Categorizing the Growth Strategies of Small Firms

This study investigates the link between a small firm’s investment in R&D and its growth strategy. A firm’s growth strategy refers to the means by which the organization plans to achieve its objective to grow in volume and turnover. We categorize firm growth strategies into eight distinctive clusters: opportunity explorers, radical innovators, business developers, business expanders, profit makers, business rebuilders, stagnators, and downsizers. We argue that understanding a firm’s growth orientation provides a way to assess the returns of its R&D investments, because an organization’s intangible growth strategies and tangible inputs are connected

Linking living lab characteristics and their outcomes : towards a conceptual framework

Despite almost a decade of living lab activity all over Europe, there still is a lack of empirical research into the practical implementation and the related outcomes of living labs. Therefore, this article proposes a framework to create a better understanding of the characteristics and outcomes of living labs. We investigate three living labs in Belgium and one in Finland to learn how the different building blocks of living lab environments contribute to the outputs of innovation projects launched within the lab. The findings imply that managers and researchers contemplating innovation in living labs need to consider the intended inputs and outcomes, and reframe their innovation activities accordingly. We formulate practical guidelines on how living labs should be managed on the levels of community interaction, stakeholder engagement, and methodological setup to succeed in implementing living lab projects and to create user-centred innovations. That way, living lab practitioners can work towards a more sustainable way of setting up living labs that can run innovation projects over a longer period of time. - See more at: http://timreview.ca/article/748#sthash.3xkJGgX9.dpu

Editorial : living labs and user innovation (December 2015)

Welcome to the January 2016 issue of the Technology Innovation Management Review – the second of two issues on the theme of Living Labs and User Innovation. It is my pleasure welcome back our guest editors for December and January: Seppo Leminen (Laurea University of Applied Sciences and Aalto University, Finland), Dimitri Schuurman (iMinds and Ghent University, Belgium), Mika Westerlund (Carleton University, Canada), and Eelko Huizingh (University of Groningen, Netherlands)

Designing Business Models for the Internet of Things

This article investigates challenges pertaining to business model design in the emerging context of the Internet of Things (IOT). The evolution of business perspectives to the IOT is driven by two underlying trends: i) the change of focus from viewing the IOT primarily as a technology platform to viewing it as a business ecosystem; and ii) the shift from focusing on the business model of a firm to designing ecosystem business models. An ecosystem busi- ness model is a business model composed of value pillars anchored in ecosystems and fo- cuses on both the firm's method of creating and capturing value as well as any part of the ecosystem's method of creating and capturing value. The article highlights three major chal- lenges of designing ecosystem business models for the IOT, including the diversity of ob- jects, the immaturity of innovation, and the unstructured ecosystems. Diversity refers to the difficulty of designing business models for the IOT due to a multitude of different types of connected objects combined with only modest standardization of interfaces. Immaturity suggests that quintessential IOT technologies and innovations are not yet products and ser- vices but a "mess that runs deep". The unstructured ecosystems mean that it is too early to tell who the participants will be and which roles they will have in the evolving ecosystems. The study argues that managers can overcome these challenges by using a business model design tool that takes into account the ecosystemic nature of the IOT. The study concludes by proposing the grounds for a new design tool for ecosystem business models and suggest- ing that "value design" might be a more appropriate term when talking about business models in ecosystems

Living Labs as Open Innovation Networks - Networks, Roles and Innovation Outcomes

