European Journal of Innovation Management

Pace, Lisa A.; Miles, Ian

doi: 10.1108/ejim-01-2019-0026pmid: N/A

Firms need to develop absorptive capacities to effectively source and exploit knowledge relevant to environmental behaviour for their own innovation activity. Business-to-business interactions can represent a significant route through which knowledge and resources about environmental innovations are transferred along the supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to explore how firms exploit business partnerships in order to build capacity for environmental innovation. In order to do so, it investigates two elements of B2B interactions – partner alignment and compatibility – and their influence on absorptive capacity-building.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a qualitative interview study of knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) operating in the environmental goods and services sector and their clients involved in adopting environmental innovations. Matched pairs of engineering consulting firms and their clients – tourism accommodation establishments – were selected as a sampling frame in order to study the influence of partner alignment and compatibility on the exchange of environmentally relevant knowledge and competencies.FindingsThe findings show that the synergistic attributes of business partners influence absorptive capacity-building and give rise to different patterns of interaction of KIBS with their client. The B2B interactions investigated are characterised by alignment along multiple objectives about the relevance of environmental behaviour. Furthermore, the compatibility of the partners’ competences is a key determinant of environmental innovation outcome.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the role of managers in identifying and selecting those business partnerships that accrue greater potential benefit for accessing resources and competencies for eco-innovation.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the literature on absorptive capacity and innovation by demonstrating how B2B interactions – in this study, the interaction of KIBS with their clients – influence the capacity of firms to adopt environmental innovations which is an area of study that deserves further attention.

Klammer, Adrian; Gueldenberg, Stefan

doi: 10.1108/ejim-12-2018-0255pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the antecedents, levers of control and outcomes of organizational unlearning and forgetting in new product development (NPD) teams.Design/methodology/approachThis paper employs a holistic multiple-case study design. This paper gathered data from 30 individual semi-structured interviews in 10 different NPD teams as well as additional data to triangulate the findings.FindingsThe authors propose a model of unlearning and forgetting elements occurring in NPD teams. The two most prominent factors that hamper innovation are the inability to unlearn and involuntary forgetting. Failure to manage these antecedents results in the loss of crucial resources, missing innovations or intra-team tensions. Managing knowledge loss by promoting unlearning and reducing forgetting leads to enhanced creativity and flexibility, a higher chance of exceeding innovation goals, increased conversion efficiency and augmentation of existing knowledge.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper contributes empirical evidence to the field of unlearning and forgetting. The model illustrates the NPD process from the perspective of organizational unlearning and forgetting. The authors examined the NPD process from an unlearning and forgetting perspective and proposed new categories of antecedents, consequences and managing unlearning and forgetting. This generates a more profound theoretical understanding of underlying knowledge loss processes in NPD teams.Practical implicationsCompanies should promote unlearning and specify spatial and temporal freedom. In doing so, team members can identify outdated and obsolete knowledge. Being attentive to unlearning and forgetting processes allows teams to achieve increased creativity and flexibility.Originality/valueThis paper provides empirical evidence to generate a more profound understanding of the underlying mechanisms of knowledge loss in NPD teams. First, the authors propose a holistic model of antecedents, levers of control and consequences of both unlearning and forgetting. Second, the authors suggest that organizations can use these levers of control to successfully manage unlearning and forgetting in NPD teams.

Wang, Zongjun; Jiang, Zhenyu

doi: 10.1108/ejim-12-2018-0276pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how R&D originality functions in an open innovation process after the introduction of knowledge spillovers (KSs).Design/methodology/approachTo examine the research framework, the authors use hierarchical regression based on questionnaire data from 211 emerging enterprises in China.FindingsConsistent with the proposed framework, the authors find that the KS effect mediates the positive relationship between openness and innovation performance. In addition, R&D originality weakens the impact of the KS effect on innovation performance.Research limitations/implicationsOne limitation is that the questionnaire survey the authors choose for data collection has some natural defects; furthermore, the testing method and research framework need to be improved.Practical implicationsSeveral implications of the findings for managerial practices are discussed.Originality/valueFirst, the research expands the existing theoretical construct by introducing the KS effect into the open innovation process; second, the authors reveal the negative impact of R&D originality on the open innovation process.

