Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Systematic Innovation - ICSI 2016

It is our pleasure to welcome you at the 7th International Conference on Systematic Innovation. It is our objective to provide a forum for the discussion and dissemination of recent advances in the field of TRIZ Methodology, Knowledge-Based and Systematic Innovation. The goal is to enable practitioners, researchers and scientists to exchange ideas on the these topics and to provide an international forum for exchanging new ideas and recent achievements by the TRIZ community and enabling further advances and collaboration with the industrial community. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to the members of the organizing, scientific and technical committees. The reviewers of the papers had a very important job, contributing significantly to the success of the conference. We also wish to express our thanks to our invited speakers. Very special thanks to our students, sponsors and to all who helped us with logistics, conference website, and publications. Welcome to Portugal and Lisbon. We hope you all have a very happy and rewarding meeting.publishersversionpublishe

Organizational factors and process capabilities in a KM strategy: toward a unified theory

This study aims to examine the role of knowledge management (KM) enablers on KM activities in the context of Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The effects of organizational culture, transformational leadership, organizational structure, and technology utilization as infrastructural KM enablers are examined on KM activities as knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, application, and protection. A total of 227 responses from SMEs’ top management are used to assess the measurement and structural models applying partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that technology utilization and organizational structure are two main factors in KM activities (all structural relationships are supported). Surprisingly, organizational culture is only associated with knowledge conversion and protection and the findings indicate no relationships between organizational culture and knowledge acquisition and application. The results also indicate a positive relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge acquisition and the hypotheses on the association between transformational leadership and knowledge conversion, application, and protection are rejected. The results of importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) imply that technology utilization has the highest importance on knowledge acquisition, conversion, and protection while organizational structure has the highest importance on knowledge application. The results of IPMA also show that organizational culture has the highest performance on all KM activities. This study is amongst the few that examines the structural relationships between organizational factors and KM activities in a SME context

Towards A New Understanding of Managerial Competencies: In-depth Study of SME Internationalisation

Due to the increasing involvement of enterprises in international markets, the strategic management of the transition of an organisation from purely domestic into a multinational organisation has become increasingly important. The literature shows that a significant number of the organisation that choose to internationalise are SMEs which command little resources to enable this transition. Increased diversity, ambiguity and complexity as well as uncertainty, instability and high levels of competition are considered to be the characteristics of the context of SME internationalisation and the root cause of some of the challenges that SME managers face. This thesis focuses on the ever-growing emphasis on the management of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) specifically by exploring the managerial competencies required for SME internationalisation. It aims to identify the managerial competencies required for SME internationalisation. This qualitative study is informed by the grounded theory methodology. Using semi-structured interviews, primary data was collected from interviewing 52 SME managers who were directly involved in the internationalisation of their respective SME. In contrast to existing thinking in strategic management, which outlines a set of competencies (a functionalist perspective) which can be dynamically arranged (dynamic capabilities/entrepreneurship perspective), this study highlights that managerial competency is a unique, individual and dynamic experience. The study highlights that, in practice, SMEs do not engage in a great deal of systematic strategic planning and their managers have significantly different experiences of the SME internationalisation process. This becomes evident in how they perceived themselves and their different individual experiences during the internationalisation of their SMEs. Additionally, the findings indicate that managerial competency may involve an interaction and interrelation with information and the dynamic arrangement of functional competencies, but the focus of academics and practitioners needs to shift to understanding internationalisation as an experience. This thesis investigates the importance of agency and structure and how competency is a negotiation with the environment that is driven by the SME agent (i.e., the manager) via the managerial experience of SME internationalisation. The implication of the thesis is that there is a need for a paradigm shift in existing thinking from theorising managerial competencies required for SME internationalisation (functionalist perspective) to theorising individual managerial experiences of SME internationalisation i.e., agential experience (agency theory perspective). These are experiences which support SME managers in managing their organisations throughout the transitional period and when their organisation has been fully internationalised and is competing in the diverse international environment. Thus, the study highlights that the ontology of SME managerial competency is not understood in full currently. It identifies the paradigm shift that is needed and has developed the theoretical understanding of managerial competencies as an agential experience. The empirical approach reflects future research

