Business model innovation through industry 4.0: a review

The following article presents a brief literature review conducted to extend our knowledge about how Industry 4.0 affects business models and to identify business model innovations derived in consequence. Based on the eesults, a set of features, issues and requirements have been identified and three different approaches has been suggested to make firms getting closer to the industry 4.0 phenomenon such as service orientation, networked ecosystems and customer orientation. Furthermore, the impacts on the creation, delivery, and capture of value through the reconfiguration of Business Models due to embracing the Industry 4.0 are depicted. As a result, four different ways to innovate the business models based on different degrees of innovation are proposed to embrace the digitalization. Those paths goes from optimizing internal and external processes or improving customer relationship to creating new value networks or smart products and services through disruptive business model

Sex determination in Bonellia viridis (Echiura : Bonelliidae) : population dynamics and evolution

In the echiuran worm Bonellia viridis Rolando, the vast majority of sexually undifferentiated larvae metamorphose into dwarf males that live inside the female when exposed to females, but differentiate into females when developing in the absence of females. By means of a spatially explicit, individual-based model the authors examine how this specific form of environmental sex determination (ESD) affects dynamics of Bonellia populations and investigate the selective advantage of ESD over the more widespread genotypic sex determination (GSD). Population dynamics of Bonellia appear rather simple and not too sensitive to parameter changes around their measured values, or to changes in distribution and sizes of inhabitable patches. Starting even from low sizes, populations soon attain equilibrium densities. Explored aspects of population dynamics indicate an advantage of ESD over GSD. Moreover, simulated invasibility experiments show that while the maternal inheritance scenario allows for fixation of GSD under some limited conditions, both the classical and proportional inheritance scenarios always lead to fixation of ESD in the population. This article also shows that only the ability of ESD larvae to adapt their ultimate sex both in competition for empty burrows and for mating within females gives them a competitive edge over nonadaptive response to feminising and/or masculinising signals and generally leads to fixation of ESD by small step evolution. The original hypothesis of Charnov and Bull thus needs to be refined in the sense that along with females forming an unpredictable resource for males, empty burrows are an unpredictable resource for femalespeer-reviewe

A bibliometric study of the literature on technological innovation: an analysis of 60 international academic journals

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on technological innovation, organization and work. Although technological innovation remained a debated topic in the academic literature during the past years, its implications for organizational processes seem still not sufficiently theorized and empirically investigated. By using two complementary journals’ rankings a search in the ISI Web of Science platform from 1985 through 2013 was performed. To analyze the 998 scientific retrieved contributions a bibliometric analysis has been conducted, adopting also Social Network Analysis tools. Our results reveal a significant growth of the technological innovation literature over the investigated period, the multidisciplinarity of the field and, particularly, the relevance of management and business & economics contributions. Overall, this study offers a broad overview of the literature on technological innovation and emphasizes the opportunity to investigate the role of technological innovation within the organizational life.This paper aims to contribute to the debate on technological innovation, organization and work. Although technological innovation remained a debated topic in the academic literature during the past years, its implications for organizational processes seem still not sufficiently theorized and empirically investigated. By using two complementary journals’ rankings a search in the ISI Web of Science platform from 1985 through 2013 was performed. To analyze the 998 scientific retrieved contributions a bibliometric analysis has been conducted, adopting also Social Network Analysis tools. Our results reveal a significant growth of the technological innovation literature over the investigated period, the multidisciplinarity of the field and, particularly, the relevance of management and business & economics contributions. Overall, this study offers a broad overview of the literature on technological innovation and emphasizes the opportunity to investigate the role of technological innovation within the organizational life.Monograph's chapter

Transferring research from a university to the United Kingdom National Health Service : The implications for impact

This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.The aim of this article is to inform readers of the author's reflections on the experience of transferring universitybased research into the commercial sector, and of the processes and strategies employed when preparing for impact in so doing. Concepts for the transfer are illustrated by the author's reflection on aspects that arose during the birthing and subsequent start-up of a university spin-off, Pathways2Wellbeing, a form of reflection-on-action. This is the vehicle for the adaption required to transfer research into the delivery of a specialised clinic in the United Kingdom National Health Service for people with medically unexplained, persistent, bodily symptoms such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and chronic pain. It is hoped that the article will provide readers with an insight into how knowledge transfer can take place through engagement with stakeholders to create an exchange of knowledges to result in impact on health service policy for service users, despite the challenges, and the enablers that facilitated this process. The reflections on the process of knowledge transfer and the implications for impact are underpinned by relevant theory.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Strategic innovation through outsourcing:the role of relational and contractual governance

