Opportunity Creation in Innovation Networks: Interactive Revealing Practices

Innovating in networks with partners that have diverse knowledge is challenging. The challenges stem from the fact that the commonly used knowledge protection mechanisms often are neither available nor suitable in early stage exploratory collaborations. This article focuses on how company participants in heterogeneous industry networks share private knowledge while protecting firm-specific appropriation. We go beyond the prevailing strategic choice perspectives to discuss interactive revealing practices that sustain joint opportunity creation in the fragile phase of early network formation.Center for Business, Technology and La

The uses of grand challenges in research policy and university management : something for everyone

The notion of grand challenges has become popular in research governance to support the allocation of research funding to societally beneficial topics. This article illustrates the flexibility and usefulness of grand challenges for university rectorates and project leaders when communicating with policy makers, research hinders, and local industries and companies. The Flexibility is beneficial to researchers and rectorate during the design stage of research projects. However, their utility diminishes in the later stages as other targets take precedence, particularly the need to demonstrate academic excellence. First, I explore the definitions of grand challenges in United States and European Union. Second, I provide a case study demonstrating the use of grand challenges in one technical research university. Last, I propose that if the aim in research policy is to orient research more towards societal benefit, more specific processual or outcome-oriented targets should be introduced to supplement grand challenges.Peer reviewe

Effects of site preparation and reindeer grazing on the early-stage success of Scots pine regeneration from seeds in northern Finland and Sweden

The importance of sufficient soil scarification to ensure the regeneration of Scots pine on sub-dry and more fertile sites has been emphasized in many studies. Here we aimed to study, how site preparation intensity affects the early success of natural regeneration and sowing (bare seeds and seed pellets) of Scots pine with or without the reindeer grazing. The study area was located in northern Finland and Sweden where five site preparation methods were compared: unprepared control, logging machine tracks, Huminmix (mixing the mineral soil and organic layer), disc trenching and intensive disc trenching. In each of these we used direct seeding, seed pellets and natural regeneration. Results revealed that even the lightest site preparation methods can provide sufficient regeneration results while the reindeer grazing limits the optimal regeneration result. Huminmix and even the track of the logging machine could provide satisfactory regeneration results both in direct seeding and natural regeneration. This could facilitate the coexistence of forest management, reindeer herding and other land use forms in the same stands and area. The use of seed pellets needs further research, but it may have potential due to lower consumption of seeds and less need for site preparation

International development cooperation and innovation promotion: a discussion paper for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Finland

In commissioning this study on innovation and development cooperation, the Department of International Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland has made an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of the role, nature and opportunities that innovation could have in enhancing the current practice and instruments of international development cooperation

Managing Global Competition: Japanese Companies in Transition

Much has been wntten about the discontnuities takmg place in the post industnal society (Galbrath (1967), Marcuse (1968). Bell (1973), Toffler (1980), Huber (1984), Reich (199l), Lewm and Stephens (1993), and Ilinitch, Lewin, and D'Aveni, (1998)) which are forcing multinational companies and heretofore pnmarily domestic companies in every country and in almost every business sector to re-examine their management philosophies, strategies and organization designs In contrast to searching for a single theory of internationalization or for "the" theory of organizing for global compehhon, this paper focuses on the sources of vanation as a way of understanding the firm specific paths of companies' internahonalizahon and their organlzabon forms The paper extends the concept of equifinality (Katz and Kahn (1978), Doty, Glick, and Huber (1993). and Gresov and Drazin (1997)) for compehng in global environment and as a basis for understandmg why and how companies evolve unlque configurations of strategies and organizahon forms. The paper applies this framework to a discussion of Japanese companies

Boundaries and Innovation

boundaries and constraints as enablers, rather than forestallers of innovation

Patterns of strategy innovation

The authors examine nearly 200 corporate strategies which promised innovation at the level of the business model, and which were successful. They distill ten essential 'innovation themes' which provide basic elements for a fresh perspective on strategy. In particular, the themes can be used in two ways to devise a business strategy. Corporate examples are given of each innovation theme.Strategy innovation Management theories Strategy paradigms Innovation themes

Less is More: Financial aid discourages innovative solutions to poverty

argues that financial aid discourages aid recipients' drive to innovat

Constraints and innovation: introduction to the special issue

types of innovation-enabling constraints are discussed, the articles are introduce