A New Big Data and Logistic Regression-Based Approach for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Businesses are being asked to assess an expanding volume of actual semi-structured and unstructured statistics to address the obstacles of internationalization and deal more effectively with the uncertainties of international integration. Big Data (BD) analytics can therefore play a strategic role in promoting the international expansion of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The exact connection between BD Analytics and globalization has, however, only been sporadically examined in the existing literature. In this study, a quantitative analysis using a Logistic Regression (LR) concept revealed that the interaction effects between BD Analytics architecture and BD Analytics functionality are both helpful and significant but the connection between the management of BD Analytics architecture and the Degree of Internationalization (DI) is not required for internationalization development. This shows that increasing internationalization in SMEs requires more than BD Analytics governance alone. Instead, this study emphasizes the importance of building particular BD Analytics abilities and the availability of a beneficial interaction between management of BD Analytics architecture and BD Analytics abilities that could take advantage of the new information gained via BD Analytics in SME global expansion

The Role of Inbound Open Innovation Sources on Innovativeness and Advantage of New Products in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

This Ph.D. thesis provides a quantitative empirical study based on a theoretical model, which deepens and extends previous models by analyzing the different constructs that concur to innovation performance by utilizing various sources of inbound open innovation in SMEs. It empirically investigates the causal relationship of different sources of inbound open innovation and their effects on new product innovativeness and the effect of new product innovativeness on new product advantage in small and medium-sized enterprises in Petroleum and Gas equipment industry in Iran. The theoretical model considers the relationship between different sources of outside-in (Inbound) open innovation collaborating with external partners like customers, competitors, suppliers, universities, research institutions and consultants, and their separate diverse effects on new product innovativeness and measuring new product innovativeness effect on new product advantage of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Petroleum and Gas equipment industry. Furthermore, based on previous studies, this research contributes to the concept of internal R&D capability and firm's innovation performance, this thesis measures the effect of internal R&D expenditures as annual sales percentage on new product innovativeness, which regarded as organizational R&D strengths and intensity in SMEs of Petroleum and Gas equipment industry. In addition, building on previous literature, organizational declarative memory as one of the components of organizational memory, which interacts, with concepts of facts, events, and propositions is considered to measure its effect on new product advantage. Likewise, in order to ensure the robustness of results, several control variables were included in this research. These controls have to be considered as the internal organizational component or external organizational elements. Firm size, technology turbulence, market turbulence, and competition intensity were added as control variables to account for the effects of extraneous factors on new product advantage (NPA). The research method of this study is a survey, causal (Explanatory) and descriptive quantitative research method based on structural equation modeling (SEM). It is based on a quantitative method using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. The survey was done among 150 firms in Petroleum and Gas equipment industry in the Iranian context and the empirical analysis had been done at the firm level. For data collection procedure, the simple random procedure as the sampling method was used between 150 firms in Tehran as the capital region of Iran where the main head offices of these 150 firms are located. 150 SMEs were selected as the target population of this Ph.D. thesis and the dataset was collected from such firms. As the research method is based on partial least square structural equation modeling, (PLS-SEM), the purpose of this research is not only based on predictive approach and forecasting but also to contribute to developing and extending the current existing theory of outside-in (Inbound) open innovation activities in SMEs. This research contributes to theory development of surveying and examining the exploitation of different inbound open innovation sources and their effects on new product innovativeness performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The data collection had been done at the firm level, the CEOs, marketing managers, R&D managers, and new product development managers were the respondents to the questionnaire. The results indicate that not all different types of outside-in (Inbound) open innovation sources positively and significantly affected new product innovativeness in SMEs. This is because of this reason that some sources are financial based which SMEs cannot afford to exploit it inside their firms, and SMEs' weaknesses and challenges in innovation practices arise from their size as well. SMEs in general and in Petroleum and Gas equipment industry in particular in this research according to their small scale and size can limit SMEs potential capacity and organizational capability to use all external sources. Furthermore, SMEs suffer from resource limitation or traditional closed innovation models. SMEs prefer to collaborate with sources that can foster and increase their internal organizational and innovation capabilities and capacities based on partnering/collaborating approach, which do not require investment strategies or investing their financial resources in external innovation sources in order to leverage the level of new product innovativeness. They prefer to use a more collaborative approach and partnership with other external innovation sources rather than exploiting sources, which require financial and monetary sources

Academic Aspect of the Leather Industry: An Interpretation from the Perspective of Business Science