There is growing evidence that client firms expect outsourcing suppliers to transform their business. Indeed, most outsourcing suppliers have delivered IT operational and business process innovation to client firms; however, achieving strategic innovation through outsourcing has been perceived to be far more challenging. Building on the growing interest in the IS outsourcing literature, this paper seeks to advance our understanding of the role that relational and contractual governance plays in achieving strategic innovation through outsourcing. We hypothesized and tested empirically the relationship between the quality of client-supplier relationships and the likelihood of achieving strategic innovation, and the interaction effect of different contract types, such as fixed-price, time and materials, partnership and their combinations. Results from a pan-European survey of 248 large firms suggest that high-quality relationships between clients and suppliers may indeed help achieve strategic innovation through outsourcing. However, within the spectrum of various outsourcing contracts, only the partnership contract, when included in the client contract portfolio alongside either fixed-price, time and materials or their combination, presents a significant positive effect on relational governance and is likely to strengthen the positive effect of the quality of client-supplier relationships on strategic innovation

Technological collaboration : bridging the innovation gap between small and large firms

This paper analyzes how technological collaboration acts as an input to the innovation process and allows small and medium-sized entetprises to bridge the innovation gap with their bigger counterparts. Based on a large longitudinal sample of Spanish manufacturing firms, the results show that though technological collaboration is a useful mechanism for firms of all sizes to improve innovativeness, it is a critical factor for the smallest firms. The impact on this collaboration varies depending on innovation output and type of partner. Specifically, the impact of collaboration in small and medium-sized firms is more significant for product than process innovations. Regarding type of partner, vertical collaboration-with suppliers and clients-has the greatest impact on firm innovativeness, though (his effect is clearer lor medium-sized entetprises than for the smallest firmsThis study has been finaneially supported by projeets SEC]2007-67582-C02-02/ECON and CCG08-UC3M/HUM-4152Publicad

Innovation and growth in the UK pharmaceuticals: the case of product and marketing introductions

New drug introductions are key to growth for pharmaceutical firms. However, not all innovations are the same and they may have differential effects that vary by firm size. We use quarterly sales data on UK pharmaceuticals in a dynamic panel model to estimate the impact of product (new drugs) and marketing (additional pack varieties) innovations within a therapeutic class on a firm’s business unit growth. We find that product innovations lead to substantial growth in both the short and long run, whereas a new pack variety only produces short-term effects. The strategies are substitutes but the marginal effects are larger for product innovations relative to additional packs, and the effects are larger for smaller business units. Nonetheless, pack introductions offer a viable short-term growth strategy, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses

Product and process innovation in manufacturing firms: a 30-year bibliometric analysis

Built upon a thirty-year dataset collected from the Web of Science database, the present research aims to offer a comprehensive overview of papers, authors, streams of research, and the most influential journals that discuss product and process innovation in the manufacturing environment. The dataset is composed of 418 papers from more than 150 journals from the period between 1985 and 2015. Homogeneity analysis by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS) and Social Network Analysis (SNA) are used to accomplish the objectives listed above through the keywords given by authors. Initially, the paper highlights and discusses the similarity between the topics debated by the main journals in this field. Subsequently, a wide-range map of topics is presented highlighting five main areas of interests; namely, performance, patent, small firm, product development, and organization. A SNA is also performed in order to validate the results that emerged from HOMALS. Finally, several insights about future research avenues in the manufacturing field are provided

Intra-cluster knowledge exchange and frequency of product innovation in a digital cluster.

We investigate how intra-cluster knowledge exchange affects the frequency of product innovation. Based on self-administered survey data of digital SMEs from Bournemouth and Poole regions of England, this study shows that digital firms that sustain both temporary and prolonged relationships with outbound employees have a higher probability of introducing frequent product innovation. Moreover, while cognitive proximity and the use of external knowledge providers increase the probability of frequent product innovation, geographical proximity reduces it. Our findings suggest that managers of young digital firms with limited resources in peripheral regions should ‘act near’ before reaching out