthens absorptive capacity, which then mediates the path from imitation to innovation. Absorptive capacity emerges as critical for firms moving beyond copying to genuine innovation.
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Measuring triple‐helix synergy in the <scp>R</scp>ussian innovation systems at regional, provincial, and national levels
This paper measures innovation system synergy across Russian regions by analyzing half a million firms' data on size, technological knowledge, and location. Knowledge concentrates heavily in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. High-tech manufacturing disrupts regional coordination rather than enhancing it. Knowledge-intensive services, often state-affiliated, strengthen synergy in most federal districts and administrative centers, but Russia's economy remains largely non-knowledge-based outside Moscow.
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Governance of new product development and perceptions of responsible innovation in the financial sector: insights from an ethnographic case study
An ethnographic study of a global asset management company reveals that new product development follows a structured stage-gating governance model involving multiple internal and external actors. The company frames responsible innovation primarily through client needs and risk management—operational, legal, regulatory, and reputational. Staff perceive a cautious organizational culture that minimizes destructive outcomes. The stage-gating architecture provides a mechanism for embedding broader responsible innovation concepts.
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The democratizing effects of frugal innovation
Frugal innovation in livelihood, education, infrastructure, and distribution networks strengthens democratization and state-building in countries with large base-of-pyramid populations. The paper argues that creating inclusive markets through low-cost innovations drives socio-economic development, which reinforces democratic institutions and government capacity. Multinational corporations can advance democratization by profitably serving poor populations.
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Coordination in innovation‐generating business networks – the case of Finnish Mobile TV development
This study examines how coordination mechanisms evolve in innovation-generating business networks through a case study of Finnish Mobile TV development. The research finds that successful network coordination combines two distinct approaches: orchestration, which builds vision and social capital in early phases, and management, which coordinates activities closer to commercialization. The findings show how these mechanisms shift as networks develop.
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Determinants of user adoption of web ''Automatic Teller Machines': an integrated model of 'Transaction Cost Theory' and 'Innovation Diffusion Theory'
Banks in Taiwan implemented Web automatic teller machines as an alternative to traditional Internet banking. This study identifies five key factors driving user adoption: perceived relative advantage, perceived complexity, perceived compatibility, perceived uncertainty, and perceived transaction frequency. The research combines innovation diffusion theory and transaction cost theory to explain why users of traditional Internet banking don't automatically adopt Web ATMs.
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Networks, Propinquity, and Innovation in Knowledge-intensive Industries
Geographic proximity and network position jointly influence innovation in biotechnology firms. The study analyzed U.S. life science patents from 1988–1999 and found that regional clustering and network centrality have complementary but interdependent effects on patenting. Firms benefit from local connections to other biotech companies and universities, but this advantage depends on their global network ties. Regional agglomeration shapes how information flows through networks and determines the innovation impact of network centrality.
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From regional innovation systems to local innovation systems: Evidence from Italian industrial districts
Italian industrial districts function as independent local innovation systems rather than simply components of larger regional systems. The paper argues that districts' specific socio-economic characteristics create distinct innovation patterns that regional frameworks cannot fully explain. In Lombardy, multiple autonomous local innovation systems operate within the broader regional structure, demonstrating that innovation processes operate at multiple nested levels.
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Organizational Learning, Diffusion of Innovation, and International Collaboration in Telemedicine
This paper examines how telemedicine practices spread across organizations and what organizations learn from adopting telemedicine. The authors identify competing forces that influence this diffusion process and propose five sets of propositions explaining how telemedicine collaboration generates learning effects and shapes institutional development. The work addresses implications for building telemedicine networks.
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Autonomous Vehicles Acceptance: A Perceived Risk Extension of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and Diffusion of Innovation, Evidence from Tehran, Iran
This study examines what factors influence people's acceptance of autonomous vehicles in Tehran, Iran by combining three theoretical frameworks: technology acceptance theory, innovation diffusion theory, and perceived risk. Survey data from 641 residents shows that performance expectations and effort expectations drive acceptance most strongly, while perceived risk reduces it. Trialability and observability of the technology have modest positive effects on acceptance.
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Knowledge management systems usage: application of diffusion of innovation theory
This study examines how technological factors influence knowledge management system usage among decision makers in Jordanian banks. Using diffusion of innovation theory, researchers surveyed 341 bank employees and found that relative advantage, system complexity, and knowledge quality significantly affect KMS adoption, while system compatibility does not. The findings show that knowledge quality correlates with technological factors and that banks must prioritize information quality alongside system quality to maximize KMS investment returns.
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Embedding responsible innovation within synthetic biology research and innovation: insights from a UK multi-disciplinary research centre
A UK synthetic biology research centre embedded responsible innovation practices into its operations from 2014 to 2019, moving beyond public engagement to include anticipation, reflexivity, and deliberation. The centre struggled to measure how these interventions changed scientists' daily practices and research outcomes. Success required strong leadership, institutional support, openness to change, and robust impact measurement mechanisms.
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THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP AND CONFIGURING CORE INNOVATION CAPABILITIES TO ENHANCE INNOVATION PERFORMANCE IN A DISRUPTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Entrepreneurial leadership drives innovation performance in disrupted industries by shaping innovation strategy, while configuring core innovation capabilities—balancing exploration of new opportunities with exploitation of existing strengths—enhances performance during implementation. The study of Indonesia's telecommunications and banking sectors shows that entrepreneurial leadership and culture work together symbiotically, and firms should avoid collaborative innovation approaches that risk triggering core rigidities.
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Building Networks to Harness Innovation Synergies: Towards an Open Systems Approach to Sustainable Development
Open innovation networks enable individuals, firms, and organizations to share knowledge across boundaries and drive sustainable development. The paper proposes an open systems model with institutional support that accelerates knowledge flows, expands participation among diverse socioeconomic agents, and promotes environmental greening and social equity. Examples show how farms, businesses, and organizations can connect with critical knowledge nodes to participate actively in innovation networks.
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The Evolving University: Disruptive Change and Institutional Innovation
Universities face mounting pressure to drive social and cultural advancement while adapting their core mission. The paper argues that higher education institutions must experiment with inclusive delivery modes, validate new curriculum approaches, develop platforms with relevant applications, and create analytical tools using broad datasets. Future universities will require fundamentally different institutional arrangements and new collaborative methods for presenting specialized knowledge.
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The Effects of Absorptive Capacity and Decision Speed on Organizational Innovation: A Study of Organizational Structure as an Antecedent Variable
Organizational structure directly shapes innovation outcomes. Formalization increases absorptive capacity and drives innovation, but slows decision-making. Centralization reduces absorptive capacity and innovation without affecting decision speed. The study analyzed 260 enterprises using structural equation modeling to reveal how formalization and centralization influence innovation through distinct pathways of organizational capacity and decision velocity.
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The Adoption of Automatic Teller Machines in Nigeria: An Application of the Theory of Diffusion of Innovation
This paper applies diffusion of innovation theory to examine how automatic teller machines were adopted across Nigeria. The study analyzes the factors and patterns influencing ATM adoption in the Nigerian banking sector, using established innovation diffusion frameworks to understand technology uptake in a developing country context.
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Failed policies but institutional innovation through “layering” and “diffusion” in Spanish central administration
Spanish central administration agencies achieved significant managerial innovation through incremental institutional changes—layering and diffusion—despite failed large-scale public administration reforms. Tax, social security, and property registry agencies became more managerial within a public-law-dominated state by accumulating small modifications rather than radical restructuring. These mechanisms explain how modest changes produce substantial organizational transformation.
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The Role of Action Research in the Investigation and Diffusion of Innovations in Health Care: The PRIDE Project
Action research effectively investigates and spreads healthcare innovations, particularly when adaptations are needed for different settings. The authors analyze a UK project to show that action research combines research with practical implementation and development, making it valuable for studying how innovations diffuse through health systems. However, the method remains underutilized in innovation research despite its strengths as a whole-systems approach.
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From technology transfer to the emergence of a triple helix culture: the experience of Algeria in innovation and technological capability development
Algeria's post-independence industrialization relied heavily on technology transfer and central planning, but this approach failed to build genuine innovation capacity. The paper argues that developing countries must shift toward a triple helix model where universities, industry, government, and non-governmental organizations collaborate to foster innovation culture. Bureaucratic fragmentation and institutional barriers have blocked technological capability development. Policy reforms must prioritize building national innovation systems and enabling triple helix partnerships over passive technology transfer.
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Driving business performance through intellectual capital, absorptive capacity, and innovation: The mediating influence of environmental compliance and innovation
This study examines how intellectual capital drives business performance in Vietnamese companies through knowledge absorptive capacity and innovation. Surveying 206 managers across industries, the research finds that intellectual capital strengthens absorptive capacity, which boosts performance when paired with innovation. Environmental compliance and innovation partially mediate this relationship. Managers should prioritize absorptive capacity and innovation capabilities while maintaining environmental standards to leverage intellectual capital and improve business outcomes.
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Exploring the Research Regarding Frugal Innovation and Business Sustainability through Bibliometric Analysis
This bibliometric analysis examines 2,072 scientific documents on frugal innovation and business sustainability using Web of Science data and science mapping software. The research identifies growing international interest in how frugal innovation contributes to sustainable business practices and consumer behavior. The USA, Germany, England, the Netherlands, and India lead research activity, with European scholars most prominent. The analysis maps the field's intellectual structure, highlights key journals and authors, and identifies emerging research directions.
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Systematic literature review paper: the regional innovation system-university-science park nexus
Universities play nine distinct dynamic roles within regional innovation systems and science parks, operating across three relationship types: resource sharing with the RIS, brokerage between RIS and science parks, and commercialization with science parks. These roles span knowledge co-creation, acting as conduits, and relationship building, encompassing activities from networking and research collaboration to startup creation and technology transfer. University engagement directly affects science park innovation performance.
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Experimental networks for business model innovation: A way for incumbents to navigate sustainability transitions?
Incumbent firms struggle to innovate business models during sustainability transitions due to unclear pathways forward. This paper examines three case studies of emerging technology projects and shows how cross-industry networks operating on limited timescales help organizations collaboratively explore new business models for major socio-technical changes. The research introduces the concept of experimental networks as a mechanism enabling incumbents to actively shape sustainability transitions through interorganizational collaboration.
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Does absorptive capacity moderate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and supply chain resilience?
This study examines how absorptive capacity strengthens the link between entrepreneurial orientation and supply chain resilience in small and medium enterprises. Using data from 171 Yemeni manufacturing firms, the researchers found that entrepreneurial orientation directly improves supply chain resilience, and this effect becomes stronger when firms develop greater absorptive capacity. The findings suggest Yemeni SME managers should invest in building their firms' ability to acquire and apply new knowledge to maximize the benefits of entrepreneurial practices.
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In search of the frugal innovation strategy
This paper systematically reviews frugal innovation literature to establish it as a coherent business strategy for resource-constrained environments. Through co-citation analysis and systematic review of 42 papers, the authors clarify the scattered concept, define boundaries between frugal innovation and related approaches, and develop a framework with four strategic positions. They propose testable assumptions and explain when and how companies can apply frugal innovation strategy.
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Developing the Transformative Capacity of Social Innovation through Learning: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda for the Roles of Network Leadership
This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding how learning processes and network leadership build transformative capacity in social innovation. The authors extend Transformative Social Innovation theory by defining transformative change across three institutional dimensions—depth, width, and length—and explain how different types of learning support this change. They outline network leadership roles in facilitating learning across multiple levels and propose a research agenda for empirically testing these relationships in sustainability contexts.
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Innovating with Limited Resources: The Antecedents and Consequences of Frugal Innovation
Frugal innovation—developing affordable solutions with limited resources—drives performance improvements for firms in emerging markets. The study identifies two types: cost innovation and affordable value innovation. Firms facing institutional, technological, and market constraints generate more frugal innovations when they possess strong institutional leverage and bricolage capabilities. Dysfunctional competition also spurs frugal innovation. These findings show how resource-constrained emerging-market firms can compete effectively through resourceful product development.
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Social innovations in the German energy transition: an attempt to use the heuristics of the multi-level perspective of transitions to analyze the diffusion process of social innovations
This paper examines whether the multi-level perspective framework, commonly used to analyze technological transitions, can explain how social innovations spread in Germany's energy transition. The authors studied five social innovation projects in North Rhine-Westphalia and found that the framework works only for transformative social innovations that challenge existing systems, not for incremental improvements. The multi-level perspective proves useful for understanding diffusion barriers and drivers when social innovations compete with or reshape established regimes.
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Responsible innovation for decent nonliberal peoples: a dilemma?
This paper argues that responsible innovation frameworks are grounded in liberal democratic values, which limits their applicability in nonliberal contexts. The author identifies a fundamental dilemma: responsible innovation as currently conceived cannot adequately address innovation challenges in societies that don't share liberal democratic assumptions. The paper calls for rethinking responsible innovation's normative foundations to accommodate diverse political and cultural perspectives beyond Western frameworks.
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New development: Eight and a half propositions to stimulate frugal innovation
The paper presents eight and a half propositions for stimulating frugal innovation in public services. Based on research findings, these propositions challenge conventional innovation wisdom and aim to provoke policymakers, managers, and academics into rethinking how organizations can innovate with limited resources.
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Moocs: Disruptive Innovation and the Future of Higher Education
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) exemplify disruptive innovation in higher education. The paper traces MOOC origins and explains their rapid growth in digital education. While MOOCs may not persist in current forms, examining the problems they address reveals forces reshaping higher education and offers educators opportunities to actively influence the field's future direction.
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Managing Sustainable Innovation with a User Community Toolkit: The Case of the Video Game<i><scp>T</scp>rackmania</i>
A video game company used a toolkit connected to its user community to sustain innovation over time. The toolkit enabled users to create content and participate in value creation, acting as a boundary management tool between the firm and community. The study identifies four approaches for managing sustainable innovation through user toolkits, showing that structured community participation drives long-term innovation capacity beyond short-term collaboration benefits.
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Exploring the Antecedents of Potential Absorptive Capacity and Its Impact on Innovation Performance
This study examines what builds a firm's potential absorptive capacity—the ability to identify and assimilate external knowledge. Using data from 2,464 Spanish innovative firms, the authors find that R&D cooperation, external knowledge acquisition, and experience with knowledge search are key drivers. Firms invest more in building this capacity during major internal changes. The research shows that potential absorptive capacity creates competitive advantage in innovation when firms have strong internal knowledge flows.
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Disruptive innovation and circularity in start‐ups: A path to sustainable development
Brazilian start-ups are implementing disruptive innovations that advance circular economy principles in their business models. Through interviews with 50 start-up leaders, researchers found that these companies are partially adopting circular resource initiatives—including data management, supply chain partnerships, digitization, and new market opportunities—that support sustainable development. The study reveals varying adoption levels across market segments and identifies pathways for accelerating circular economy integration.
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Frugal innovation enablers: a comprehensive framework
This paper identifies fourteen key enablers of frugal innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises through literature review, expert interviews, and survey analysis of 200 employees and managers in Iran's home appliance manufacturing sector. The enablers include world-class design, human and social aspects, marketing, knowledge, prototyping, cultural and environmental considerations, brand creation, cost-cutting business models, and local R&D. The framework helps managers evaluate and develop capabilities for implementing frugal innovation.
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Regional innovation systems: Systematic literature review and recommendations for future research
This systematic literature review examines academic research on Regional Innovation Systems from 1997 to 2017. The authors analyze how RIS is defined across top-ranked journals, identify its key components, and establish methods for measuring RIS performance. They reveal knowledge gaps in the field and propose directions for future research on how innovation operates within regional contexts.
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Knowledge processing and ecosystem co-creation for process innovation: Managing joint knowledge processing in process innovation projects
Firms pursuing process innovation must manage knowledge sharing across ecosystems of suppliers and customers. This study of nine industrial firms identifies three technological challenges—complexity, novelty, and customization—that create knowledge-processing demands. The research shows that joint problem-solving, open communication, and end-user involvement enable ecosystem partners to navigate these demands successfully. Procurement strategies that emphasize contracting and relationship development facilitate effective knowledge processing across partners.
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Redefining the Relationship between Intellectual Capital and Innovation: The Mediating Role of Absorptive Capacity
This case study of a Brazilian paper and cardboard company demonstrates that absorptive capacity—the ability to assimilate new technologies, leverage internal knowledge, benchmark practices, and register patents—mediates the relationship between intellectual capital and innovation. The research shows that absorptive capacity strengthens how intellectual capital drives innovation, making it a critical mechanism for firms developing new products and processes.
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Managing BYOD: how do organizations incorporate user-driven IT innovations?
Organizations respond to employees bringing personal devices to work through three distinct strategies: induction, normalization, and regulation. These responses shape how companies incorporate employee-driven IT innovations into their operations. The study reveals that reversed adoption patterns—where employees drive technology use rather than organizations—create significant organizational change opportunities if managed strategically.
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Living Labs as Open Innovation Networks - Networks, Roles and Innovation Outcomes
Living labs organize innovation by bringing together users and stakeholders in real-life environments to address socio-economic and technological challenges. This study identifies seven stakeholder roles and four role patterns in living labs, showing that successful collaboration and innovation outcomes occur without strict management objectives. Network structures—centralized, decentralized, and distributed—support different innovation types. The research provides frameworks for managers to understand and develop open innovation networks.
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The Global Research-and-Development Network and Its Effect on Innovation
This study examines how pharmaceutical firms' position in global research-and-development networks affects innovation impact. The research finds that a firm's scientific knowledge intensity enhances innovation when combined with strong network resources. International gatekeepers bridging U.S., Japanese, and European firms strengthen this relationship. The study demonstrates that innovation succeeds when internal research capability and external network connections work together.
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Organization-wide adoption of computerized provider order entry systems: a study based on diffusion of innovations theory
Computerized provider order entry systems were adopted unevenly across healthcare staff. Nurses reported better experiences and perceived greater advantages than physicians, who found the systems poorly adapted to their work and wanted to return to paper-based methods. The study reveals that successful adoption requires designs offering substantial additional benefits beyond error reduction, continuous user feedback collection, and better communication about system advantages to healthcare workers.
