(Article) Busch, C. (2022) Toward a theory of serendipity: a systematic review and conceptualization. Journal of Management Studies.
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The article discusses thedifferent typesof serendipityandprovidesa good comprehension of them.It then classifies the various cases of serendipity into four types and four mechanisms.What’sinteresting about the paper is that it makes links betweenthem,and itaddressesthe implications of thosedifferent typesand mechanisms.Serendipity allows managers to review their decision-making methods in many ways. But we are going to focus on the 3 main keys concrete actions/decisions that we think managers should focus on.1-Diversity of research approaches:Encourage a diversity of research methods within teams. Exploring beyond predefinedobjectivesand combining different methods increases the chances of unexpected results. Investing in research and development to diversify approaches, for example by combining medical and neuroscience research, can lead to valuable discoveries.2-Serendipity and tolerance of error:Managers should not be toostrict;they should leave room for mistakes and give employees a certain amount of freedom. The principle of limited negligence, as invented by the physicist Max Delbruck, places the emphasis on intelligent errors. Messy experiments, if carried out with full knowledge of the facts, can lead to happy results. Learning from these mistakes can lead to valuable discoveries.3-Routineobservation:Emphasise the importance of routine observation in science. It is essential to document observations because of individual variations in abilities and interpretations. Routine observation not only encourages serendipity in some individuals, but also servesas a record for future discoveries. Observations that may not be fully understood at present could inspire discoveries in the future.In terms of limitations, we look at specific scenarios in which previously discovered key insights may face constraints.The author stressesthe importance of error tolerance(explain above)in research to discover unexpected breakthroughs. However, industries with strict safety protocols, such as nuclear energy, may find it difficult to adopt a more flexible experimental approach.In fast-moving and competitive sectors such as pharmaceuticals, exemplified by Pfizer and GSK during the COVID crisis, the focus on short-term efficacy canprevent the recognition ofStephanianserendipity, where research without an immediate goal contributes to solving future problems. In efficiency-driven environments, the pursuit of discoveries that are notimmediatelyuseful for specific research goals may be overlooked.To find out more on thesubject, wefound two videos from TEDx conferences.The first featuresconsultant and author John Hagel, who explains how sharing problems with strangers can encourage serendipity and increase the chances of solving them.The second video, by New York University professor Christian Busch, offers advice on how to encourage serendipity in your professional and personal life. Professor Busch stresses the fact that serendipity can be encouraged and does not depend solely on luck.In addition, the “Journal of Management Studies” features an article by Professor Busch, which looks at the emergence of serendipity in the field of management and highlights the conditions that differentiate it from mere chance
1.(Video)TEDXTalks(2018, 26 July)Inviting serendipity to your life | John Hagel.Youtube.Invitingserendipity to your life | John Hagel -YouTube2.(Video),TEDXTalks(2022, 4 November)The science of serendipity: How to make your own luck | Prof.Dr.Christian Busch.Youtube.Thescience of serendipity: How tomakeyour own luck | Prof.Dr.Christian Busch |TEDxWarrenton-YouTube3.(Article)Christian Busch(13November2022).Towardsa Theory ofSerendipity: ASystematicReviewandConceptualization. Journal of ManagementStudies
(Article) Gino, F. (2018). The Business Case for Curiosity. Harvard Business Review, Sep.-Oct.
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The article discusses curiosity and defines it as the impulse to seek new information and experiences and explore novel possibilities. Three key insights were highlighted throughout the article.
Firstly, it covers the advantages with curiosity; when our curiosity is triggered it may be the starting point of a process which makes it evolve to creativity, then to experimenting and finally to a potential source of innovation.
Secondly, it indicates the obstacles and reasons why leaders limit curiosity; though it might have all the benefits one can imagine, in a business context curiosity doesn’t always have its place, at least not in its extreme form. The main reasons go from the place where people don’t often feel free to be curious by fear of overstepping or being judged to the place where employers fear that employees will be inclined to seek exploration at the expense of the work they should be doing.
Finally, it gives several ways to stimulate curiosity. The first one is to hire out of curiosity from the start, to make it an important feature one has to have, to be an asset for a given company. The author also encourages us to ask “Why?”, “What if??” and “How could we…?” question to avoid a certain status quo, and focus on learning objectives.
Three managerial implications were made.The general perception is that project managers and leaders have more knowledge than their subordinates, which is not always the case. Humans are naturally afraid of being judged and thought of as incompetent or unintelligent, and this is especially true for new employees. The article highlights that leaders can encourage curiosity by showing inquisitiveness and being curious themselves. In order to model inquisitiveness, managers must change the underlying corporate mental model.
Secondly, to avoid a status quo situation, businesses can use curiosity as an advantage and as a source of imitation to innovation. Curiosity leads to people asking questions that lead to contemplating a wide range of options and perspectives, which can be used to unravel the real needs of the customers. Managers should encourage curiosity and use it as a resource when using a market pull strategy.
Lastly, managers should let employees explore and expand their interest. Managers must accept that motivation and drive comes from varied work, sense of achievement and recognition. Consequently, an implication could be a more agile organization where employees get the opportunity to work in different departments in order to gain knowledge, spark curiosity and find out what they are most passionate about in the organization.
However, there are some limitations to this article. Firstly, curiosity in companies whose strategy is based on economies of scale, can encounter trouble. Even if the employees are curious, there are often barriers that prevent them from contributing to the company. The barriers can come from the company, its organizational structure, or even from the resources. A solution may be to transition from the top-down approach and act as a company with horizontal hierarchy.
As a second limitation, curiosity, if exaggerated, can create distances. Being too curious might worsen your relationship with others. If too many questions are asked, people will think that you are too noisy and might keep a distance from you. As a result, curiosity can create the opposite effect and we end up less informed than desired. This way, curiosity could lead to a bad working atmosphere and demotivate workers.
Finally, we found two further references :
(Video) Bob Borchers, TEDXTalks (2016, 28 October) The Power of Curiosity. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRiEJIEbTDo
(Article) Arikan, A.M., Arikan, I., & Koparan, I. (2020). Creation Opportunities: Entrepreneurial Curiosity, Generative Cognition, and Knightian Uncertainty. Academy of Management Review, 45(4)
The first reference is a tedX talk presented by Bob Borchers, where he explains the power of curiosity and its importance in an innovation context. Furthermore he presents the link between luck and curiosity and gives concrete examples of products and inventions born thanks to curiosity and luck, for example super glue and play-doh.
The second reference is an article which explores the process of opportunity formation. It suggests that entrepreneurial curiosity leads to opportunity identification and the formation of entrepreneurial opportunities under Knightian uncertainty, including the cognitive generative processes of entrepreneurs.
Show lessHal Gregersen, The Four Behaviors Of Innovative Leaders
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The video we decided to analyze tries to identify the portrait of an innovative leader. It starts by dividing two types of innovative leaders: The born innovators and the average person.
The first category are people who are naturally born with the spirit of innovation and who are innovative leaders like the well-known Steve Jobs. The others are people like you and me. But by taking a few actions, it is possible to become innovative leaders too.
1. The large majority of innovative leaders like to discover the world by talking to people who are different from them. This exchange allows them to get different perspectives on a subject. What they seek above all is to have a maximum of diversity in the way they see things and to enhance their knowledge by learning from others.
2. Secondly, innovative people are people who give impact to their ideas. They do this by believing in their ideas and challenging them with the reality of the world.
3. In contrast, innovators are often people who find it difficult to implement their ideas. That is why it is best for them to collaborate with people who can help them in the execution of their innovative ideas.
In terms of implications, we have identified several. Firstly, to be a good innovator you have to be prepared to try and experiment. Indeed, it is about experimenting quickly. It is this kind of behaviour that helps them to think differently and when it comes to combining things with new things, it is this kind of everyday behaviour that helps them to have good ideas!
Secondly, you have to talk to people who are not like us and who have different perspectives. That is, people who don’t have the same experiences as us. This allows you to explore other horizons and to have another look at a subject.
Thirdly, you need to ask lots of provocative questions to challenge the current status of an idea or project. Indeed, you need to continually challenge an idea or project to see if a change or update needs to be made.
About the limitations, we said that we must “try and experience everything”. But it depends on the project, you can’t try everything! The nature of the project is the first limit.