In the leather industry, a production process that is the subject of many different disciplines is dominant. Many studies on these branches of science have examined the sector in detail in terms of production. On the other hand, studies dealing with the sector in terms of business administration department and sub-disciplines are not common. In this study, academic publications examining the relationship between the leather industry and the business administration department are the subjects. 98 scientific studies obtained after the search in the Web of Science database were examined in terms of the form of publication, the year of publication, the country where the publication was made and the sub-disciplines of the business department

Entrepreneurs as strategic transformation managers: Exploring micro-foundations of digital transformation in small and medium internationalisers

This paper is set to explore the role of individual-level behaviours and actions in the digital transformation of international SMEs. This is particularly important since little is known regarding the extent to which entrepreneurs and decision-makers manage the digitalisation process. Thus, building on the theory of planned behaviour, this research focuses on individual-level micro-foundations in the digital transformation of small and medium internationalisers. The paper benefits from a mixed-method synthesis. First, through a systematic review of literature, we identified twenty-seven factors in four inclusive categories. Then, they have been narrowed down to the top seven individual-level micro-foundations, using Intuitionistic Fuzzy Delphi based on Normalised Hamming Distance. Subsequently, Intuitionistic Fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory analysis is applied to disentangle the causality and effectuality as well as conceptual framework to depict their interrelationships. Our findings contribute to the digital transformation research by developing six prepositions that explore the relationships between SMEs’ micro-foundations at the individual level

Bridging the Gap in Common Ground When Talking about Voices

Despite the negative impact of voice-hearing often being bound up in what is said, there has been a distinct lack of attention paid to exploring the linguistic content of voices and/or the language voice-hearers use to describe their experiences. In this chapter, I will take a close look at how voice-hearers in the Voices in Psychosis (VIP) transcripts use language non-literally in order to convey their complex experiences, and what that might tell us about the nature of voice-hearing experiences, as well as about the function of different forms of figurative language. The topic of figurative language is a vast area of debate and theorizing, with many different accounts of what is involved. For my purposes here, it suffices to say that figurative language is a way of talking about something (the primary subject/topic or tenor) by using words or phrases that do not typically, conventionally, or literally refer to that thing (the secondary subject or vehicle). Although they are often treated as synonyms, I take ‘figurative language’ to be a slightly narrower category than ‘non-literal language’. In other words, all instances of figurative language are instances of non-literal language, but not vice versa. Metaphors and similes are both instances of figurative language, and hence also of non-literal language. However, hyperbole (exaggeration) and approximation are non-literal, but they are not fully figurative in my sense (they could be described as ‘loose use’, or ‘less than literal’). An understanding of figurative language requires a more complicated and lateral inference than simply understanding that someone is overstating for effect (hyperbole) or drawing a close approximation. That is, in part, why figurative language is so widely used in literature: it is a more adventurous use of language. It is more open to communicative failure, or to being interpreted differently by different people, but the pay-off can be great, with metaphors having the potential to yield rich and open-ended interpretations

The effect of leadership styles, social capital, and entrepreneurial orientation on organizational effectiveness of social welfare organizations in Malaysia

This study provided a rare opportunity to thoroughly discuss the hampered effectiveness of the Social Welfare Organizations in Malaysia. In line with the above, this study aimed to examine the effect of leadership styles, social capital and entrepreneurial orientation on organizational effectiveness of the Social Welfare Organizations. In this quantitative research, simple random sampling was adopted as the sampling technique to draw conclusions about the entire population. Usable responses were received from 134 Social Welfare Organizations, which accounted to a 56.07% response rate. A combination of IBM SPSS statistical software version 22.0 (SPSS) and the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used as the statistical tools to analyse the collected data. Drawing upon the Resource-Based View Theory, the results indicated that the seven main hypotheses (both the direct and mediating hypotheses) were supported, whereas only eight out of fifteen sub-hypotheses were supported. In brief, the findings demonstrated the positive impact of leadership styles, social capital and entrepreneurial orientation on the organizational effectiveness of the Social Welfare Organizations in Malaysia. Also, this research provided evidence that entrepreneurial orientation had a full mediating effect on the relationship between leadership style and organizational effectiveness, while there was partial mediating effect on the relationship between social capital and organizational effectiveness. Correspondingly, Social Welfare Organizations should be encouraged to adopt those practices to enhance the effectiveness of their organizations. Further, the implications, limitations and suggestions of the study were discussed. It was also suggested that the policy-makers should focus on creating awareness regarding the importance of the social aspects and provide supportive national policies which could enhance the organizational effectiveness of Social Welfare Organizations