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The Evolution of National Innovation Systems
This paper examines how national innovation systems develop and change over time. The authors analyze the institutional structures and evolutionary processes that shape how countries generate, adopt, and diffuse innovations across their economies. The work provides a framework for understanding why innovation systems differ between nations and how they adapt to new economic conditions.
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Examining the Diffusion of Innovations from a Dynamic, Differential-Effects Perspective: A Longitudinal Study on AI Adoption Among Employees
This study tracks how employees adopt AI in workplaces over time, finding that job security concerns drive increasingly negative attitudes toward AI. Relative advantage, compatibility, and observability strengthen positive attitudes, while ease of use and trialability have no significant effect. The impact of these factors varies by group: trialability only helps those already positive about AI, while observability and threat concerns matter more to skeptics.
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The impact of network orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on startup innovation and performance in emerging economies: The moderating role of strategic flexibility
In emerging economies, entrepreneurial orientation drives startup performance more than network orientation, particularly in early stages. Exploratory and exploitative innovation mediate these relationships differently: exploitative innovation matters most initially, while exploratory innovation becomes critical during growth. Strategic flexibility strengthens how entrepreneurial orientation and innovation types affect performance. The study surveyed 273 startups and reveals that startups benefit from balancing different innovation approaches as they mature.
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Digitalization and network capability as enablers of business model innovation and sustainability performance: The moderating effect of environmental dynamism
Chinese manufacturing firms can improve economic and environmental performance through digitalization and network capabilities, which work together to enable business model innovation. Environmental dynamism acts as both a barrier and enabler depending on the type of innovation pursued. The study surveyed 255 firms and found that network capability mediates digitalization's effects, while business model innovation mediates the path to sustainability outcomes.
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Green creativity, responsible innovation, and product innovation performance: A study of entrepreneurial firms in an emerging economy
Green creativity drives product innovation performance in entrepreneurial firms through responsible innovation practices. A study of 273 Vietnamese firms shows that firms committing more resources to environmental innovation strengthen this relationship. Responsible innovation mediates the effect of green creativity on product innovation outcomes, demonstrating how environmental commitment translates creative ideas into market performance.
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Innovation Diffusion Processes: Concepts, Models, and Predictions
This paper reviews mathematical models of how innovations spread through societies, integrating marketing and epidemiological approaches. The authors examine barriers to diffusion, the role of word-of-mouth communication, and how policy interventions can promote beneficial innovations while preventing harmful ones. They use deterministic models based on differential equations to analyze critical innovations essential for human progress.
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Digital revolution for the agroecological transition of food systems: A responsible research and innovation perspective
Digital technologies in agriculture have focused on precision farming for large-scale conventional systems. This paper argues that digital agriculture can instead accelerate agroecological transitions by redirecting research toward new data sources, processing methods, and connectivity. Using responsible research and innovation principles, an interdisciplinary team developed a research agenda prioritizing digitalization that empowers farmers, manages territories as commons, and supports local food systems while addressing tensions between rationalization and farming diversity.
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Disruptive technological innovations in construction field and fourth industrial revolution intervention in the achievement of the sustainable development goal 9
This study examines how disruptive technologies and fourth industrial revolution innovations can help the construction industry achieve sustainable development goals. Researchers surveyed 50 construction professionals about awareness, barriers, and success factors for adopting disruptive technologies. The findings show that disruptive innovation is essential for technological progress in construction and propose deployment strategies for sustainable building practices aligned with development objectives.
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Urban robotics and responsible urban innovation
This paper examines how robots can be responsibly integrated into urban environments. The author argues for designing robots that preserve desirable qualities of city life and proposes that urban robotics should address city-specific challenges through participatory approaches involving stakeholders. The paper suggests architects, urban designers, and planners must collaborate to address spatial issues created by robots in cities.
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Staging aesthetic disruption through design methods for service innovation
Design methods trigger service innovation by creating aesthetic disruption—sensory experiences that challenge participants' assumptions and destabilize their habitual behaviors. The paper argues that bodily experience, not just cognitive processes, drives meaningful change. By staging these disruptions through design methods, organizations can help actors break free from existing institutional constraints and generate genuine service innovation.
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Evolutionary Economics, Responsible Innovation and Demand: Making a Case for the Role of Consumers
This paper argues that consumer behavior fundamentally shapes responsible innovation. Using evolutionary economics and an agent-based model, the authors show that consumers' diverse preferences and limited rationality drive how innovations spread and whether they become responsible. The model represents products across multiple characteristics beyond price and quality, revealing that consumer heterogeneity directly influences which innovations succeed in markets.
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User voice and complaints as drivers of innovation in public services
User complaints and feedback drive innovation in public services when properly harnessed. The paper develops a framework showing how user voice prompts service improvements and identifies critical success factors for turning consumer knowledge into effective innovation. Six real-world examples demonstrate that while user input offers valuable insights for better service delivery, organizations often fail to fully develop these mechanisms.
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Frugal innovation, sustainable innovation, reverse innovation: why do they look alike? Why are they different?
This paper compares three types of innovation: frugal, sustainable, and reverse innovation. The author argues these are distinct concepts with different objectives, firm strategies, and macroeconomic effects. Frugal innovation represents a new technological paradigm, sustainable innovation directs efforts toward social and environmental needs, and reverse innovation reflects shifting global knowledge flows. The paper consolidates fragmented literature on these innovation types.
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Understanding the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Absorptive Capacity
This paper clarifies absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge—by establishing it consists of four distinct capabilities: acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation. The authors demonstrate these capabilities work sequentially, each building on the previous one, and that this four-factor model directly improves firm performance. The findings resolve conflicting definitions in prior research and give managers a clearer framework for leveraging knowledge to gain competitive advantage.
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Making Decisions on Innovation: Meetings or Networks?
This paper challenges the traditional view that innovation decisions happen in formal gate and portfolio meetings. Through two case studies, the authors show that actual decision-making occurs through informal networks of negotiations and micro-decisions among project managers, team members, and other actors. Official meetings function as checkpoints where approvals are sought rather than decisions made. Mandatory templates and documents serve as boundary objects that create new control points in the innovation process.
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The dynamic contribution of innovation ecosystems to schumpeterian firms: A multi-level analysis
This study examines how proximity to innovation ecosystem agents affects Schumpeterian firms' innovation performance. Using firm-level data from 2002–2014 covering 3,074 observations, the authors apply knowledge spillover theory to show that geographical closeness to ecosystem agents drives innovation outcomes. The research clarifies how firm size moderates these effects and identifies specific mechanisms through which knowledge spillovers enhance firm performance.
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The role of internal and external sources of knowledge on frugal innovation: moderating role of innovation capabilities
Internal and external knowledge sources significantly drive frugal innovation in small and medium enterprises. Innovation capabilities strengthen this relationship. The study surveyed 288 Saudi Arabian SMEs using structural equation modeling, finding that firms combining diverse knowledge sources with strong innovation capabilities achieve greater frugal innovation outcomes.
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Exploring Mission-Oriented Innovation Ecosystems for Sustainability: Towards a Literature-Based Typology
This paper develops a typology of mission-oriented innovation ecosystems designed to address sustainability challenges. By analyzing literature and using bibliometric methods, the author finds that ecosystems vary significantly depending on their mission type, with differences in which actors participate and their roles throughout innovation processes. The research emphasizes the state's critical role in driving system-level transformations, the necessity of civil society participation, and the need for research organizations to adapt to new requirements.
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Bricolage as capability for frugal innovation in emerging markets in times of crisis
Brazilian companies develop frugal innovations more effectively during crises when they possess bricolage capability—the ability to creatively combine available resources in unconventional ways. This study of 215 Brazilian firms confirms that bricolage is a required managerial capability for emerging market companies to innovate under resource constraints. The research identifies bricolage skills as essential for managers seeking to drive frugal innovation during economic downturns.
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The effect of enterprise social networks use on exploitative and exploratory innovations
Enterprise social networks boost both exploitative and exploratory innovation in Tunisian ICT firms, but through different mechanisms. Human capital mediates the link to exploitative innovation, while human and social capital together mediate the link to exploratory innovation. The study reveals how internal social networks strengthen intellectual capital dimensions that drive different innovation types.
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Managerial Social Networks and Innovation: A Meta‐Analysis of Bonding and Bridging Effects across Institutional Environments
This meta-analysis of 88 studies across 26 countries examines how managerial social networks drive innovation. The research finds that institutional context determines which network type works best: cohesive networks boost innovation in weak institutions and collectivistic cultures, while diverse networks are more effective in strong institutions and individualistic cultures. Managers should align their network strategy to their institutional environment.
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Circular Economy in the Triple Helix of Innovation Systems
This paper examines how industry, government, and universities conceptualize circular economy within innovation systems. Using natural language processing, the authors find that while each sector has distinct priorities—industry focuses on global business opportunities, government on waste-related policies and economic growth, and universities on production and environmental issues—they share limited consensus around materials, products, and creating resources from waste. This consensus space, the authors argue, can drive systemic innovation if strengthened across all three sectors.
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Measuring the diffusion of an innovation: A citation analysis
This paper develops a method for tracking how innovations spread across research fields using citation analysis and topic modeling. The authors identify five stages of innovation diffusion: testing, implementation, improvement, extending, and fading. They demonstrate that when innovations like Latent Dirichlet Allocation move between research areas, adoption patterns cluster among fields with similar interests, revealing how interdisciplinary knowledge transfer actually occurs.
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Managing Innovation Ecosystems to Create and Capture Value in ICT Industries
Organizations seeking growth through innovation must understand innovation dynamics, develop clear strategies, and design effective processes. Success requires managing innovation ecosystems and collaborating with external partners. The paper examines how companies—both large and small—can create and capture value by orchestrating their innovation environments strategically.
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Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation
This paper reviews a book arguing that digital technologies enable rapid market disruption through products that are simultaneously better and cheaper than existing solutions. Successful companies often fail to recognize these disruptions because they apply outdated strategic logic. The authors identify exponential technologies like mobile devices and cloud computing as drivers of disruption, replacing traditional bell-curve adoption patterns with rapid shark-fin curves that compress industry lifecycles and reward speed over incumbency.
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Links between Successful Innovation Diffusion and Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement significantly affects whether innovations succeed and spread. The authors studied 19 construction innovation projects and found that structured, planned engagement with key stakeholders before implementation is essential for successful innovation diffusion. Without systematic stakeholder involvement and clear communication strategies, innovation efforts face unpredictable obstacles and higher failure rates.
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Openness, Absorptive Capacity, and Regional Innovation in China
This study examines how openness to trade and foreign investment drives regional innovation across Chinese provinces from 1997 to 2007. The research finds that trade openness and foreign direct investment significantly boost innovation, while technology imports only help coastal regions. Human capital strengthens a region's ability to absorb external knowledge and benefit from spillover effects. Absorptive capacity emerges as crucial for translating openness into actual innovation gains.
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The impact of market size and users’ sophistication on innovation: the patterns of demand
This paper develops a theoretical model showing how demand drives innovation through two key factors: market size and user sophistication. The author argues that these conditions create firm incentives to innovate and proposes a taxonomy of industries based on these demand characteristics. The work provides analytical foundations for demand-pull innovation theory.
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The first business computer: a case study in user-driven innovation
In 1949, J. Lyons & Co., a British catering and food-manufacturing company, deployed the world's first business computer application. The company designed and built its own computer specifically for business data processing. This case study examines why Lyons was uniquely positioned to pioneer this innovation and traces how their effort launched the information revolution.
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Global buyer–supplier networks and innovation: The role of technological distance and technological breadth
Firms that source from global suppliers with diverse technological capabilities innovate more effectively, but only when technological distance between buyer and supplier remains manageable. The study analyzes 246 firms and their supplier networks, finding that broad supplier knowledge boosts innovation while excessive technological gaps hinder it. Global sourcing itself improves innovation, though this benefit diminishes when suppliers operate in distant technological domains.
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Indirect innovation management by platform ecosystem governance and positioning: Toward collective ambidexterity in the ecosystems
This study examines how platform ecosystem governance and positioning strategies indirectly influence complementary product innovation. Using data from 9,780 Japanese video game software titles, the research finds that increased openness and distinctiveness both encourage radical innovation. However, sales performance peaks when openness is moderate and distinctiveness is appropriately calibrated. The findings show that balanced governance strategies enable platforms to achieve ambidexterity—supporting both incremental and radical innovation simultaneously while maximizing commercial success.
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Pursuing Frugal Innovation for Sustainability at the Grassroots Level
Frugal innovation offers firms a practical approach to sustainability while serving underserved customers in developing countries. Three case studies from India show how frugal innovation creates new business models that address economic, social, and environmental challenges simultaneously. The paper argues that firms should adopt frugal innovation strategies to tackle pressing societal problems while promoting sustainability.
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Responsible Leadership Competencies in leaders around the world: Assessing stakeholder engagement, ethics and values, systems thinking and innovation competencies in leaders around the world
This study assesses responsible leadership competencies across 9,566 participants in 122 countries, measuring stakeholder engagement, ethics, systems thinking, and innovation. Self-awareness emerges as central to responsible leadership. Higher education correlates with better performance, and African region participants outperform others. Surprisingly, sustainability affinity doesn't improve scores, and executives show no improvement after leadership courses, while undergraduate students do.
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A retrospective analysis of responsible innovation for low-technology innovation in the Global South
Low-technology innovation in the Global South receives insufficient attention despite its potential to address global challenges. This retrospective analysis examines how researchers applied responsible innovation frameworks to low-technology projects in development contexts. The study finds that responsible innovation can facilitate stakeholder engagement and reflection, but remains difficult to implement in practice. A key barrier emerges: deficit-based public engagement models undermine inclusive participation. Notably, low-technology innovators face the same engagement challenges as high-technology developers when attempting to give end-users meaningful input into innovations that affect them.
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The effect of IT ambidexterity and cloud computing absorptive capacity on competitive advantage
Firms adopting cloud computing gain competitive advantage by balancing conflicting IT capabilities—flexibility and control—through organizational ambidexterity. The study surveyed 165 IT executives and found that cloud absorptive capacity, strengthened by this dual governance structure, drives knowledge accumulation and business performance. Companies should treat cloud adoption as strategic to remain competitive.
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A critical hermeneutic reflection on the paradigm-level assumptions underlying responsible innovation
This paper examines the underlying assumptions in responsible innovation theory by analyzing paradigm-level beliefs across different RI frameworks. The authors identify how current RI approaches implicitly carry ontological and axiological assumptions that distance them from the dominant techno-economic innovation paradigm. They argue that implementing responsible innovation requires awareness of these deep-level paradigmatic barriers and enablers to achieve meaningful change in research and innovation practices.
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Determinants of Service Innovation in Academic Libraries through the Lens of Disruptive Innovation
Academic libraries face disruption from digital technologies and must innovate their services to remain relevant. The paper applies the Resources-Processes-Values framework to recommend that library administrators lead innovation efforts, build supportive cultures, reward innovation, create autonomous innovation teams, and partner with users and other institutions to develop new services that respond to technological change.
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Diffusion of Innovations in Dynamic Networks
This paper develops a statistical model that simultaneously tracks how social networks evolve and how innovations spread through them. The model treats network changes and adoption decisions as interdependent processes, using a proportional hazards framework. The authors test their approach on adolescent cannabis use patterns and validate it through simulations.
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Millennials and the adoption of new technologies in libraries through the diffusion of innovations process
Millennials drive technology adoption in libraries by acting as change agents and early adopters. While libraries suggest new technologies as solutions to problems, adoption lags behind other sectors. Millennials use specific communication channels to shift employee attitudes toward new tools. Understanding technology adoption through diffusion theory rather than focusing on individual tools helps explain the broader paradigm shift in how libraries embrace innovation.
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Organizing Inter- and Intra-Firm Networks: What is the Impact on Innovation Performance?
This paper examines how firms organize their internal and external networks to improve innovation performance. The authors analyze the structural arrangements of inter-firm collaborations and intra-firm knowledge flows, demonstrating that network organization significantly affects a firm's ability to innovate. The findings show that deliberate network structuring enhances innovation outcomes by facilitating knowledge exchange and reducing coordination costs.
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RFID as a Disruptive Innovation
This paper analyzes RFID technology adoption through innovation theory, using Walmart's supply chain implementation as a case study. The authors argue that while Walmart treated RFID as an incremental improvement, the technology actually has disruptive potential across business and society. They propose two frameworks—object-oriented and visionary approaches—to help researchers and practitioners recognize and develop RFID's transformative applications beyond current narrow implementations.
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Absorptive capacity and interpretation system's impact when ‘going green’: an empirical study of ford, volvo cars and toyota
Three automotive companies—Ford, Volvo, and Toyota—developed greener cars with lower fuel consumption. The study found that companies with an 'enacting' approach to environmental interpretation, actively shaping market demand, succeeded better than those with a 'discovering' approach that passively responded to existing demand. Companies using discovery mode needed to combine engineering expertise with consumer psychology insights to profitably market environmental benefits.
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Factors for innovation ecosystem frameworks: Comprehensive organizational aspects for evolution
This paper identifies organizational factors essential for developing innovation ecosystems beyond just scientific and technological elements. The authors review literature to isolate key factors including organizational actors, funding mechanisms, governance, human capital, and regional culture. They argue that regions must understand their own inherent factors rather than copying external models, and that effective ecosystem evolution requires attention to collaboration, relationships, and social behavioral aspects alongside institutional structures.
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Investigation of the energy absorption capacity of foam-filled 3D-printed glass fiber reinforced thermoplastic auxetic honeycomb structures
This paper examines how foam-filled 3D-printed glass fiber reinforced auxetic honeycomb structures absorb energy under compression. Researchers tested both hollow and foam-filled lattice structures, finding that foam increased energy absorption by 20% for PLA and 70% for PA materials. They validated results through finite element analysis and developed a theoretical model to predict failure behavior, showing that adjusting strut angles affects both load capacity and the structure's auxetic properties.