Jiménez-Jiménez, Daniel; Martínez-Costa, Micaela; Sanz-Valle, Raquel

doi: 10.1108/ejim-10-2018-0226pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to study the relationship between reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) and headquarters’ innovation, examining potential moderators of such relationship, and to analyze the role of headquarters’ absorptive capacity (AC) and the coordination mechanisms they adopt as antecedents of RKT.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative data were collected from 104 Spanish multinational companies. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.FindingsFindings provide the evidence of a positive relationship between RKT and headquarters’ innovation. This relationship is higher when the knowledge transferred from subsidiaries to parent units is of a more tacit nature, and also when the organizational distance between them is larger. The results also show that the parent unit’s AC and the use of mechanisms for coordinating company units can facilitate RKT.Practical implicationsMNCs that wish to be more innovative should be aware that it is worth the effort of fostering RKT, especially when knowledge is more tacit and comes from subsidiaries with different organizational practices and culture because these two variables increase the positive relationship that it was found between effective RKT and the development of innovation in the headquarters. Additionally, results show that in order to facilitate RKT, the improvement of headquarters’ AC and the use of mechanisms of coordination between them and its subsidiaries can be useful.Originality/valueUp to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that examines the link between RKT and headquarters innovation, and one of the few that focuses on headquarters characteristics as determinants of RKT. Thus, the findings contribute to the literature that highlights the benefits of RKT for MNC’s competitiveness, and that seeks to know how to promote RKT.

Duodu, Bismark; Rowlinson, Steve

doi: 10.1108/ejim-08-2018-0178pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is to advance new insights into how internal and external social capital (SC) facets influence exploratory and exploitative innovation directly, and indirectly through absorptive capability (AC), by drawing on the relational and knowledge-based views.Design/methodology/approachThe paper empirically tests the developed model using 135 survey responses from managers in construction contractor firms. Data were factor analysed, and path estimates determined using partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results reveal that each social capital (SC) facet has direct benefits for both exploratory and exploitative innovation. The findings also show a mix of full and partial mediation paths between the facets of SC and innovation types through AC.Originality/valueExtant research linking SC facets with innovation categories is fragmented. Added to this fragmentation is the dearth of studies linking both intra-firm and inter-firm SC with exploratory and exploitative innovation in firms. This paper makes a novel contribution by testing a model of the direct and indirect links (through AC) between internal and external SC and both exploratory and exploitative innovation in the context of construction contractor firms. The findings show how both facets of SC are necessary for exploratory and exploitative innovation. It reveals the types of relationships and capabilities necessary for specific innovation objectives.

Seo, Ribin

doi: 10.1108/ejim-01-2019-0023pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is to explore the curvilinear relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and innovation performance in ventures of Korea, where this topic has been unexplored.Design/methodology/approachThis study used 1,837 ventures’ responses in a panel data of the 2015 Korea’s Venture Business Investigation Survey. The measurements of EO based on the Miller/Covin and Slevin scale were used from the survey. The author adopted and independently measured three different indicators of innovation performance: technology innovation, product innovation and sales growth.FindingsThe results of the regression analysis show the significant curvilinear relationships of EO with technology innovation and product innovation, while the relationship between EO and sales growth remains linear. The author also found that multiplicative EO construct explains the changes in R2 better than the summative EO construct for the improvement of innovations in technology and product.Originality/valueThis paper provides empirical evidence on the EO–innovation performance relationships from Korean ventures – an underexplored area of research. It also takes into account the curvilinear relationships of summative and multiplicative EO constructs with different performance indicators. Future research can benefit from the use of the multiplicative EO estimation and multiple performance indicators to capture a clearer picture of the causal relationships.

