Understanding the dynamics of strategic risks and\ud resources in innovative ventures

This paper presents a model of the evolution of activities, risks, and required resources for innovative ventures. A key implication of the model is the importance of surprising events in the life of ventures. Such events happen in most innovative ventures and appear to be a major source of preventable failures. Reacting to these events requires significant inflows of new resources into the venture. However, inflows are usually prevented by the disconcerting effect of surprising events on venture participants and by the centrifugal reactions they trigger among participants. The model is used to provide recommendations for developing business plans elements that can diminish the impact of unexpected events on innovative ventures and can reduce the number of preventable failures

Where do games of innovation come from? Explaining the persistence of dynamic innovation patterns

This paper contributes to explaining how and why distinct games of innovation emerge by\ud suggesting that games are nested in innovation systems with persistent innovation dynamics.\ud Dominant lifecycle models focus on how innovation systems transit from an effervescent\ud stage, to product innovation, to process innovation, and so on. They propose specific\ud mechanisms and limiting conditions that affect knowledge production and investment to\ud explain these systematic transitions. Building on these models, we rethink the conditions\ud and mechanisms of innovation to suggest that endogenous renewal cycles can re-create the\ud knowledge and funding necessary to maintain innovation systems for long periods in one\ud stage. We take steps towards developing a theoretical model of innovation dynamics that\ud extends the applicability of lifecycle theories and unifies them with emerging views such as\ud high-velocity innovation and hyper-competition. We also describe three possible types of\ud endogenous renewal cycles, each sustaining a different level of knowledge dynamism and\ud enabling different types of games of innovation

Project management between will and representation

This article challenges some deep-rooted assumptions of project management. Inspired by the work of the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, it calls for looking at projects through two complementary lenses: one that accounts for cognitive and representational aspects and one that accounts for material and volitional aspects. Understanding the many ways in which these aspects transpire and interact in projects sheds new light on project organizations, as imperfect and fragile representations that chase a shifting nexus of intractable human, social, technical, and material processes. This, in turn, can bring about a new grasp of notions such as value,\ud knowledge, complexity, and risk

Evaluating risk in the innovation projects of small firms

International audienceA model developed for a risk assessment instrument to be used by entrepreneurs, their advisors and financial backers is presented. By modelling the entire lifecycle of an innovation project, and a variety of intrinsic and managerial risks of the project, we created an 'expert system' that serves both to evaluate and mitigate risk. Many innovations are proposed and carried out by individual entrepreneurs and small firms. Many regions, including Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa owe them their economic rebirth. The success of entrepreneurial firms spurred an entire body of literature dealing with the inability of large firms to innovate (see Dougherty and Heller 1994; Christensen 1997; Leifer et al. 2001). Yet, entrepreneurs complain about the lack of adequate financing for innovation. On the one hand, banks rely heavily on personal guarantees, require physical assets as collateral, and have difficulty valuing intangible assets such as ideas, knowledge, competencies and even patents (Julien, St-Pierre & Beaudoin 1996). On the other hand, venture capitalists are accused of herding behavior, leading to waves of over-financing in certain areas leaving other areas hungry for funds (Robbins-Roth 2001), and of making trust in the entrepreneur and the management team the main criterion for the financing decision (Knight, 1994; Zopounidis 1994). Most complaints center on the inability of financial institutions to assess the likelihood that an innovation project will be a successful. Banks and traditional financial institutions, used to deal with more mature or larger businesses, place entrepreneurial innovation projects outside the risk range with which they are comfortable (Levratto, 1994) and rely on collateral to prevent adverse selection by the entrepreneurs who seek funding. Venture capitalists and capital providers with higher risk tolerances have more technical competencies required to evaluate the innovation and reduce the information asymmetry. However, many dysfunctions have been revealed about the way they assess projects (Julien et al. 1996), including the paradoxical tendencies to make poorer predictions when they had more information (Zacharakis and Meyer 2000) and to give insufficient weigh to technical issues as a source of project failure (Fries and Guild 2002). Hence, a reliable tool for assessing the prospects of entrepreneurial innovation projects would be of significant value, particularly in the context of the Knowledge Economy. A team of researchers was commissioned by Canada Economic Development to produce a computerized tool for the assessment of risk in such projects. This paper details the model of risk that underlies the web-based tool, the measurement approach and the structure of the tool. The paper begins with a theoretical background on the evaluation of risk in entrepreneurial innovation projects. Then, we outline the methods used to develop and test the questionnaire. The following section introduces the model of risk and discusses how it was implemented in the tool. Next, we discuss the sections and subsections of the questionnaire. A conclusion section closes our argument

