What Are the Useful Past Inter-Organizational Relationships (IORs) for Forming Complex IORs?

Purpose: The purpose is to explore the relationship between prior and later inter-organizational relationships (IORs) by studying whether past experience can be leveraged on when forming new, more complex, IORs. Methodology: Participation in prior IORs is characterized in terms of both resource- transferring and resource-pooling IORs in home-country networks, while complex IORs are considered those with foreign partners. An empirical test on 366 Italian firms is performed using OLS with robust standard errors. Findings: Both resource-transferring and resource-pooling IORs have non-convergent effects. The former has controversial effects on the base of the position a firm occupies, that in turn affects the structure of interests between the partners. The latter has different effects in line with the information complexity of the objective of the relationship. Research Implications: Results provide support to the idea that structure of interests and information complexity represent \u201cdiscriminating characteristics\u201d that identify salient structural alternatives in the analysis of inter-firm organization. Practical Implications: The paper advances that firms can partially leverage on the exploitation of prior experience in settings that are explorative in nature, by carefully selecting within past experiences. Originality: A distinction between coordination \u201cgiving\u201d and coordination \u201ctaking\u201d IORs is proposed to discern among different types of inter-firm coordination forms

Internationalisation of SMEs and firm performance: evidences from Bangladesh

One of the key objectives of this paper is to identify the impacts of internationalisation of SMEs on firm performance. Although there have been a number of research that examined the relationship between SME internationalisation and firm performance, research from the context of smaller developing economies are really scant. This is against the fact that SMEs are main vehicle for growth in those economies and extensive research on various dimensions of SMEs including its impact on firm performance may help to better understand the operational aspects of SMEs in those economies. Using primary data and structural equation modelling to analyse those data, the paper has found that internationalisation of SMEs has significant impact on both financial and non-financial performance of SMEs in Bangladesh. More specifically, the paper has found that internationalisation impacts in two dimensions (Financial impacts and non-financial impacts) with 8 indicators (higher sales, higher profit, assets maximization, market expansion, competitive advantage, better reputation, better customer service and added knowledge)

Strategic Alliances And New Product Development In High-Tech Ventures: The Moderating Role Of Alliance Type And Alliance Capability

Strategy scholars have proposed that capacity for managing alliance can be a source of superior performance. This study focuses on the role of this capacity, and investigates how alliance management capability of entrepreneurial firms affects the relationship between a firm’s allying and its performance. Because the capability is inherently unobservable, we take alliance experience and average duration of each alliance as proxy variables for measuring alliance management capability. An analysis of multiple allies of entrepreneurial ventures in Korean photovoltaic industry indicate that capacity for managing varying allies, and alliance type positively moderate the relation between alliance and its innovation outcomes

Resource mobilization levels and the configuration of the alliance portfolio

Alliance Portfolio Configuration (APC) conditions access to network resources, however, not all access to partner resources is finally mobilized by the firm. Our paper contributes to the understanding of alliance portfolio performance by examining how an acceptable configuration of the alliance portfolio will be conditioned by the level of resource mobilization that the firm really achieves. A variance-based structural equation modelling (Partial Least Squares) has been applied to a sample from the Top International Airlines database. Results from the data analysis show that the Level of Network Resource Mobilization (LNRM) (a) fully mediate the effect of alliance portfolio configuration on the operating performance; and (b) partially mediate this effect on financial performance of airlines

Persistence of, and interrelation between, horizontal and vertical technology alliances.

The authors explore to what extent there is persistence in, and interrelation between, alliance strategies with different partner types (customers, suppliers, competitors). In a panel data set of innovation-active firms in the Netherlands from 1996 to 2004, the authors find persistence in alliance strategies with all three types of partners, but customer alliance strategies are more persistent than supplier alliance strategies and competitor alliance strategies. A positive interrelation between customer and supplier alliance strategies and a high persistence of joint supplier and customer alliance strategies are consistent with the advantages of value chain integration in innovation efforts. Prior engagement in horizontal (competitor) alliances increases the propensity to engage in vertical alliance strategies, but this effect occurs only with a longer lag. Overall, the authors’ findings suggest that alliance strategies with different partner types are both heterogeneous in persistence and (temporally) interrelated. This suggests that intertemporal relationships between different types of alliances may be as important as their simultaneous relationship in alliance portfolios.

