Navigating the Black Box: Generativity and Incongruences in Digital Innovation

Digital technologies offer generative potential as they are malleable, dynamic and can be leveraged across a range of tasks. Prior studies have mainly focused on generativity as driver for recombinatorial innovation. However, not much attention has been paid to 1) how innovators develop cognitive frames in the face of seemingly unbound possibilities and 2) how heterogeneous actors resolve differences, or incongruences, in their cognitive frames.Extant research provides only partial answers on how innovators navigate those challenges. Therefore, this thesis aims to generate new insight on how innovators balance generativity and incongruences in digital innovation. It is based on two empirical papers that draw upon a two-year, longitudinal single-case study of a distributed, heterogeneous innovation network engaged in leveraging digital technologies in the context of marine environment.This thesis finds that embracing generativity increases the risk of clashes between incongruences amongst innovators. On the other hand, innovators leverage the generative potential of digital components to respond to incongruences by producing boundary objects or facilitating innovation trajectory shifts. Moreover, the appended papers illustrate how innovators may employ a non-linear innovation approach and loosely defined organizational structures to facilitate repeated shifts in their innovation trajectory. At the same time, this thesis finds that too many shifts create challenges in network coordination and maintaining a coherent strategic vision

The investigation of knowledge leadership in innovation performance of companies

Knowledge leadership is essential for organizations focused on intensive technology in order to improvement of innovation performance through the effective development and implementation of performance of knowledge management. Knowledge leadership as a driving force for knowledge management measures that are indirectly linked with innovation performance. In fact, the more leadership is broader, more developed knowledge management practices, which in turn affects the performance of innovation. According to to the increasing demand for knowledge and activities to integrate knowledge, innovation can promote exchange and interaction between people, thus leading to joint activities of knowledge management and innovation performance

The key role of knowledge-oriented leadership in innovation performance of manufacturing and commercial companies of Guilan province

The main objective of the study was to investigate the impact of knowledge oriented leadership on the innovation performance regarding to the role of knowledge management practices in manufacturing and commercial companies of Guilan province. The research is applied in terms of objective, and its methodology is descriptive. The population of study included manufacturing and commercial companies of Guilan province. To select a sample, convenience method was used. According to the Cochrane limited formula, total of 282 people were selected. Cronbach's alpha for reliability of the questionnaire was used. In this study, data were analyzed, by descriptive analysis, structural equation modeling and path analysis using SPSS 22 and Lisrel 8.50. Findings show that knowledge-oriented leadership has effect on creation of knowledge and application knowledge. Knowledge creation and application of knowledge has effect on the innovation performance. It was found that knowledge management practices has a mediating role in the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and innovation performance

Governance Mechanisms in Digital Platform Ecosystems: Addressing the Generativity-Control Tension

Digital platform owners repeatedly face paradoxical design decisions with regard to their platforms’ generativity and control, requiring them to facilitate co-innovation whilst simultaneously retaining control over third-party complementors. To address this challenge, platform owners deploy a variety of governance mechanisms. However, researchers and practitioners currently lack a coherent understanding of what major governance mechanisms platform owners rely on to simultaneously foster generativity and control. Conducting a structured literature review, we connect the fragmented academic discourse on governance mechanisms with each aspect of the generativity-control tension. Next to providing avenues for prospective digital platform research, we elaborate on the double-sidedness of governance mechanisms in fostering both generativity and control

Governance Mechanisms in Digital Platform Ecosystems: Addressing the Generativity-Control Tension

Digital platform owners repeatedly face paradoxical design decisions with regard to their platforms’ generativity and control, requiring them to facilitate co-innovation whilst simultaneously retaining control over third-party complementors. To address this challenge, platform owners deploy a variety of governance mechanisms. However, researchers and practitioners currently lack a coherent understanding of what major governance mechanisms platform owners rely on to simultaneously foster generativity and control. Conducting a structured literature review, we connect the fragmented academic discourse on governance mechanisms with each aspect of the generativity-control tension. Next to providing avenues for prospective digital platform research, we elaborate on the double-sidedness of governance mechanisms in fostering both generativity and control

