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The purpose of this paper is to connect open innovation and entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the influence of entrepreneurs’ open innovation mindset and alertness on a firm’s financial performance in a country that has recently transitioned from socialism into capitalism.

The study is based on a sample of 188 entrepreneurs who answered a survey about their personality characteristics in Time 1. In time 2, the authors collected firm-related data from a national database on firms’ financial statements.

The results show that an individual’s level of open innovation mindset has a positive impact on entrepreneurial alertness. The results also show an important and previously under-investigated relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and firm financial performance.

This study spurs research in the field of open innovation on the individual level of the entrepreneurs who have considerable influence on small firms’ results, and draws attention into the under-investigated innovation and entrepreneurship agenda in a small and transitioning country.

Open innovation starts with an open innovation mindset of entrepreneurs, so entrepreneurs are those who set the open innovation path of firms.

While open innovation triggered interest among business practitioners and management innovation scholars, it remained focused on management topics connected to a broad strategic setting of a firm. However, research related to entrepreneurial companies which benefit significantly from external sources of innovation has received scarce attention, and open innovation on the entrepreneur’s individual level even less so.

Innovation is an essential process for growth and well-being of organisations and society in general but is difficult to manage successfully. Through a better understanding of the innovation mindsets as established strategists use them in practice, this paper aims to improve firms’ success rates of innovation.

To examine how innovation processes play out in dynamic environments, the authors undertook a longitudinal two-year multi-case study in the high-tech sector.

Strategists in this study showed distinct phases in their successful innovation journey with three dominant mindsets of curiosity, creativity and clarity. The curiosity phase includes actions focused on discovering and understanding the implications and significance of an opportunity. The creativity phase includes actions focused on creating and testing a wide range of options. The clarity phase consists of actions focused on resourcing and implementing change.

In adopting this framework for use in the field, the authors recommend strategists take time for discovering and getting to core understanding in the curiosity phase. They should then take action by creating and actively testing a broad range of solution ideas in the creativity phase. Finally, organisations need to take care with clear direction and communication when resourcing and implementing in the clarity phase.

This novel framework which emerged from the longitudinal field research describes the mindsets of innovation and how these are used at different phases in the innovation process.

This research study assessed the mindset of individuals regarding their perception of innovation as a means for successful product or process improvement and their perception of thought processes that underpin innovative practices. It investigated the attitudinal foundation for the development of training, development and assessment of structured innovation methodologies.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative research gathered through an anonymous survey designed to explore the basic understanding of innovation and included open-ended questions supported more integrated perceptions of innovation in the sampled population's own experiences. The participants of the survey and research were drawn from the public, but it focused more specifically on demographic groups known for their interest in innovation, either as practitioners or teachers.

The results found, overwhelmingly, survey participants believed innovation is a skill; however, they also believed, inconsistently, that innovation itself is an unpredictable, unstructured and unsystematic process.

At a practical level, exploring the propensity for individuals or groups to believe defined innovation practices can be effective and that these practices can be learned, measured and improved drives the overall effectiveness of training and organizational leadership. With research, we can make training professionals aware that the mindset of potential innovators is to favor a belief in brainstorming and random success. Doing so can significantly impact the preparation of training and development programs for developing structured innovation capabilities.

Training a new generation of innovators, especially young children, requires care so that they internalize the right mindset and the right tool strategy to be the best innovators possible.

The paper aims to address two key gaps in the literature of frugal innovation. First, it disambiguates frugal innovations into its types, and into the various levels at which it happens. Second, it builds upon the theoretical foundations of resource-based view, new institutional economics, economics of location, and institutional theory to offer testable propositions on determinants of frugal innovations.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors first systematically reviewed the extant literature on frugal innovation and related domains and categorized the existing understanding on the domain into various typologies of frugal innovation. The authors then justified why certain key theoretical lenses are tenable to understand the determinants of frugal innovation and then examined the conditions that enable such innovations.

The paper has three key findings. First, frugal innovation comprises of a frugal mindset, a frugal process and a frugal outcome, which may be practiced distinctly. Second, frugal innovators are of three types: grassroots-level, domestic-enterprise level, and MNC-subsidiary level. Each has their distinctive incentives and styles of frugal innovation. Third, a frugal mindset is encouraged by a resource-scarce environments, weaker institutional intermediaries, and a higher tolerance for uncertainty. Frugal processes are espoused by poor property rights regime and a critical size of lead market; and frugal outcomes are influenced by the network-position of innovators, and the presence of critical lead-markets.

The propositions are though testable, but proxies need to be developed to measure the variables, such as a frugal mindset, and a frugal process. Further, the current view on various types and levels of frugal innovation is that of mutual exclusivity, whereas this may not always be the case. Hence, it might be useful to identify contingencies in which these distinctions fade away.