R&D modes and firm performance in high-tech companies: A research based on cross-boundary ambidexterity and network structures

This paper draws on the cross-boundary ambidexterity theory to propose that four different R&D modes impact firm performance differently and that cooperative network structure moderates the above relationships. The theoretical model is tested by using financial and patent data of 587 high-tech firms for 10 consecutive years in China. We find that different R&D modes have different impacts on a firm’s financial and innovative performance, and network structure plays different moderating roles. Practically, this work guides high-tech enterprises to optimize their resource allocation, select the most appropriate R&D mode, and establish efficient cooperative networks

Exploratory and exploitative innovation: the moderating role of partner geographic diversity

The aim of this study is to explore the effect of exploratory and exploitative innovation separately and ambidexterity premise simultaneously relating to firms’ innovation performance. To test these relationships, we applied a hierarchical linear regression analysis to a large sample of international organisations (by using the Community Innovation Survey [CIS] 2006 micro data). We show that the relationship between exploratory innovation and a firm’s innovation performance is moderated by geographically different partners. We found that ambidexterity premise in innovation context undermines innovation performance

The structural characteristics of innovation ecosystem: a fashion case

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence of open innovation mechanism specific to aesthetic innovation. Prior research have drawn its research attention to technological innovation and focussed on the biopharmaceutical and technological sectors as the main research contexts. Thus, to gain a wider picture of the structural characteristics of innovation ecosystem, this paper aims to complement the existing technological-centred literature and provides understanding of aesthetic innovation by focussing on exploring the role of actors and intermediaries in either facilitating or inhibiting innovation in the creative sector. Design/methodology/approach This is an exploratory study and the qualitative method was employed. With aim to explore aesthetic innovation in the creative sector, this research grounded its context in the UK designer fashion sector, which is part of the creative industries. Data were collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with respondents being purposely selected so as to ensure representativeness. A wider range of participants within the designer fashion sector was covered. Such multiple-sourced data collection approach allowed this research to triangulate data so that research trustworthiness was enhanced. Findings The result suggests the role of a broker in beyond traditionally facilitating knowledge exchange. This paper provides empirical evidence regarding the critical role of a broker in shaping the open innovation mechanism when it comes to aesthetic innovation. A broker in fact occupies a strategic position that allows it to negotiate relationships among the connected organisations and thus to govern the interaction mechanism of the innovation ecosystem as a whole. Given the empowered broker in such setting, the relationship between innovation creators and innovation seekers is controlled by a broker, which leads to risk that an innovation creator may not fully appropriate the value that it creates. Research limitations/implications The main limitation of this study is its specific context, that is, the UK designer fashion industry. Such focus limits the scope of generalisation particularly its application to the entire creative sector. Thus, it is suggested that future research may consider to explore other creative industries so that the understanding of the open innovation mechanism from a structural perspective applied to aesthetic innovation can be enhanced. Originality/value This paper outlines the structural mechanism of open innovation applied to aesthetic innovation. The result contributes to the literature by complementing the findings derived from technology-centred research. Also, empirical evidence of this study is particularly of value to policy makers in the aspect of creative sector development. The suggested implications provide strategies of innovation ecosystem that could benefit individual actors involved in this open innovation setting and ensure prosper of the sector as a whole

Technological cooperation in Spanish firms

This paper aims to study to what extent participating in technological cooperation agreements can be a useful mechanism for improving the innovative capacity of Spanish firms, specially in the context of the economic recession. We analyse if there are differences in the returns obtained from cooperation alliances according to the firm’s size as well as different geographical scopes of such alliances. In addition, we want to study to what extent innovation cooperation may have a different effect on incremental innovations than on radical/breakthrough innovations. We use the Spanish Technological Innovation Panel from 2004 to 2012 to provide evidence on the above issues

Persistence of and interrelation between horizontal and vertical technology alliances

We examine how and to what extent the propensity to be engaged in alliances with different partner types (suppliers, customers and competitors) depends on prior alliance engagement with partner firms of the same type (persistence) and prior engagement in alliances with the other partner types (interrelation). We derive hypotheses from a combined competence and governance view of collaboration, and test these on an extensive panel dataset of innovation-active Dutch firms during 1996-2004. We find persistence in alliance engagement of all three types of partners, but customer alliances are more persistent than supplier alliances. Most persistent are joint supplier and customer alliances, which we attribute to the advantages of value chain integration in innovation processes. Positive interrelation also exists in vertical alliances, as immediate past customer alliances increase the propensity to engage in supplier alliances and vice versa. On the other hand, while prior engagement in horizontal (competitor) alliances increases the propensity to engage in vertical alliances, this effect only occurs with a longer lag. Overall, our findings are highly supportive of the idea that alliance engagement with different partner types is heterogeneous but interrelated. Our analysis suggests that the inter-temporal relationship between different types of alliances may be as important as their simultaneous relationship in alliance portfolios.R&D collaboration, technological partnerships, innovation, path dependency