The first example is that if you want to test a new recipe for cooking you must experiment and test, but in more complex projects it is not always possible to experiment totally. The second example is an Amusement Park, it is impossible to experiment with different locations for this park or to experiment with different themes for this park. There is also a cost limit. It costs time and money to experiment!
The cost limit is the second limit. We said also that we must “talking with people who are not like us”. But the opinion of people should not be used to decide if the project is done or not, but rather to improve and point out the difficulties of the project. Be aware that if we talk about our project to people who have a different perspective from us or from the project, it is possible that the person does not understand our vision of the project and has a biased opinion.
Finally, we said that we must “ask questions” but be careful not to go around in circles with questions that might be too complex or that would waste too much time, It is also difficult to find relevant and quality questions that really move the project forward.
Thanks the analyzing of the further sources, it is also interesting to note that, although the sources are different, their views are very similar. For example, in the video “what makes a great innovator”, three tips are given. These are: the willingness to learn, the question of why and courage. This is quite like the implications we have noted in the video we have chosen.
We learn from the second source that a company director has recruited an accountant in his innovation department. Of course, he did not have the skills but he saw in him the perfect character of an innovative person. He describes him as someone who believes 100% in his ideas and wants to develop them. He will not stop at the first difficulty.
• (Video) Why innovation is all about people rather than bright ideas, Alexandre Janssen, TedxFryslân
• (Video) What makes a great innovator? , Wide Ideas
(Article) Veugelers, R., & Cassiman, B. (1999). Make and buy in innovation strategies: evidence from Belgian manufacturing firms. Research Policy, 28(1), 63-80.
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The most important points that we wanted to highlight here are first the steps for innovation, than the decision to make or to buy technological innovation, and if there are other solution? And finally to analyze of obstacles to innovation, actually prevent firms to innovate.
About the steps for innovation. First comes the decision to innovate or not. It is either an internal decision, or external decision. What we mean by that is that it can be imagined by someone in the firm, someone can come with the right idea. But often it’s the market which forces innovation. Either because a competitor gains a market advantage, which forces the others to innovate to stay competitive. Other possibilities are legislation which change the market rules, client mentality changes, …
About the make or buy dilemma. The paper shows us that there are a lot of significant factors. We choose to highlights some of those factors. First, the paper shows that size has a big impact on this decision. First, little firms don’t have the available resources to invest in both those ways, which mean that they often have to choose between make or buy. And that in general big firms invest in both solutions depending on the project. Then, the export part of the business also has a role. Firms that have more than 10% of their business which comes from export tend to innovate more than the others. We won’t go over every significant factor, but we wanted to talk about the costs. It is contra intuitive, but actually, higher cost and higher risk of obstacles for innovation, tend to motivate innovation. As long as the risk and cost are not too high. So innovation increases with obstacles, until a certain point. The explanation given by the paper is that hard innovation is an entry barrier, and builds a higher competitive advantage, because it is harder to manage.
We took four concrete examples to show the four possible ways to innovate. For large companies in a high technological sector, we choose Tesla. They focussed on external sources with a mixed approach in which they “copied” existing products and they adapted it. Indeed, the electric vehicle already existed but they changed some characteristics through internal research and innovation to bring a modified product on the market. Apple is the second example that we took in the high technological sector. They had to work by themselves through internal innovation and they became successful afterwards.
Brembo, world leader in brakes, decided to innovate trough their process. They had already interesting and qualitative products. Their goal was to improve their economy of scale through an innovative process. Finally, we wanted to see how a small company in a traditional sector should innovate and we took Leboncoin to analyse it. Leboncoin could just copy Ebay for example, but they decided to review the whole process and to innovate through it.
The main implication is that if a company want to grow need to invest more especially if you are a small company. The best practice is a mixed approach between internal and external source of innovation.
Unfortunately, this method isn’t concretely possible for everyone because of the size of the companies and the resources they have. In this case if you are a small company, you should focus more on one dimension. If you are in a very high-tech sector, you should be focusing on internal R&D and provide innovation to overcome barriers to entry and because the protection process of new innovations is very concrete and very complex to go around, so it’s very difficult to “copy” others innovation. On the other hand, if you are a small company in a traditional sector, you should focus more on the external innovation. That’s because it’s harder to protect new innovations and because in these kinds of sectors, usually there is already a dominant design, so it’s easier to enter the market just by copying other products and then integrate it.
Completely different is if you are a big company, you should definitely have a mixed approach, but if it’s a high-tech sector you have to be more focus externally, to use start-up and smaller companies’ ideas. Otherwise, if you operate in a traditional sector, adopt a mixed approach focused on internal innovation, especially process innovation to exploit economies of scale.
Regarding the limitations, we found 3 important limitations. The first limitation is that even though the best option seems to be to make and buy innovation, it’s not always possible. Indeed, if a firm has the monopoly on a product or innovation, this firm can’t buy the innovation from another company. The only option is to create innovation within the firm if the company is the first to think about it. For example, in 2007, Apple invented the first smartphone, the first phone with completely touch-based interface. So they couldn’t have bought it from any other firm.
The second limitation is that in this paper, they only talk about the firm’s level so does the company chooses to make, buy or do both as their global strategy. Sometimes a firm can choose to mostly buy innovation technologies but for a specific project create the innovative technology within the firm or the other way around. So, choosing one strategy doesn’t mean not using another way for one or two projects.
The last limitation that a manager should be careful about before deciding to buy or make the technology is the policies of his country. Indeed, each country has specific policies about innovation that make it more or less interesting. For example, firms in China have a bigger incentive to innovate because there’s a patent box that lowers the tax rate on qualifying R&D which can be interesting for the manager to consider. And the other way around, if the firm is located in Germany, there’s a lack of tax incentives so as a manager you might choose not to innovate but mostly to buy innovation.
About the 2 futher references, we choosed 2 texts. The first one is “Complementary interregional linkages and Smart Specialisation: an empirical study on European regions”. Those texte explain how the linkages between different regions impact the development of innovations. With this linkages the regions share knowledge and so they add all the capacities they have, that share is a good for the increasing of development. To show what is the impact, the paper propose to input a new indicator : CL ( complementary interregional linkages).
The second text is “The role of corporate incubators as invigorators of innovation capabilities in parent companies”. In this one they explain that the innovation are principaly made by start-ups but they are to small to develop the innovation themselves so they are help by the Incubator company. The biggers companies notices the help of the incubator and so they also begins to appeal to the incubator for the research.
Complementary interregional linkages and Smart Specialisation : an empirical study on European regions. (2021, janvier). Taylor & Francis. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2020.1861240
Gonthier, J. (2019, 15 mars). The role of corporate incubators as invigorators of innovation capabilities in parent companies – Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship . SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13731-019-0104-0?error=cookies_not_supported&code=7ac2511f-4b0b-4cbd-9fd2-dcf626f6216c
Show lessAtuahene-Gima, K. (1996). Market orientation and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 35(2), 93 103. https://doi.org/10.1016/0148-2963(95)00051-8
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Key Insights
To begin with, market orientation is a business approach where the objective is to identify customer needs and to meet them. Now, in this article, the author compares the impact of market orientation on 6 different factors influencing innovation success and we selected the 3 most interesting. First, the degree of product newness is negatively impacted by a market orientation. Then we could see a positive impact on interfunctional teamwork. And finally, the author made the hypothesis that market orientation would have a stronger influence on the success of service innovation than product innovation, when in reality, the study showed insignificant differences between the two.
Implications
Firstly, the marketing orientation has a significant negative impact on product newness. According to the article, the situation will be ideal because there will be less chance of customers changing their behavior because of new innovations. Then, the degree of market orientation is significantly and positively related to innovation-marketing fit, product advantage and interfunctional teamwork. This means that there will be a support from anterior empirical research and therefore market orientation significant as a factor. Thirdly, market orientation has a positive relationship with commercial success and project impact performance. And to ensure an optimal process within the organization: The implication for management would be to influence the effectiveness of the company’s innovation activities through the adoption of market orientation. Finally, market orientation has a strong direct impact on innovation performance but not on market success. The influence of market orientation goes beyond specific innovation and has an impact on the performance of other products and on the organization’s cost reduction efforts.
