International Journal of Innovation Management

User engagement in innovation processes is crucial for the development of sustainable healthcare. One promising user-centred approach used to integrate users’ experiential knowledge in the development of innovations is the Living Lab (LL). However, we lack a systematic understanding of the processes, methods and factors that lead to more effective user engagement. The objective of this scoping review is to map and systematically present current research on user engagement in Healthcare Living Labs (HLLs) to enhance understanding and inspire future research. Our review shows that the level of user engagement is still low given the limited use of methods tailored to support it and that HLL are predominantly used in technology and clinical innovation. We offer a clearer depiction and description of the methods innovation managers could use to foster greater user engagement in HLL.

While this research largely focuses on the context of sustainability and businesses model innovation (BMI) from different aspects of business, relatively few studies conduct in-depth analysis of what key capabilities a firm needs to achieve BMI. Meanwhile, innovation policy is accounting for issues relating to business development as a tool for improving competitiveness at macro level, but little has been discussed in what way it influences on firms. This study therefore first identifies corporate key capabilities that are required towards BMI, and then adopts innovation policy as a moderator to examine its indirect effect on BMI outcomes. A structured questionnaire was designed and 287 valid samples were collected from a population comprised of 948 listed companies on Taiwan Stock Exchange. Hypotheses were tested using the structural equation modelling (SEM) in SPSS for direct path analysis and Process for indirect effects. The outcome shows that three key capabilities, including Architecture, Reputation and Innovation, are crucial for a firm to accumulate over time in reaching BMI. The findings also indicate that innovation policy can be a significant external support for firms to accelerate BMI only if they develop three key capabilities simultaneously. The results of this study may assist public authorities and company managers with a useful guideline to make relevant policies and govern businesses.

Digital innovation has become an important focus for corporations wishing to provide novel products and services to their customers. To achieve this, firms must maintain a disruptive organisational posture and promote risk-taking behaviours. In contrast, religious executives are generally seen in the literature as risk-averse and endorse conservative values, such as traditionalism, security, and conformity. In an analysis of large U.S. firms between 2010 and 2015 and using a novel measure for the religiosity of board directors, we find that companies with higher proportions of religious board directors file fewer digital patents and receive fewer citations on their digital patents. Moreover, this study establishes firms’ technological and religious environments as relevant boundary conditions. We contribute to the innovation management literature by introducing board religiosity as an antecedent to digital patenting activities in large firms and by establishing leisure activities as an indicator of the religiosity of executives. In addition, this study offers relevant organisational policy implications with respect to diversity initiatives and board decision-making.

Encouraging employees’ innovative behaviour (EIB) is one of the most important leadership tasks and numerous studies have examined the relationships between leadership and EIB. However, the research field is highly fragmented and does not provide a clear answer as to which leadership competencies are actually crucial for EIB. To address this issue, we use a qualitative content analysis to examine which leadership competencies are characterised in the literature as necessary for EIB. In doing so, we also turn away from broad leadership styles and adopt a behavioural-focussed competency approach. The results show that only a very small number of the many leadership competencies that seem to support EIB are considered necessary prerequisites for EIB. Based on the results, we present seven theoretical propositions and a concise model of leadership competencies necessary for EIB. In particular, we propose that the leadership competencies of providing support, communicating a vision, granting autonomy and discretion, and providing feedback are necessary conditions to enable EIB.

The difference between knowledge capital and innovation and their combined impact on firm market performance remains a puzzle. Firms can utilise their accumulated stock of knowledge to create value, and at the same time, allocate their resources each year to create innovation, hoping to sustain their performance and make a better future. Using time fixed effects panel regression with industry and country dummies, this study investigates how knowledge capital and innovation impact firm performance by analysing the sample of 2,958 listed companies of Asian countries during 2015–2019. We observe that different sectors exhibit strong variations in their levels of knowledge capital and innovation. This study finds that more knowledge capital negatively impacts firm performance, but up to a certain point. The U-shaped relationship found suggests that learning and accumulating capabilities to exploit knowledge capitals’ potential is essential to achieve higher firm value. We also find that firms’ more spending on innovation positively impacts firm performance, but only up to a certain level. An inverted U-shaped relationship found suggests a balanced investment in innovation activities to attain improved firm performance. Implications for management and potential for further research are provided.

Although recognised as useful, ambidextrous innovation also presents unique managerial challenges particularly when exploration and exploitation are pursued simultaneously. The paper aims to explore the forming mechanisms of firm’s ambidextrous innovation capabilities using the main approaches in strategic management. The authors theoretically examine the direct effects of the digital economy (DE) on ambidextrous innovation capabilities and the mediating effect of knowledge acquisition (KA) and use the stepwise regression method to conduct an empirical analysis of 178 high-tech companies listed in China’s A-share market from 2013 to 2019. The empirical results show that DE has significantly promoted the ambidextrous innovation capabilities of firms, and also has a significant positive impact on the balance effect between exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation; DE has a significant positive impact on both external knowledge acquisition (EKA) and internal knowledge creation; KA has a significantly positive effect on exploratory innovation, exploitative innovation and their balance effect, and the effect of KA on exploratory innovation is greater than that on exploitative innovation. Furthermore, KA plays a significantly mediating role in the relationship between DE and exploratory innovation/exploitative innovation. The findings of our study provide insights for knowledge management research and have important guiding significance for promoting ambidextrous innovation capabilities of firms in DE.

Based on the team faultlines theory, this paper examines the impact of different types of board faultlines on innovation in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Using the data of Chinese firms’ cross-border M&As, this paper finds that information-based faultlines and social category faultlines have an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation in cross-border M&As. Cultural distance weakens the role of information-based faultlines on innovation in cross-border M&As. This paper enriches the research on the factors influencing innovation in cross-border M&As and provides a basis for firms to select board members and create suitable board faultlines.

Today’s hypercompetitive economy challenges chief executive officers (CEOs) to make complex yet integral investments in research and development (R&D). Although research has widely discussed R&D spending due to its implications for competitive advantage, it omits whether and how managers’ dynamic capabilities materialise in these long-term investment decisions. This study builds on dynamic managerial capability (DMC) theory to argue that strong managerial-level dynamic capabilities increase R&D spending by improving the capacities of CEOs to sense opportunities and threats, seize them, and reconfigure organisational resources. CEO founder status is additionally proposed as a moderator of this relationship, as founder CEOs differ from professional CEOs in their investment behaviour. The results reveal that DMCs only compositely contribute to R&D investments, while the DMC subcomponents–except for managerial social capital—exert no isolated effects. This study also finds that founder CEOs realise higher R&D investments through their DMCs than their professional counterparts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC) on innovation orientation in business services. An empirical analysis was conducted on two samples (scientific experts and—in the next step, business service companies). The authors applied one-way ANOVA, HSD Tukey’s post hoc tests, and structural equation modelling. Approached from a knowledge-based view, this research has found that the impact of KAC on all six innovation orientation dimensions is significant and positive. This empirical evidence also supports the thesis that KAC impacts the business performance of firms. Managers should raise a company’s competitive advantage by introducing an innovation orientation, which requires a high level of KAC. This study advances the literature on KAC and innovation orientation by confirming the significant impact of KAC on business performance and a firm’s innovation orientation.