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Responsible innovation with digital platforms: Cases in India and Canada
This study examines two digital platforms in India and Canada that serve marginalized communities by addressing grand challenges like education, healthcare, and livelihood access. The platforms orchestrate ecosystems involving marginalized individuals, government agencies, and other entities to deliver physical, digital, and societal solutions. The research demonstrates how responsible innovation principles—anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness—operate through digital platforms to generate simultaneous economic and social value for vulnerable populations.
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Responsible innovation and ethical corporate behavior in the Asian fashion industry: A systematic literature review and avenues ahead
Fashion companies have moved manufacturing to Asia to cut costs but face pressure for sustainability and transparency. This systematic review of 114 papers examines how responsible innovation and ethical corporate behavior connect in the fashion industry. The research finds that while brands attempt to adopt responsible innovation across supply chains, misalignment between corporate ethics and local cultural values blocks progress toward sustainable business models and UN development goals.
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How Firm Performs Under Stakeholder Pressure: Unpacking the Role of Absorptive Capacity and Innovation Capability
Stakeholder pressure drives small and medium-sized enterprises to develop absorptive capacity—the ability to learn and integrate new knowledge—which in turn builds innovation capability. The study of 291 manufacturing SMEs shows that absorptive capacity mediates how stakeholder pressure influences innovation capability, and innovation capability mediates how absorptive capacity affects firm performance. This chain demonstrates that managing external pressure through learning capacity directly improves business outcomes.
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Digital platforms and responsible innovation: expanding value sensitive design to overcome ontological uncertainty
Digital platforms create unpredictable value impacts that traditional design methods cannot anticipate. The authors expand value sensitive design to handle ontological uncertainty—situations where even complete information cannot predict how users will actually employ platforms. They propose extending design across a platform's entire lifecycle, adding reflexive learning about which values matter, and introducing moral sandboxing and prototyping tools to navigate this uncertainty.
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Technological Frames and User Innovation
Online community moderators on Reddit who migrated to Discord faced scaling and design challenges. They responded by creating custom scripts and bots using Discord's API to modify the platform and replicate Reddit's functionality. End-user programming enabled these communities to innovate solutions to unanticipated design problems, transforming new platforms to match their existing expectations and workflows.
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Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age.
This playbook provides practical guidance for navigating innovation in disruptive times. Radziwill offers a structured approach to mapping and managing innovation processes, helping organizations understand and respond to rapid change. The work combines innovation strategy with quality management principles to support decision-making in uncertain environments.
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The role of marketing capabilities, absorptive capacity, and innovation performance
This study examines how absorptive capacity influences organizational performance in Brazilian manufacturing firms. The research finds that absorptive capacity does not directly affect performance. Instead, marketing capabilities—including innovative capability and new product development—and innovation performance fully mediate this relationship. Managers should invest in absorptive capacity and marketing capabilities to improve competitive performance.
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Grassroots Social Innovation for Human Development: An Analysis of Alternative Food Networks in the City of Valencia (Spain)
This paper examines organic food buying groups in Valencia, Spain, to understand how grassroots social innovation contributes to human development. The authors combine social innovation, grassroots innovation, and capability approach frameworks to create a new analytical model. Their analysis identifies key elements that bottom-up food initiatives must include—such as agent involvement, clear purposes, enabling drivers, and inclusive processes—to effectively advance human development and social transformation.
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Generating Democratic Legitimacy through Deliberative Innovations: The Role of Embeddedness and Disruptiveness
Deliberative innovations—structured public participation events—can strengthen democratic legitimacy only when properly embedded in existing institutions. This study compares four deliberative events across Europe and Canada, finding that institutional integration significantly affects legitimacy outcomes, while a deliberative process's disruptive potential has no bearing on its legitimacy claims.
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Symmetric Assumptions in the Theory of Disruptive Innovation: Theoretical and Managerial Implications
This paper critiques disruptive innovation theory for making asymmetric assumptions about firms. It argues that while the theory explains why established companies fail to adopt new technologies, it treats incumbent firms as internally diverse but assumes environmental firms are homogeneous. The authors propose a more symmetric theoretical framework that recognizes both incumbents and their environment contain heterogeneous actors, and that firms can actively shape their environment rather than merely respond to it.
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Absorptive capacity and network orchestration in innovation communities – promoting service innovation
Service innovation increasingly happens in loosely coupled networks called innovation communities. This paper shows that orchestrating these communities requires discrete guidance tailored to services' unique characteristics. The research identifies how orchestration mechanisms and contingency factors together build absorptive capacity—the network's ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge—enabling service innovation. Managing networks demands rethinking traditional innovation management approaches.
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Internet computing as a disruptive information technology innovation: the role of strong order effects1
A survey of 121 software firms reveals how companies adopt internet computing innovations in a specific sequence: base innovations first, then service innovations, then process innovations. The study shows that the amount and radicalness of base innovations directly drive service innovations, which then influence process innovations. Software organizations should recognize that radical innovations are interconnected and adopt flexible strategies that account for these dependencies.
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TRANSFORMING ECOSYSTEM RELATIONSHIPS IN DIGITAL INNOVATION
This paper examines how firms transform their innovation ecosystem relationships to adopt open innovation models. Using Sony Ericsson's eight-year effort to increase external contributions in mobile device development, the authors identify five value competitions where the company's ambitions clashed with platform owners, operators, and competitors. The research shows that ecosystem transformation involves inherent tensions between competing values, and these tensions actually drive the formation of new ecosystem relationships.
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National innovation systems a proposed framework for developing countries
National innovation systems drive long-term economic development, but developing countries struggle to build the necessary infrastructure. This paper examines how newly industrialized economies successfully developed their innovation systems and proposes a conceptual framework that developing countries can adopt to manage technological innovation more systematically.
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Innovation in chains and networks
This editorial outlines a theoretical framework for studying innovation within supply chains and networks. The author proposes building an international collaborative research center at Wageningen to advance understanding of how innovation occurs across interconnected organizations and systems, inviting research groups worldwide to participate in cooperative investigations.
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How to unleash frugal innovation through internet of things and artificial intelligence: Moderating role of entrepreneurial knowledge and future challenges
IoT and artificial intelligence both significantly predict frugal innovation in China, according to analysis of 779 responses. Entrepreneurial knowledge moderates this relationship, meaning business skills help organizations effectively adopt these technologies for affordable, simple solutions. The study recommends that managers incorporate both IoT and AI capabilities while developing entrepreneurial competencies to compete in technology-driven markets.
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The Making of Responsible Innovation and Technology: An Overview and Framework
This paper reviews responsible innovation and technology (RIT) concepts to establish how digital advancement can serve both economic and social goals. The authors identify key RIT characteristics: technological outcomes must be acceptable, accessible, trustworthy, and well-governed while aligning with societal values. They develop a conceptual framework for implementing RIT that governments, companies, and researchers can use to address challenges from technological progress while protecting community well-being.
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Constraint-Based Thinking: A Structured Approach for Developing Frugal Innovations
This paper introduces constraint-based thinking as a structured method for developing frugal innovations. The approach systematically identifies constraints, analyzes their root causes, maps causes to product features, and develops minimal viable products. Using medical device industry cases, the authors show how constraints become opportunities for innovation, providing a practical framework companies and researchers can use to create frugal solutions.
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Can we learn from hidden mistakes? Self-fulfilling prophecy and responsible neuroprognostic innovation
When doctors predict poor outcomes for comatose patients and withdraw life support based on that prediction, they create a self-fulfilling prophecy that prevents learning. The patient dies regardless, so doctors cannot determine if their original prediction was correct or incorrect. This epistemic problem allows false positives to persist undetected in prognostic tests, distorting research on new neuroprognostication techniques and amplifying bias toward early treatment withdrawal. The authors propose guidelines to help researchers mitigate these learning obstacles and develop more responsible innovations.
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Developing process and product innovation through internal and external knowledge sources in manufacturing Malaysian firms: the role of absorptive capacity
Manufacturing firms in Malaysia improve their innovation performance by developing absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire, disseminate, and use knowledge. The study finds that a firm's own experience strongly builds absorptive capacity, while external R&D partnerships show mixed results. Absorptive capacity itself strongly predicts whether firms successfully innovate in products and processes.
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Innovation diffusion theory and customers’ behavioral intention for Islamic credit card
This paper examines what drives customers to adopt Islamic credit cards using innovation diffusion theory and theory of reasoned action. Analysis of 762 bank customers reveals that relative advantage, compatibility, customer awareness, satisfaction, and attitude are the strongest predictors of intention to use Islamic credit cards. The combined theoretical framework effectively explains adoption of this Islamic banking service.
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Digital innovation evaluation: user perceptions of innovation readiness, digital confidence, innovation adoption, user experience and behaviour change
This paper develops short user-reported measures to assess healthcare innovation adoption by evaluating user perceptions of capability, opportunity, and motivation for behavior change. The measures map onto existing frameworks for understanding why health innovations succeed or fail at scale. These tools help predict whether digital health innovations will spread successfully across health systems.
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Research on Financial Technology Innovation and Application Based on 5G Network
5G technology enables financial institutions to innovate services through faster, more secure transactions and real-time mobile trading. The paper examines how 5G networks support fintech applications including backbone network evolution, drone-based facility inspection, and cash transport monitoring. These capabilities reduce financial sector risks, increase productivity, and improve customer satisfaction while strengthening transaction security.
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Responsible innovation as empowering ways of knowing
This paper examines responsible innovation through a case study of biogasification projects in rural India. The authors argue that inclusion in innovation governance often overlooks fundamental issues of how different groups know and understand the world. They show that exclusion happens when local communities lose control over their own knowledge and their ways of understanding are dismissed as outdated. The paper calls for responsible innovation to prioritize empowering communities' own ways of knowing.
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Innovation ecosystems: a meta-synthesis
This metasynthesis synthesizes six qualitative case studies to build a unified theory of innovation ecosystems. The authors find that no conceptual consensus exists on the term, but identify core elements: organic, dynamic interrelationships between organizations that enable faster creation of innovative products. They propose a framework integrating global-local perspectives, showing how companies interact with dispersed strategic partners across industry dynamics and multiple organizational levels to produce innovations.
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Disruptive innovation, stranded assets and forecasting: the rise and rise of renewable energy
Renewable energy combined with battery storage exhibits the three defining features of disruptive innovation: it occupies an expanding niche, grows exponentially, and creates stranded assets in fossil fuel infrastructure. The paper forecasts that renewable energy with storage will exceed current capacity projections and could meet 100% of global energy demand by 2050 under various scenarios, fundamentally transforming energy systems over the next three decades.
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Knowledge Processes, Absorptive Capacity and Innovation: A Mediation Analysis
Knowledge creation and absorptive capacity mediate how companies convert external knowledge into innovation. The study of 111 industrial organizations found that internal knowledge sharing drives innovation primarily through knowledge creation, while external knowledge acquisition strengthens absorptive capacity and internal sharing. Absorptive capacity itself does not directly boost innovation. Companies should prioritize creating environments where employees share ideas and develop solutions together.
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Responsible research and innovation: a productive model for the future of medical innovation
This paper examines how responsible research and innovation (RRI) applies to healthcare by conducting focus groups in Montreal with patients, clinicians, engineers, designers, and innovation managers. The researchers use these discussions about technological solutions to healthcare challenges to develop a more detailed understanding of RRI's four dimensions: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness. The work shows how responsibility in medical innovation requires balancing perspectives across different stakeholder groups.
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Explorative Versus Exploitative Business Model Change: The Cognitive Antecedents of Firm‐Level Responses to Disruptive Innovation
Incumbent firms respond to disruptive business model innovations through two strategies: exploring new disruptive models or exploiting existing ones. The study identifies cognitive drivers of each approach. Opportunity perception and perceived threats drive explorative adoption, while critical threats and industry tenure discourage it. Risk experience increases both strategies. These findings reveal how managers' perceptions shape strategic responses to disruption.
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If It Takes a Village to Foster Innovation, Success Depends on the Neighbors: The Effects of Global and Ego Networks on New Product Launches
This study examines how a firm's position within industry networks affects new product launches. Using alliance data from consumer packaged goods companies between 1990 and 2010, the researchers found that central network positions boost incremental product launches but harm breakthrough innovations. However, firms with dense, diverse direct partnerships and strong R&D capabilities can overcome this trade-off, using their network position to improve incremental products while protecting breakthrough innovations.
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From<scp>TV</scp>Personality to Fans and Beyond: Indexical Bleaching and the Diffusion of a Media Innovation
This paper examines how a media phrase popularized by a television personality spreads beyond its original audience. The phrase 'lady pond' circulates from Bravo viewers to broader Twitter users while maintaining its form and meaning. However, it loses its connection to its media source through a process called indexical bleaching, where the phrase becomes detached from its original context, enabling wider adoption and diffusion.
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The preferences of users of electronic medical records in hospitals: quantifying the relative importance of barriers and facilitators of an innovation
Hospital nurses and physicians prioritize different features when adopting electronic medical records. Both groups value flexible interfaces most highly, but nurses prioritize departmental support and performance feedback, while physicians prioritize decision support functionality. Current EMR systems inadequately meet user needs, suggesting hospitals should tailor implementation strategies to different professional groups and involve users earlier in system design.
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How internal users contribute to corporate product innovation: the case of embedded users
Embedded users—employees who also use their company's products—contribute significantly to corporate innovation by bridging internal and external knowledge. Drawing on interviews across 23 firms, the study shows these employees deploy use knowledge, solution knowledge, and organizational knowledge alongside social capital throughout ideation, development, and marketing phases. Embedded users generate ideas, absorb external information, set specifications, conduct testing, and act as opinion leaders, effectively spanning organizational boundaries to bring customer needs into product development.
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Co-innovation in networks of resources — A case study in the Chinese exhibition industry
Partners in a Chinese exhibition industry joint venture achieved market success through co-innovation, strategically combining their resources to develop a growing trade show. This collaborative innovation process enabled the partners to exploit opportunities in a rapidly changing industry, building evolving capabilities that sustained competitive advantage. The study demonstrates how resource co-mingling creates value that motivates continued cooperation and business expansion.
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Open innovation, networking, and business model dynamics: the two sides
Business models must be dynamic and network-focused to survive in competitive markets. Small innovative companies face distinct challenges because their business models are embedded within those of larger partners. This study examines how large pharmaceutical companies and venture capital firms structure networked business models that shape the opportunities and constraints facing small biotech companies in open innovation partnerships.
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Network resources and the innovation performance
Network resources significantly drive innovation performance in firms participating in global production networks. The study distinguishes between accessed resources (external) and embedded resources (internal), showing both directly improve innovation performance. Technological capability and bargaining power mediate these effects. Chinese firms that strategically form and utilize network resources gain competitive advantage.
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USER-INVOLVEMENT AND OPEN INNOVATION: THE CASE OF DECISION-MAKER OPENNESS
Decision-maker openness determines whether companies can truly implement open innovation through user involvement in product development. The cognitive distance between decision-makers and users creates barriers to adopting novel user inputs. The research shows that when decision-makers remain closed-minded, open innovation fails to materialize, even when users are available as external resources. Successful innovation requires decision-makers to act as boundary spanners who embrace cognitively distant user perspectives.
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Regional innovation, entrepreneurship and talent systems
Regional innovation systems have evolved unpredictably since the 1990s, with global economic shifts destabilizing them more than national factors. This paper argues that entrepreneurship and talent formation have been overlooked in understanding how regional systems develop. The author categorizes regional innovation system evolution based on the strength of these two variables, showing they are critical to system robustness.
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KNOWLEDGE INFRASTRUCTURE, INNOVATION DYNAMICS, AND KNOWLEDGE CREATION/DIFFUSION/ACCUMULATION PROCESSES
This paper examines how knowledge infrastructure and institutional arrangements shape innovation and knowledge creation across Europe's knowledge-based economy. The authors analyze the roles of various agents, their interactions, and how institutional and spatial configurations influence innovation dynamics. They develop an analytical framework showing how institutions, strategies, and spatial scales interact to structure and deploy knowledge infrastructure for economic and social value creation.
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A diffusion of innovations model of physician order entry.
This study applies diffusion of innovations theory to understand physician order entry (POE) adoption in hospitals. Researchers conducted qualitative analysis across multiple hospital sites, identifying four key theme areas: organizational issues, clinical and professional concerns, technology implementation challenges, and information organization problems. The findings show POE is a complex innovation requiring customizable, integrated systems with strong user involvement, organizational support, and collaborative trust to succeed.
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The Moderating Role of Top‐Down Supports in Horizontal Innovation Diffusion
This study examines how government support policies affect the spread of administrative innovations across municipalities. Using data from China's one-stop government centers between 1997 and 2012, the authors find that strong central and provincial policy signals actually reduce the influence of neighboring cities' adoption decisions. Top-down government support substitutes for horizontal peer pressure rather than complementing it, suggesting different diffusion mechanisms compete for influence on local innovation adoption.
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What Fosters Individual-Level Absorptive Capacity in MNCs? An Extended Motivation–Ability–Opportunity Framework
This study examines what drives individual employees in multinational corporations to absorb new knowledge. Using data from 648 workers, the researchers found that intrinsic motivation and overall ability are the strongest predictors of absorptive capacity, while extrinsic motivation has no significant effect. International assignments to distant countries can harm knowledge absorption unless employees are open to new experiences, in which case such assignments become beneficial for capability development.
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Diffusion of innovation among Malaysian manufacturing SMEs
Malaysian manufacturing SMEs adopt innovations based on perceived advantages, compatibility, and complexity, alongside their strategic orientation and organizational capacity. The study of 360 firms shows that these factors significantly influence product, process, and service innovation adoption and business performance. Policymakers should design support systems providing innovation information, cost-benefit analyses, and guidance on adoption processes tailored to SMEs' limited resources.
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Necessitated absorptive capacity and metaroutines in international technology transfer: A new model
International technology transfer to developing nations requires firms to absorb advanced knowledge effectively. This paper identifies organizational routines as key drivers of absorptive capacity—the ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply external knowledge. The authors propose the Necessitated Absorptive Capacity model, which treats absorptive capacity as a dynamic organizational capability shaped by metaroutines, advancing both theoretical understanding and practical application of how firms in developing countries successfully adopt foreign technology.