Limitations
The first limitation relates to possible confusion effects of “mixed” service-product innovations. To deal with this problem, they only choose firms likely to produce new services that tend to be at the pure end of the service-product continuum, but it did not eliminate the problem completely. Future research might overcome this problem by asking respondents to place selected innovations on a service-scale. The sample can then be categorized into pure service, mixed, and product innovations for analysis. There is an increasing trend toward the development of innovations by firms in hotel, transportation, which are labor intensive services. It will be great if they include a wider variety of service firms than examined here. Because in service industries such as banking, insurance, and computer software, innovation success depends on the firm’s quality relationships with customers which will provide valuable information that leads to the development of new services. The importance of greater understanding of customer needs in services is reinforced by the fact that customers are more likely to favor current service providers when purchasing new services. Finally, the context of the study in Australia put constraints on the generalizability of the results to other firms and other national contexts. Replicating this study in other countries would be a welcome addition.
Further references
The first article that we chose explains that the customer participation’s effectiveness regarding the new product development performance relies on the absorptive capacity of the firm which is defined as the firm’s capability to acquire, transform, assimilate, and exploit external knowledge. And what is interesting in the second paper is that the author distinguishes two types of customer participation : the information provider and the codeveloper.
Wang, L., Jin, J. L., Zhou, K. Z., Li, C. B. & Yin, E. (2020). Does customer participation hurt new product development performance ? Customer role, product newness, and conflict. Journal of Business Research, 109, 246 259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.12.013
Morgan, T., Obal, M. & Anokhin, S. (2018). Customer participation and new product performance : Towards the understanding of the mechanisms and key contingencies. Research Policy, 47(2), 498 510. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.01.005
Baumann, J., & Kritikos, A. (2016). ‘The link between R&D, innovation and productivity: Are micro firms different?. Research Policy, 45, 1263-1274
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The study of our work focuses mainly on the difference between microenterprises and their larger competitors. It was difficult to collect information about micro enterprises. But luckily, in Germany there is an annual survey of these small enterprises. So, this study is based on German companies.
The first key point identifies the difference between micro firms and large firms in terms of the probability of achieving innovation through research and development. The result is that small firms have a lower rate of innovation than large firms. Moreover, proportionally speaking, the R&D expenditure is generally much higher for small firms than for large firms. Finally, for both small and large firms, the younger the firm, the more chance it has to innovate. Our second key point concerns the link between innovation and productivity. Among the micro firms about 50% are engaged in innovative activities that can increase the efficiency of the process and improve the products they offer. And when they are innovative, Micro firms are not doing worse than the big compagnies in turning their knowledge into productivity. Our last key point is that highly skilled employees considerably increase the chance of innovation.
Concerning the implication, firstly, the number of employees does not necessarily lead to a significant increase in the probability of innovation. For a better innovation management, we recommend to organise trainings inside the company and set up some feedback processes to allow employees for acquiring new skills and knowledges. The research shows that there is around 50% of the micro enterprises that are involved in innovation activities. The question around this implication is how to increase this rate, which tips could we give a manager? A first idea could be to organize games within the enterprise in order to provide a collaborative work. This would allow employees to express their creativity, to exchange with each other. A second idea could be to inspire rewards, this will stimulate employees to come up with innovative ideas. The last point is to be aware and on the outlook of competitors inventions to make sure to not be left on the side and eventually get inspired. It is important to be able to identify innovation as to be capable of implement them. Our last implication goes about the hiring and retain of high skilled employees as they increase the probability of innovation. The first tip is to organize/sponsor business games to see which participant, while presenting his business case, fits really into the company, has great ideas. Then, partner with training-ships, this means the company gets new trainees every 6 months. With a big turnover like that, the company makes sure to have a dynamic atmosphere with fresh looks. Once the company has found high skilled employees it is important to retain them, but how? Each member becomes a shareholder, this means everyone will give the best of themselves and be loyal as it is in the interest of everyone that the company succeeds.
Concerning the limitation of the first key point, R&D has some negative sides. Firstly, timing matters, and in industries where growth and demand are strong, they could require third-party assistance. Secondly, there is a risk that R&D efforts do not lead to wanted results when it is put into practice, and the risk that small companies do not get up than bigger ones is higher. Thirdly, R&D can be very expensive, and especially impact the small companies. Lastly, small innovative companies are often subject to fast-second attacks by larger ones. For the second limitation, it is simply to say that even if small companies undertake new innovations better, we must not forget that it remains very risky for them, given that they do not necessarily have the means to be able to ensure their future if they fail in their investment in innovations. The third limitation is that highly skilled employees are not always enough to make a team innovative. Indeed, a person may do his job perfectly, but he is not always able to go beyond his basic abilities to innovate new things. If you take the example of an employee who has a perfect command of computers, this does not necessarily mean that he or she is capable of inventing a new way of coding. It is also important that a team is diverse in terms of age or culture because two people with the same skills do not always think in the same way and therefore diversifying the team can lead to better results. Another point is to say, if we assume that all our innovation employees are all high skilled, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they know how to work together and therefore they may have good ideas, but if the work doesn’t progress because of a lack of coordination, then being qualified is no longer as valuable. So, there is a real limit to saying that you need qualified employees, you need a team that is diverse in terms of age, experience, social background. But also, a team that knows how to work together and be proactive in the application of innovations.
For the further references we used 3 relevant papers, “Measuring the innovation capability of micro enterprises in India”, “Influence of technological innovation on performance of small manufacturing companies” and “A new approach to estimation of the R&D-innovation-productivity relationship”. The first one is related to the geopolitical situation, it can be inspiring to see the difference between a highly developed manufacturing industry like Germany and a less developed one like India. The second paper aims to test the extent to which the influencers of technological innovation are relevant to improving the performance of small manufacturing firms ant the last one applies a generalized model approach to the estimation of the relationship between R&D, innovation and productivity.
Raghuvanshi, J., Agrawal, R., & Ghosh, P. K. (2019). Measuring the innovation capability of micro enterprises in India. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 26(5), 1405–1430. https://doi.org/10.1108/bij-08-2018-0229
Singh, D., Khamba, J., & Nanda, T. (2017). Influence of technological innovation on performance of small manufacturing companies. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 66(7), 838–856. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm-02-2016-0035
Baum, C. F., Lööf, H., Nabavi, P., & Stephan, A. (2016). A new approach to estimation of the R&D–innovation–productivity relationship. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 26(1–2), 121–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/10438599.2016.1202515
Show lessContigiani A., H. Hsu D, 2015. How Trade Secrets Hurt Innovation
Cricelli L., Di Giovanni M., Grimaldi M., Rogo F., 2015. A new framework to leverage patent information for strategic technology.
John P. Walsha, You-Na Lee, Taehyun Jung, 2016. Win, lose or draw? The fate of patented inventions.
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John P. Walsha, You-Na Lee, Taehyun Jung, 2016. Win, lose or draw? The fate of patented inventions.
In a society that is always looking to innovate and create new things, patents allow the use as well as the commercialization of an exclusive and temporary invention. Also, they allow to protect innovations by keeping competitors away. The objective of this article is to analyse and to understand the fate of patents in our society. This article therefore deals with the different motivations for patents and their uses, particularly those whose main objectives are commercialization or prevention.
The first key point of this article presents the different types of patents. Firstly, there are the “used patents”, which are used to have marketing exclusivity for a certain product. These are the most classic and widespread patents. Secondly, there are “non-used patents”, which are more developed in this article. They are not used for commercial purposes, but are used by companies for other purposes. These “non-used patents” are classified according 3 types. The prospective patent, which still needs to be further developed by exploring the market, such as still looking for commercial opportunities. The preemptive patent, which protects the company by blocking other companies or preventing similar inventions. Then, the failed patent, which are the only patent that is not actually used. The failed patent may have been due to an obsolescence or to a changing environment. Among the non-use patents, the type of prospective patent remains the most used with 67%, followed by failed at 55% and pre-emptive at 38.4%.
The second important point of this article is that the use of these patents depends on different characteristics. This article compares the use of patents for commercial purposes with preemptive patents. Indeed, the size of the company, the competition, the speed of innovation and the sector in which the company works, or the effectiveness of the patent will influence the use and therefore the type of patent used. For example, a large company with an efficient patent and significant competition will be more likely to use a preemptive patent than a commercial patent.
