Testing goodwill: Conflict and co-operation in new product development networks

Network forms are often seen as models of organisational flexibility, promoting the building of trust and exchange of information between different business functions while offering both cost savings and reductions in the uncertainties usually associated with innovation. Both internal and external networks have been identified as key elements in the collaborative development of new products. The actual process of network building and ongoing network management is not well researched, although the existing literature highlights difficulties for organisations attempting to maintain active product development networks. This article examines the development and management of such a network in the defence industry and focuses on network building processes in terms of the interactions between the individuals involved. This network has endured and evolved over many years despite a series of conflicts. One of the key findings is that the effective functioning of the overall network is closely allied to established processes within the two participating firms

Dynamic Capability Building through partnering: An Australian Mobile handset case Study

Dynamic capabilities are increasingly seen as an organisational characteristic for innovation and are regarded as a source of competitive advantage. In a quest for sustainability, service organisations are partnering with their stakeholders, and subsequently are aptly bringing innovation in services to market. Most of existing empirical research regarding dynamic capabilities seeks to define and identify specific dynamic capabilities, as well as their organizational antecedents or effects. Yet, the extent to which the antecedents of success in particular dynamic capabilities, contribute to innovation in service organisations remains less researched. This study advances the understanding of such dynamic capability building process through effective collaboration, and highlights the detailed mechanisms and processes of capability building within a service value network framework to deliver innovation in services. Deploying a case study methodology, transcribing interviews with managers and staff from an Australian telco and its partnering organisations, results show that collaboration, collaborative organisational learning, collaborative innovative capacity, entrepreneurial alertness and collaborative agility are all core to fostering innovation in services. Practical implications of this research are significant, and that the impacts of collaboration and the dynamic capabilities mentioned above are discussed in the context of a mobile handset case study

Facilitating practice-led co-innovation for the improvement in animal welfare

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordUsing the egg-laying-hen sector as a case study, the European Union-funded ‘Hennovation’ thematic network has been testing mechanisms to enable practice-led innovation through the establishment of 19 innovation networks of farmers and within the laying-hen processing industry, supported by existing science and market-driven actors. These networks were facilitated to proactively search for, share and use new ideas to improve hen welfare, efficiency and sustainability. This article provides insights into the tools used, including a framework for the facilitation of practice-led collaborative innovation processes. This framework was developed through participatory action research to monitor network performance and self-reflection by facilitators. Practice-led innovation processes are network specific and evolve as the actors within the network come together to share common problems, experiment with possible solutions and learn. The participatory and iterative nature of this process leads to uncertainty in process and end results. This raises methodological challenges in the management of such processes and requires a flexible and adaptive management approach focusing on learning and reflection.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The article draws upon research and discussions conducted under the HENNOVATION project, a H2020 EU collaborative research project with six academic partners funded under the topic ‘Innovative, Sustainable and Inclusive Bioeconomy’ ISIB-2-2014/ 2015: Closing the research and innovation divide: the crucial role of innovation support services and knowledge exchange. Grant agreement no 652638

Modeling a successful innovation ecosystem toward a sustainable community: the I-Reef (a review study)

So far, numerous studies have exhibited Silicon Valley and other thriving innovation ecosystems by distinguishing special characteristics in which their survival rely on sustaining activities that convert them to specific regions. These regions provide ready-made grounds for networking to be innovative. Meantime, it is struggling for innovations to be transformed into measurable economic results if players encounter a weak network of collaborative relationships in the ecosystem. Besides, flowing back the created value in the same region could be another problem with the actual innovation ecosystems to be utilized by all players created this. It is interesting that successful innovation ecosystems share many characteristics with coral reefs in which the process of economic growth and the renewal of an evergreen region is credible in specific collaborative relationships. Hence, the I-Reef model suggests a particular ecosystem where All-Win contribution relationships of the regional innovation networks return the results into the whole region.publishe

Social learning in innovation networks: how multisectoral collaborations shape discourses of sustainable agriculture