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Towards an alignment of activities, aspirations and stakeholders for responsible innovation
This paper addresses how to govern technological innovation responsibly by proposing a framework that aligns innovation activities, stakeholder aspirations, and governance dimensions. The authors integrate sustainability principles with responsible innovation concepts—anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness—to answer how innovation should proceed responsibly. A nanotechnology case study demonstrates the framework's practical application for government agencies, industry, and stakeholders managing innovation governance.
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Diffusion in the Face of Failure: The Evolution of a Management Innovation
This paper examines how management innovations spread globally despite widespread implementation failures. Comparing resource planning (RP) and total quality management, the authors show that RP succeeded through continuous evolution into variants like ERP, while total quality management experienced boom-and-bust cycles. RP's success stemmed from how field-level actors framed it discursively, the innovation's technical properties, and organizational adaptation. Embedding RP in software enabled differentiation between field-level success and organizational failures, sustaining global diffusion.
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Knowledge sharing and firm performance: the role of social networking site and innovation capability
Social networking sites enable firms to share knowledge and improve performance when combined with strong innovation capabilities. Product development capability paired with SNS use enhances knowledge sharing, while operational capability paired with SNS use drives incremental innovation and firm performance. The study shows how firms leverage digital platforms strategically to navigate market turbulence and compete effectively.
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The role of organizational and social capital in the firm’s absorptive capacity
This study examines how firms absorb and use new knowledge differently depending on their innovation goals. Researchers interviewed 23 people across three French industrial firms and found that companies pursuing incremental innovations rely more on social capital and informal networks, while those pursuing radical innovations depend more on formal organizational structures. The type of innovation a firm pursues fundamentally shapes how it acquires and processes external knowledge.
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Indicators for promoting and monitoring responsible research and innovation: report from the expert group on policy indicators for responsible research and innovation
This paper presents indicators developed by an expert group to measure and promote responsible research and innovation across policy contexts. The indicators provide frameworks for monitoring how research and innovation activities align with societal values and address public concerns, enabling policymakers to track progress toward more accountable and socially beneficial innovation systems.
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Social innovation and community development: Concepts, theories and challenges
This book examines how urban communities experiencing social exclusion have responded through social innovation. It documents specific local communities and the socially innovative strategies they deployed to address exclusion dynamics, offering insights into community-driven approaches to development and social change.
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Successful Diffusion and Adoption of Innovation as a Means to Increase Competitiveness of Enterprises
Innovation increases enterprise competitiveness through the interaction of scientific research, technology development, and market needs. The paper synthesizes research showing that successful innovation adoption and diffusion depend on integrating these three elements. This framework applies across theoretical and practical contexts for improving business performance.
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Challenging the triple helix model of regional innovation systems: A venture-centric model
This paper critiques the triple helix model of regional innovation systems for excluding entrepreneurs and innovators. Through interviews, the authors find that government, university, and industry actors lack integration, and that entrepreneurs and researchers feel excluded from policy frameworks. They propose an alternative bottom-up double helix model centered on entrepreneurs as drivers of innovation, rather than treating innovation as a top-down process controlled by institutions.
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Fostering innovation through learning from digital business ecosystem: A dynamic capability perspective
Small and medium-sized enterprises participating in digital business ecosystems develop innovation capabilities through iterative learning and external resource leverage. The study identifies three key capabilities: detecting market changes, accessing external resources, and adapting to evolving conditions. SMEs gain competitive advantage by using ecosystem insights to predict customer preferences and drive product innovation, though over-reliance on external partners poses risks.
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Impact of absorptive capacity on project success through mediating role of strategic agility: Project complexity as a moderator
This study examines how absorptive capacity—the ability to acquire and apply new knowledge—influences project success in Portuguese IT companies. The research finds that both potential and realized absorptive capacity directly improve project outcomes and also work indirectly through strategic agility. Project complexity strengthens the link between potential absorptive capacity and strategic agility but does not affect the realized absorptive capacity relationship.
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Adoption of Sustainability Innovations and Environmental Opinion Leadership: A Way to Foster Environmental Sustainability through Diffusion of Innovation Theory
This study examines how Pakistani hospitals can adopt sustainability innovations by leveraging environmental opinion leadership. Using survey data from hospital employees, the research identifies five key factors that drive adoption: trialability, innovativeness, compatibility, simplicity, and relative advantage. The findings provide practical guidance for improving environmental sustainability in Pakistan's hospital sector.
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Frugal innovation and sustainability outcomes: findings from a systematic literature review
This systematic review of 130 empirical studies examines how frugal innovation drives sustainability outcomes. The authors find that frugal innovation's potential to improve social, environmental, and economic conditions depends on who develops it—whether large firms, small firms, or non-profit actors, and whether they are foreign or local. Collaboration across innovation stages proves critical. The review identifies gaps in understanding when and where frugal innovation most effectively produces sustainability benefits.
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Inter-Organizational Trust on Financial Performance: Proposing Innovation as a Mediating Variable to Sustain in a Disruptive Era
Hungarian ICT companies that build trust with business partners innovate more effectively and achieve better financial performance. The study of 100 micro, small, and medium-sized ICT firms shows that innovation acts as the mechanism linking inter-organizational trust to improved financial outcomes. Trust drives innovation, which then drives profitability in the disruptive technology sector.
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How to save the world during a pandemic event. A case study of frugal innovation
Digital makers applied frugal innovation principles to develop rapid COVID-19 solutions during the pandemic. The study examines how these makers combined resource-efficient innovation, agile methods, and open innovation strategies to address urgent local health problems. Results show this approach effectively produced practical solutions with potential for global scaling, demonstrating frugal innovation's value in responding to unexpected crises.
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The Imperative of Responsible Innovation in Reproductive Medicine
This article examines the lack of evidence supporting widespread use of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy in reproductive medicine. The authors use this case to highlight a broader problem: reproductive medicine adopts new technologies without sufficient data demonstrating their safety and effectiveness. They argue for more responsible innovation practices that require robust evidence before clinical implementation.
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The effect of process tailoring on software project performance: The role of team absorptive capacity and its knowledge‐based enablers
This study examines how software teams tailor development processes to fit specific project needs and how this affects project success. The research finds that team experience, communication quality, and trust build absorptive capacity—the ability to learn and apply new knowledge—which then improves how teams conduct process tailoring and ultimately enhances project performance. The findings provide guidance for managing software development teams.
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Genotype network intersections promote evolutionary innovation
This paper investigates how evolutionary innovations emerge by studying genotype networks—the sets of genetic variants producing identical traits. Using high-throughput sequencing of catalytic RNA molecules, researchers found that innovations occur where two different genotype networks overlap. Multiple genetic sequences can perform both functions at these intersections. Neutral evolution periods allow populations to explore genotype networks more broadly, accelerating adaptation to new functions. The findings suggest natural evolutionary innovations may arise through overlapping genetic networks.
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Open innovation and knowledge for fostering business ecosystems
This special issue examines how open innovation and knowledge sharing drive business ecosystem development. Ten papers use different theoretical approaches and methods to explore how organizations collaborate and exchange knowledge to build stronger, more interconnected business environments that foster growth and competitiveness.
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Enriching individual absorptive capacity
This study examines how individual employees develop absorptive capacity—the ability to learn and apply new knowledge. Using survey data from 125 supervisor-employee pairs, the authors find that organizational commitment to learning and intrinsic motivation both strengthen employees' potential absorptive capacity. Realized absorptive capacity then mediates the relationship between potential capacity and employee creativity, which directly improves job performance.
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New Concepts for New Dynamics: Generating Theory for the Study of Religious Innovation and Social Change
The Emerging Church movement demonstrates how religious innovation occurs through institutional entrepreneurship. Emerging Christians deconstruct and reframe mainstream Christian beliefs and practices while creating new organizational forms to legitimize their alternative approaches. This collective innovation operates through diffuse networks across geographic spaces and social groups, showing how religious change emerges not from isolated individuals but through coordinated action responding to broader societal conditions.
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Understanding the multiple factors governing social learning and the diffusion of innovations
This paper examines how animals learn from social interactions and how innovations spread through populations via social learning. The author reviews evidence from wild animals and identifies key conditions enabling social learning: sensitive developmental periods, difficulty obtaining personal information, and situations where social information outperforms individual learning. The research demonstrates that social learning mechanisms allow animal populations to adapt behaviorally to environmental changes through innovation diffusion.
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The effect of human capital and networks on knowledge and innovation in SMEs
Human capital and internal networks significantly boost innovation in small and medium manufacturing firms. A survey of 462 firms in Southern Italy found that entrepreneur and worker education, plus firm-internal networks, increase both the likelihood and intensity of innovation. External production chain networks also matter, but internal human capital drives innovation most strongly in traditional manufacturing sectors.
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Twitter as Disruptive Innovation in Sport Communication
This paper argues that Twitter functions as a disruptive innovation in sport communication by shifting from traditional one-to-many television consumption to many-to-many participatory models. Users themselves defined how the platform would be used for sport engagement. The author calls for comprehensive theoretical analysis of Twitter's role in sport, noting that existing research often applies older media frameworks rather than developing new theory suited to this platform's unique characteristics.
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Multi-parameter models of innovation diffusion on complex networks
This paper develops a mathematical model to understand how innovations spread through populations via peer influence. Using household energy efficiency adoption as a case study, the model represents people as network nodes whose decision to adopt depends on personal preference, neighbors' choices, and broader social trends. The researchers test the model on different network structures and provide analytical methods to predict adoption rates, showing how network topology affects innovation diffusion patterns.
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Absorptive Capacity at the Individual Level: Linking Creativity to Innovation in Academia
This paper applies absorptive capacity theory to individual academics, showing how creativity and innovation connect at the personal level. The authors develop a framework predicting research scholarship among university faculty, extending absorptive capacity analysis from organizational and country levels down to individual performance in academic settings.
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Giving up Linearity : Absorptive Capacity and Performance
This paper challenges the assumption that absorptive capacity—a firm's ability to identify, assimilate, and exploit external knowledge—has a linear relationship with performance. The authors argue that previous research has overlooked curvilinear relationships, where absorptive capacity may initially improve performance but then decline after reaching an optimal point. They contend that assuming linearity has led firms to misallocate resources and miss opportunities for better performance outcomes.
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Digital transformation and social change: Leadership strategies for responsible innovation
Italian startup managers employ continuous learning, agile business models, and stakeholder engagement to navigate digital transformation while addressing ethical concerns. The study identifies key challenges including rapid technological change, scalability, and ethical considerations. Leaders emphasize collaborative partnerships and responsible innovation practices to balance technological advancement with societal impact, with emerging trends pointing toward tech-driven social enterprises and decentralized systems.
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Regional innovation systems in tourism: The role of collaboration and competition
Regional innovation systems in tourism thrive through collaboration and competition among companies. The paper develops a theoretical framework combining dynamic capabilities, relational view, and resource-based theory to explain how social capital and relational assets drive innovation. Using Campania Region as a case study, it shows that co-creation of innovation and strategic plans across regional stakeholders—supported by digital transition and modernized infrastructure—builds sustainable, innovative tourism systems.
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Slow Innovation: the need for reflexivity in Responsible Innovation (RI)
This essay argues that Responsible Innovation should embrace slowness and reflexivity rather than prioritizing speed and efficiency. The author draws on personal project experiences to advocate for making time for difficult questions, vulnerable moments, and uncertainty in innovation processes. This approach supports more human-centered outcomes, including in artificial intelligence development.
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Regional innovation system research trends: toward knowledge management and entrepreneurial ecosystems
This bibliometric analysis of regional innovation system research identifies three major research trends: innovation systems studies from the 1990s, knowledge management research from the 2000s onward, and entrepreneurial ecosystems research in recent years. The study examines Web of Science publications through 2017, revealing that knowledge, innovation, clusters, policy, networks, and R&D are central concepts in RIS research. The field has grown substantially, attracting attention from scientists, policymakers, and international organizations.
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Open innovation, network embeddedness and incremental innovation capability
This study examines how a firm's position within innovation networks affects its ability to make incremental improvements. Using patent data from 54 smartphone companies, the researchers found that being deeply embedded in a tightly-knit network actually reduces incremental innovation, while having strong personal relationships within networks boosts it. Open innovation practices amplify both effects. The findings suggest firms should strategically position themselves in networks and adopt open innovation to enhance their innovation capabilities.
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Responsible leadership and triple-bottom-line performance—do corporate reputation and innovation mediate this relationship?
Responsible leadership directly improves social, economic, and environmental performance in organizations. Innovation mediates this relationship across all three performance dimensions. Corporate reputation mediates the relationship for social and economic performance but not environmental performance. The study surveyed Pakistani managers and used structural equation modeling to test these connections.
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Regional Innovation Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems: The Case of Lagging European Regions
This paper develops a computational model called CARIS to understand how regional innovation systems in lagging European regions can become self-sustaining. The research identifies exploration capacity, cooperation propensity, and actor competencies as key drivers of innovation performance. The authors recommend policymakers invest in R&D, support public-private partnerships, strengthen universities, and increase researcher employment to improve regional innovation outcomes.
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UK higher education institutions’ technology-enhanced learning strategies from the perspective of disruptive innovation
UK universities publish technology-enhanced learning strategies, but most focus on sustaining and efficiency innovations rather than disruptive innovation. Analysis of 44 institutional strategies reveals a misalignment between what universities plan and how students and lecturers actually use technology in practice.
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A framework of disruptive sustainable innovation: an example of the Finnish food system
This paper develops a framework for understanding disruptive sustainable innovation by combining insights from socio-technical transition research and management literature. Using four Finnish food system companies as case studies, the authors show how disruptive innovation operates across production and consumption practices, involving both producer-entrepreneurs and citizen-consumers. The framework addresses gaps in existing literature by examining business model innovation and user practices alongside technological change.
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Potential and Pitfalls of Frugal Innovation in the Water Sector: Insights from Tanzania to Global Value Chains
Frugal innovations—affordable, stripped-down solutions—offer promise for addressing water challenges in developing regions like Tanzania. However, the study finds significant pitfalls: these innovations struggle to scale and lack institutional support. Water's critical role across natural and human systems, combined with complex global supply chains, creates barriers to sustainability impact. Success requires understanding entire value chains and their water dependencies.
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Open Innovation Ecosystem - Makerspaces within an Agile Innovation Process
Open Innovation Ecosystems and makerspaces enable large enterprises to accelerate idea development by breaking down rigid organizational structures and hierarchies. The paper proposes integrating agile frameworks into innovation processes, with makerspaces facilitating cross-functional networking and rapid prototyping. The authors argue this approach helps companies implement new ideas faster and more flexibly than traditional methods.
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Network externalities and the perception of innovation characteristics: mobile banking
This study examines how network externalities—the value users gain from more users and complementary services—influence adoption of mobile banking. The research finds that more users and available services make mobile banking seem easier to use and more compatible with people's lifestyles, increasing adoption intention. Technology anxiety did not affect these relationships. Banks can boost adoption by offering diverse complementary services.
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Does open innovation apply to China? Exploring the contingent role of external knowledge sources and internal absorptive capacity in Chinese large firms and SMEs
Open innovation strategies work differently in China than in developed economies. Small and medium enterprises benefit most from inter-firm networking, while large firms gain advantages from university partnerships when they have strong internal capacity to absorb external knowledge. Weak domestic research expertise and limited absorptive capacity constrain Chinese firms from adopting open innovation effectively. Chinese firms should focus on building internal capabilities rather than copying the closed-to-open innovation path followed by developed countries.
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Disruptive Innovation vs Disruptive Technology: The Disruptive Potential of the Value Propositions of 3D Printing Technology Startups
This paper examines 3D printing technology startups and their potential to disrupt manufacturing through additive production methods. Rather than traditional subtractive or molding approaches, 3D printing builds products layer-by-layer using digital controls. The authors analyze whether these startups represent genuinely disruptive innovation or merely disruptive technology, evaluating their value propositions and market impact.
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Creating a Taxonomy for Mobile Commerce Innovations Using Social Network and Cluster Analyses
This paper analyzes over 2,300 mobile commerce patent applications using social network and cluster analysis to identify focal innovation areas and create a taxonomy of m-commerce innovations. The analysis reveals that consumer empowerment and co-creation drive mobile commerce service development, showing how customers shape new offerings in this rapidly growing sector.
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Innovations in a relational context: Mechanisms to connect learning processes of absorptive capacity
Companies build competitive advantage through relationships with other firms. This study examines how learning mechanisms within customer-supplier relationships create absorptive capacity and drive innovation. The research identifies that structural mechanisms alone are insufficient; cultural, psychological, and policy mechanisms also shape how firms learn and absorb knowledge across relationships. The findings provide propositions for understanding absorptive capacity development in relational contexts.
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The Role of Finance and Corporate Governance in National Systems of Innovation
Corporate governance and finance systems shape how firms innovate within countries. Different industries demand different financial and governance structures to support innovation effectively. The paper explains why some countries gain technological advantages by matching their finance and governance systems to their industries' specific innovation needs.
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ANTICIPATING DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION The key to avoiding the negative effects of disruptive technologies is to focus on what is happening with customer and operational needs.
Leading firms across industries consistently fail to maintain market dominance when facing disruptive technological change, despite their past success. The paper argues this pattern is not inevitable. Organizations must simultaneously manage sustaining innovations that protect current business models and disruptive innovations that enable future competitiveness. Success requires building internally contradictory structures and cultures that foster both efficiency and experimentation, though this remains organizationally difficult.
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Innovation and Strategy: Risk and Choice in Shaping User-Centered Libraries
Libraries succeed by creating customer-centered services through innovation and strategy. The paper argues that strategy and innovation are essential tools for organizational success, with strategy enabling effective innovation decisions. Library leaders must continuously develop value-added services, strategically evaluate innovations, and deliver them to users. The paper reviews innovation and strategy theories applied to nonprofit library organizations and proposes approaches for creating both.
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Collaborative innovation, strategic agility, & absorptive capacity adoption in SMEs: the moderating effects of customer knowledge management capability
Collaborative innovation significantly improves financial performance in Portuguese IT firms. Strategic agility and absorptive capacity both mediate this relationship. Customer knowledge management capability strengthens the link between collaborative innovation and strategic agility, but does not moderate the absorptive capacity pathway. The study shows that combining customer-oriented strategies with innovation helps firms navigate complex, unpredictable situations.