The manager should of course look at the different implications that our project has. And for that he would have to do an in-depth market study to see where the different companies are in their researches, how big the companies are and how far they are in the different innovations. But in our case, we would rather do an extensive market study based on the patents that the companies own because this is our main concern. In order to do that the manager has to be very conscientious because he will have to be strategic. By strategic we mean that he will not only have to look if he should take a patent to use it or not but also if it could be beneficial to have a patent for the company.
The manager could take patents to block competitors to develop a product that needs this patent and so the companies would have to buy it from him, and in this way the company will make more money. Or the manager could also buy a patent if he thinks that his company is producing a more developed version of a product that needs to avoid other companies to work on it while they can buy a patent on the latest version. So, the article finds that there are actually more failed patents than preemptive patents. This is why we think that managers should also focus on avoiding patent failure all-together by keeping track of the changes in the industry.
The study also shows that there are more failed patents in fast moving industries than slower moving industries. So, as a manager, you should ask yourselves, how has the industry changed over the years? What are the key trends that are affecting it today? No in-depth analysis and regular control over these subjects expose the manager to the risk of failure. Thinking in terms of avoiding failed patents will drive you, as a manger, to not only avoid all the cost related to a patent, it will also act as a filter for the different ideas that are not worth transforming to opportunities with patents.
What concerned the limitations, we talked about the failed patent, a patent which cannot be used anymore because of technology, market obsolescence or low value of invention. If we take the example of a pharmaceutical firm and they develop a part of a vaccine, in order to keep the property right on it, they patent it. Unfortunately, one month later, another firm find the final vaccine and their patent become non-used failed. However, pharmaceutical firm is always inspired by products already created during their researches. In this view, they can create another medicine in 10 years based on this patent.
An other limitation is that patents are granted by individual nations, but do not apply across borders. To receive worldwide protection, an inventor must file a patent application in each country, which can be crucial. Even if ownership of patents is in private hands, the state may still have the right to use them for its own purposes or in case of emergency. Many countries have specific laws to facilitate these arrangements. There is no universal consensus on patents, so the way they are patented, but also controlled, punished in the case of “spillover” differs from one country to another. Here the whole article is based on patents that have been granted both in Europe, Japan and the United States. The limit is that the manager has to look if the measures in force in his country are the same as those in the article. For example: some countries may prohibit the principle of pre-emptive non-used patent or have stricter laws on this subject, if for example a country severely punishes a company that uses a patent just to block its competitors but with no intention to market this product, a company will be more likely to not take this kind of strategy into account.
About the further references, we found 2 hat are interesting.
The first one is: How trade secret Hurt innovation? From Harvard business review. When we think about innovation, we quickly think about how to protect this. The first thing that comes to mind is to patent our innovation. But some manager and entrepreneur think that trade secrecy is a better option as a tool to protect. Three theories are exposed. One who support trade secrecy and two who don’t and suggest that it’s hurting innovation.
So we learn that trade secrecy is disincentive for innovation due to different reasons. Let’s take one of the reasons and explaine the main idea. When company use trade secrecy the employees have to sign non-compete contract and non-disclosure agreement. These documents will limit wat he can do. The employee will avoid to switch companies and it won’t remain himself competitive from an innovation point of view. This article is interesting because it shows us a different way to deal with the protection of innovation.
The second article is : A new framework to leverage patent information for strategic technology planning. From the technological forecasting & social change. The aim here is to try to codify and quantify the strategic value of a patent to help manager to take strategic decision. It points out the strength and weakness of patent from a strategical point of view. The analysis is done through five criteria the claim of the patent, the citations of the patent, the market coverage of the patent, the strategic and economic relevance. The objective of the paper is really to provide a practical and replicable framework in strategic analysis of manager. So indeed, this paper is here to convince us that patent is considered as a strategic asset and is part of the strategic vision of the company. This was mentioned in our application point when we qualified patent as strategic tool.
Show lessChen, P.C., & Hung, S.W. (2016). An actor-network perspective on evaluating the R&D linking efficiency of innovation ecosystems. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 112, 303-312.
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The first key insight of this article is the actor-network theory. Innovation and technological development are the result of a complex set of links between actors with different types of knowledge such as universities, governmental and non-profit research institutions and companies. That is why actor-network theory was used in this study to reconstruct the innovation system in 3 stages (the fundamental research phase, the translation phase and the development phase of the system). All those actors must collaborate to generate new knowledge. The second key insight leads us to the network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA method). The study represented the importance of intellectual capital to achieve a high level of efficiency in the technological development. To do so, this paper set up a cross-country innovation system framework for R&D activities in 25 countries and calculated the efficiency of this one using the DEA approach (research efficiency, translation efficiency and economic efficiency).
Firstly, we advise to managers to well identify the different links of their innovation process. By correctly identifying the various actors in the process, it will be much easier to incorporate them into the circular improvement process that we want to implement. When these are identified, it is the duty of a good manager to include each one of them from the very beginning and to keep them in touch until the end. Moreover, when a student leaves university, there is often a certain disparity between the theory learned throughout his studies and what he is actually asked to do at his first job. Managers could think of ways to involve students in working life, e.g. through workshops, internships, etc. There are also some disparities between R&D expectations at private and national level. Politicians can play an important role and it is precisely those who are in favor of R&D and who are ready to actively collaborate with the private sector to boost innovation that should be supported. Managers need to think about how to work with those in the political world who have innovative ideas and the power to act.
Regarding the limitations of this article, we will mention three of them. While doing further research on the actor-network theory, we noticed that the article omitted an important explanation. This theory considers that all the actors involved in an innovation process are on the same conceptual level. In this case, stakeholders include human beings but also non-human elements such as a computer machine. This seems to be one of the weaknesses of the actor-network theory. In our opinion, it is too reductive to put a computer at an equivalent level with the person who controls it. Second, companies and universities do not have the same special interests about students. While a university wants its students to master intellectual and academic skills, a company prefers its students to be trained to work effectively immediately after graduation. This makes it difficult for students to be involved upstream in terms of professional expectations. Finally, for a public-private partnership in R&D investment to run smoothly, there needs to be transparency and strong trust between the people involved. This kind of collaboration cannot be done hastily, it requires real research work on the reliability or not of the partners.
Further references :
Islam, N., Mäntymäki, M., & Turunen, M. (2019). Why do blockchains split ? An actor-network perspective on Bitcoin splits. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 148, 1-10.
Waeraas, A. & Nielsen, J. A. (2015). Translation Theory ‘Translated’: Three Perspectives on Translation in Organizational research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18, 236-270.
Lee, H., Harindranath, G., Oh, S., & Kim D-J. (2015). Provision of mobile banking services from an actor-network perspective: Implications for convergence and standardization. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 90, 551-561.
Show lessDougherty, D. (1990). Understanding new markets for new products. Strategic Management Journal, 59-78.
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This article explains that understanding new markets is often difficult for innovators and that they sometimes don’t consider it as their priority however it can help to creates a competitive advantage. This article will therefore explain how to understand new markets when launching a new product.
We found 3 key points which are the 3 distinct cycles of market (with each different levels of knowledge). Departmental cycle: it’s the knowledge that we find in each department separately. The second one is interdepartmental cycle; it’s the cycle where you see if every decision from one department to another is well coordinate. Project-to-firm levels cycle: It’s where you see if your strategy is in cohesion with the market. Each cycle can help understand the market better and improve his comprehension and if one of this cycle is misunderstood, we can perceive a wrong comprehension of the market.
We selected tree main implications managers have to be careful to when it comes to introducing a new product on the market. These implications will help to get a good market’s understanding.
The first one is to keep a departmental specialization and expertise while partially removing the boundaries between those departments. This can be done by improving communication between them and by understanding the daily reality of other departments. Market research should not be done without the input of all the departments because if one department dominates the new product development, the market understanding will be biased and limited to its market’s perspective.
So, interdepartmental relationships seem necessary, but they are not sufficient. The second implication states that companies should create new modes of interaction between departments when they want to develop a new product. Innovators should sometimes violate established ways of working to avoid getting stuck on their retained processes of interaction.
The last implication is to be ready to change the strategy and the organizational procedures of the firm if it is needed to understand more easily the new market. We know that retained procedures and strategy can be anti-innovative, so we have to think about it.