EXAMINING GENERATIVITY DEVELOPMENT AMONG COLLEGE STUDENT LEADERS WHO MENTOR

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the influence, if any, of age cohort on generativity among college student leaders who mentor. While previous research has revealed that college student leaders who mentor tend to demonstrate higher levels of generativity than other college student leaders and general college students (Hastings, Griesen, Hoover, Creswell, & Dlugosh, 2015), research as to the development of generativity among college student leaders who mentor has not been determined. Additionally, a need exists for further research on the antecedents of generativity (McAdams, 2001, p. 434). The current study sought to fill these gaps in the literature by examining the influence of year in college and years spent mentoring, on generativity levels for University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) students who mentor with the Nebraska Human Resources Institute (NHRI). Data were collected via an online survey (N=91) using the Loyola Generativity Scale, Generativity Behavior Checklist, and the Personal Strivings measure to assess generativity. A multivariate analysis of covariance indicated that age cohort (year in college and years spent mentoring) did not have a significant influence on generativity after controlling for the influence of gender, G.P.A. range, and major. These results bring into question if and how mentoring acts as an antecedent to generativity development, leading to the potential that “interest in mentoring” be considered an antecedent to generativity rather than the “act of mentoring.” Furthermore, the finding of the current study presents insight on the influence of generativity on college students\u27 leadership identity development. Advisor: Lindsay J. Hasting

The Impact of Career Experiences on Generativity and Postretirement Choices for Intelligence Community Baby Boomers

This study focused on baby boomers and explored how a career with a mission-focus in the Intelligence Community influenced boomer generativity and subsequent choices after retirement. Baby boomers make-up the majority of the population that is retirement eligible today and have the benefit of a longer life expectancy commensurate with improvements in health care over the past century. Current retirement literature covers a range of options that redefine what retirement means today. This study employed a two-phase mixed method approach to investigate the characteristics and impacts of a mission-focused career, and to understand how such experiences impact postretirement opportunities and choices. During Phase 1 a survey was administered to 280 retired Intelligence Community members and included an established Social Generativity Scale (SGS) derived by Morselli and Passini (2015). Phase 1 results showed that most respondent’s personal work experience included a range of selfless or service related factors within their work environment, and also identified a high level of social generativity. A series of regression analyses identified the ability to make a difference and a shared sense of purpose as the most significant aspects of an Intelligence Community experience. Additionally participants’ postretirement activities were influenced by their Intelligence Community “mission-focused” work experiences. Their work in the Intelligence Community and sense of generativity positively influenced their choice of activities after retirement. In Phase 2 of the study, focus groups with a subset of survey respondents reflected on the results from Phase 1 as it pertained to their personal lives and choices. Stories documented that a strong sense of mission and service persisted in postretirement activities, both formal work roles as well as a strong sense of volunteerism. Despite study limitations, positive implications for future studies looking across different population segments provide an avenue to further explore these relationships between selfless work experiences as a component of postretirement directions. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

Essays on Business Value Creation in Digital Platform Ecosystems

Digital platforms and the surrounding ecosystems have garnered great interest from researchers and practitioners. Notwithstanding this attention, it remains unclear how and when digital platforms create business value for platform owners and complementors. This three-essay dissertation focuses on understanding business value creation in digital platform ecosystems. The first essay reviews and synthesizes literature across disciplines and offers an integrative framework of digital platform business value. Advised by the findings from the review, the second and third essays focus on the value creation for platform complementors. The second essay examines how IT startups entering a platform ecosystem at different times can strategically design their products (i.e., product diversification across platform architectural layers and product differentiation) to gain competitive advantages. Longitudinal evidence from the Hadoop ecosystem demonstrates that product diversification has an inverted U-shaped relationship with complementors success, and such an effect is more salient for earlier entrants than later entrants. Earlier entrants should develop products that are similar to other ecosystem competitors to reduce uncertainty whereas later entrants are advised to explore market niche and differentiate their products.The third essay investigates how platform complementors strategies and products co-evolve over time in the co-created ecosystem network environment. Our longitudinal analysis of the Hadoop ecosystem indicates that complementors technological architecture coverage and alliance exploration strategies increase their product evolution rate. In turn, complementors with faster product evolution are more likely to explore new partners but less likely to cover a wider range of the focal platforms technological layers in subsequent periods. Network density, co-created by all platform complementors, weakens the effects of complementors strategies on their product evolution but amplifies the effects of past product evolutions on strategies.This three-essay dissertation uncovers various understudied competitive strategies in the digital platform context and enriches our understanding of business value creation in digital platform ecosystems

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of “Sankofa” which signify the importance of preserving the wisdom of the past in an effort to empower current and future generations. This study contributes to closing the gap between race and leadership through a multidimensional lens, while amplifying lesser-known histories, increasing unexplored narrative exemplars, and providing greater empirical evidence from the point of view of African American leaders. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)