International Journal of Innovation Management

This study aims to conceptualise the risks of a co-creation relationship between providers and customers in the front end of innovation (FEI). The existing literature on the topic of the interactions between customers and providers is vast but mostly reflects the vision of each respective field of science addressing specific issues and dynamics. This review paper combines integrative and generative approaches (Post et al., 2020). The narrative overview methodology (Green et al., 2006) fits the purpose to integrate the contributions of scholars from different areas and with distinct perspectives. The authors present a comprehensive view of the complex and, sometimes, conflictual customer–provider relationship in a business-to-business (B2B) context applied to the FEI. The review, mostly focused in the service industry, included the identification of inconsistencies and poorly explained phenomena. This work contributes decisively to the innovation, management and organisation literature, advancing a model of the projected risks of the specific customer–provider relationship in the FEI phase.

The study draws on dynamic capabilities theory and evidence-based research to provide the first meta-analysis on the open innovation (OI)–firm performance relationship from 2003 to 2020. Both subgroup and meta-analytic regression analyses were employed to analyse 106 independent peer-reviewed articles, encompassing 557,642 firms and 138 effects. Results showed a positive, significant relationship between OI and overall firm performance ($r$= 0.20) while revealing numerous contingencies. Particularly, we found that the effect of OI on non-financial performance ($r$= 0.20) is larger than that on financial performance ($r$= 0.19), while the disaggregate results revealed that inbound OI has the strongest effect on firm performance ($r$= 0.23), followed by outbound OI ($r$= 0.19) and coupled OI ($r$= 0.14). Furthermore, it was found that the mixed results are driven by both contextual factors (i.e., firm size, culture, study region, sector, and industry intensity) and measurement moderators (i.e., study measure and data type). Both the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are elucidatedly discussed.

Radically new concepts (RNCs) are often killed off early in the new product development (NPD) process because they do not get the required support, such as financial resources from senior managers or input from technical experts. One reason is that the potential value of fledgling RNCs is often difficult for internal audiences to imagine when evaluating them. Our experimental study with 125 RNC evaluators investigates how experience-based simulation may increase their imaginative capability and support for an RNC. It increases imaginative capability in evaluators with positive preconceptions of RNCs (i.e., low cognitive resistance), thus strengthening their support. However, those with negative preconceptions (high cognitive resistance) become less supportive of RNCs in an experience-based simulation than in other settings. We draw from information-processing and construal level theory to explain the positive and negative effects of experience-based simulation. We also provide suggestions for NPD practitioners seeking internal support to progress their RNCs.

The synonymic use of sustainable innovation types obstructs the impact of increasingly disperse research on sustainable innovation, environmental innovation, eco-innovation, and green innovation. To identify the meaning and contributions of each innovation type over time, we apply co-word analysis as a bibliometric technique to 1,985 papers, analysing the evolution of motor, emergent and basic themes for each type. For environmental innovation, the focus has shifted from environmental regulations and policies to patents and inventions with an environmental impact, while in sustainable innovations the societal impact of technology adoption has become a driver. Green innovation increasingly concerns environmental technology and its management, whereas eco-innovation studies aspects related to efficiency and decision making. Clear distinctions among sustainable innovation types will increase the impact of this expanding body of research and make it more available to managers and policymakers.

This research proposes to shed light on the antecedents and outcomes of coupled open innovation in the specific context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the open innovation paradigm, knowledge-based view (KBV), and contingency theory, the paper constructs and tests a research model that investigates the effect of coupled open innovation on firm performance; the impact of knowledge management capability, knowledge appropriation capability, and environmental dynamism on coupled open innovation; and also the mediating role of collaborative open innovation practices. Using a sample of 228 SMEs operating in the Tunisian manufacturing industry, our results based on structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrate that coupled open innovation positively and significantly influences firm performance. Furthermore, our findings confirm the crucial impact of knowledge management capacity and knowledge appropriation capacity in the implementation of coupled open innovation approach. The role of environmental dynamism in the adoption of collaborative practices is also proven in the SME context. Moreover, the results of our study add to the existing literature by empirically demonstrating the potential mediating role of coupled open innovation in the relationships that link knowledge management capacity, knowledge appropriation capacity, and environmental dynamism with SME performance, respectively. In this sense, this paper goes even further in the research on open innovation, as one of the first to fill an interesting gap regarding the antecedents of coupled open innovation and its implication on performance in the specific context of SMEs. In doing so, our research, through its results, provides interesting suggestions for SME managers who implement or intend to implement coupled open innovation to improve the performance of their company.

The emergence of digital innovation in academia and practice has been established, and it is time to consider when and how it affects innovation performance. Before this background, we examine how innovation practices such as open innovation and dominant design impact innovation performance, particularly in the case of digital innovation. We develop a theoretical framework that is tested on a long panel of patent data for 788 technologies over 32 years. Open innovation has no impact on the innovative performance of technologies in general, but for digital innovation, we find a positive effect. In addition, dominant design has a stronger impact on the innovative performance for digital innovations than for other innovations. We conclude that the management of digital innovation is different from that of other innovations since both open innovation and dominant design are more important for innovative performance. Indeed, some of the benefits of openness may only apply to digital innovation.