Arranz, N.; F. Arroyabe, Marta; Fernandez de Arroyabe, Juan Carlos

doi: 10.1108/ejim-12-2018-0275pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of obstacles and institutional factors on the cooperation for innovation. The collaboration between different types of organizations has been seen as a strategy that allows the firms to obtain reciprocal benefits, and that incentivises innovation. However, following D’Este et al. (2012) and Antonioli et al. (2017), the authors assume that the decision to cooperate is perceived as a strategy to overcome the obstacles and barriers of the innovation process.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyze these questions in the frame of the PITEC-2013 data that covers the period 2012–2013 and includes 5,461 Spanish innovative companies.FindingsThe results support that an important drive for the firm’s cooperation is to overcome the obstacles of the innovation process. Moreover, the type of partner for cooperation is influenced by the different perception that those companies have on the obstacles to innovation. Additionally, results contribute to the regional literature with new empirical evidence to characterize regions in terms of innovation. Such factors shed new light about the intensity of regional innovation and variables of the cooperation pattern.Originality/valueConsidering that a fourth of the Spanish companies develop technological cooperation agreements (PITEC, 2013), it is still observed that the level of cooperation and their results are lower with respect to other countries in the environment, therefore to analyze the role of cooperation agreements, evaluating the factors that characterize the dynamics of these agreements, is a critical research question for the Spanish economy.

Shu, Ei (Emily)

doi: 10.1108/ejim-12-2018-0262pmid: N/A

Current research has theorized that developing dynamic capability can be viewed as a problem-finding and problem-solving process in terms of a firm’s resource reconfiguration. However, there continues to be a scarcity of empirical research on how firms and managers solve innovation problems to develop capabilities. Building on the theoretical lens of problem-solving perspective (PSP) and dynamic capability literature, the purpose of this paper is to address this gap by examining how a large automobile company developed different types of capabilities (combining capability, replacing capability and evolving capability) and their underlying problem-solving processes.Design/methodology/approachAn inductive multi-case design was used to investigate the problem-solving process in different types of capability development in the context of NPD. This methodology has a number of benefits, including accommodation of the rich data used to compare the inferences among cases, thus enabling researchers to extend the emergent theory.FindingsThe findings of a multi-case study show that managers tend to direct their attentions to searching for solutions among external resources when the problem is framed as a combination of existing capabilities. Conversely, managers direct their attention to facilitating organizational learning when the problem is framed as an extension of an existing capability. However, managers need to direct more attention to gaining legitimacy when the problem is framed as a replacement of existing capabilities. The findings thus respond to increasing calls for more investigations into the microfoundations underlying firms’ capabilities, by revealing different instances of PSP, and their connections with different actions that take to capability development.Originality/valueBy comparatively examining the unique problem-solving process underlying an established firm’s innovative challenges in developing capabilities, the findings identify different instances of PSP, and their connections with different actions that take to capability development. Thus, the findings respond to increasing calls for more investigation into the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities for organizational outcomes. The findings also add to the new product development literature by examining how a product innovation can be framed differently depending on the attributes of an innovation problem. As PSP is particularly useful in offering guidance to firms’ innovative search, it is important for managers to pay attention to the attribute of each product and its domain of solution in considering the effectiveness of value creation.

Rodriguez, Rocio; Molina-Castillo, Francisco-Jose; Svensson, Göran

doi: 10.1108/ejim-04-2019-0092pmid: N/A

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the implementation process of enterprise resource planning (ERP), the evolution of business model innovation (BMI) and the organizational outcome. This research analyses how ERP and BMI are related and, in turn, what is the final the impact on organizational performance.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consisted on 104 organizations from different industries, all of which used an ERP software. A structural equation model was used to test the six hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicate that the BMI constructs considered (i.e. value-generation and organizational complexity) mediate the impact of the ERP constructs (organizational adaptation and organizational resistance), in organizational performance. Successful ERP implementation is not an end itself for this companies, but merely a path and a process for improving the business model with the aim improving performance in the marketplace.Research limitations/implicationsThis study offers a new outlook on how a company should leverage the ERP adaptation, and any resistance in the organization to innovating in the business model. This study is rooted in the evolutionary perspective of BMI, but it also integrates into an overall model other points of view such as the rational positioning view and cognitive view.Practical implicationsOrganizations must understand the ERP flows in depth, each ERP flow is the work result of a multitude of companies over several years. All departments, and in particular the research and development department must participate actively in the ERP implementation. Organised complexity means opportunities for success in the market. Organizations must train their departments in ERP and not just teach them how the ERP works. ERP implementation needs consider improvements to the business model and ultimately the performance, but not separately.Originality/valueBMI has received contributions from several domains such as entrepreneurship, management organization and strategic management among others. Nonetheless, the role of ERP in BMI is far from being understood and the few contributions focus only on technology per se. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study that has explored the connections of ERP and BMI and in turn the final outcome in organizational performance.