WHERE DO GAMES OF INNOVATION COME FROM? EXPLAINING THE PERSISTENCE OF DYNAMIC INNOVATION PATTERNS

This paper contributes to explaining how and why distinct games of innovation emerge by suggesting that games are nested in innovation systems with persistent innovation dynamics. Dominant lifecycle models focus on how innovation systems transit from an effervescent stage, to product innovation, to process innovation, and so on. They propose specific mechanisms and limiting conditions that affect knowledge production and investment to explain these systematic transitions. Building on these models, we rethink the conditions and mechanisms of innovation to suggest that endogenous renewal cycles can re-create the knowledge and funding necessary to maintain innovation systems for long periods in one stage. We take steps towards developing a theoretical model of innovation dynamics that extends the applicability of lifecycle theories and unifies them with emerging views such as high-velocity innovation and hyper-competition. We also describe three possible types of endogenous renewal cycles, each sustaining a different level of knowledge dynamism and enabling different types of games of innovation.Innovation dynamics, innovation systems, knowledge production, innovation funding

Evaluating risk in the innovation projects of small firms

International audienceA model developed for a risk assessment instrument to be used by entrepreneurs, their advisors and financial backers is presented. By modelling the entire lifecycle of an innovation project, and a variety of intrinsic and managerial risks of the project, we created an 'expert system' that serves both to evaluate and mitigate risk. Many innovations are proposed and carried out by individual entrepreneurs and small firms. Many regions, including Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa owe them their economic rebirth. The success of entrepreneurial firms spurred an entire body of literature dealing with the inability of large firms to innovate (see Dougherty and Heller 1994; Christensen 1997; Leifer et al. 2001). Yet, entrepreneurs complain about the lack of adequate financing for innovation. On the one hand, banks rely heavily on personal guarantees, require physical assets as collateral, and have difficulty valuing intangible assets such as ideas, knowledge, competencies and even patents (Julien, St-Pierre & Beaudoin 1996). On the other hand, venture capitalists are accused of herding behavior, leading to waves of over-financing in certain areas leaving other areas hungry for funds (Robbins-Roth 2001), and of making trust in the entrepreneur and the management team the main criterion for the financing decision (Knight, 1994; Zopounidis 1994). Most complaints center on the inability of financial institutions to assess the likelihood that an innovation project will be a successful. Banks and traditional financial institutions, used to deal with more mature or larger businesses, place entrepreneurial innovation projects outside the risk range with which they are comfortable (Levratto, 1994) and rely on collateral to prevent adverse selection by the entrepreneurs who seek funding. Venture capitalists and capital providers with higher risk tolerances have more technical competencies required to evaluate the innovation and reduce the information asymmetry. However, many dysfunctions have been revealed about the way they assess projects (Julien et al. 1996), including the paradoxical tendencies to make poorer predictions when they had more information (Zacharakis and Meyer 2000) and to give insufficient weigh to technical issues as a source of project failure (Fries and Guild 2002). Hence, a reliable tool for assessing the prospects of entrepreneurial innovation projects would be of significant value, particularly in the context of the Knowledge Economy. A team of researchers was commissioned by Canada Economic Development to produce a computerized tool for the assessment of risk in such projects. This paper details the model of risk that underlies the web-based tool, the measurement approach and the structure of the tool. The paper begins with a theoretical background on the evaluation of risk in entrepreneurial innovation projects. Then, we outline the methods used to develop and test the questionnaire. The following section introduces the model of risk and discusses how it was implemented in the tool. Next, we discuss the sections and subsections of the questionnaire. A conclusion section closes our argument

Understanding Multiple Crises Unfolding Within Megaprojects: Crises’ Interdependencies, Responses, and Outcomes

This paper adopts a processual perspective to understand how multiple crises evolve and interact in projects. After reviewing the literature on crises in projects and finding that it typically considers crises in isolation, we endeavored to study the case of an infrastructural megaproject that involved the construction of a high-speed railway in Italy to understand how crises interact and how this conditions the effectiveness of crisis management approaches. Through an exploratory qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews and secondary data, our work sheds new light on the link between crisis interdependencies, crisis management responses, and outcomes. In particular, our work unveils the temporal unfolding and interaction between multiple, diverse crises, which can be independent of each other or be linked by sequential or pooled interdependencies. Our findings underscore that crisis management responses that target crisis-specific effects can be successful in the face of independent or sequentially interdependent crises but can lead, at best, to midground outcomes when dealing with combined effects that result from crises that display pooled interdependence. Our results contribute to the literature at the crossroad between project and crisis management and represent a first step towards developing a theory that matches the complexity of crisis phenomena in megaprojects