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Responsible leadership, organizational ethical culture, strategic posture, and green innovation
Responsible leadership in service organizations drives green innovation, with organizational ethical culture acting as the mechanism through which this influence operates. A progressive strategic posture strengthens this relationship. The study surveyed 168 hospitality employees across three waves and found that leaders signaling responsibility through ethical organizational culture encourage green innovation more effectively when the firm pursues progressive strategies.
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Frugal innovation in the midst of societal and operational pressures
Frugal innovation—developing solutions under resource and societal constraints—delivers sustainable outcomes primarily through business model design rather than technological sophistication. The authors establish a framework linking frugal innovation to sustainable business models, analyzing three firms to show that sustainability results depend on how companies integrate societal concerns with operational activities across their business model elements.
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A synthesized framework for the formation of startups’ innovation ecosystem
This systematic literature review synthesizes research on startup innovation ecosystems from 2008-2018 to develop a new framework. The authors identify key actors—incubators, financial suppliers, accelerators, universities, and companies—and map their interactions through structures, infrastructures, and networks. They classify startup innovation processes into three mechanisms: genesis, growth, and development. The framework helps policymakers understand startup requirements and design effective innovation policies.
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From knowledge sharing to quality performance: The role of absorptive capacity, ambidexterity and innovation capability in creative industry
Knowledge sharing drives absorptive capacity and ambidexterity in creative industry firms, which together strengthen innovation capability and ultimately improve quality performance. A mixed-methods study of 150 creative industry entrepreneurs in Indonesia found positive relationships across this chain: knowledge sharing boosts both absorptive capacity and ambidexterity, which enhance innovation capability, which increases company quality performance.
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Toward a Theory of Activist‐Driven Responsible Innovation: How Activists Pressure Firms to Adopt More Responsible Practices
Activists pressure firms to adopt responsible innovation through strategic use of claims that create pressure beyond simple information sharing. This study examines four activist organizations across six campaigns, developing a theory of how activists drive companies toward socially and environmentally responsible practices. The research shows that activist characteristics and firm features shape whether pressure campaigns succeed in creating socioenvironmental value.
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International handbook on responsible innovation. A global resource
This handbook provides a comprehensive global overview of responsible innovation as a field of study and practice. It synthesizes current knowledge about how innovation can be developed and implemented in ways that consider ethical, social, and environmental impacts across diverse contexts worldwide.
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Is point-of-care ultrasound disruptive innovation? Formulating why POCUS is different from conventional comprehensive ultrasound
Point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) represents disruptive innovation in medical imaging, fundamentally different from conventional comprehensive ultrasound. The authors apply disruptive innovation theory to show how PoCUS challenges established ultrasound specialties by offering faster, accessible imaging in emergency and critical care settings. They argue stakeholders must recognize these differences to collaborate effectively and optimize patient care across both approaches.
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Emerging issues on business innovation ecosystems: the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for knowledge management (KM) and innovation within and among enterprises
Information and communication technologies function as digital platforms enabling businesses to exchange information and knowledge within innovation ecosystems. ICTs support knowledge management and foster innovation across and within enterprises by creating networked infrastructure systems where distinct business agents collaborate and share resources.
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Organizational forgetting, absorptive capacity, and innovation performance
Organizational forgetting—deliberately discarding outdated knowledge—improves innovation performance in companies, but only when paired with absorptive capacity to learn new information. This effect strengthens in turbulent business environments. The study surveyed 320 Chinese firms and found that forgetting alone doesn't boost innovation; companies must actively absorb new knowledge to benefit from shedding old practices.
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The influence of knowledge absorptive capacity on shared value creation in social enterprises
Social enterprises that absorb and apply knowledge effectively create more shared value—combining economic and social benefits. The study tested 127 social enterprises in France and Spain, finding that knowledge absorptive capacity directly strengthens both economic and social value creation. Social value creation acts as a mechanism through which knowledge capacity drives economic gains, demonstrating that social enterprises generate profit by prioritizing social and environmental outcomes.
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The Encroachment Speed of Potentially Disruptive Innovations with Indirect Network Externalities: The Case of E‐Readers
This paper examines why e-readers adopted more slowly in Japan than the United States after 2010. Through interviews with industry leaders and document review, the authors identify three sources of slower adoption: organizational factors within publishing companies, technology factors including competing formats, and environmental factors such as regulations limiting e-book supply and pricing. The research shows that publishing industry insiders in Japan misinterpreted earlier e-reader performance and faced constraints from interdependent value networks.
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KNOWLEDGE INFLOWS FROM MARKET- AND SCIENCE-BASED ACTORS, ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY, INNOVATION AND PERFORMANCE — A STUDY OF SMEs
This study examines how small and medium-sized enterprises absorb external knowledge and convert it into innovation and business performance. Using data from 838 Australian SMEs, the researchers found that knowledge from market-based sources (like customers and competitors) directly boosts innovation, while knowledge from science-based sources (like universities) works indirectly by first building the firm's absorptive capacity. Both pathways ultimately improve firm performance through innovation.
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Unravelling the link between technological M&A and innovation performance using the concept of relative absorptive capacity
This study examines how acquiring firms create innovation through technological mergers and acquisitions by analyzing 212 biopharmaceutical M&A cases from 1993 to 2007. The research finds that acquiring smaller firms with moderately similar technology produces better innovation outcomes. The study emphasizes that the relationship between the acquiring and acquired firm—including technological similarity and digestibility—determines how well knowledge gets absorbed and converted into new innovations.
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Determinants of National Innovation Systems: Policy implications for developing countries
This study examines how knowledge institutions, governments, and businesses shape national innovation systems in 46 developed and emerging economies. The researchers find that market forces dominate innovation outcomes, while institutional structures around knowledge management and government-business relations also matter significantly. The analysis suggests developing countries should prioritize creating institutional environments that support market mechanisms to strengthen their innovation systems and economic growth.
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Disruptive innovation and spatial inequality
Disruptive innovations cluster geographically during industrial revolutions but disperse in other periods, according to analysis of US patents from 1920 to 2010. The locations capturing the most disruptive innovation shift substantially across industrial revolutions. Disruptive innovation significantly influences spatial patterns of economic output and income inequality across US regions.
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Dynamic capabilities for transitioning from product platform ecosystem to innovation platform ecosystem
Incumbent firms face disruption from platform-native competitors and must transition from product platforms to innovation platforms. This study identifies four dynamic capabilities required for this transition: resource curation, ecosystem preservation, resource reconfiguration, and ecosystem diversification. The findings emerge from analyzing perspectives of platform owners, partners, and end-users in enterprise software ecosystems.
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How Responsible Innovation Builds Business Network Resilience to Achieve Sustainable Performance During Global Outbreaks: An Extended Resource-Based View
Responsible innovation strengthens business network resilience, which in turn improves firms' sustainable performance during crises like COVID-19. A study of 422 Chinese manufacturing firms found that absorptive capacity and social media adoption enhance these relationships. The research demonstrates that firms adopting responsible innovation practices become more resilient and better positioned to maintain sustainable operations when facing global disruptions.
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User-centered requirements engineering to manage the fuzzy front-end of open innovation in e-health: A study on support systems for seniors’ physical activity
This study applies user-centered requirements engineering methods to manage the early stages of developing an e-health system supporting seniors' physical activity. Researchers conducted interviews with three user groups and used workshops with multidisciplinary teams to elicit, analyze, and prioritize requirements. The resulting Concept of Operations document successfully guided stakeholder recruitment and collaboration in the subsequent open innovation development process, demonstrating that involving users early produces systems meeting real-world complexity.
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Combined Influence of Absorptive Capacity and Corporate Entrepreneurship on Performance
This study examines how absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship together affect organizational performance in Spanish firms. The research finds that proactiveness drives innovativeness, which both strengthen a company's ability to absorb and apply new knowledge. Realized absorptive capacity then enables new business ventures and organizational renewal. Proactiveness and new business venturing directly improve performance, while companies must develop both potential and realized absorptive capacities simultaneously to succeed in corporate entrepreneurial projects.
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Innovating via building absorptive capacity: Interactive effects of top management support of learning, employee learning orientation and decentralization structure
Manufacturing firms build absorptive capacity and improve innovation through top management support for learning and employee learning orientation. Decentralized decision-making structures strengthen how management support translates into absorptive capacity and innovation, but organizational structure does not similarly affect the relationship between employee learning orientation and innovation outcomes.
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Responsible research and innovation indicators for science education assessment: how to measure the impact?
This paper develops a framework for assessing responsible research and innovation (RRI) in science education. The authors identify 86 key indicators that measure RRI values, competences, and learning outcomes in science education practice. They argue that RRI-focused assessment can better capture metacognitive skills, emotional dimensions, and procedural learning, helping students develop the knowledge and citizenship skills needed to address complex societal challenges.
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The frequency of end-user innovation: A re-estimation of extant findings
This study re-estimates how often consumers innovate by comparing two data collection methods. Telephone interviews found 10.8% of people innovate, but personal interviews revealed 39.7%—showing previous research significantly underestimated user innovation. Using this correction factor across six countries, the authors demonstrate that consumer innovation is a widespread phenomenon policymakers and businesses should recognize and support.
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Frugal Innovation and Knowledge Transferability
Western firms typically partner with emerging market companies to develop frugal innovations, assuming local partners better understand local needs. This paper argues for an alternative: high-tech firms can conduct breakthrough R&D at home while focusing on emerging market requirements. Three case studies from a Swedish medical device manufacturer demonstrate how home-based R&D successfully reconceptualizes core products for emerging markets and identifies conditions that make this approach effective.
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Managing systemic and disruptive innovation: lessons from the Renault Zero Emission Initiative
Managing systemic and disruptive innovations requires specific strategies. This study of Renault's electric vehicle development program identifies three effective management approaches: creating autonomous units that bridge organizational silos, building a portfolio of locally viable systems rather than one-size-fits-all solutions, and managing multiple technology platforms concurrently. These levers help companies deploy innovations that fundamentally challenge existing technologies and customer expectations.
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Teams’ innovation: getting there through knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity
Knowledge sharing among team members drives innovation, but only when teams have strong absorptive capacity to process and apply that knowledge. The study tested this relationship across multiple Portuguese industries using 141 employees in organizational teams. Team tenure matters: longer-established teams share more knowledge than newer ones. Organizational size, geographic concentration, and gender had no significant effect on innovation outcomes.
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Foreword: responsible innovation in the private sector
Responsible Innovation is a governance framework that makes innovators and society mutually accountable for research and technology development. It emerged from public concerns about government-funded research in controversial fields like nanotechnology, genomics, and alternative energy. The concept emphasizes transparent processes ensuring innovations are ethically acceptable, sustainable, and socially desirable before reaching the market.
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Responsible Innovation
The paper argues that developers of tools and products must consider ethical dimensions in their work. The authors emphasize that responsible innovation requires integrating ethical considerations into the development process from the outset, rather than treating ethics as an afterthought. This framework applies broadly to technology and product development across sectors.
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Diffusion of innovation in systematic review methodology: Why is study selection not yet assisted by automation?
Systematic reviews in evidence-based medicine face a growing problem: reviewers manually assess thousands of titles and abstracts. Automation could solve this, but adoption remains slow despite proven effectiveness since 2006. Using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations framework, the paper identifies barriers: automation lacks demonstrated advantage in challenging areas like public health, lacks established procedures, appears complex to deploy, and conflicts with existing systematic review practices. Collaboration between reviewers and computer scientists is needed to develop compatible, clearly advantageous solutions.
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Using the Diffusion of Innovation Theory to Explain the Degree of English Teachers’ Adoption of Interactive Whiteboards in the Modern Systems School in Jordan: A Case Study
English teachers in a Jordanian school adopted interactive whiteboards based on five key factors: perceived relative advantage, compatibility with existing practices, ease of use, ability to trial the technology, and observability of results. Teachers who used interactive whiteboards regularly shifted from traditional teaching methods to dialogue-based, open-source, and collaborative group work. The study recommends enhanced training workshops to support technology integration.
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Designing the Organization for User Innovation
Organizations are shifting from internal, producer-driven innovation toward user-centered and open innovation models. This paper identifies major user innovation strategies and explains how each one requires different organizational design choices. The authors propose that successful innovation increasingly depends on building symbiotic ecosystems where producers and users collaborate, fundamentally reshaping how companies structure themselves.
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Absorptive and desorptive capacity‐related practices at the network level – the case of<scp>SEMATECH</scp>
This paper examines how interorganizational networks absorb and use external knowledge, moving beyond traditional firm-level analysis. Using SEMATECH, a global semiconductor manufacturing consortium, the author identifies three key practices—congregating, roadmapping, and offering access—that enable networks to collectively acquire, integrate, and leverage knowledge from outside sources while coordinating internal knowledge activities.
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The diffusion of technological and management accounting innovation: Malaysian evidence
Malaysian industrial companies show minimal adoption of innovative management accounting tools, even among large firms, with financial accounting dominating management control practices. The study applies the Akira development model, arguing it better suits developing Southeast Asian countries with lower automation levels than Western frameworks.
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Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory: Its Utility and Value in Public Health
Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory has evolved from linear communication models to interactive frameworks where participants jointly create understanding of new ideas and practices. The theory has proven valuable across applied fields including international development, family planning, nutrition education, and substance abuse prevention, demonstrating its utility for understanding how innovations spread through populations.
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Les facteurs de diffusion des innovations managériales en comptabilité et contrôle de gestion : une étude comparative
This comparative study examines what factors influence the spread of managerial innovations in accounting and management control. By analyzing the diffusion of three innovations—ABC costing, budgetary control, and the Georges Perrin method—in France, the authors identify that different categories of actors, communication channels, and contextual variables all significantly impact how these innovations spread across organizations.
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R&D and Technology Spillovers via FDI: Innovation and Absorptive Capacity
This study examines how R&D and foreign direct investment affect firm productivity in Czech manufacturing. The research finds that R&D's learning effect matters far more than innovation for productivity growth. Technology spillovers from foreign partners occur only in specific sectors like electrical machinery and radio & TV, where foreign firms actively invest in R&D. No general spillover benefits reach local firms from foreign joint ventures.
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Profiting from innovation when digital business ecosystems emerge: A control point perspective
Digital transformation shifts how companies profit from innovation in emerging ecosystems. The paper examines smart farming through a control points framework, showing that value capture depends on who owns strategic, technical, generic, and institutional control points in layered digital architectures. Incumbents, new entrants, and diversifying firms compete in a seesaw pattern to establish bargaining positions. The findings help firms optimize ecosystem strategies and guide policymakers in supporting institutional development.
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Research trends in innovation ecosystem and circular economy
This bibliometric analysis of 2,981 Scopus documents reveals research trends linking innovation ecosystems and circular economy. Five key research clusters emerge: circular economy for eco-innovation, circular business models in the bioeconomy, renewable energy and sustainable development goals, green innovation through entrepreneurship, and AI in Industry 4.0. The study identifies significant gaps in understanding how innovation ecosystems and circular economy interact, and highlights opportunities in industrial symbiosis and energy transition.
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Radical innovations as supply chain disruptions? A paradox between change and stability
Radical innovations in products and processes create paradoxical tensions in supply chains, particularly between the need for change and the need for stability. The paper uses case illustrations to examine how these tensions emerge upstream after radical innovation and proposes paradox theory as a framework for understanding and managing them. It identifies supply chain management as an underexplored area for paradox research and calls for future studies on post-innovation tensions.
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Exploring consumer mobile payment innovations: An investigation into the relationship between coping theory factors, individual motivations, social influence and word of mouth
This study examines how tourists adopt mobile payment systems by combining coping theory and social influence concepts. Perceived value, threat, controllability, and social influence all drive tourists' intention to use mobile payments. The research finds that tourists who intend to use these systems recommend them to others, with innovativeness moderating this word-of-mouth effect. Results suggest travel operators and banks can boost adoption by understanding these psychological and social factors.
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Managing innovation ecosystems around Big Science Organizations
Big Science Organizations are massive research institutions addressing complex scientific challenges through large networks of suppliers, collaborators, and partners. These organizations function as influential innovation ecosystems with permeable boundaries enabling technology transfer, knowledge sharing, and business creation. The paper introduces a special issue examining innovation and entrepreneurship around BSOs, providing a comprehensive overview of how these institutions drive innovation across science, government, and business sectors.
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Gaming innovation ecosystem: actors, roles and co-innovation processes
This study examines Poland's gaming innovation ecosystem to understand how different actors contribute to co-innovation. Researchers conducted interviews and observations over three years and identified 21 types of actors playing four distinct roles: direct value creation, supporting value creation, encouraging entrepreneurship, and leadership. The co-innovation process unfolds across five stages from discovery through dissemination, with actors varying their engagement intensity at each phase.
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An evaluation of the effectiveness of innovation ecosystems in facilitating the adoption of sustainable entrepreneurship
This paper develops a hierarchical decision model framework to assess how innovation ecosystems support sustainable entrepreneurship adoption. The researchers identify policies and strategies that drive innovation across entrepreneurial ecosystems and propose a comprehensive measurement model to guide policymakers in strengthening ecosystem effectiveness and accelerating sustainable business innovation.
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Assessing E-Health adoption readiness using diffusion of innovation theory and the role mediated by each adopter's category in a Mauritian context
Healthcare workers in a Mauritian hospital show strong readiness to adopt E-Health technology, driven by desires for modernized management, improved efficiency, and faster results. Using diffusion of innovation theory, the study confirms that five key dimensions—relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability—predict E-Health adoption. Physicians and nursing managers emerge as crucial influencers whose endorsement significantly affects whether colleagues recommend the technology.
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Catching-up national innovations systems (NIS) in China and post-catching-up NIS in Korea and Taiwan: verifying the detour hypothesis and policy implications
This study examines how China, South Korea, and Taiwan developed their innovation systems during economic catch-up. China currently specializes in short-cycle technologies, while South Korea and Taiwan have shifted toward long-cycle technologies. The research confirms the 'detour hypothesis': latecomer economies first focus on short-cycle sectors to drive growth, then transition to more complex long-cycle sectors as they mature. Economic growth correlates with these technological shifts at each development stage.