The increasing complexity of modern day society has led to the emergence of a specific type of sustainability problems known as complex problems. These types of problems can be characterised by their cognitive complexity and inherent insecurity, their normative complexity that allows for completely different interpretations rooted in different worldviews and finally the occurrence of a conflict of interests between different actors. Sustainable agriculture is the case in point. The Dutch countryside is standing on the threshold of a major transition. Rural development in The Netherlands nowadays involves far more than just restructuring agricultural production. The linear innovation perspective where new knowledge was discovered at universities and subsequently transferred to farmers by means of government sponsored extension services has given way to a new perspective on innovation. This perspective takes a relational view on innovation in which knowledge and innovations are co-created together with stakeholders and it emphasises the importance of experimentation and social learning involving a multisectoral network of actors from science, businesses, government agencies and nongovernmental organisations. The aim of these collaborative innovation networks is to contribute to the transition to sustainable agriculture, a radical and structural change of the agricultural system as a whole. This thesis focuses on these innovation networks in the context of sustainable agriculture. Its aim is to explore some of the underlying social mechanisms at play in these collaborative networks. Network perspectives have been used extensively to model the linear diffusion of knowledge from universities to farmers and between farmers themselves. However, bottom-up innovation projects with stakeholders do not only require knowledge transfer, but also need to change the organisational structures, laws and institutions governing the sector. This thesis consists of two main parts. The first part of this thesis addresses the content of the concept of sustainable agriculture. It conceptualises innovation as a social learning process in which participants forge new relationships to enhance information flows and learn from each other. The results can thus be divided into ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’. Outputs are the plans, scenarios, computer models and indicators that form the physical results of a collaborative process. The outcomes are formed by the building of trust and the development of a new discourse, a new shared language with which to communicate with each other. Using discourse analysis and Q-methodology the existing rurality discourses in the Netherlands were compared to the discourses that were present in the number of innovation projects dealing with sustainable agriculture. Results show that discourses of sustainable agriculture are a natural continuation of existing rurality discourses. The use of technology and the agricultural production function of rural landscapes are among the two most contested elements within the discourses. They are either anti-technological focusing on a multi-functional use of the countryside, or technophile with a strong sense of entitlement of agrarian production in the countryside. Both these extremes are limiting the possibilities for innovative projects to become successful. This thesis defines the concept of Metropolitan Agriculture as a form of sustainable agriculture that combines a technological approach of agriculture on the one hand with a multifunctional use of the countryside. The second part of the thesis elaborates a new network perspective that links three network functions in innovation systems to individual skills of knowledge creation, institutional entrepreneurship and innovation brokerage. These functions are necessary for the up- and outscaling of a local innovation. Social Network Analysis was used to study the distribution of these three functions over the participants of a collaborative innovation network. Results showed that these three functions are concentrated in three small core-groups and that these core-groups only displayed a very limited overlap. To what extent people are capable to perform one of these three functions depends for a large part on the type of organisation they work for. Finally, this thesis presents a new mapping technique to investigate and explain the network dynamics of a collaborative innovation network. Using this technique a longitudinal two-mode affiliation network was constructed over a period of 16 years. The analysis of the network dynamics shows how the structural characteristics of size, composition, connectedness and centralisation of a collaborative network change and how these changes are the result of the social relations between actors at the project level as they choose their partners to cooperate with and enter a process of social learning. This thesis therefore shows how the macro-level network dynamics can be explained by micro-level niche processes. It shows how the ideas in the niche change over time with new actors entering the network and other ones leaving after a certain period. The two parts of the thesis together explain how collaboration processes at the niche level can only gradually change societal discourses. In order to ‘sell’ a new idea it has to be embedded within familiar discourse elements. At the same time, these ideas play an important role in finding new partners to collaborate with and expand the existing innovation network. </p

Composition of Collaborative Innovation Networks: An Investigation of Process Characteristics and Outcomes

