Competence barriers to innovation: the case of German SMEs

In a world with increased speed of business where companies are confronted with a dynamic environment, innovation plays a significant and decisive role for a company’s competitiveness. However, innovation is a difficult process that involves risks that new products, services and technologies fail in gaining commercial success. Tidd et al. (2005) state that the opportunity of enhancing competitiveness also requires the management to have a contrasting set of knowledge and skills in comparison to what is required for an everyday business administration. Yet, even the innovation leader Germany and its strong Mittelstand face competence barriers to innovation. To efficiently innovate, these barriers have to be identified and overcome. This paper acknowledges the importance of innovation as a survival and growth imperative and investigates competence barriers to innovation and the consequences these barriers might result in. The competence barriers are explored in a sample of 45 German SMEs. The data was gathered through structured online questionnaires and analysed on the basis of regressions. Findings of the research identify that the most significant barriers are associated with management barriers which hinders companies to be innovative. Thus, these firms experience constraints to expand the business and encounter missed opportunities on financial returns. The results derived through this study highlight shortages of qualified personnel and in particular those lacking skills in innovation management as major competence barrier to innovation

Expect the unexpected: investigating co-creation projects in a Living Lab

Living Labs (LLs) are complex multi-stakeholder environments that enable real-life testing and experimentation of products, services, and systems. Despite increasing attention by practitioners as well as policymakers, and growing scholarly interest in the field, the literature exploring congruency between organisational objectives and outcomes when utilising LLs is still scarce. To fill this gap, a qualitative case study is employed to gain an in-depth understanding of objectives and project outcomes of organisations utilising LLs. The LLJOSEPHS® was chosen as this study’s empirical context, in which 14 different projects were analysed. In-depth interviews revealed eight categories of measurable project outcomes: market acceptance, price acceptability, exposure, product testing, market intelligence, legitimisation, method testing, and networking. This study not only highlights what companies have achieved in comparison to their original project objectives, but also identifies additional unplanned outcomes that they accomplished. The findings offer important project-level insights into the potential and limitations of LLs. The results form a basis upon which to develop a better understanding of how innovation performance can be nurtured in LLs. Insights from the study may also help firms and facilitators by providing a deeper understanding of LLs at an individual project-level, and by articulating potential objectives and outcomes associated with organisations’ involvement in LLs

An ontology for defining and characterizing demonstration environments

Demonstration Environments (DEs) are essential tools for testing and demonstrating new technologies, products, and services, and reducing uncertainties and risks in the innovation process. However, the terminology used to describe these environments is inconsistent, leading to heterogeneity in defining and characterizing them. This makes it difficult to establish a universal understanding of DEs and to differentiate between the different types of DEs, including testbeds, pilot-plants, and living labs. Moreover, existing literature lacks a holistic view of DEs, with studies focusing on specific types of DEs and not offering an integrated perspective on their characteristics and applicability in different contexts. This study proposes an ontology for knowledge representation related to DEs to address this gap. Using an ontology learning approach analyzing 3621 peer-reviewed journal articles, we develop a standardized framework for defining and characterizing DEs, providing a holistic view of these environments. The resulting ontology allows innovation managers and practitioners to select appropriate DEs for achieving their innovation goals, based on the characteristics and capabilities of the specific type of DE. The contributions of this study are significant in advancing the understanding and application of DEs in innovation processes. The proposed ontology provides a standardized approach for defining and characterizing DEs, reducing inconsistencies in terminology and establishing a common understanding of these environments. This enables innovation managers and practitioners to select appropriate DEs for their specific innovation goals, facilitating more efficient and effective innovation processes. Overall, this study provides a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in the effective use of DEs in innovation

An ontology for defining and characterizing demonstration environments

Demonstration Environments (DEs) are essential tools for testing and demonstrating new technologies, products, and services, and reducing uncertainties and risks in the innovation process. However, the terminology used to describe these environments is inconsistent, leading to heterogeneity in defining and characterizing them. This makes it difficult to establish a universal understanding of DEs and to differentiate between the different types of DEs, including testbeds, pilot-plants, and living labs. Moreover, existing literature lacks a holistic view of DEs, with studies focusing on specific types of DEs and not offering an integrated perspective on their characteristics and applicability in different contexts. This study proposes an ontology for knowledge representation related to DEs to address this gap. Using an ontology learning approach analyzing 3621 peer-reviewed journal articles, we develop a standardized framework for defining and characterizing DEs, providing a holistic view of these environments. The resulting ontology allows innovation managers and practitioners to select appropriate DEs for achieving their innovation goals, based on the characteristics and capabilities of the specific type of DE. The contributions of this study are significant in advancing the understanding and application of DEs in innovation processes. The proposed ontology provides a standardized approach for defining and characterizing DEs, reducing inconsistencies in terminology and establishing a common understanding of these environments. This enables innovation managers and practitioners to select appropriate DEs for their specific innovation goals, facilitating more efficient and effective innovation processes. Overall, this study provides a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in the effective use of DEs in innovation

UNVEILING THE DIVERSITY OF SCHOLARLY DEBATE ON LIVING LABS: A BIBLIOMETRIC APPROACH

Living labs (LLs) are becoming an increasingly popular approach to engage in open innovation. Although applications and influence of LLs have grown rapidly over the last decade, the landscape of LL research remains largely unclear and underexplored. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop a consolidated understanding of this research field and to detect the potential areas of fragmentation and isolation. Through a systematic review of the scholarly literature on LLs, this study applies bibliometric methods on a dataset of 411 journal articles. The results of this study reveal the diverse and fragmented nature of the LL field, with contributions spanning across different disciplines and application domains. Despite such fragmentation, some clusters of scholars and publications are identified as well as influential contributions. Given the nascent state of the literature, the role of special issues in shaping the evolution of the LL debate is prominent. This study provides a map to practitioners to investigate and learn from the application of LLs in diverse fields. This aspect is particularly important in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, which stresses the key role of open and collaborative approaches to innovation, making the use of LLs increasingly relevant for governments, companies, public organisations and individuals. </jats:p

HE-LHC: The High-Energy Large Hadron Collider: Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 4

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100 km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100 TeV. Its unprecedented centre-of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries

FCC-hh: The Hadron Collider: Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 3

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100&nbsp;km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100&nbsp;TeV. Its unprecedented centre of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries

HE-LHC: The High-Energy Large Hadron Collider

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100 km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100 TeV. Its unprecedented centre-of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries