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This paper addresses the issue of developing innovative software with a case study of the emerging prototyping methods used in an innovative game in the Japanese game software industry. Software has traditionally been seen as an efficiency-driven process. But in innovative software, there are other important issues, such as the need to allow for radical redesign in development cycles, and the need to resolve tensions between creative and controlling processes. The paper addresses the broader design issue by documenting the emerging prototyping practices in design-driven and originality-oriented product development. We term this an "outward spiral" software development model, in which the completion of an initial prototyping cycle may lead to significant revisions in design and code, and the possible scrapping of large chunks of code. This model is compared with the development processes used for other types of software and in creative industries like the music industry.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss challenges and opportunities related to the development of innovative firms' networks. The paper utilises four case studies based on interviews with representatives of young innovative firms and their present and previous network partners. The findings show that while early network partners often play several roles simultaneously, the roles of both the innovative firm and its network partners become increasingly distinct as the innovative firm develops. Such clarification of roles highlights competition between parties. For the innovative firm, the early phases are marked by innovativeness and problems related to growth and financial issues; later phases may include challenges of dependence, competition, exclusion of actors, decreased innovativeness and less innovative freedom.

It goes without saying that most companies today need a product innovation work process. The importance of process innovation in many sectors of the process industries should, however, make the development of a process innovation work process a growing concern in many process-based companies. This case study describes the development of such a work process at LKAB, a producer of high-quality iron ore pellets mainly for the European steel industry. Starting with a previously published conceptual model of the work process from a research project in other process industries, the development work is initially introduced in detail. The complete work process is then presented together with a cross-functional process map, checklists and a supplementary process description. The development of the work processes was a combination of a recording of LKAB's best practices coupled with the use of externally published research results and information on work process development. Finally, experience from the development and organisational implementation is discussed. It is the opinion of the project group that if properly applied, this work process will give structure, methodological guidance and efficiency in process innovation. But reaping those rewards will require persistence and discipline at all levels of the company. The purpose of this article is to provide theoretical insight and practical guidance on how to develop an innovation work process in the process industries, specifically, a process innovation work process. The successful development of this work process was considered of such importance to LKAB technology and business development that it resulted in an overall top management initiative to develop and improve all company innovation work processes, with a view to improving innovation output, project management efficiency and organisational learning.

While collaborative business modeling (CBM) constitutes a promising new approach for opening up a company’s innovation process, existing literature lacks empirical evidence of the effects related to this approach. Drawing on related literature on the quality of creative output, this paper proposes that in the context of a CBM initiative, the integration of customers will improve the quality of the generated output. As indicated by the results of our empirical evaluation, customers are indeed capable of developing high quality business models and are able to outperform company experts when it comes to the task of developing new business models.

Reflexivity, the extent to which teams reflect upon and modify their functioning, is widely considered a key factor for engendering team innovation. In this study, we propose that reflexivity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for team innovation. Outcome interdependence, defined as the extent to which team members perceive that attainment of goals by their colleagues will facilitate their own goal achievement, and shared team vision, will moderate the effect of team reflexivity on team innovation. An empirical study with 332 team members of 34 software projects reveals that as predicted high outcome interdependence and shared team vision magnified the positive impacts of team reflexivity on team innovation. However, an increase in team reflexivity at low outcome interdependence and shared team vision had a negative impact on team innovation. Further, in general, agile software teams consistently demonstrated higher outcome interdependence and team reflexivity and thereby higher team innovation compared to teams adopting plan-driven methods of software development.

Human Resource Management (HRM) practices are considered as a possible contributor to firm success. Further research is needed in this field to address how HRM practices contribute to a firm’s ability to be creative and innovative. The first objective of this paper is to map the implementation of training and development practices for creativity and innovation (TD4CI) in manufacturing and the second is to analyse the factors that most influence this implementation. The study, based on the Spanish sub-sample of the European Manufacturing Survey, demonstrates the unexhausted potential of TD4CI as a step prior to innovation. The results show that one third of the companies currently use TD4CI and that this figure is rising. Most of the firms, however, have not put these practices into place and they have no intention of doing so. Regarding the determinants that influence the studied practices, the results show that there are some significant factors, for example new products or services being introduced within the company in the previous three years, that positively affect all the practices. Other determinants are individually significant, for instance the complexity of the product. Some factors, on the other hand, such as size or single unit production, do not appear to influence any of the practices studied so far. The value of this research lies in the up-to-date, relevant figures it provides regarding the implementation and dissemination of TD4CI.