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Reshaping Higher Educational Institutions through Frugal Open Innovation
Private higher education institutions face financial stress and competitive pressure. This study finds that these institutions can achieve frugal open innovation by leveraging intangible assets like intellectual capital and IT capabilities rather than relying solely on tangible assets. The research identifies five main challenges—structural, operational, financial, social, and technological—and proposes that sales and operating planning can address them, enabling universities to integrate better with industry and communities while improving operational efficiency.
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From ‘Publish or Perish’ to Societal Impact: Organizational Repurposing Towards Responsible Innovation through Creating a Medical Platform
An academic research project studying user innovation shifted its core purpose to become Patient Innovation, a nonprofit medical platform providing global access to solutions for rare and chronic diseases. The transformation occurred through moral emotions, serendipitous inspiration, and socially conscious participants who reframed their mission from publishing research to creating societal impact. The authors develop a model showing how organizational purpose can drift spontaneously when actors feel morally motivated to serve collective goals over self-interest.
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Reconceptualising responsible research and innovation from a Global South perspective
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has been developed primarily in wealthy northern countries with little consideration of how it operates in the Global South. This paper examines RRI practices across three countries—the Netherlands, Malawi, and Brazil—and finds that while some activities are comparable, important differences exist in motivations and structures. The authors propose a new theoretical framework that accounts for these regional differences, positioning RRI as a continuum rather than a fixed concept.
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Technology in the Age of Innovation: Responsible Innovation as a New Subdomain Within the Philosophy of Technology
This paper examines responsible innovation frameworks through a philosophical lens, arguing that current RI approaches fail to question the technological nature of innovation itself. The authors contend that innovation is presupposed as inherently technological within a techno-economic paradigm, which actually constrains rather than enables responsible steering of innovation outcomes. They conclude that RI frameworks are themselves shaped by the very paradigm they attempt to direct.
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The potential contribution of disruptive low-carbon innovations to 1.5 °C climate mitigation
This paper identifies 99 disruptive low-carbon innovations across mobility, food, buildings, and energy sectors that could reduce emissions and help limit warming to 1.5°C. Examples include car clubs, mobility-as-a-service, prefabricated retrofits, and urban farming. Using expert surveys and UK population scaling analysis, the authors demonstrate that consumer-facing innovations offering alternative value propositions can meaningfully contribute to climate mitigation targets.
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National Innovation Systems of the South, Innovation and Economic Development Policies: A Multidimensional Approach
This paper reexamines the National Innovation System concept for developing countries, arguing that existing literature focuses too narrowly on technology policy without adequately addressing innovation capacity, innovation policy design, and economic development. The authors analyze how innovation policies function in developing nations, their governance structures, and the conditions that enable or hinder economic development within globalized growth contexts.
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Innovation and its diffusion: process, actors and actions
This paper systematizes research on innovation diffusion by organizing factors into three categories: process, actors, and actions. It identifies phases of how innovations spread between organizations, clarifies the roles of innovators, adopters, and intermediaries, and recommends policy actions to support diffusion. The framework synthesizes two decades of fragmented research into a coherent structure.
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On the theory of social innovations: Tarde's neglected contribution to the development of a sociological innovation theory
This paper develops a theoretical framework for social innovation by drawing on Gabriel Tarde's social theory, particularly his concepts of invention and imitation. The authors argue that social innovation functions as a specific mechanism of social change and propose that society itself should be understood as a site of innovation. Their work contributes to building an integrated theory of innovation applicable to analyzing and directing social transformation.
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Analyzing the Influence of Diffusion of Innovation Attributes on Lecturers’ Attitude Towards Information and Communication Technologies
This study examined how five innovation attributes—relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trialability, and observability—influence lecturers' attitudes toward using information and communication technologies. Surveying 213 lecturers at the National University of Lesotho, researchers found that relative advantage, complexity, and observability positively shaped ICT adoption attitudes, with observability having the strongest effect. The findings suggest universities should provide training and deploy user-friendly technologies to increase ICT use.
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Responsible research and innovation in information systems
This paper examines responsible research and innovation within information systems, arguing that the field's diverse approaches require careful consideration of ethical and social dimensions in how IS research and innovation are conducted and applied. The work addresses the need for IS scholars to engage with responsibility frameworks that go beyond technical solutions.
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Exploring exclusion in innovation systems: case of plantation agriculture in India
Innovation systems in India's plantation sector fail to deliver inclusive development despite policy efforts. The paper identifies multiple forms of exclusion—subordinated inclusion, illusive inclusion, sustained exclusion, and transient exclusion—within commodity boards, research institutions, and labor markets. Knowledge intensification could strengthen labor-intensive sectors in developing countries, but institutional arrangements currently perpetuate exclusion rather than enabling genuine participation in innovation benefits.
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Social Preferences and Agricultural Innovation: An Experimental Case Study from Ethiopia
An experiment in Ethiopia shows that farmers who burn money to reduce others' earnings display strong inequality aversion based on absolute income differences. Villages where farmers engage in more money burning adopt fewer agricultural innovations in practice. This demonstrates that social preferences—particularly concerns about fairness and relative wealth—significantly influence whether farmers adopt new agricultural technologies in developing countries.
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Innovation context and technology traits explain heterogeneity across studies of agricultural technology adoption: A meta‐analysis
A meta-analysis of 304 farm-level adoption studies across 60+ countries reveals that agricultural technology adoption depends on matching innovation characteristics with local contexts. Land, capital, and knowledge constraints matter most when technologies require those resources intensively, but constraints weaken where resources are abundant. Rural development and extension programs should tailor strategies to fit both geographic conditions and specific technology traits.
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Methods for assessing the impact of research on innovation and development in the agriculture and food sectors
This paper reviews methods for measuring how agricultural and food research affects innovation and development in developing countries. The authors find that quantitative impact assessment approaches face significant controversies. They examine qualitative methodological innovations as alternatives and analyze case studies to identify the strategic resources that research generates to improve its real-world impact on innovation and development.
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Legacy sectors: barriers to global innovation in agriculture and energy
The US innovation system contains 'legacy sectors' in agriculture and energy that resist disruptive change through subsidies, entrenched infrastructure, regulatory barriers, powerful vested interests, and established consumer habits. These structural obstacles prevent new technologies from reaching markets, even when socially beneficial. The authors argue that large-scale research investment is needed regardless of competitive costs, and that American paradigms exported globally delay innovation adoption in developing countries that need locally appropriate technologies.
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"Free Seeds, Not Free Beer": Participatory Plant Breeding, OpenSource Seeds, and Acknowledging User Innovation in Agriculture
Intellectual property expansion in plants threatens global food security and agriculture. The paper examines international treaties like the 2001 ITPGR that create limited commons for plant genetic resources. It proposes adapting open-source software licenses to plant breeding, arguing that open-source seed licenses can increase farmer and public breeder access to genetic resources worldwide.
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Uncovering the building blocks of rural entrepreneurship: A comprehensive framework for mapping the components of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems
Rural entrepreneurship drives economic growth, but rural areas have distinct ecosystem needs. This study uses bibliometric analysis of academic literature to identify essential components supporting rural entrepreneurial ecosystems. The researchers categorize these into actor components (academics, business, government, community) and non-actor components (human capital, networks, culture, finance, governance, infrastructure, environmental resources, markets). Environmental resources emerge as uniquely critical for rural areas, distinguishing them from general entrepreneurial ecosystems and reflecting local economic potential.
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The effects of rural–urban migration on corporate innovation: Evidence from a natural experiment in China
Rural-to-urban migration of low-skilled workers in China reduces corporate innovation in receiving cities. Using China's relaxed household registration policies as a natural experiment, the study finds firms in cities adopting these policies innovate significantly less than firms in non-adopting cities. An abundant supply of low-skilled labor makes existing technology more profitable, reducing incentives to develop new innovations.
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Research and innovation in agriculture: beyond productivity?
Agricultural research impact assessment has traditionally focused on productivity gains, but this approach is insufficient. The paper argues that emerging concepts—bioeconomy, circular economy, eco-innovation, life cycle assessment, and ecosystem services—require rethinking how we measure research effects. While aggregate productivity metrics remain relevant, researchers need more nuanced analytical frameworks and broader definitions of productivity that account for environmental performance and sustainability outcomes.
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Anchoring innovation methodologies to ‘go-to-scale’; a framework to guide agricultural research for development
Research for development projects use innovation platforms to solve agricultural problems, but scaling these approaches to new contexts remains unclear. This paper develops a framework for anchoring innovation methodologies across networking, institutional, and methodological dimensions. Testing the framework on a farmer research group in Ethiopia, the authors identify which anchoring tasks succeeded or failed and provide concrete recommendations for R4D projects seeking to scale their innovations effectively across different contexts.
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Contextualising rural entrepreneurship – A strong structuration perspective on gendered-local agency
This paper uses Strong Structuration Theory to examine rural entrepreneurship through a case study of a woman entrepreneur in Sweden. The authors introduce the concept of gendered-local agency to explain how rural entrepreneurs actively navigate constraints and opportunities shaped by gender and locality. They show that agency emerges from the interplay between individual entrepreneurs and rural structures, demonstrating how everyday entrepreneurial actions both challenge and reinforce rural contexts.
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Causal Link between Technological Innovation and Inequality Moderated by Public Spending, Manufacturing, Agricultural Employment, and Export Diversification
Technological innovation increases income inequality across most income distribution levels, according to analysis of 73 countries. Government spending effectively reduces inequality, while agriculture employment and export diversification show mixed effects. Policymakers pursuing sustainable development must leverage public spending as a tool to counteract innovation's inequality-widening effects and promote social cohesion.
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Does Adoption of Agricultural Innovations Impact Farm Production and Household Welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa? A Meta-Analysis
A meta-analysis of 92 studies from sub-Saharan Africa between 2001 and 2015 finds that adopting agricultural innovations does increase farm production and household welfare, but the effects are modest. The positive impacts exist but remain relatively small, indicating a weaker relationship than might be expected from widespread innovation adoption efforts.
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Multi-actor Horizon 2020 projects in agriculture, forestry and related sectors: A Multi-level Innovation System framework (MINOS) for identifying multi-level system failures
This paper develops MINOS, a multi-level innovation system framework, to analyze 50 European Horizon 2020 agricultural research projects involving multiple actors across different countries. The framework identifies system failures occurring at European, national, project, and organizational levels, categorizing them as 'multipliers' and 'stackers'. The analysis reveals how institutional, cultural, and social contexts interact across levels to influence co-innovation and learning in multinational partnerships.
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Critical Systems of Learning and Innovation Competence for Addressing Complexity in Transformations to Agricultural Sustainability
Technological innovation alone cannot ensure food security in developing countries. This study examines why agricultural biodiversity-rich nations in Nepal and India fail to leverage agroecological advantages despite investing heavily in technology. The research finds that low and middle-income countries need more than technological competence—they require critical systems of learning competence that integrate social, ecological, and technical knowledge to address agricultural sustainability and food security.
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Design thinking: employing an effective multidisciplinary pedagogical framework to foster creativity and innovation in rural and remote education
This paper develops a design thinking framework to teach creative problem-solving to secondary students in rural and remote schools. Students learn a six-step process—understand, observe, visualize, evaluate, refine, implement—applied to local rural issues, creating multimedia presentations or games. The research produces a model for implementing design thinking across schools to build students' creative capacity and innovation skills needed for future workplaces.
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Sustainable innovation in agriculture: Building competitiveness and business sustainability
Agricultural companies must shift from merely meeting legal requirements to actively pursuing sustainable innovation through interdisciplinary approaches. This study analyzed 183 companies and five focus groups to identify factors driving sustainable innovation in agriculture. Six key factors emerged: process approach, corporate social responsibility, quality management systems, supply chain operations, production demand, and employee performance.
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Responsible Innovation Definitions, Practices, and Motivations from Nanotechnology Researchers in Food and Agriculture
Nanotechnology researchers developing food and agriculture products define and practice responsible innovation narrowly, focusing mainly on product safety and efficiency rather than broader principles like inclusion and reflexivity. Researchers hold conflicting views on whether responsible innovation serves industry interests or public good, and some pursue it primarily for reputation protection rather than societal benefit. The study recommends deeper discussions among researchers about what responsible innovation truly means beyond technical product attributes.
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Exploring innovation creation across rural and urban firms
Rural and urban firms create innovation differently. Using national survey data on patent applications, the study finds that urban firms better leverage their resources for innovation. Rural firms benefit from university research and development support, though they don't value university information as highly. Rural firms willing to attempt innovation, even when failing, outperform those avoiding risk. The research reveals distinct innovation characteristics between rural and urban business environments.
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Relative advantage and complexity: Predicting the rate of adoption of agricultural innovations
Farmers adopt agricultural innovations at rates determined by perceived complexity and relative advantage, not just novelty. A survey of 200 New Zealand dairy farmers found that simple technologies take months to adopt while complex ones take years. Critically, originality doesn't predict integration difficulty—apparently simple practices often prove hard to implement in real farm systems. Understanding farm-system integration requirements is essential for predicting adoption timelines and assessing farmers' adaptive capacity to climate change.
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Rural proofing entrepreneurship in two fields of research
This systematic review of 97 papers from entrepreneurship and rural studies journals reveals that rural entrepreneurship research inadequately addresses what makes rural contexts distinctive. While 56 papers engage with at least one dimension of rurality—remoteness, accessibility, or sense of place—41 papers ignore these dimensions entirely. Entrepreneurship journals particularly neglect rurality, focusing instead on generic topics like social capital and networks. The authors call for stronger collaboration between the two fields to develop more contextually grounded rural entrepreneurship research.
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Intellectual Property and Agricultural Science and Innovation in Germany and the United States
The paper challenges the dominant U.S. theory that treats scientific knowledge as either a public or private good. By examining Germany's approach to agricultural science as a club good, the authors compare how the United States and Germany manage food and agricultural research differently. They argue these distinct approaches have different impacts on social welfare and call for democratic debate on how to best govern scientific knowledge for public benefit.
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An Exploratory Study for Conceptualization of Rural Innovation in Indian Context
This study identifies three key factors driving rural innovation in India: knowledge sharing for economic efficiency, new learning for scaling up, and skill development for expanding economic scope. Based on surveys with 140 rural entrepreneurs, the research demonstrates that human capital elements—knowledge, learning, and skills—directly shape rural innovation. The findings provide a measurable framework for understanding rural innovation and offer practical implications for rural entrepreneurship development.
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Optimization of assured result in dynamical model of management of innovation process in the enterprise of agricultural production complex
This paper develops a dynamic mathematical model for managing innovation processes in agricultural enterprises under conditions of uncertainty and incomplete information. Rather than relying on traditional stochastic approaches that require detailed probability data, the authors propose a minimax control method that guarantees optimal results despite risks and modeling errors. The approach uses linear programming and discrete optimization to create practical computer tools for decision-making in agricultural innovation management.
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Empowering the Rural Poor to Develop Themselves: The Barefoot Approach (<i>Innovations Case Narrative:</i> Barefoot College of Tilonia)
The Barefoot College demonstrates that rural poor communities develop themselves most effectively through bottom-up empowerment rather than top-down expert intervention. By giving rural people the right to make their own decisions about development priorities, access to information and knowledge, and recognition of their existing technical skills, communities become independent and capable decision-makers. Conventional donor-driven approaches fail because they are patronizing, expensive, and keep communities dependent rather than empowered.
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Design thinking for responsible Agriculture 4.0 innovations in rangelands
Agriculture 4.0 brings digital technologies like sensors, robotics, and data analytics to livestock farming on rangelands. This paper applies design thinking and responsible innovation frameworks to guide development of precision livestock farming technologies. The authors outline six design stages and show how responsible innovation dimensions—anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, responsiveness, and equity—apply at each step. A case study of the Sustainable Southwest Beef Project demonstrates how this human-centered approach works in practice.
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Citizen Science as Democratic Innovation That Renews Environmental Monitoring and Assessment for the Sustainable Development Goals in Rural Areas
Citizen science offers a democratic approach to environmental monitoring that strengthens the legitimacy of data used for sustainable development in rural areas. Traditional environmental monitoring fails to adequately support local implementation of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. By incorporating citizen science into environmental assessment, rural communities can produce and use data more effectively for transformative governance, particularly for protecting land and natural resources while addressing resource conflicts.
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International Comparison of the Efficiency of Agricultural Science, Technology, and Innovation: A Case Study of G20 Countries
This study measures agricultural science, technology, and innovation (ASTI) efficiency across G20 countries using data envelopment analysis. Developed G20 nations show declining efficiency trends but stronger innovation capacity, while developing G20 countries demonstrate rising efficiency but lower capacity. R&D spending redundancy and insufficient agricultural research output constrain efficiency gains. Technological change drives most productivity improvements across both groups.
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Scaling up innovations in smallholder agriculture: Lessons from the Canadian international food security research fund
Linear technology-transfer approaches to scaling agricultural innovations in low-income rural areas often fail because they ignore complexity, climate variability, and economic risks affecting smallholder farmers. This paper analyzes Canadian-funded projects that successfully scaled innovations and catalyzed sector-wide change. It proposes scaling principles that account for socio-ecological dynamics and recommends redefining impact metrics beyond narrow economic indicators to include sustainable agri-food system outcomes.
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Antipodean agricultural and resource economics at 60: agricultural innovation
Agricultural innovation has transformed economies and livelihoods over 150 years, but creates complex economic and policy challenges. Market failures in agricultural research, unequal income distribution effects, and difficulty attributing consequences to specific causes complicate understanding. Australian agricultural economists have contributed significantly to studying these innovation economics issues since the 1950s.
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Facilitating Agricultural Innovation Systems: A critical realist approach
Agricultural innovation systems have shifted from top-down technology transfer to systemic approaches, but gaps remain between expert and lay knowledge that hinder participatory development. This paper applies critical realism to understand these obstacles and proposes how intermediation functions within agricultural innovation systems can bridge knowledge divides and enable genuine transformation in rural development.
