Innovators intent: role of IT in facilitating innovative knowledge practices in social enterprises

With this paper we want to explore further the innovators intent, where social enterprises use imaginative ways to take advantage of information technology to create, share and manage the knowledge pool of their small enterprise. We draw on several perspectives on how information processing needs are addressed, as well as the manner in which IT enables and facilitates sense-making. Studies exploring the role of IT in organisations abound, however our focus is not large organisations but small social enterprises (SEs) and how they use IT to further their business objectives. Hence there is still a lack of understanding on how IT can support the management of knowledge within the context of SEs dealing with different contextual settings influenced by: constant tensions between social and economic objectives, more focus on sustainability than competiveness, limited resources, and high levels of democratic participation. All these conditions manifest themselves in SEs, aiming to tackle social problems, improve communities, people’s quality of life, and environment. To obtain a conceptual and empirical understanding of how IT can facilitate acquisition, conversion and application of knowledge in SEs, we conducted a qualitative study with 21 interviews to owners, senior members and founders of SEs in the UK, underpinned by findings from a quantitative survey with 432 responses. We found how IT was supporting informal practices of knowledge management in SEs, more the recovery and storage of necessary information in SEs, and less the collaborative work and communication among enterprise members. However, it was established that SEs were using different technologies, such as, cloud solutions and web 2.0 tools to manage informally their knowledge. The possible impediments for SEs to support themselves more on IT solutions can be linked mainly to economic and human constraints. These findings elucidate new perspectives of how small and hybrid organisations are supporting their operations using IT and the crucial role of cloud and web 2.0 tools in facilitating informal knowledge management practices

A Case Study of Indian Firms

In this paper I ask the basic question highlighted in the title, how does innovative potential and collaborative capacity contribute to a firm’s innovativeness? To address this central question I draw on innovative potential and collaborative capacity as a dynamic notion evaluates the data from India. This paper tries to create a framework creating a sustainable environment for ICT Innovation. To do that I argue that innovative potential and collaborative capacity provide a constellation of inputs to the firm to address both internal and external challenges. For instance while innovative potential works at a project or an individual level while collaborative capacity is seen to work at a firm or perhaps at the inter firm level. This does not mean IP acts only at the locus stated. I conjecture that IP/CC interact with each other at defferent levels, where each takes turn in driving the process of ICT Innovation

Insights from India

In this paper my endeavor is to explore the meaning and implication of collaberation within a dynamic frame which I refer to a capacity. First I review the collaboration literature from an innovation perspective and then develop a framework that enables me to engage with the data we collected during the Euro-India Innovation Mapping project funded by the European Union under the FP-7 program. The idea is to refine theory and contribute to a better understanding of collaborative as a capacity firms can build creating the environment of collaboration both within and outside. I conclude this paper discussing the new insight on collaborative capacity (CC) of firms and their implications for ICT collaboration and firm innovativness

The Indian Innovative Journey, Reflections and Challenges

In this paper I present a framework of innovation and then use the framework on interview data collected to reflect and gain insight on the status of ICT Innovation using India as a case. The central question I pose in this paper is how ICT Innovativeness can be articulated. In this paper I argue that innovativeness is a dynamic concept distinct from notions of R&D, although elements of innovativeness determine the outcome of successful R&D but a successful R&D does not necessarily imply that the is innovative. We make distinction between R&D and innovation, using the distinction we demonstrate how the dynamic nature of innovation needs to be understood distinctly different from R&D, I propose that R&D is a institutional arrangement while innovativness is a contextual phenomena being determined by factors both inside and outside the business entity. I conclude this paper with a framework for understanding the dynamic nature of ICT Innovativeness, I use data from India to reflect on the research question

The Evolution of the Indian IT Industry

In this article I discuss the Indian outsourcing phenomena and ask the question now what? Using data from the Euro-India project I demonstrate that a small but significant part of the Indian IT entities are moving beyond outsourcing, to co-creation where Innovation and the desire to create new markets is the key driver. This does not imply that outsourcing will disappear but it does mean that firms will engage in globalization using innovative mix of business models and technical platforms. We discuss the implication of this slow transformation to co-creation of innovation for the global outsourcing industry. The key thesis of this paper is to discuss co-creation as a form of innovation and how such a form of innovation is likely to bring Indian companies rich dividends

Insights from the ICT industry in India

In this paper I discuss innovative potential at a firm level using information system literature and broadening my review to R&D literature as well. This review enables me to develop a theoretical frame of what researchers have indicated to be innovative potential or capacity at the firm level. While the information system literature does refer to a firms innovative potential as a dynamic phenomena, thus the inception of this phenomena is rooted through the R&D literature, which is helpful but in itself has a weakness. In relying on the R&D perspective to explain innovative potential of a firm information system researchers have stuck to the static notion of innovation while talking about innovative potential (IP) as a dynamic process. This paper redresses that imbalance as it tries to formulate a theory of IP that in my opinion better explains IT innovation at the firm level from a dynamic perspective in its conception, operation and instantiation. I conclude this paper with insights on what I call the dynamic IP threshold arguing that being dynamic cannot be seen as a point in time but a threshold existing over time. I then discuss some implications. I suggest that firms need to consider IP as a long term investment not only in human capital but in the way the human capital is allowed to engage with new ideas. I suggest IP can be build using institutional logics that enable openness and collegiality

Experiences from India

This paper is an outcome of my experience as a team member of the Euro-India Innovation mapping project. The project set out to map India’s IT Innovativeness over two years from January 2008-to December 2009. Here I bring to the fore the different methodologies that we reviewed in order to implement the innovation mapping project and our realization that each methodology in itself though useful may not be sufficient to address the complexity of the subject matter due to the vastness of India and its emerging nature. I outline some of the challenges faced by us when designing a methodology for mapping innovation in a large emerging economy. I discuss some solutions and report on how we solved the problem only to be faced with newer challenges. A methodological design is a challenging endeavor in the normal of time, when it comes to doing the same in a large emerging economy the problems becomes compounded. I highlight some of these problems and discuss some solutions in this paper. I conclude this paper with some insights proposing a mix methodology approach has been useful in addressing the challenges of data collection in emerging economies using our Indian experience as a backdrop to our findings

Product Innovations In Emerging Economies: The Moderating Role Of Collaborative Capacity

Studies on enterprise innovations have established the relationships between a number of determinants and enterprise innovativeness. However, such studies in general have been conducted in developed economies. Recent literature has called for broadening innovation-related research to other contexts, such as countries that are not considered “developed.” This study aims at examining how firms innovate in emerging economies. Specifically, we focus on the role of collaborative capacity in product innovations. Primary data collected from an ICT project in India has been used to test the relevant hypotheses. Initial findings show that firm size, sales value, and external R&D will affect enterprise innovations in the presence of collaborative capacity

ICT Innovation in Contemporary India: Three Emerging Narratives

The paper we present here discusses ICT innovation in India using a narrative framework. We argue that ICT innovation has not really been a subject matter sufficiently researched in information systems from the perspective of innovation in developing countries. We use a grounded theory inspired approach and we discovered three narratives of innovation in India; a) the supply narrative, b) the technology narrative and c) the collaborative narrative. We detect the evolution of these narratives and aim to continue further work to understand the factors involved in the emergence and shift of these narratives on a more granular level