We also found three different limitations. Firstly, there are many management scientists who claim that innovators should understand the market, but they cannot explain why innovators do not follow this seemingly obvious advice. Moreover, knowledge about innovation management is limited, the concepts and their interactions have not been adequately defined.
Secondly, no pattern of the events themselves could be identified in this work. The results of 18 cases in five different companies are difficult to present, especially for a sound theory that included three processes at three levels of analysis.
Finally, additional research is needed to refine the types of knowledge required and to confirm or disprove this implication. Some theories ignore the relationship between enterprises and the environment.
Finally, we found three further references:
Akerman, N. (2015). Knowledge-acquisition strategies and the effects on market knowledge-profiling the internationalizing firm. European Management Journal, 33, 79-88. Online:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263237314000784
Ridge, J., Johnson, S., Hill, A. & Bolton, J. (2017). The role of top management team attention in new products introductions. Journal of Business Research, 70, 17-24. Online https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296316305665
Gabrielson Sherry (2016). Effect of unassigned seating on knowledge sharing between business departments. Capella University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. Online: https://search-proquest-com.proxy.bib.ucl.ac.be:2443/abicomplete/docview/1810159079/fulltextPDF/A6E567D09D544922PQ/1?accountid=12156
Cassiman, B & Veugelers, R. (2006). In search of complementarity in innovation strategy: Internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition. Management Science, 52(1), 68-82. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1050.0470
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The paper discusses the complementarity of internal and external knowledge acquisition which together form the firm’s innovation strategy. Knowledge acquisition is a subject that a lot of paper already approached but the complementary of these activities is very little tackled in the literature.
We have highlighted two key insights in the paper. Firstly, internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition are complementary which means that firms that are engaged in both reach a higher innovation performance. The innovation performance is measured by the percentage of sales that are generated from new or substantially improved products that have been introduced in the past two years so, in other words, from radical and incremental innovations. However, the innovation performance only increases when the firm is engaged in both external know-how and internal R&D at the same time because it is important to have a stock of prior knowledge to effectively scan, screen and absorb external know-how. Secondly, the complementarity between internal and external knowledge can be affected by certain contextual variables such as firm size, export intensity, source of information, that influence the innovation performance.
Furthermore, two managerial implications were made. First, in order to improve the chances of success of the new product, a key decision that could be taken by the management of an organization specialized in only one innovation activity would be to rebalance the rate of investment in each activity. We would advise managers to see if there is any opportunity to acquire external knowledge. This would allow the firm to avoid wasting time and to be more agile and therefore increase the efficiency of their innovation process. Then, another action managers should take is focusing less on the suppliers and the customers as a source of information. The aim for them is to favour relationships with universities and research centres. This manner of working and cooperating will have a greater influence on the complementarity between R&D and external knowledge acquisition.
Finally, there are some limitations that could be highlighted in regard with the key points and the implications. First, an investment in both types of innovative activities could be too much cost. Indeed, the study states that if a company spends more money on innovative expenditures it increases its likelihood of having a better performance in general. However, if we consider all sizes of companies, there are firms that don’t have the budget to spend on both types of activities. Second, highly innovative expenditures don’t always guarantee success. If a company decides to invest at the same time in R&D and acquire external knowledge, the innovation they are trying to implement might still not work. Success is not guaranteed. There could be different reasons for the failure. For instance, if we consider that the innovation which the company is trying to launch is a new product and it doesn’t attract enough clients, regardless of innovation activities, it won’t work. But the same could be said if the innovation is a technology that the company is trying to implement and it isn’t easily adopted by the employees. Finally, the acquisition of external knowledge might be a difficult process. The acquisition could fail due to difficulties to replicate the knowledge of his own company or the firm could face some barriers like secrecy, organizations who don’t want to share knowledge, etc.
Some further readings could be interesting regarding the subject of the study :
• Giunta, A., Pericoli, F. & Pierucci, E. (2016). University-Industry collaboration in the biopharmaceuticals: the Italian case. Journal of Technology Transfer, 41(4), 818-840. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-015-9402-2
This article deals with collaboration between firms and universities and is recommended as it takes research further into the impact of the interaction between business and university and the conditions that favors the results of collaboration.
• Jiang, Y., Wei, C., Yang, Z. & Subramanian, U. (2018). Does stronger R&D capability always promote better innovation? The moderating role of knowledge boundary spanning of R&D network. International Journal of Innovation Management, 22(7). https://doi.org/10.1142/S1363919618500597
The aim of this article is to study the link between the R&D capability and the innovation performance. That would give some insight to our second limitation.
Coyne, K. P., Clifford, P. G., & Dye, R. (2007). Breakthrough thinking from inside the box. Harvard Business Review, 85(12), 70-8.
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Nowadays, we know that innovation is often in the center of a lot on conversation in companies. This article threats this topic and opens a new way of how to get innovative ideas. The first key insight is to think inside a box, because people are living with constraints all the time and specially managers. So, the idea here is to give a box and ask them to think inside it. In fact, having some constraints helps to explore all the options regarding these constraints. The second key insight is creating a new way to brainstorm. The reason most of brainstormings don’t work is because they always are designed the same way and people are not very good at unstructured and abstract brainstorming. In this article they propose to divide the big group into small ones with 4-5 persons maximum and instead of asking global questions, ask more precise questions but not too precise. It helps to get more people involved and more ideas. The last key insight is behind the organization of the process and its follow up. In fact, organizing and how to conduct the brainstorming session is really important. We can use some tools to do this such as:
21 Great Questions for Developing New products; Reverse engineering (What question would have caused me to see this opportunity before?); Logic tree: tree where the first questions are really global and deeper you go the more precise the question is.
Finally, after the brainstorming it’s always good to have a follow up. Brainstorming should be multiple steps of a process.
Regarding the managerial implications, we think first that to allow people to think better within the same box, managers should be able to set the right constraints for this. Thus people will be forced to live with constraints and explore new alternatives. As stated in the text, most managers and professionals are good at thinking effectively in the same box. But we think this implies that managers should help less good people to be better.
Establishing the right constraints comes with asking the right types of questions. The kind of questions that create new boxes, different from the current ones.
Secondly, the manager’s involvement in the new way of brainstorming would be to try to respect the right balance between unlimited speculation and quantitative data analysis. When the manager asks the questions that create new boxes to think in, he must prevent people from getting lost in the infinity of their ideas and give them a basis to make and compare their choices and know if they are making progress.
Finally, for a better organization of the process, the manager should first set the limits of acceptable ideas. The point here is to clearly establish the parameters that make an idea acceptable: the budget, level of staffing, when a payback is needed, etc.
Once these parameters have been defined, the manager will be able to adapt his questions to his specific objectives and constraints.
Afterward, the manager should be careful in selecting participants who are directly related to the subject being addressed. People who have a direct relationship are more eligible to give us better advice on the subject.
After these preparation phases, it is important for the manager to follow up the brainstorming process correctly. He must check that everyone is fully engaged, he must concentrate all discussions on his questions that he has previously prepared and he must not rely on just one brainstorming session.
These are some really interesting insights that can be helpful if they are well implemented during a R&D process. However we must recognize the limitations of these methods. First of all people tend to be reluctant to change. This is particularly true for the quiet and introverted minds that are used to sit in silence during brainstorming. They might feel unprepared and uncomfortable the first times they will find themself in situations where they can’t hide. Moreover some people are just not “made for brainstorming”, no matter how well its organized. These types of people will be more efficient by working on the topic on their own.
Another problem is that some questions cannot be answered during a brainstorming session due to the lack of data and resources. As a manager you will often hear the sentence “I can’t answer now but I could if I was not stuck in this room.”
Finally, the biggest problem the manager must face is to find the constraints for the box. Indeed, formulating the good question is the most important part and it will guide the results of the all session. So the organizer must think about it carefully beforehand otherwise everybody might lose precious hours in useless mind wandering.
For all these reasons, brainstorming must absolutely be a multidimensional task, not limited to one single session. The manager must be well prepared and should already ask to the participant to gather data before the session, in order to be really efficient. Moreover follow up session must be scheduled to keep in touch with the evolution of the previous idea’s. Innovation is an iterative process and it might take multiple sessions to explore one single topic.
