Informal and formal open activities:Innovation protection methods as antecedents and innovation outputs as consequences

Firms' open strategies are tied to their innovation protection mechanisms. Extant theoretical and empirical research provides valuable insights, which generally conclude that stronger intellectual property protection is likely to be associated with increased openness. However, current research still has a limited understanding of the relationship between the choice of protection mechanisms and the mode of openness. We propose that firms adopt different modes of open activities when they choose corresponding effective protection mechanisms. We further investigate how these open activities affect innovation output and whether the impact of open activities on innovation output is contingent on innovation types. The empirical results from 1,202 firms in the IRC Open Innovation Survey show that firms pursue formal open activities when they incorporate legal methods to protect innovation. In contrast, firms pursue informal open activities when they incorporate strategic methods to protect innovation. We further find that formal open activities favor incremental innovation, while informal open activities favor radical one

Environmental Demands and the Emergence of Social Structure: Technological Dynamism and Interorganizational Network Forms

This study investigates the origins of variation in the structures of interorganizational networks across industries. We combine empirical analyses of existing interorganizational networks with an agent-based simulation model of network emergence. Our insights are twofold. First, we find that differences in technological dynamism across industries and the concomitant demands for value creation engender variations in firms’ collaborative behaviors. On average, firms in technologically dynamic industries pursue more open ego networks, which fosters access to new and diverse resources that help sustain continuous innovation. In contrast, firms in technologically stable industries on average pursue more closed ego networks, which fosters reliable collaboration and helps preserve existing resources. Second, we show that because of the observed cross-industry differences in firms’ collaborative behaviors, the emergent industry-wide networks take on distinct structural forms. Technologically stable industries feature clan networks, characterized by low network connectedness and rather strong community structures. Technologically dynamic industries, in turn, feature community networks, characterized by high network connectedness and medium-to-strong community structures. Convention networks, which feature high network connectedness and weak community structures, were not evident among the empirical networks we examined. Taken together, our findings advance an environmental contingency theory of network formation.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112051/1/1282_Sytch.pd

The Value of Dynamic Capabilities for Strategic Management

This dissertation thesis develops and validates a multi-dimensional measurement model of dynamic capabilities and analyzes the effects of dynamic capabilities on operational capabilities and firm performance as well as the influence of environmental dynamism. Further, organizational determinants for dynamic capabilities are identified

An Integrated Dynamic Capability Model for Service Innovation Management

Der Dynamic Capability View ist einer der vielversprechendsten Ansätze, um Innovation und Wettbewerbsvorteile von Unternehmen zu untersuchen. Aus diesem Ansatz heraus hat sich eine Forschungsströmung mit Fokus auf Dynamic Capabilities für Dienstleistungsinnovation entwickelt. Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es, die existierende Wissensbasis zu erweitern und Dynamic Capabilities in einem Dienstleistungskontext empirisch zu untersuchen. Mittels drei vorbereitender Analysen erforschen wir das Dynamic Capabilities Konstrukt bezogen auf wissensintensive Dienstleistungen, zusammen mit den zugrunde liegenden Basisfähigkeiten und den resultierenden Erfolgsgrößen. Wir präsentieren ein Modell, das Dynamic Capabilities für Dienstleistungsinnovation und ihre wichtigsten Bezugsgrößen integriert. Die Dynamic Capabilities werden durch die Konstrukte Sensing, Seizing und Reconfiguring operationalisiert. Um ein umfassendes Bild der zugrunde liegenden Basisfähigkeiten zu gewinnen betrachten wir diese auf mehreren Ebenen – Mitarbeiter, Unternehmen und Netzwerk. Aus einer fragebogenbasierten Umfrage unter Führungskräften von Unternehmen, die wissensintensive Dienstleistungen anbieten, erhalten wir 148 Antworten. Diese Daten werden genutzt um das Strukturgleichungsmodell auszuwerten und die vorgeschlagenen Hypothesen zu testen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die einzelnen Basisfähigkeiten spezifische Effekte auf die Dynamic Capabilities haben. Das Konstrukt Wissensaustausch und Lernen stellt sich als zentral heraus, da es einen signifikanten Einfluss auf alle drei Dynamic Capabilities hat. Darüber hinaus finden wir sowohl direkte als auch indirekte Einflüsse der Dynamic Capabilities auf Erfolgsgrößen auf Unternehmensebene – insbesondere von Seiten der Seizing Capability. Die Ergebnisse tragen zum Fortschritt des Forschungsfeldes bei, indem wir die existierenden Konstrukte für die empirische Messung von Dynamic Capabilities und ihrer Beziehungen weiterentwickeln. Führungskräfte können die Ergebnisse nutzen um Investitionen in die Dynamic Capabilities ihrer Unternehmen und ihre Ansätze zur Leistungsmessung von Dienstleistungsinnovation zu überprüfen

Practical Implications of the Ambidexterity Concepts

Scientific publications treating the topic of ambidexterity have experienced a great increase in number since the last twenty years. However, the implications for managers to achieve ambidexterity in practice remain a largely neglected field of research. This thesis aims at bridging the rigor-relevance gap regarding the concept of ambidexterity by systematically reviewing findings from academic and practitioner literature in order to provide practical implications for managers to reconcile exploration and exploitation and to, thus, achieve ambidexterity in practice.Keywords: Ambidexterity, Practical implications, Exploitation, Rigor-relevance ga

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Companies’ Open Innovation Efforts for Firm Performance: A Comprehensive Network Perspective

This thesis is devoted to a phenomenon that is currently reshaping the global business architecture: Open innovation (OI) networks. Managers are interested to know how to construct and manage their networks such that they are beneficial for their OI efforts. The goal of the thesis is to determine how network characteristics influence the effectiveness of different types of OI activities and how firms can achieve a beneficial network position by engaging in OI efforts. This thesis is based on three empirical studies that draw on social network theory as an overreaching theoretical framework. Furthermore, this thesis aligns social network theory with the relational view and the literature on distant knowledge. To provide a comprehensive understanding of OI networks, the studies in this thesis also employ different methodological approaches: Crosssectional and longitudinal analysis based on multisource and multiindustry datasets. The key results show that in order to profit from OI firms need well-elaborated risk and network management practices that are applied to the main decisions that managers have to make regarding firms’ entire OI efforts. In specific, network characteristics can help firms to increase the potentials of the upsides of OI and at the same time they can reduce the risks of the downsides of OI. Moreover, certain types of OI activities are more or less suitable for achieving a beneficial position in an OI network and fostering firm performance. Altogether, this thesis provides important implications for managerial practice and closes relevant gaps in the scientific research regarding OI networks