We examine the effects of different types of executive incentives on technological innovation of declining firms and the moderating effects of the degree of decline and organisational slack on executive incentives and enterprise technological innovation. We also assess the synergetic effects of different types of executive incentives on technological innovation of declining enterprises. We find the following: first, executive compensation incentive, equity incentive and control incentives are beneficial to promote technological innovation in declining enterprises. Second, the degree of decline negatively moderates the relationship between equity incentive and technological innovation. Third, organisational slack positively moderates the relationship between equity incentive and technological innovation, as well as the relationship between control incentives and technological innovation, especially for severely declining enterprises. Fourth, there are synergistic effects between executive control incentive and compensation incentive, control incentives and equity incentive on technological innovation. The contributions are as follows: first, taking declining enterprises as sample, we suggest that to increase the role of compensation incentive and equity incentive in promoting technological innovation in declining enterprises, the control incentives should be strengthened. Second, organisational slack should be fully exploited for severely declining enterprises so that executives should have the motivation and conditions to carry out technological innovation and further help declining enterprises to turnaround successfully.

The aim of this research is to study the impact of inter-organisational strategies on performance of radical product innovation. We distinguish three kinds of strategies: (1) individual strategy, (2) cooperation with non-rivals strategy, and (3) coopetition strategy. We study innovation at the product level, and we analyse the market performance. We develop and test the hypotheses comparing the effects of these three strategies on the market performance of radical product innovation. An empirical research is carried out to study the video game publishing industry. We perform a quantitative analysis on a sample of 100 video games that involve radical innovations, identified among 822 video games launched between 2006 and 2011. The main results show that coopetition is the most fruitful strategy for developing a radical innovation. In this process, a direct competitor becomes the best and the most viable partner for that type of innovation.

This study investigated the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), entrepreneurial leadership (EL), business model innovation (BMI) and competitive advantage, as well as the role of environmental uncertainty in these relationships. The importance of BMI and leadership style for the firms and the gaps identified in literature motivated the need for this paper. Previous literature has not fully explained in detail the antecedents of BMI or how BMI improves competitive advantage of organisations. Thus, an empirical model was used to analyse data gathered from a survey of 474 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from several sectors in Greece. The findings reveal the contribution of leadership styles on BMI, the direct contribution of TL and EL on competitive advantage, as well as the contribution of BMI in competitive advantage in all responding SMEs, those SMEs with low scores of business environmental uncertainty and those SMEs with high scores of business environmental uncertainty.

Innovation is crucial to a company’s competitive advantage and employees play an important role in generating innovation within a company. Based on social capital theory, we proposed a new type of social network: the employee mobility network, and explored the impact of employee mobility on innovation. Specifically, we examined the role of both employee turnover rate, and an organisation’s centrality in the employee mobility network in predicting innovation. We collected data from World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Talentale, and Forbes Global 2000 to test our hypotheses. The results showed that turnover rate had a significantly inverted-U curve relationship with innovation, and both degree and closeness centralities of an organisation in the employee mobility network had a significant positive relationship with innovation. Based on the results, we suggest that companies should find a balanced value for their turnover rate to get the highest return in innovation. Also, we suggest that companies should improve social influence in employee mobility networks in order to attract talent and increase company innovation.

There is increasing scholarly interest in how large corporations engage in open innovation with small entrepreneurial firms, with synergies potentially producing positive outcomes for both the involved parties and the surrounding ecosystem. “Lightweight models” of open innovation (LOIs) have recently been introduced, governed by trust and relationships rather than by equity ownership and transactional control. This paper introduces a design framework and an alignment model for LOIs, based on 19 inductively generated and highly interrelated design elements associated with five design themes. The study uses empirical data from 18 LOI initiatives in Sweden, and the framework explains important differences in their motives, value propositions, innovation localizations, involved participants, and forms of interactions. Applying a value perspective to open innovation highlights two different value logics, suggesting that LOI initiatives can approach value by emphasizing either value creation or value capture. These logics may greatly influence other important design elements of LOIs.

While innovation is an attractive path, it is also a rocky path made up of numerous challenges, even failures. This study provides new knowledge for understanding innovation failure. It seeks answers to the question: What are the perceived factors of innovation failure in SMEs? Every individual who has experienced an innovation failure has a story to tell. Therefore, the research question of this study is answered based on these stories. The main data are collected through narratives produced by individuals who have been involved in the development of completely failed innovation initiatives. In addition, four expert interviews are conducted. The results demonstrate that the most common factor for innovation failure is the occurrence of several incidents during the innovation process that slowly contribute to complete failure. In addition, the results reveal three SME-typical narratives of failed innovations as narrators the Passionate Innovator, the Solo Innovator, and the Developer Innovator.