FURTHER REFERENCES
Cortimiglia, M. N., Ghezzi, A., & Frank, A. G. (2015). Business model innovation and strategy making nexus: evidence from a cross-industry mixed-methods study. R&D Management, 46(3), 414–432. DOI:10.1111/radm.12113
Shows the relation of business model, business model innovation and the strategy-making process, and how this mixed-methods could indeed represent a viable methodological approach to address future research opportunities in this field. Therefore, managers may also use BM as a strategy tool to summarize and articulate the strategic internal analysis before they have effectively defined strategic alternatives to be followed and implemented.
Ben Shneiderman (2016), The New ABCs of Research: Achieving Breakthrough Collaborations, Oxford University Press.
Shows the combination between the ABC method (Applied and Basic Combinated) with the SED method (Science, Engineering and Design blending) to reach a better definition of the problem and possible solutions. Remarking that teamwork is the key theme. Also, to achieve breakthrough collaboration is necessary to “Accept bigger challenges” – get out of the box – and also “Ask better questions” – method discussed in the main article.
Show less(Article) Laursen, K. (2012). Keep searching and you’ll find: what do we know about variety creation through firms’ search activities for innovation?. Industrial and Corporate Change, 21(5), 1181-1220
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Firstly, a key point of the paper is the importance of having a balance between local and non-local search. To avoid the local search trap, managers can employ people with varied backgrounds. However, educational variety may incur costs. Moreover, if the individuals do not possess the right level of shared knowledge, this can lead to uncoordinated actions, delayed decisions and high communication costs.
Then, in order to have more non-local search, interaction with organization external to the firm seems to be helpful. That’s why, companies could collaborate with universities or external suppliers in order to have a large variety of knowledge. Also, recognize lead users is important. Indeed, it is a good way to identify the new trends and have innovative idea about the products. A good way to have interactions is to create an online community to allow the lead users to share their opinions. However, having external sources of innovation is costly so, too much search can be harmful. Finally, another limit is the possible difficulty to coordinate all the external partners with the internal R&D and to align their values with the own value of the company.
Secondly, another key insight is to manage technological search over boundaries. It means that companies must project themselves into the future without focusing on current technological limitations. A good way is to practice problemistic search which is when decision makers recognize that the performance is below perceived aspirations. To recognize that your product is under future expectations, it is good to use scientific theories. Thanks to these theories you can know how far products can go in theory. A limitation of this technological search is that when a company is under pressure from competitor and have to innovate in order to raise their performance, they may take some unprofitable risks that ultimately increase the decline of the company.
References of other sources :
(article) Dutta, Dev K; Li, Jun; Merenda, Michael. (2011). Fostering entrepreneurship: impact of specialization and diversity in education. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 163-179
TED. (2017). External innovation basics from an R&D expert. [Online Video]. 1 October 2017. Available from: https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_ringel_external_innovation_basics_from_an_r_d_expert?fbclid=IwAR2vB-O4SnrPUwMWD-SvQMNK02SJVYsluZe3AhMXYB5Zz9dIG94f-vO4f68#t-273277. [Accessed: 20 November 2019].
Show less(Book) Drucker P. (1985) The Discipline of Innovation, HBR 63(3), 65-72
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The Discipline of Innovation
Key points: Innovation is a balance between inspiration and hard work. Its goal is to change a perspective in an economic or social situation;
Rarely innovation comes from an epiphany: often there are systematic researches and analyses. The paper identifies seven types of sources utilized in this field;
Innovation starts from small steps. Usually, a leading innovation will have a moderate business, or it will become significant in the long period.
Implications: A great innovation comes rarely from a flash of genius and so a lot of hard work is needed to develop it. Therefore, a good project management is crucial to give a good framing to the whole project. Moreover, a big part of the most successful innovations results from a methodical analysis of the 7 mains areas of innovation opportunities. The managers should therefore closely watch these areas in order to catch the opportunities when they appear. These sources of opportunities are:
Unexpected occurrences as unexpected successes or even unexpected failures are the simplest way to find an opportunity and should thus be the first to be considered. The managers could so review the problems and opportunities and analyse both of them equally.
Incongruities, so incompatibilities or mismatches are also sources of opportunity. The managers could find an incongruity and then resolve the problem presented by the incongruity.
Process needs can also bring opportunities. The opportunity could be to identify the weak points of a process and answer it needs.
The changes in the industry or in the market are huge sources of opportunities. The company should anticipate the changes, be ready to react to them and be an actor in these changes.
Looking at demographic data and changes is a source of opportunity. Indeed, changes in number of people, in age distribution, in occupation, in geographic location create innovation opportunities. Important not to neglect demographics, to watch them, to exploit them in order to identify innovation opportunities.
Changes in perception : Recommended to see the glass half empty instead of half full. Having a pessimistic approach instead of an optimistic approach regarding the current societal facts (ex : health ratios,…) can help to identify opportunities.
New knowledge (ex : in science, economy, etc) can be a source of opportunities. In that case, it’s necessary to carefully analyse all the various kind of knowledge needed to an innovation, and the needs and capabilities of the targeted user.
The important steps are to analyse all the source, to build the innovation in order to satisfy these noticed opportunities, to go out to identify potential users, their needs & expectations.
The innovation should be simple, focused on only one thing, be designed for just one purpose in order not to confuse people, clear, easy to use for the users, easy to understand its purpose. The most successful innovations are those which begin small.
Limitations: For the seven areas above, some limitations exist. It must not be forgotten that the different sources of innovation often overlap. If an innovator does not take all of them into account, he may miss an opportunity. An example showed in the article was Linotype machine’s success that is more due to a demographic issue than an industrial process need.
Another limitation that can also appear as a risk if it is forgotten is to stay focused. An innovation has to be simple and do only one thing. Its application must be clearly designed and aim at leadership because the success is unpredictable.
Knowledge is more important than it seems to be. In fact, an innovation is rarely only born from genius. It takes work. That corresponds to the seventh source of innovation, but not only. For example, the article says that the lead time involved is about 50 years and that this figure does not tend to reduce over time.
Innovators must both analyse the opportunity and then look at the market and potential users to make their innovation successful.
Further references: Boudreau, K. J., & Lakhani, K. R. (2013). Using the crowd as an innovation partner. Harvard business review, 91(4), 60-9.
Nidumolu, R., Prahalad, C. K., & Rangaswami, M. R. (2009). Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation. Harvard business review, 87(9), 56-64.
Chesbrough, H. (2010). Business model innovation: opportunities and barriers. Long range planning, 43(2-3), 354-363.
Nambisan, S., & Sawhney, M. (2007). A buyer’s guide to the innovation bazaar. Harvard Business Review, 85(6), 109-118.
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The purpose of this article is to present 3 ways to acquire innovations. First, it is possible to buy raw ideas, which is very risky and time-consuming and requires a lot of research but is not very expensive. To find these kinds of ideas, you can call on an invention capitalist. Secondly, you can buy market-ready products, which are less risky, faster, more expensive and require less research than raw ideas. To find such ideas, a venture capitalist is usually used. Finally, between these two categories of innovations, we can find market-ready ideas. They have the advantage of finding a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of the other two categories. Innovation capitalists are there to help companies find these ideas.
Thanks to these key insights, we have identified three managerial implications. First, consider both your industry or market profile and your company’s internal innovation profile. Then, you should not focus on only one intermediary approach. For example, if you usually use invention capitalists, you could use innovation capitalists to seek more matures ideas. Finally, you should strengthen your relationship with your Innovation Capitalist partner by giving them you guidance an direction and by selling them your innovations too.
However, there are some limitations to these implications. Not every company can easily change their way to outsource innovation. Also, not every company can sell market-ready ideas. Small companies like Lime-S for example, simply do not have any.
To go further, we identified three articles :
Intermediation for open innovation : comparing direct versus delegated search strategies of innovation intermediaries. Frank T Piller, Dirk Lüttgens and Kathleen Diener (2019). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Piller
Agile innovation: Creating value in uncertain environments. Dupont, L. (2019). https://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2019-1-page-1.htm
The Role of the Innovation Capitalist in Open Innovation. Satish Nambisan, John Bacon and James Throckmorton (2015). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5437/08956308X5503031
Show less"Elkins, T., & Keller, R. (2003) ‘Leadership in research and development organizations: a literature review and conceptual framework’. Leadership Quarterly, 14, 587-606."
