Innovate the Innovation : An exploratory study about why digital innovation units are being closed and have to constantly reinvent themselves

Background: The advancement of digital technologies and hence the emergence of new opportunities but also changing customer needs force incumbent firms to increase their innovation capacities. Therefore, they must find ways to explore the opportunities of digital innovation, while simultaneously exploiting their core business and ensuring a secured revenue stream. This phenomenon, called organizational ambidexterity, can amongst others be achieved by implementing a digital innovation unit (DIU). DIUs, structurally separated units, especially within Germany, Switzerland and Austria are declared to be successful instruments to increase incumbent’s innovativeness but also to foster an innovation culture and advance the corporate digital transformation while the core organization can focus on core business activities. Research Problem: Despite the prevalent perception of DIUs being successful initiatives to find remedy for incumbents’ conflict of being innovative while simultaneously advancing the core business, in recent years more and more DIUs were closed. This development is particularly interesting as the amount of DIUs is still increasing while on the other hand especially business press claims the end of these units. However, regarding this paradox, academic literature is still rare and has until now primarily focused on the challenges of DIUs but not on their closure. Correspondingly, DIU closure poses a significant research gap. Research Purpose: The study primarily aims to clarify why DIUs are being closed and derive a general theory explaining this phenomenon. Above that, a secondary purpose is to advance knowledge regarding DIUs as a digital innovation instrument and what characterizes a DIU. Finally, we aim to examine whether a closure can be equated with a failure. Research Question: Why are Digital Innovation Units being closed? Research Method: Qualitative, inductive research; Ontology – Relativism; Epistemology – Social Constructionism; Methodology – Grounded Theory; Data Collection – 14 semi- structured in-depth Interviews; Sampling – Purposive, Snowball, Theoretical; Data Analysis – Grounded Analysis Conclusion: Resulting from the findings, a model was developed, that explains five major statements related to DIU closure. On the one hand, we ascertained distinct symptoms that anticipate a closure such as personnel measures and budget cuts. On the other hand, we identified factors that significantly influence the fate of a DIU such as corporate politics or cultural dissonances and identified remnants of closed DIUs. Finally, the immediate reasons why DIUs close can be related to strategic changes within the parent company and to how the DIU is evaluated

Economic and ecological trade-offs of agricultural specialization at different spatial scales

AbstractSpecialization in agricultural systems can lead to trade-offs between economic gains and ecosystem functions. We suggest and explore a conceptual framework in which economic gains can be maximized when production activities are specialized at increasingly broader scales (from the household to the village, region or above), particularly when markets for outputs and inputs function well. Conversely, more specialization likely reduces biodiversity and significantly limits ecosystem functions. When agricultural specialization increases and moves to broader scales as a result of improved infrastructure and markets or other drivers, ecosystem functions can also be endangered at broader spatial scales. Policies to improve agricultural incomes may influence the level of specialization at different scales and thus affect the severity of the trade-offs. This paper takes Jambi province in Indonesia, a current hotspot of rubber and oil palm monoculture, as a case study to illustrate these issues. We empirically show that the level of specialization differs across scales with higher specialization at household and village levels and higher diversification towards the province level. We discuss ways to resolve trade-offs between economic gains and ecological costs, including landscape design, targeted policies, and adoption of long-term perspectives

Developmental Control And Plasticity Of Fruit And Seed Dimorphism In Aethionema Arabicum

Understanding how plants cope with changing habitats is a timely and important topic in plant research. Phenotypic plasticity describes the capability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions. In contrast, the constant production of a set of distinct phenotypes by one genotype mediates bet hedging, a strategy that reduces the temporal variance in fitness at the expense of a lowered arithmetic mean fitness. Both phenomena are thought to represent important adaptation strategies to unstable environments. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of these phenomena, partly due to the lack of suitable model systems. We used phylogenetic and comparative analyses of fruit and seed anatomy, biomechanics, physiology, and environmental responses to study fruit and seed heteromorphism, a typical morphological basis of a bet-hedging strategy of plants, in the annual Brassicaceae species Aethionema arabicum. Our results indicate that heteromorphism evolved twice within the Aethionemeae, including once for themonophyletic annual Aethionema clade. The dimorphism of Ae. arabicum is associated with several anatomic, biomechanical, gene expression, and physiological differences between the fruit and seed morphs. However, fruit ratios and numbers change in response to different environmental conditions. Therefore, the life-history strategy of Ae. arabicum appears to be a blend of bet hedging and plasticity. Together with the available genomic resources, our results pave the way to use this species in future studies intended to unravel the molecular control of heteromorphism and plasticity.WoSScopu

Developmental Control and Plasticity of Fruit and Seed Dimorphism in Aethionema arabicum

Understanding how plants cope with changing habitats is a timely and important topic in plant research. Phenotypic plasticity describes the capability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions. In contrast, the constant production of a set of distinct phenotypes by one genotype mediates bet hedging, a strategy that reduces the temporal variance in fitness at the expense of a lowered arithmetic mean fitness. Both phenomena are thought to represent important adaptation strategies to unstable environments. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of these phenomena, partly due to the lack of suitable model systems. We used phylogenetic and comparative analyses of fruit and seed anatomy, biomechanics, physiology, and environmental responses to study fruit and seed heteromorphism, a typical morphological basis of a bet-hedging strategy of plants, in the annual Brassicaceae species Aethionema arabicum. Our results indicate that heteromorphism evolved twice within the Aethionemeae, including once for themonophyletic annual Aethionema clade. The dimorphism of Ae. arabicum is associated with several anatomic, biomechanical, gene expression, and physiological differences between the fruit and seed morphs. However, fruit ratios and numbers change in response to different environmental conditions. Therefore, the life-history strategy of Ae. arabicum appears to be a blend of bet hedging and plasticity. Together with the available genomic resources, our results pave the way to use this species in future studies intended to unravel the molecular control of heteromorphism and plasticity