In this study we test how different ways of composing collaborative action networks influence food innovation. Networks have received considerable attention in the literature and are perceived to enhance the likelihood of innovation success by overcoming resource and capability deficiencies. While previous studies of collaborate innovation in the food sector have been mostly qualitative case studies of one or a few networks, we compare 96 networks which were all structured according to the same network template. After content-analysing archive data, we estimated a vector-generalised linear model with binomial response distributions and probit link functions; with network composition as the predictor and the innovation process charateristics and outcomes as response variables. Our findings show that differently composed manufacturer networks lead to different outcomes and different process characteristics. We find that strong management and coordination of activities are more important for heterogeneous manufacturer networks than for homogeneous manufacturer networks, and that vertically composed networks with suppliers contribute to efficiency gains to a higher extent than networks consisting solely of manufacturers

Collective agency as a leverage point in multi-actor innovation: Two case studies from Swedish horticulture

The aim of this study is to investigate how horticultural firms meet their need for innovation within the innovation system. A comparative process ethnography approach was applied to two cases of long-term collaboration between multiple actors in Swedish horticulture. The retrospective reconstruction of the cases through documentation and interviews allowed for triangulation of data in a grounded theory approach. The leverage points of the developing collaborative processes were found to be; having agency and a network approach, the forming of collective agency through social learning, enhancing resource access, and operationalization of results. The concept of leverage points is useful for understanding evolutionary changes in multi-actor collaborations. The use of the concept of collective agency contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of demand articulation, illustrating a reciprocal process between the actors' individual agencies, and evolving over time through their social learning. The results point to a need for policymakers and practitioners to develop a broader understanding of how actors work in the innovation system to enhance knowledge development and innovation

Collective agency as a leverage point in multi-actor innovation: Two case studies from Swedish horticulture

The aim of this study is to investigate how horticultural firms meet their need for innovation within the innovation system. A comparative process ethnography approach was applied to two cases of long-term collaboration between multiple actors in Swedish horticulture. The retrospective reconstruction of the cases through documentation and interviews allowed for triangulation of data in a grounded theory approach. The leverage points of the developing collaborative processes were found to be; having agency and a network approach, the forming of collective agency through social learning, enhancing resource access, and operationalization of results. The concept of leverage points is useful for understanding evolutionary changes in multi-actor collaborations. The use of the concept of collective agency contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of demand articulation, illustrating a reciprocal process between the actors’ individual agencies, and evolving over time through their social learning. The results point to a need for policymakers and practitioners to develop a broader understanding of how actors work in the innovation system to enhance knowledge development and innovation

Social Behavior and Network Analysis

A network of Science, Technology & Innovation actors and their collaborative actions are described in this study. The development of those actions is essential to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Chinese aeronautic process and to maintain its global competitiveness. The paper analyzes the dynamic cooperation network model of the Chinese aeronautic sector based on the case study executed in joint with the Industrial Promotion and Coordination Institute – an organization responsible for the industrial support and infrastructure programs to improve the quality and the training of this sector. As a result, this work identifies some critical factors for success related to the cooperation network model for the growth of the sector competitiveness potential

Knowledge transfer between Food Research Institute and industry in the UK: the role of open innovation and social capital

This paper is part of a wider research project that seeks a conceptualised explanation to how and why knowledge is transferred between food research institutes and industry in the UK, by identifying the mechanisms that drive this process. It presents the findings from 13 in-depth interviews which formed the pilot study conducted through a qualitative approach involving a leading food research institute and main food retailers. An analysis of the Open Innovation and Social Capital literatures lead to the conclusion that these are plausible angles to start the study. Participation in formal and informal networks and the importance of social structures play a significant role in this context as well as different open and collaborative activities. The emergent findings suggests that innovation challenges facing this sector are around sustainability issues such as waste, climate change and food safety. Knowledge transfer between food research institute and industry occurs through open innovation activities, the main motivations being internal learning and access to funding through engagement with industry. Similarly there are many opportunities for intermediaries in the commercialisation of ideas. Moreover, the individual level of social capital provides the network structure and expertise access to engage in collaborative projects