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This article provides an overview of the leadership skills needed for innovation in R&D organizations. It also provides a conceptual framework and reviews the literature on leadership in R&D organizations. The main idea is that transformational project leaders who communicate an inspiring vision and leaders who develop a quality exchange relationship with project members are associated with the success of the project. Moreover, the bigger the leader is, the more successful the project will be. This article also tells us that the main qualities of a leader are his ability to communicate an inspiring vision and to develop a quality leader-member relationship.
Then we learn more about the nature of the R&D and technological innovation process. The latter gives us a conceptual framework to help us visualize the behaviours of leaders in R&D organizations and the relevant variables that make R&D a different environment. The R&D organization in general and the project group import scientific and technological information (STI) and transform it into technological innovations in the form of ideas/products/processes.
Subsequently, 3 categories of research that examine leadership in an R&D context are identified in this article. Firstly, direct studies of leadership theories/behaviours. Secondly, characteristics of the organizational climate that can be attributed to the leader. Thirdly, informal organization composed of roles assumed by managers.
It is also important to know that in research and development organizations, there is a problem for project managers who are generally selected for both their technical expertise and leadership skills. Indeed, a number of leadership roles are essential to innovation in the context of R&D. Such as
generation of ideas for the development of new ideas and creative problem solving, championship that focuses on obtaining resources and selling ideas to those outside the project group, project leading, coaching or gatekeeping (the idea of involving activities inside and outside the project team).
In addition, four roles played by the leaders of successful R&D teams have been identified and managers should focus on them. The leader must be a good communicator (1), air conditioner (2), planner (3) and interfacer (4).
Furthermore, in RD organization, innovation is positively related to leaders’ technical skills, negatively related to administrative skills, and not related anymore to human relations skills. Human relation skills is primordial to be successful in a project and to keep the innovation, so leader must take into account the human relations aspect. Finally, leader should also be a climate setter and set an innovative climate.
After examining the role of leaders in the team, we find that we lack information about the role of the leader outside the team. Then, an outstanding issue in our article concerns transformational leadership. The article asks us if the leader’s transformational willingness has an impact on the project in the context of research and development. Another limitation of this article would be the narrowness of the subject. In fact, this article attempts to make the link between leadership and effectiveness and to notice a positive or negative relationship but never tries to find out if other factors could cause the relationship.
Further references :
The Influence of Leadership on Innovation Processes and Activities ADEGOKE OKENATASHA MUNSHIFRED O. WALUMBWA (Article – 2009)
Research on the Impacts of Humble Leadership on R&D Team Innovation Performance based on the Social Information Processing Perspective – YashuDuan (Article – 2019)
5 ways to lead in an era of constant change
Jim Hemerling- TEDxBCGParis (Vidéo – 2016)
Acs, Z. et al (2009) The knowledge spill over theory of entrepreneurship.
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The aim of the article is, in addition to make a clear link between knowledge spillovers and entrepreneurial activities, to establish how those new opportunities are exploited. The theory is based on individual agent with new knowledge endowments. It’s said that those agents pursue the exploitation of such knowledge which spills over and creates a strong link between knowledge spillover and entrepreneurial activities.
The first insight of the article is that universities are the largest invention of mankind for knowledge spillover. Even if in the past, the role of university knowledge sharing was neglected, it has been demonstrated that universities have a huge role in developing regions by sharing their knowledge. In order to transform knowledge into economic knowledge there must be a local proximity to this source of knowledge, a set of skills and insights is not enough. As a result, the economic activities of a country are influenced by spatial units such as the geographic proximity and the regions.
Secondly, tacit knowledge is bound to the individual as the source of knowledge. Indeed, there are two kinds of knowledge: codified knowledge which is easy to transmit over long distances (for example books, patents, academic articles, etc) and tacit knowledge which is bound to the individual (for example, experience, insights, individual learning, etc). Tacit knowledge is useful because it allows to grab the spillover benefits that you can get from an informal conversation. In order to do so, you must have a geographic proximity to the spillover source. And finally, entrepreneurial activities are greater in spatial context if the investments in new knowledge are high.
Some insights of the article are focused on the context in which entrepreneurial activities will tend to happen. That implicates that new entrepreneurs have to be looking for knowledge. Therefore, they have to be in a context in which investments in knowledge are high and where they have access to it, for example within range of universities.
Furthermore, an entrepreneur should develop its absorptive capability that is his ability to understand new knowledge, recognize its value and commercialize it by creating a firm. Finally, as tacit knowledge represents value to managers, they should develop it by investing in research and development. More especially, they should invest in developing both R&D and entrepreneurial skills through investment in talent attraction or employee’s training.
While keeping those implications in mind, managers should pay attention to the fact that excessive investment in R&D can have the negative effect to strengthen companies with a dominant position. Indeed, intellectual property rights regulation is a balance between the patent owner and the society. The first wants to extend the duration to enjoy a longer monopoly profit while the society wants to make a cumulative effect out of the knowledge produced.
Further references:
• For a comparison of the proficiency of new and incumbent firms: Acs, Z., Plummer, L., Sutter, R., 2009b. Penetrating the knowledge filter in “rust belt” economies. The Annals of Regional Science 43 (4), 989–1012
• For more insights on how commercialization efficiency of incumbent firms affects entrepreneur’s incentives to exploit opportunities: Plummer, Lawrence A. and Acs, Zoltan J. (2014) Localized competition in the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 29 (1). pp. 121-136.
• Kirzner on Entrepreneurship : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7QG6bnsVXA
• Are Entrepreneurs Modern Day Heroes? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChEImWVj_kY
(Article) Zhou, K. Z., Yim, C. K., & Tse, D. K. (2005). The effects of strategic orientations on technology-and market-based breakthrough innovations. Journal of Marketing, 69(2), 42-60.
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Executive summary
The article The Effects of Strategic Orientations on Technology- and Market-Based Breakthrough Innovations provides and explains the existing links between strategic orientation and the kind of breakthrough innovation. It distinguishes the incremental innovations which slightly improve the performance of the product and breakthrough innovations which are novel, unique or state-of-the-art technological advances. The last kind can be divided in two categories: tech-based innovations which are strong improvements of a product due to advanced technologies and market-based innovations which bring new criteria to products that are built for new customers and new markets.
Moreover, the article allows to distinguish three strategic orientations that can generate competitive advantages: market orientation, technology orientation and entrepreneurial orientation. The first one is particularly a customer-oriented approach which aim to create customer value. It is committed to understand the latent and expressed needs of customers. The second one promotes state-of-the-art technologies and revolutionary innovations. Finally, the entrepreneurial orientation is based on the proactivity, the tolerance of risk and the reception to innovations.
According to these key insights coming from the paper, several managerial implications have been relieved in order to promote an efficient management of innovations. Developing the organizational learning process, which includes information acquisition, information dissemination, shared interpretation and organizational memory, seems to be a relevant step in the elaboration of breakthrough innovations. Therefore, firms should develop and encourage it. Depending on the subject, some strategic orientations are more appropriate. Members of project team have to be flexible about these strategies. They must be able to know in which cases what strategy should be applied and the firm has to contribute at this flexibility. More specifically, at the different strategic orientations, implications, as putting in place effective systems to generate data about latent and expressed needs of customers, have been also identified. Or again, encouraging employees to share and develop “crazy ideas” via allocation of working time to develop personal project, might be an efficient implication.
In some cases, the theory learned could not bring the expected results. Three limitations have been identified on the concerned topic. Firstly, the competitiveness could slow the innovation. To remain viable in a competitive environment, reducing costs remains a good solution but not suitable with the technology orientation. Moreover, some troubles could appear when we focus on a specific strategy because firms tend to have a restricted vision. They should have a large and complete view on this strategy and take into consideration all factors including those that could negatively influence their business. Lastly, the concerned strategic orientations are easier applied in B2C than in B2B. In fact, while private consumers could easily change their habits, firms have more precise and less variable expectations.