The importance and benefits of open innovation networks are widely accepted. Enterprises and other organisations are increasingly utilizing a variety of open innovation networks in different contexts. This study defines a living lab as a concept including real-life environments, a multitude of different stakeholders, and the importance of users as a part of innovation activities. Living labs are interesting because they represent a new way of organizing innovation activities by facing parallel socio-economic challenges and technological opportunities. This study aims to understand networks, user and stakeholder roles, and outcomes generated in living labs. The study has the following research questions: (1) What is a living lab, from a network perspective? (2) What roles do users and stakeholders have in living lab networks? (3) How do network structures affect outcomes in living labs? The research paradigm of this dissertation is grounded in constructivism. This study applies abductive reasoning as the research approach, where the study is grounded in literature on living labs and consists of empirical data on 26 living labs in Finland, Sweden, Spain and South Africa. The study offers many theoretical contributions and defined concepts for the living labs literature. Among the theoretical contributions, this study identifies seven new stakeholder roles (coordinator, builder, messenger, facilitator, orchestrator, integrator and informant), and four role patterns (role ambidexterity, reciprocity, temporality and multiplicity) in living labs. Next, this study highlights that collaboration and outcomes in living labs are achieved in the absence of strict objectives. This contribution is unique: many other studies on innovation propose that innovation activities should be managed and controlled. Further, this study identifies centralised, decentralised and distributed networks structures in living lab networks and uses them to analyse innovation activities in living labs. This study also reveals that network structures support the various types of innovations in living lab networks. This study offers tools and frameworks for managers and researchers to understand, identify and categorise open innovation networks and pursue innovation development in open innovation networks, particularly in living lab networks. For the future, this dissertation suggests nineteen propositions and a range of other research opportunities for open innovation networks and particularly living labs but also for contingency theory and the resource-based view.  Avointen innovaatioverkkojen merkitys ja hyödyt ovat laajalti hyväksyttyjä. Yritykset ja muut organisaatiot hyödyntävät yhä enemmän avoimia innovaatioverkkoja eri konteksteissa.  Väitöskirja määrittelee living labin koostuvan tosielämän ympäristöistä, lukuisista eri toimijoista ja korostavan käyttäjien merkitystä innovaatiotoiminnassa. Living labit ovat mielenkiintoisia, sillä ne edustavat uutta tapaa organisoida innovaatiotoimintaa, joissa kohdataan rinnakkaisia sosioekonomisia haasteita ja teknologisia mahdollisuuksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on ymmärtää living lab -verkkoja, toimijoiden ja käyttäjien rooleja sekä living labeissä syntyviä innovaatioita. Väitöskirjan tutkimuskysymykset ovat: (1) Mikä living lab on verkkojen näkökulmasta? (2) Millaisia rooleja käyttäjillä ja toimijoilla on living lab -verkoissa? (3) Miten living lab -verkkojen rakenteet vaikuttavat niiden tuloksiin? Väitöskirja perustuu konstruktivismiin. Työssä hyödynnetään abduktiivista tutkimusotetta, joka rakentuu living labbejä käsittelevään kirjallisuuteen sekä Suomesta, Ruotsista, Espanjasta ja Etelä-Afrikasta kerätyn 26 living labiä sisältävän empiirisen datan vuoropuheluun. Tutkimus tarjoaa monia tuloksia sekä konsepteja living lab -kirjallisuuteen.  Esimerkiksi väitöskirja tunnistaa seitsemän uutta toimijan roolia (koordinaatttori, rakentaja, viestinviejä, fasilitaattori, orkestraattori, integraattori ja informaattori) sekä neljä roolin muotoa (roolin samanaikaisuus, molemmin-puolisuus, väliaikaisuus ja moninaisuus). Tämä tutkimus korostaa, että living labsissä saavutetaan tuloksia ilman tiukkoja ennalta määriteltyjä tavoitteita. Tämä tulos on ainutlaatuinen koska aiemmat tutkimukset ehdottavat, että innovaatiotoiminta tulisi olla ennalta määriteltyä ja hallittavaa. Lisäksi väitöskirja tunnistaa keskitetyn, hajautetun ja moninkertaisen verkon rakenteet living lab -verkoissa ja käyttää niitä innovaatiotoiminnan analysointiin living labseissa. Väitöskirjassa kuvataan verkkorakenteiden tukevan erityyppisten innovaatioiden syntymistä living lab -verkoissa. Tutkimus tarjoaa työkaluja ja viitekehyksiä johtajille ja tutkijoille avoimen innovaation verkkojen, erityisesti living lab -verkkojen ymmärtämiseen, tunnistamiseen ja luokittelemiseen sekä niiden kehittämiseen. Tämä väitöskirja esittää yhdeksäntoista propositiota ja monia muita tutkimusmahdollisuuksia avoimiin innovaatioverkkoihin ja erityisesti living labeihin mutta myös kontingenssiteoriaan ja resurssipohjaiseen näkemykseen.

Editorial: Living Labs

Welcome to the November issue of the Technology Innovation Management Review. This month’s theme is Living Labs, and it is my pleasure to welcome our guest editors, Seppo Leminen, Principal Lecturer at the Laurea University of Applied Sciences and Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at Aalto University in Finland, and Mika Westerlund, Assistant Professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, Canada. In this issue, our guest editors revisit the theme we covered in our popular September 2012 issue on Living Labs

A Small-Firm Perspective on the Benefits of Living Labs

Decreasing energy consumption is a global priority and the energy market is in constant change. The search for energy-saving innovations provides an opportunity to initiate a user-centered approach using the living labs model. This article describes how Process Vision, a small-yet-leading Northern European provider of energy IT systems, applied the livings labs approach to develop novel energy-efficiency management solutions. We discuss the company’s participation in the APOLLON consortium, a cross-border living labs initiative on energy efficiency. More specifically, we describe the Finland-based company’s experiences of a pilot project launched in the living lab and report on the perceived managerial challenges of applying the living labs approach from the perspective of a small fir

Does Entrepreneurial Marketing Underrate Competition?

This study aims to investigate the relationship between marketing needs and actions in entrepreneurial marketing. So doing, it explores how the entrepreneur’s interpretation of the needs that arise from the changes and opportunities in the business environment affects their actions in entrepreneurial marketing. We establish and test a set of hypotheses over a sample of 3,097 entrepreneur-led small firms from Finland. The results show that entrepreneurial perception of environmental pressure in terms of partners, customers, and competitors is linked to the marketing practices of small firms in terms of developing business relations, publicity, and offerings. That is, actions in entrepreneurial marketing depend on the entrepreneur’s ability to interpret needs based on the signals in the business environment. However, the study confirms that entrepreneurs pay less attention to competition, which affects their marketing actions, and it suggests that both research and practice of entrepreneurial marketing should pay more regard to competition

Managing the Challenges of Becoming an Open Innovation Company: Experiences from Living Labs

High-technology firms have paved the way for user-driven innovations, but now even traditional industries are becoming increasingly open. This shift is a great challenge for companies with instituted practices, policies, and customer relationships. In this article, we identify four distinct steps in becoming an open innovation company based on our recent research into firms’ experiences with living lab experiments in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. We describe these phases and illustrate the divergent roles that users play in each one. We conclude with a discussion on the differences between the management challenges of conventional development projects versus the open innovation model. For all firms that wish to become open innovators, we recommend that their managers promote an open organizational mindset and apply groupware that supports increased openness, because traditional project management tools are insufficient for open innovation