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The Evolution of an Innovation System in a Rural Area: The Case of La Pocatière, Québec
This paper traces how an innovation system developed in rural La Pocatière, Quebec from 1830 to 2005. The authors identify four historical periods showing how institutions and innovation types evolved: pioneering agricultural institutions, growth in agricultural science, economic diversification into technology and transport equipment, and finally system redeployment. The study demonstrates that institutional change directly shaped the region's innovation trajectory across farming, science, and industrial sectors.
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Systematic review of disruptive innovation (DI) research in agriculture and future direction of research
This systematic review of 61 articles examines disruptive innovation research in agriculture. Most studies focus on food supply, technology adoption, digital risk management, and modernization in developed and developing countries. The review identifies significant gaps: transition economies receive minimal attention, government policy integration in agricultural innovation remains understudied, and sub-sector research is limited. The authors argue agriculture lacks strong innovation theory foundations and call for expanded investigation across these areas.
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How to assess agricultural innovation systems in a transformation perspective: a Delphi consensus study
This study used a modified Delphi technique with international experts to design a framework for assessing agricultural innovation systems across multiple countries. Experts reached consensus on a capacity-oriented assessment model with standardized yet flexible components. The research identifies factors that helped and hindered consensus-building, offering practical lessons for future Delphi studies and demonstrating how group-based Delphi methods can support international knowledge co-production on agricultural innovation systems.
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Induced Innovation in U.S. Agriculture: Time‐series, Direct Econometric, and Nonparametric Tests
This paper tests whether farmers innovate in response to input price changes—the induced innovation hypothesis. Using U.S. state-level agricultural data and three different statistical methods, the authors find little evidence that farmers develop or adopt technologies to save expensive inputs. The results hold consistently across all testing approaches, though the analysis focuses only on demand-side factors and cannot rule out that developing cost-saving technologies for expensive inputs may simply be too expensive.
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Research Prizes: A Mechanism to Reward Agricultural Innovation in Low-Income Regions
The paper proposes research prizes as a mechanism to incentivize agricultural innovation in low-income regions. Rather than relying solely on traditional funding models, prizes reward successful innovations that address agricultural challenges in resource-constrained areas, creating direct incentives for developing practical solutions tailored to the needs and conditions of poor farming communities.
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Rural innovation chains. Two examples for the diffusion of rural innovations
Rural innovation spreads through social networks where prestigious community members serve as economic models. Peasant societies adopt innovations through imitation rather than independent innovation, following respected figures within their networks. Two case studies—one from the Peruvian Andes and one from Hungary—demonstrate that economic changes and new technologies can be adopted while local social networks remain stable and intact, reinforcing rather than destroying existing community bonds.
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The Driving Factors of Innovation Quality of Agricultural Enterprises—A Study Based on NCA and fsQCA Methods
Agricultural processing enterprises in Liaoning province, China achieve high innovation quality through two main pathways: entrepreneurship combined with government support, or green technology capability combined with market demand. Entrepreneurship and green technology capability emerge as the most universal drivers. The study identifies seven configurations that prevent high innovation quality, categorized as technology-inhibited, entrepreneurship-deprived, or government and market-driven types.
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A study on research hot-spots and frontiers of agricultural science and technology innovation - visualization analysis based on the Citespace III
This paper analyzes international agricultural science and technology innovation research using citation mapping software to identify research hotspots and frontiers. The authors compare international trends with Chinese agricultural innovation research, finding disconnects between agricultural science studies and actual production, weak market mechanisms, and poor resource allocation. They map the evolution of agricultural innovation research globally to inform China's science and technology innovation system development.
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Navigating psychological barriers in agricultural innovation adoption: A multi-stakeholder perspective
Smallholder farmers in the Global South face psychological barriers that prevent them from adopting agricultural innovations. This study identifies four key psychological obstacles: trust, effort, attitudinal, and normative barriers. The researchers interviewed rice farmers and agricultural technology companies to develop an integrated framework showing how to overcome these barriers through demonstrating clear benefits, building trust, reducing effort requirements, and developing human capital.
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Overcoming constraints of scaling: Critical and empirical perspectives on agricultural innovation scaling
Agricultural innovation scaling in Ethiopia requires balancing technical and social factors, not just linear technology rollout. Scaling succeeds through flexible, stepwise strategies that build long-term partnerships, trust, and continuous learning rather than rigid predetermined plans. Social dynamics, actor relationships, and emergent processes matter as much as technical requirements for achieving real impact on rural livelihoods.
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MODELING OF FACTORS INFLUENCING INNOVATION ACTIVITIES OF AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES OF UKRAINE
This paper analyzes factors influencing innovation activities in Ukrainian agricultural enterprises. The author develops economic-mathematical models to identify latent factors affecting innovation dynamics, including costs, funding sources, and implementation rates. The research reveals patterns in how agricultural enterprises manage innovation processes and their internal and external relationships. The findings provide guidelines for determining Ukraine's innovation strategy in global agricultural markets.
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Innovation and Productivity Advances in British Agriculture: 1620–1850
British agriculture between 1620 and 1850 experienced substantial productivity gains driven primarily by technological progress. The researchers measured technological advancement through agricultural patents and published books on farming methods, finding strong evidence that innovation directly fueled productivity improvements. This supports economic theory linking agricultural development to broader economic growth.
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Technological and Institutional Innovations for Sustainable Rural Development
International agricultural research must shift from traditional top-down models to participatory, systems-based approaches that engage farmers and communities throughout the innovation process. The International Livestock Research Institute reorganized its work around five interconnected themes emphasizing innovation systems, participatory research, social science capacity, and partnerships. This demand-driven, community-based model produces knowledge products directly addressing poverty alleviation and sustainable rural development, particularly through livestock research in developing countries.
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A Coupling Mechanism and the Measurement of Science and Technology Innovation and Rural Revitalization Systems
This paper develops a measurement framework to assess how scientific and technological innovation couples with rural revitalization efforts. Using data from Hebei province (2010–2019), the authors construct evaluation indices and coordination models to quantify the relationship between the two systems. Results show Hebei's coupling coordination improved from mild imbalance to primary coordination, with projections reaching good coordination by 2024. The framework provides policymakers with tools for managing regional agricultural development.
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Diffusion of Agricultural Technology Innovation: Research Progress of Innovation Diffusion in Chinese Agricultural Science and Technology Parks
Chinese agricultural science and technology parks drive technology diffusion through a systematic model. The research analyzes how these parks function as innovation hubs, examining both the spatial and temporal patterns of technology spread. It identifies key factors influencing farmer adoption of new agricultural technologies and explores how different environmental conditions and technology types affect adoption behavior. The study reveals a "point-axis" diffusion pattern and highlights emerging adoption behaviors among new business agents in agricultural innovation.
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A machine learning approach to rural entrepreneurship
Machine learning models trained on Life in Transition Survey data identify key factors associated with rural business success and failure across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Capital constraints, age, trust levels, awareness of trends, media use, competitive character, institutional support, and education all predict entrepreneurial outcomes with 72–92% accuracy. The findings reveal which personal and structural factors determine whether rural entrepreneurs successfully launch businesses.
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A Predictive Model of Innovation in Rural Entrepreneurship
Rural entrepreneurs succeed when they embrace innovation. This study identifies key factors driving economic development in rural areas and builds a predictive model showing how innovation levels directly influence business success. The model helps explain the relationship between entrepreneurial innovation and rural well-being, providing practical guidance for supporting local business growth.
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Australian agricultural R&amp;D and innovation systems
Australia's agricultural sector maintains global competitiveness through cutting-edge R&D and rapid innovation despite minimal public subsidies and high export volumes. The paper challenges urban-focused creativity theories by demonstrating that rural innovation systems can be equally powerful, driven by scale economies and quality control demands in the farming sector.
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The dynamics of local innovations among formal and informal enterprises: Stories from rural South Africa
This study examines innovation in rural South African enterprises, both formal and informal. The research reveals that innovation characteristics are similar across formal and informal sectors, challenging traditional distinctions between them. Informal innovations occur throughout the rural economy regardless of sector location. The findings show that narrow categorizations of innovators obscure economic reality and identify four policy priorities for supporting rural innovation.
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What a Pandemic Has Taught Us About the Potential for Innovation in Rural Health: Commencing an Ethnography in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Australia
The paper examines how rural health systems in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Australia built resilience and capacity during the pandemic. Using antifragility as a framework—the concept that systems strengthen under stress—the authors conducted ethnographic research to understand how rural health innovations emerged and persisted through crisis conditions.
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Multi-actor rural innovation ecosystems: Definition, dynamics, and spatial relations
Rural innovation ecosystems differ fundamentally from urban ones in their structure and dynamics. This paper defines rural innovation ecosystems by identifying their unique characteristics: geographic dependencies, sector-specific relationships, and social and human capital rooted in local communities. The authors argue that rural areas possess distinct resources and capacities to generate innovation through multi-actor collaboration, and that understanding these differences is essential for establishing vibrant innovation ecosystems that address rural disparities.
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Applying the model of diffusion of innovations to understand facilitators for the implementation of maternal and neonatal health programmes in rural Uganda
Two maternal and neonatal health projects in rural Uganda—one using vouchers to reduce financial barriers and another strengthening health systems—were analyzed using a diffusion of innovations framework. The analysis revealed key barriers and facilitators to implementing health interventions. The researchers found that understanding how innovations are adopted and spread after external support ends requires studying projects beyond their initial implementation period.
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Socio-cultural factors and the entrepreneurship of youths in rural regions
This paper examines how socio-cultural factors influence entrepreneurial activity among young people in rural regions. The authors demonstrate that specific cultural and social conditions significantly impact whether rural youth engage in entrepreneurship, identifying key socio-cultural drivers that shape entrepreneurial behavior in these communities.
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Social Media-Innovation: The Case of Indigenous Tweets
This paper develops a theoretical framework for social media innovation by analyzing Indigenous Tweets, a platform supporting minority language use on Twitter. The author identifies three key attributes of social media innovation: addressing identified social needs, supporting relevant communication capabilities, and enhancing society's capacity to act. The study finds that Indigenous Tweets' relevance varies across cultural contexts, relies on incremental experimentation, and operates within a hybrid media ecosystem shaped by multiple stakeholders.
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Exploring Audience Segmentation: Investigating Adopter Categories to Diffuse an Innovation to Prevent Famine in Rural Mozambique
This study identifies five distinct adopter categories among rural Mozambicans for an innovation designed to prevent food shortages. Using latent class analysis on 127 participants, the researchers found that these categories differ significantly from traditional adopter category models. The findings suggest that audience segmentation based on local adopter patterns can improve the effectiveness of campaigns to diffuse food security innovations in rural contexts.
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Rural Telephone Company Adoption of Service Innovations: A Community Field Theory Approach*
Rural telephone companies in Iowa that actively participate in local economic development activities adopt telecommunications service innovations at higher rates than those that don't. The study distinguishes between service innovations (improving client offerings) and operations innovations (improving business efficiency), finding that community engagement directly drives adoption of new technologies to serve rural customers better.
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Co-creating cultural narratives for sustainable rural development: a transdisciplinary learning framework for guiding place-based social-ecological research
This paper presents a transdisciplinary framework that combines cultural heritage, landscape, and social-ecological systems thinking to support sustainable rural development. The framework emphasizes continuous dialogue and collaboration among communities, stakeholders, and researchers across four steps. Testing in four European UNESCO Biosphere Reserves demonstrated that the framework successfully guides place-based research and enables comparative analysis, allowing insights from local contexts to scale up to national and global levels.
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Rural sustainable development: A case study of the Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone in China
This case study of China's Zaozhuang Innovation Demonstration Zone examines how innovation drives rural sustainable development. Between 2016 and 2020, economic and social sustainability grew strongly, but ecological sustainability declined. Rural innovation capacity increased rapidly yet had weak effects on overall sustainable development. The authors identify imbalances across sustainability dimensions and propose a multi-dimensional pathway combining policy, technology, projects, and institutions to strengthen innovation's role in rural development.
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Decolonizing design innovation: design anthropology and indigenous knowledge
Design anthropology integrates anthropological research with design thinking to create collaborative, user-centered solutions. Practitioners work in multidisciplinary teams to address real-world problems through observation, interpretation, and co-creation. The field examines how design drives cultural production and change globally, while questioning design's impact on anthropology itself. This approach emphasizes indigenous knowledge and decolonizing design practices.
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Indigenous Innovations in Qualitative Research Method: Investigating the Private World of Family Life
This paper presents an indigenous research method developed with Māori families to study family communication and well-being. Rather than imposing external researchers, family members record their own conversations and participate in interpreting the data. The approach gives research participants active control over what aspects of their private lives they share and how findings are understood, combining Western and Māori-centered ethical practices.
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Responses to Innovation in an Insecure Environment in Rural Nepal
In remote Humla District, Nepal, agropastoralists responded differently to a community development project during the Maoist insurgency based on their socioeconomic status, access to local resources, and relationships with Maoist cadres. Villagers' participation in the health and conservation project correlated with their perceived risks and ability to engage. The study reveals how security threats and local power dynamics shape rural communities' adoption of external innovations.
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Digitalization Technology for Sustainable Rural Entrepreneurship and Inequality
Digitalization transforms rural entrepreneurship by creating decent work and local economic growth, but simultaneously increases inequality and threatens traditional markets. The study finds that social solidarity economic models grounded in local wisdom can mitigate these negative effects. The research combines surveys, interviews, and ethnographic observation to show how digital transformation affects rural entrepreneurial behavior and sustainable development outcomes.
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Innovation and Investment in the Roman Rural Economy Through the Lens of Marzuolo (Tuscany, Italy)*
This historical study of a Roman pottery production site in Tuscany reveals that rural innovation was driven by local smallholders experimenting with production techniques, not by elite landowners as traditionally assumed. Local experimentation was limited by lack of capital, while later large-scale production involved a landowner appropriating the facility. The findings reframe innovation as a process rooted in human capital, labor, and production relationships rather than external investment.
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INNOVATION IN RURAL TOURISM: A MODEL FOR HUNGARIAN ACCOMMODATION PROVIDERS
Rural tourism accommodation providers in Hungary succeed by innovating continuously to meet shifting guest demands for experiences and knowledge rather than simple leisure. The authors developed a maturity model identifying five innovation capability areas—market knowledge, training, managing possibilities, guest orientation, and rationality—that drive success for rural accommodation providers in Veszprém County. The model helps providers understand innovation and better satisfy customer needs.
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Revisiting research on firm-level innovation in rural areas: A systematic literature review and future research directions
This systematic review of 152 academic papers examines firm-level innovation in rural areas from 2003 to 2023. The study maps the intellectual structure of rural innovation research, identifies key antecedents and outcomes of firm innovation, and reveals major research gaps. The authors establish a research agenda for advancing understanding of how rural firms innovate and sustain growth.
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Interrelationships between inward FDI and indigenous innovation in developing economies
Foreign direct investment and indigenous innovation in developing economies have reciprocal but opposing relationships. Higher innovation attracts more FDI, yet increased FDI reduces innovation. R&D investment and absorptive capacity drive indigenous innovation. Government effectiveness mediates these dynamics, reducing FDI's negative impact while strengthening R&D's positive effects. The study recommends improving government effectiveness and R&D spending to harness FDI spillovers for sustained innovation and economic growth.
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Studying Rural Innovation Management: A Framework and Early Findings from RIU in South Asia
This paper develops a framework for analyzing rural innovation management in South Asian agricultural projects, identifying four key elements: functions, actions, tools, and organizational format. The research finds that successful rural innovation requires more than just technology access—it demands bundling technology with network development, policy advocacy, training, and negotiated practice changes. Supporting this broader suite of innovation management activities helps rural communities better utilize agricultural research.
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Embeddedness and innovation in low and medium technology rural enterprises
This paper examines how location influences innovation in low and medium technology rural firms. Through case studies of four Irish companies in furniture and metal products, the authors investigate whether deep local embeddedness is necessary for innovation and how this relationship changes over time. The findings inform understanding of rural industrial development and the role geographic proximity plays in firm innovativeness.
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Dimensions and Strategies of Sustainable Rural Entrepreneurship Ecosystem: An Explorative-Mixed Research Study
Rural entrepreneurship operates as a distinct ecosystem with unique characteristics requiring tailored support. This study identifies six dimensions and thirty-six strategies for sustainable rural entrepreneurship ecosystems through expert interviews and analytical hierarchy analysis. The findings show rural entrepreneurship differs fundamentally from other ecosystems and demands context-specific approaches that account for bio-resource conservation and local conditions.
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How local resources shape innovation and path development in rural regions. Insights from rural Estonia
Local resources—physical, human, social, financial, and immaterial—shape how rural firms innovate and develop. Research in rural Estonia shows that firms actively mobilizing these place-specific resources drive innovation and extend regional development paths. However, local resources alone cannot transform regional trajectories; they enrich existing paths but require strategic firm action to create substantial change.
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Disruptive innovation in rural American healthcare: the physician assistant practice
Physician assistant-owned primary care practices represent a disruptive innovation for rural healthcare. The model addresses physician shortages in underserved rural communities by offering lower costs, fewer competitors, high quality care, and sustainable competitive advantage. This business model solves chronic primary care shortages in rural areas facing educational, financial, and transportation constraints.
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National Strategy of Indigenous Innovation and its Implication to China
China's indigenous innovation strategy from 2006–2020 successfully supports industrial upgrading and catch-up growth through targeted policies, but it constrains breakthrough innovation. The authors argue that China needs to embrace open innovation and market competition rather than protecting domestic enterprises from global technology systems. Only by engaging with international innovation networks can Chinese firms achieve disruptive innovation and establish China as a genuine innovation leader.
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Mapping Innovation and Sustainability in Rural Tourism: A Bibliometric Approach
This bibliometric analysis of 94 articles reveals that innovation and sustainability research in rural tourism concentrates in Europe, particularly in China, Italy, and Spain, with most publications from the last decade. The study identifies influential researchers and research centers, maps current approaches and trends, and calls for more integrated research connecting innovation, sustainability, and rural tourism—especially in less developed regions where these tools could drive economic success.
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Literature Review on Entrepreneurship Practice in Agriculture, Rural and Farmers under the Background of Rural Revitalization
This literature review examines entrepreneurship across agricultural, rural, and farmer contexts during rural revitalization. The paper distinguishes three related but separate concepts: rural entrepreneurship (focused on entrepreneurial environment), agricultural entrepreneurship (focused on agricultural industries), and farmer entrepreneurship (focused on farmer entrepreneur characteristics). The author identifies overlaps in how these types address entrepreneurial opportunities and resources, then proposes future research directions that recognize rural entrepreneurship's distinct logic and value compared to industrial entrepreneurship.
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Rewards and employee creativity among rural healthcare employees: the mediating role of organizational support for innovation and the moderating impact of supervisory support
Rewards boost employee creativity in rural hospitals primarily by fostering organizational support for innovation. Supervisory support strengthens this relationship—when supervisors actively support innovation, the path from rewards to creativity through organizational support becomes significantly stronger. The study demonstrates that rural healthcare workers' creative contributions depend on how management structures rewards, organizational backing, and supervisory engagement together.
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Markers of identification in Indigenous academic writing: A case study of genre innovation
Māori scholars writing in the journal AlterNative use distinctive linguistic features—ambiguous collective pronouns, personal storytelling, and prominent acknowledgment of Elders' knowledge—that reflect Indigenous knowledge-making practices and protocols. These features represent genre innovation within academic writing, showing how Indigenous epistemes reshape dominant academic discourse while maintaining social relations with communities both inside and outside the academy.
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The Practice of Political Entrepreneurship in a Rural Javanese Village
This case study examines how a village head in Java practiced political entrepreneurship shaped by local culture and Islam. Javanese values emphasizing humble, exemplary leadership and Islamic principles guided the village head's actions. These cultural and religious foundations created community respect and trust, reducing vote-buying and corruption in village elections. The research shows that political entrepreneurship theory must account for cultural and religious drivers, not just institutional incentives.
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Rural Innovation Theory and Supporters for Rural Regeneration
This paper examines how endogenous development theory applies to rural regeneration in Japan. The author argues that while endogenous development theory has been influential in rural studies, it needs updating to reflect current conditions. Rural innovation theory promotes exchange between urban and rural areas, and the paper notes that young urban people increasingly move to rural areas to support regeneration. The author concludes that endogenous development approaches must collaborate with outside actors, including urban youth, to succeed.
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TIM based indigenous innovation: experiences from Haier Group
Chinese enterprises face restrictions from dependence on foreign technologies. This paper analyzes Haier Group's innovation practices and argues that total innovation management (TIM) forms the foundation for indigenous innovation. Strategic innovation provides direction, market-oriented innovation sets goals, and cultural innovation creates the right environment. The paper concludes that enterprises must pursue indigenous innovation for sustainability, guided by clear strategic goals and continuous mindset change.
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Rural entrepreneurship as-practice: a framework for research beyond stereotypical notions of entrepreneurial agency and contextual constraints
Rural entrepreneurship research often relies on stereotypical views of rurality and how context shapes business activity. This paper proposes a new theoretical framework treating rural context and entrepreneurship as interconnected practice-material bundles. The authors identify four types of relations between entrepreneurial agency and rural context—causal, prefigurative, constitutive, and intelligibility—to better understand how they mutually shape each other. The framework bridges positivist and constructivist approaches and emphasizes analyzing practice-material dynamics as the core unit for studying rural entrepreneurship.
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Bringing innovation back in–strategies and driving forces behind entrepreneurial responses in small-scale rural industries in Sweden
Small-scale dairy businesses in Sweden innovate primarily through business model changes and imitation rather than disruptive innovation. Social capital and collective action enable firms to break established patterns and create new markets. The study distinguishes rural entrepreneurship from self-employment, showing both drive economic growth. Support mechanisms like flexible regulations and knowledge-sharing help rural firms innovate and survive.
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From Arturo Escobar's development theory to Antony Giddens's structuration theory: a social constructionist analysis of rural entrepreneurship and multifunctional agriculture
This paper argues that rural entrepreneurship research relies too heavily on positivistic approaches and ignores rural contexts. Using social constructionism, Giddens's structuration theory, and Escobar's development theory, the authors propose shifting from positivistic views of rural entrepreneurship toward understanding multifunctional agriculture as a socially constructed discourse. They claim this theoretical reframing better explains how rural regions actually develop.
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How Open & Indigenous Innovation Affects Industries International Competitiveness: An Empirical Study on Chinese Manufacturing Industries Based on the Panel Data from the Year 2000 to 2010
Indigenous innovation forms the foundation for Chinese manufacturing industries to improve international competitiveness. Open innovation strengthens this effect, particularly by amplifying how R&D investment drives competitiveness. The most effective approach combines both indigenous and open innovation strategies in balance. Data from 2000–2010 shows that industries pursuing integrated indigenous-open innovation strategies achieve greater competitive gains than those relying on either approach alone.
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Older people as actors in the rural community, innovation and empowerment
Older people in rural communities actively contribute to social life and innovation when given opportunities for participation. This qualitative study of 53 rural residents in Catalonia, Spain found that community engagement is central to successful aging. The research identifies the need for rural-focused professionals and proposes community-based strategies that strengthen social participation systems while preserving rural character, rather than imposing urban models.
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Conceptual distinction between agricultural innovation and rural innovation: implications for scientific research and public policy
This paper distinguishes agricultural innovation from rural innovation as separate conceptual approaches. Agricultural innovation focuses on farming technology and competitiveness, while rural innovation emphasizes endogenous development and social change. Analysis of Mexican research trends (2014-2018) and policies (2013-2018) shows that scientific work addressed both approaches, but government policy only pursued agricultural innovation despite widespread rural marginalization. The authors argue that recognizing these distinctions improves research clarity and enables policymakers to design interventions addressing rural inequality.
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Innovation as translation in Indigenous entrepreneurship: lessons from Mapuche entrepreneurs in Chile
Innovation in Indigenous entrepreneurship operates as cultural translation, not Western adoption. Mapuche entrepreneurs in Chile transform traditional daily practices into market-valued products by reconfiguring commercial practices through their own cultural frameworks. This process challenges homogenized innovation discourse and reveals how Indigenous enterprises strategically adapt rather than simply adopt external innovation models.
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Measuring urban and rural establishment innovation in the United States
Patents are commonly used to measure innovation, but this study tests whether they work equally well in rural and urban areas. Using data from nearly 11,000 U.S. establishments, researchers compared patents against 39 alternative innovation measures. They found that patents reliably capture innovation in urban areas but perform poorly for rural establishments. The study recommends using different measurement approaches depending on whether establishments are urban or rural.
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Assessing the asymmetric linkages between foreign direct investments and indigenous innovation in developing countries: A non-linear panel auto-regressive distributed lag approach
Foreign direct investment and indigenous innovation in developing countries have an asymmetric relationship. Increases in FDI boost innovation, while decreases in FDI reduce innovation output. However, FDI declines do not suppress positive innovation changes already underway. The study analyzed 20 developing countries from 1993 to 2017 using non-linear methods, revealing that policymakers must account for these asymmetries when designing development strategies.
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The nexus between R&D, innovation and profitability of indigenous oil firms: A structural equilibrium model approach
Research and development spending directly boosts profitability in Nigerian oil companies and works indirectly through both technological and non-technological innovation. Technological innovation delivers stronger indirect effects than non-technological innovation. Indigenous oil firms maximize profits by investing in R&D alongside both innovation types rather than choosing one approach alone.
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The Stages of Political Innovation in Rural China’s Local Democratisation: Four Cases of Villagers’ Political Innovations
This paper examines how rural Chinese villages have driven political democratization through grassroots innovation over three decades. Villagers' collective action triggered political reforms, with ongoing interaction between communities and government advancing the process. The author applies a four-stage innovation model—problem identification, trigger, initiative, and diffusion—to explain how institutional political change occurs in rural areas, showing that political innovation follows the same patterns as technological and economic innovation.
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Manufacturing strategy and innovation in indigenous and foreign firms: an international study
This study compares manufacturing strategy and innovation between domestic and foreign firms across 17 countries using the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey. The researchers found that while foreign firms generally outperform domestic ones in most areas, innovative firms achieve greater competitiveness regardless of whether they operate in their home country or abroad. Innovation emerges as the key driver of competitive advantage.
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COMPOSITE REPORT ON THE STATUS AND TRENDS REGARDING THE KNOWLEDGE, INNOVATIONS AND PRACTICES OF INDIGENOUS AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES
This composite report documents the status and trends of knowledge, innovations, and practices held by indigenous and local communities. It synthesizes information on how these communities develop and maintain innovations rooted in traditional ecological knowledge and local practices, providing a baseline understanding of indigenous innovation systems and their contemporary relevance.
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Mapping the Enablers of Frugal Innovation and Firm Performance of Indigenous Innovation in Emerging Economies
Frugal innovation drives growth in emerging economies by creating resourceful solutions for resource-constrained environments. This study builds a hierarchical framework showing how five independent enablers—including resource constraints, prosocial motivation, and frugal design principles—influence frugal innovation and firm performance through linkage factors like frugal creativity and bricolage capability. The framework helps firms in developing economies achieve sustainable growth.
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Attitude toward innovation and its implications for rural community development in Mexican peasant organizations
Mexican peasant organizations show balanced attitudes toward innovation when examined through psychological and social factors. High social capital and good information access promote positive innovation attitudes, while cultural values present fewer barriers than commonly assumed. The study challenges stereotypes of rural communities as inherently resistant to change, revealing instead that innovation attitudes develop in response to territorial risks and constraints.
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Innovation supports for small-scale development in rural regions: a create, build, test and learn approach
Small rural manufacturers face resource constraints that limit innovation despite needing it to survive market downturns. This paper presents a support toolbox designed to help these firms develop new products through learning cycles and communicative prototyping. The approach formalizes their existing trial-and-error methods while building organizational learning capabilities into early-stage product development work.
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Mainstream and new‐stream patterns for indigenous innovation in China
Chinese manufacturing enterprises face an innovation dilemma that requires balancing mainstream and new-stream innovation. The paper identifies two distinct innovation patterns and argues that firms should simultaneously strengthen existing mainstream innovation while breeding new technologies as future directions. Success requires convergent innovation that integrates projects, talent, products, and markets into coordinated strategies, enabling firms to upgrade technology and escape stagnation.
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Practices are not Without Concepts: Reflections on the Use of Indigenous Knowledge in Artisanal and Agricultural Projects in India
This paper argues that development projects using indigenous knowledge in India fail because they focus on practices without understanding the concepts behind them. The author defines indigenous knowledge, indigenous knowledge systems, and indigenous technological knowledge, distinguishing these from tradition and invented tradition. Two case studies—one on artisans and one on bamboo—demonstrate that sustainability requires considering both practices and their underlying concepts in project design.
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Evaluation innovation in Africa: Towards indigenously responsive evaluation (IRE) philosophies, methods and practices in Ghana
This study examines how indigenous Ghanaian cultural values, social structures, and knowledge systems can inform evaluation practices. The researchers found that traditional evaluative approaches embedded in community norms, relational patterns, and cultural wisdom offer valuable dimensions that contemporary evaluation frameworks should incorporate. These indigenous evaluative impulses can enhance and deepen modern evaluation philosophies and practices in Ghana.
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Global research pathways in rural microfinance: a bibliometric study based on web of science and Scopus database
This bibliometric analysis examines 1,225 rural microfinance studies published between 1989 and 2024 using Web of Science and Scopus data. The research identifies growing global interest in rural microfinance as a poverty-alleviation tool, maps key research themes and productive institutions, and reveals critical gaps. Emerging priorities include integrating financial technology with microfinance and expanding women's access to energy through microfinance programs.
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SOCIETY 5.0 AND ITS IMPACT ON AGRICULTURAL BUSINESS AND INNOVATION: A NEW PARADIGM FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Society 5.0 integrates advanced technologies like IoT, AI, and robotics into agriculture to balance economic growth with social benefits. The paper analyzes how this technological shift transforms agricultural practices and business models for rural development. It introduces the Agricultural Business and Rural Development Potential index to forecast three scenarios—optimistic, conservative, and pessimistic—for agricultural innovation and rural outcomes.
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Conceptualizing RRI from a Global South perspective through Indigenous innovation practices in Aotearoa New Zealand’s high-tech science sector
This paper examines Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) through Indigenous Māori perspectives in New Zealand's high-tech science sector. The authors show that Vision Mātauranga, a national policy integrating Māori knowledge with Western science, drives RRI in practice through specific micro-practices: open innovation, capacity development, and absorptive capacity. A decolonized RRI approach extends responsible innovation beyond European frameworks, creating new science governance models that align with Global South contexts.
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Process Innovation Capability and Performance of Indigenous Oil and Gas Companies in South-South, Nigeria
This study examined 33 indigenous oil and gas companies in Nigeria's South-South region and found that process innovation capability directly improves company performance, measured by sales volume, profitability, and growth. Market innovation also drives performance. The research recommends that management adopt policies supporting process innovation and invest in strategies that optimize human resources, resource mobilization, and monitoring to enhance operational efficiency.
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Innovation as a factor in successful rural development
Agricultural development in rural areas requires technological, social, and organizational innovations to ensure food security and deliver essential services. The study identifies digital innovation, climate adaptation, and community engagement as critical for rural prosperity amid geopolitical and environmental challenges. All three innovation types—technological, social, and organizational—prove essential for sustainable rural development and local management.
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Local Economic Resilience: A Qualitative Study of Development Innovation in Rural Areas
This qualitative study examines how rural areas build economic resilience through development innovation. The research shows that rural communities strengthen their economies by adopting sustainable practices, leveraging digital technologies, and fostering community-based innovation. Local adaptation strategies and government support play key roles in helping rural areas respond to global economic trends and create new opportunities for business growth.
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The Role of Islamic Values in Sustainable Development Innovation to Support the SDGs in Rural Communities
Islamic principles, particularly Maqasid Syariah, offer a framework for sustainable development in rural communities that addresses poverty, inequality, and climate action. The study finds that Islamic values like social justice and environmental stewardship, combined with mechanisms such as zakat and waqf, can advance the Sustainable Development Goals. Integrating these religious values into development policy creates more inclusive and equitable rural development outcomes.
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Enterprises’ response strategies towards a mission-oriented innovation initiative – a reflection on China’s indigenous innovation
Chinese enterprises adopt distinct response strategies to government-led mission-oriented innovation initiatives. The study examines how firms engage with indigenous innovation policies, revealing differentiated approaches based on firm characteristics and sectoral contexts. Enterprises balance compliance with policy objectives against competitive pressures, demonstrating varied levels of commitment to state-directed innovation goals.
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ENABLING INNOVATION IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Rural development requires innovation to achieve sustainable development goals, but rural areas face resource constraints that limit their capacity for change. The paper proposes a three-dimensional model combining pro-social technological innovation policy, rural innovation governance, and dynamic networks connecting rural and urban innovation systems. Frugal, inclusive, and social innovation types suit rural contexts better than traditional approaches. Examples from China demonstrate how rural areas can leverage urban technologies, networks, and resources to create new economic growth engines.
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From technology transfer to indigenous innovation in China
China's development since 1978 combined government investment in human capital and infrastructure with foreign technology learning to build indigenous innovation capacity. The paper identifies three main pathways: joint ventures with foreign multinationals, global value chains, and repatriation of advanced technologies. It demonstrates successful indigenous innovation in computing, automotive, and communications sectors, showing how Chinese firms leveraged foreign learning to compete globally.
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AI and Automation in Rural and Community-Centric Broadcasting: Innovation, Ethics, and Sustainability
AI and automation can improve rural and community broadcasting by bridging information gaps and enhancing efficiency, but only with careful ethical implementation. The paper examines how AI tools like content generation and audience analytics serve rural broadcasters while addressing risks including algorithmic bias, surveillance, and erosion of local editorial control. Success requires community-centered design, ethical guidelines, language inclusivity, and infrastructure investment to protect indigenous voices and strengthen local storytelling.
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Innovation-investment mechanisms for stimulating small business in rural communities
This paper examines how artificial intelligence and digital technologies drive innovation in rural small business development. It analyzes AI's benefits for research efficiency and data processing while addressing risks like academic integrity violations and algorithmic bias. The authors argue that responsible AI implementation requires clear institutional policies and ethical guidelines to balance technological innovation with maintaining credibility in research and education.
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The framework of building indigenous technological innovation capabilities: A conceptual study focused on Saudi Arabia
This paper develops a four-stage model for building indigenous technological innovation capabilities in developing countries, with focus on Saudi Arabia. The model progresses through technology initiation, imitation, improvement, and innovation stages. The authors identify environmental factors and key actors influencing this process and analyze how the framework applies to Saudi Arabian firms and the broader Middle Eastern context.
Media stories — 2
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From rural Zambia to Cape Town: the simple innovation that's revolutionising small-scale farming
The Burro, a human-powered cargo system designed in rural Zambia, helps small-scale farmers and waste workers transport heavy loads across difficult terrain without vehicles. Originally developed for agriculture, the tool now supports waste collection and recycling in Cape Town while enabling farmers to generate income through informal rental systems. Its simple, durable design proves effective across both rural and urban environments.
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The farmer isn't disappearing — they're moving up the stack': How AI is reshaping the role of modern agriculture
Agricultural robotics and AI are addressing labor shortages in farming by automating repetitive and hazardous tasks rather than replacing workers entirely. Companies like Grain Weevil and Birdseye Robotics are developing task-specific robots for grain storage, meat processing, and poultry monitoring. Falling hardware costs and accumulated farm data have made these solutions commercially viable, allowing farmers to focus on higher-value responsibilities while machines handle dangerous or labor-intensive work.
Events — 1
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International Conference on Innovation in Rural Regions (ICIRR)
This interdisciplinary conference examines social and technical practices in rural regions, exploring how innovations are imagined, facilitated, contested, and materially shaped. Rather than treating rural areas as peripheral spaces, the conference reframes them as complex socio-technical systems where global challenges manifest in concentrated ways. The event brings together researchers and practitioners from fields including design science, HCI, CSCW, ICTD, and STS to analyze and shape rural innovation dynamics and challenge dominant narratives.