Further references:
Karakaya, A., & Gürel, S. (2015). STRATEGIC ORIENTATION IN BUSINESS: A RESEARCH ON KARDEMIR CO. INC./ISLETMELERDE STRATEJIK YÖNELIM: KARDEMIR A.S. ÜZERINE BIR ARASTIRMA. International Journal of Management Economics & Business, 11(26), 97-113
Martinette, L. A., & Obenchain-Leeson, A. (2012). The relationship between learning orientation and business performance and the moderating effect of competitive advantage: A service organization perspective. Journal of Service Science (Online), 5(1), 43
Kedia, B. L., & Bhagat, R. S. (1988). Cultural constraints on transfer of technology across nations: Implications for research in international and comparative management.
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The authors aim to assess the impact of cultural differences on the effectiveness of technological transfers through a model that takes into account the characteristics of the technology Involved, differences in organizational cultures, societal culture-based differences and the absorptive capacity of the recipient organization.
By characteristics, the model assesses whether the technology involved is product-, process- or person-embodied. Secondly, differences in the way negotiations are conducted are used to measure differences in organizational cultures between the transitioning organizations. For this, the authors make use of the works developed by Fine (1984), Strauss (1982), and Strauss, Schatzman, Ehrlich, Bucher, & Sabshin (1963) on Negotiated Orders. These two points are referred to as casual antecedents.
Societal culture-based differences are mapped under the framework of Hofstede’s (1980) uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, and masculinity vs. femininity, and Glenn and Glenn’s (1981) Abstractive vs. associative. Finally, the absorptive capacity of the recipient is measured by the local VS cosmopolitan mapping, how sophisticated is a firm’s technical core and the same firm’s strategic management. These last two points are indicated as influences that will presumably moderate the effectiveness of a transfer.
We found that this article’s findings imply:
1) Differences in business cultures: Transfer of technology is more effective if there is a flow of skills between the supplying and the receiving company. Managers must accept that each party takes cultural values with it. The project should be clear to everyone and roles and responsibilities for both companies should be defined.
Limitation: From the organizational culture point of view, not all firms are compatible. Even with the utmost caution, the transfer of technology may still fail. Managers must know when to stop to avoid a costly failure.
2) M&As: Global managers that find competition in geographies that are less compatible to effectively export a technology could acquire firms that are well positioned in those markets to attenuate crucial points of divergence.
Limitation: Higher administrative burden; Potential credit issues; Potential brand damages.
3) Firm’s collaboration with locals: Managers should understand that the cultures with higher risk of ineffective technology adoption and diffusion do not foster innovation, creativity, variety or diversity. To export to these countries, they should collaborate with local firms, institutions and authorities who can better convince its people to accept newness than a foreign entity.
Limitation: Having to collaborate and eventually share technology with local firms in new countries that do not deviate from established norms and may have poor legal and political regulation, increases the risk of technology theft. When China (highly centralized country) opened the doors to international trade in the 1980’s, many firms saw the risk of technology expropriation and nationalization of local branches to be too high to move to that market.
References:
Cagnol, R. (2013). The differences between work cultures found in eleven countries. Deskmag. [online] Available at: http://www.deskmag.com/en/steelcase-maps-work-cultures-among-11-countries [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Daft, R., Kendrick, M. and Vershinina, N. (2010). Management. Andover, Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA, p.803.
Gaba, V., Pan, Y. and Ungson, G. (2002). Timing of Entry in International Market: An Empirical Study of U.S. Fortune 500 Firms in China. Journal of International Business Studies, 33(1), pp.39-55.
Kedia, B. L., & Bhagat, R. S. (1988). Cultural constraints on transfer of technology across nations: Implications for research in international and comparative management. Academy of Management Review, 13(4), 559-571.
London, M., Cheney, L. A., & Tavis, R. L. (1977). The relationship between cosmopolitan–local orientation and job performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 11(2), 182-195.
Nurin, T. (2016). It’s Final: AB InBev Closes On Deal To Buy SABMiller. Forbes. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/2016/10/10/its-final-ab-inbev-closes-on-deal-to-buy-sabmiller/#55e891ed432c [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Rubin, E. (1994). The importance of culture for the effectiveness of technology transfer across nations (Doctoral thesis). Carleton University, Ontario.
New sources identified:
For further and newer insights on topic of that was article presented (including firm performance):
Nguyen, N. T. D., & Aoyama, A. (2014). Impact of Corporate Culture on the Relationship between Efficient Technology Transfer and Business Performance. Global Business Review, 15(4), 637-661.
For a hypothesis on how to realize an efficient technology transfer (the article that was presented mentioned the factors that affect transfers but did not offer potential solutions):
Nguyen, N. T. D., & Aoyama, A. (2014). Achieving efficient technology transfer through a specific corporate culture facilitated by management practices. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 25(2), 108-122.
For an analysis of the causes of failure of projects involving technology transfer:
Kebede, K., Ndegwah, D. and Kroesen, J. (2013). Successful Contextual Technology Transfer and Determinants of Culture.
From the book:
Kauffman, J. (2013). Handbook of Sustainable Engineering: Successful Contextual Technology Transfer and Determinants of Culture. [895-919]. Netherlands: Springer Science + Business Media Dordrecht.
For a report on firm diversity in recent years and the benefits of embracing it (risk posed by technology transfers to different cultures can be minimized if the firms has human capital that relates to those cultures):
Hunt, V., Layton, D. & Prince, S. (2015) Diversity Matters, McKinsey and Company
Eckhardt, J. T., & Shane, S. A. (2003). Opportunities and entrepreneurship. Journal of Management, 29(3), 333-349.
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This paper explores the short-lived nature of entrepreneurial opportunities, the role of creative decision-making, and the limitations of pricing as a guide, highlighting how entrepreneurs identify and seize opportunities in dynamic markets.
3 Key Insights
1. The Transient Nature of Opportunities and Their Uncertain Outcomes
Insight: Exploiting opportunities requires anticipating future prices for goods or services that do not yet exist. However, profits are often transitory due to factors like competition, imitation, and market shifts.
Managerial Implications:
– Employ skilled professionals and advanced tools to forecast future prices and manage uncertainty.
– Assess the risks of imitation and protect innovations with appropriate strategies (e.g., patents for product innovations or secrecy for process innovations).
2. Conception of New Means-Ends Frameworks in Entrepreneurial Decision-Making
Insight: Entrepreneurs redefine relationships between resources and objectives, creating new frameworks to capitalize on untapped opportunities.
Managerial Implications:
– Foster creativity and adaptability through training programs, collaborative forums, and idea competitions.
– Encourage resource reallocation to align with emerging opportunities.
3. Prices Are Not Reliable Indicators of Opportunity
Insight: Prices are inherently reactive and only reflect current or past market conditions. They do not provide actionable insights into future consumer needs or innovations. Therefore, their unpredictability limits their use as opportunity indicators.
Managerial Implications:
– Do not rely on prices as a primary indicator of opportunities, focus on identifying unmet market gaps and assessing their potential for innovation instead.
– Invest in alternative tools and research methods to evaluate market needs and future trends, such as consumer behavior studies and scenario planning.
Limitations and Outstanding Issues
Uncertainty in predicting prices in emerging markets – Political instability, changing regulations, and insufficient data make forecasting difficult.
Constraints in regulated sectors – Industries like pharmaceuticals and require strict compliance with regulations, which can limit the freedom to innovate in terms of the number of ideas that can be produced. However, strong regulations can also enhance creativity, meaning that sometimes the more constraints the entrepreneur has, the more interesting ideas he can come up with.
Incomplete opportunity indicators – The paper highlights the limitations of price as an indicator
but does not propose alternative, actionable metrics for identifying and exploiting opportunities.
References and Additional Perspectives
Eckhardt, J. T., & Shane, S. A. (2003). Opportunities and Entrepreneurship. Journal of Management, 29(3), 333–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630302900304
El Andaloussi, S. (2019). The Way to Find Entrepreneurial Opportunities [TEDx Talk]. TEDxUIR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q-QZgsL8GM
Magistretti, S., Sanasi, S., Dell’Era, C., & Ghezzi, A. (2023). Entrepreneurship as design: A design process for the emergence and development of entrepreneurial opportunities. Creativity and Innovation Management, 32(1), 23-36. https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12529
Ramoglou, S. (2020). Knowable opportunities in an unknowable future? On the epistemological paradoxes of entrepreneurship theory. Journal of Business Venturing, 35(5). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106090
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