The paper is valuable in two key aspects. First, it offers a much-needed theoretical underpinning to the phenomenon of frugal innovation, such that the phenomenon could be better understood and influenced. Second, it nuances the phenomenon by identifying distinct types of frugal innovators in terms of their motivation, institutional influences, and styles of innovation.

The purpose of the study was to ascertain the influence of innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed on the performance of women entrepreneurs in South African small and medium enterprises and their capacity for innovation. The study also examined how proactive personality and entrepreneurial education moderate the relationship between innovative capability and women entrepreneurs' performance.

The study used a quantitative research design and administered a questionnaire to collect data from participants. Since there was no sampling frame available, purposive sampling, a non-probability sampling technique, was used to select suitable respondents who were identified as entrepreneurial women. Data were collected from 304 women entrepreneurs in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The data were analyzed using smart partial least squares.

The findings demonstrated that innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed have a positive impact on innovation capability. It was also discovered that innovation capability, proactive personality and entrepreneurial education all positively and significantly impact women entrepreneurs' performance. Furthermore, the results showed that entrepreneurial education and proactive personality had a positive and significant moderating effect on the nexus between innovation capability and the performance of women entrepreneurs.

This study will add to the body of knowledge on women's small business management and entrepreneurship in Africa, two topics that are typically ignored by academics in developing nations.

This study aims to determine the impact of innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed on the need for achievement and the success of women entrepreneurs. The study also investigates the impact of entrepreneurial education in moderating the relationship between the need for achievement and women’s entrepreneurial success.

The study used a structured questionnaire and a quantitative research design. Data were gathered from 304 women entrepreneurs in South Africa’s Gauteng province. The data were analysed using smart partial least squares.

The results showed that innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed have positive and significant impacts on the need for achievement. It was also discovered that the need for achievement and entrepreneurial education have a positive and significant impact on women's entrepreneurial success. Moreover, the results showed that entrepreneurial education had a positive and significant moderating effect on the nexus between the need for achievement and women's entrepreneurial success.

By comprehensively examining the impact of innovation conviction, innovation mindset and innovation creed on the need for achievement and women's entrepreneurial success, this study has valuable implications for academics.

This research will add to the corpus of information on women's entrepreneurship and small business management in Africa, which is generally overlooked by academics in developing countries.

An “IT mindset” significantly influences public sector information technology (IT) adoption in least developed countries (LDCs). The purpose of this paper is to explore the IT mindset concept and its relationship with IT knowledge and intention to explore IT in the workplace.

The research used a mixed-methods approach in two phases. Qualitative work was conducted to formulate the conceptual framework and hypotheses, followed by a survey of 228 public sector officials in Bangladesh to test the hypotheses.

The study showed that an IT mindset can be conceptualised as comprising personal innovativeness with IT and IT beliefs. The IT mindset was significantly related to intention to explore IT use in the workplace and its components were influenced by an individual’s IT skills and IT awareness.

Future research could further explore the IT mindset concept and its antecedents and consequences in LDCs, where it is often related to successful IT adoption, and also in public and private organisations elsewhere.

The study furthers understanding of barriers to IT adoption in LDCs’ public sectors. Building IT knowledge through IT skills and awareness is required to orient mindsets to IT adoption.

Improved efficiency, productivity and transparency in the public sector through IT use have flow-on societal and economic benefits. The paper provides insights into greater facilitation of e-government and IT in the public sector.

The study is theoretically significant because the IT mindset concept has lacked in-depth study and requires clarification of its nature and role.

More CEOs and senior executives need to believe in the power of innovation to increase earnings, stock price, employee and customer satisfaction, and global competitiveness. Innovation is the single most important factor in the future growth of any business venture. Innovation is a mindset ‐ a new way to think about business strategies and practice. This thinking drives every aspect of a successful, dynamic organization and penetrates every element of business, creating a clear and enduring vision. Innovative companies are set apart from their competitors and have the potential to fuel future profitable growth and build long‐term investments.

Best value procurement (BVP) has been recognized for some time as offering significant opportunities to advance process excellence in the construction sector. As an innovative approach to strategic procurement, BVP has attracted attention from the New Zealand (NZ) Government. It has similarly been found that the most substantial benefit of this modified approach to procurement is in value creation and innovative organizational processes through identifying “best value.” Yet to date, there is a lack of robust evidence as to how BVP can exactly influence construction innovation. Accordingly, this paper aims to explore how to improve BVP implementation to promote construction innovation and what are the values to be achieved in BVP mega projects from the view of innovation.

Semi-structured interviews with 22 participants, including project managers, procurement specialists, engineers and general managers from three organization types, were conducted to explore BVP implementation in a range of mega construction projects in NZ.

Barriers to BVP implementation and value innovation have been identified in this paper. Data analysis suggested traditional mindset in the procurement process, market constraints, mistrusts and fuzzy definition of BVP are the challenges for BVP implementation; BVP cultivates organizational competition because of diverse collaboration models and value attitudes; and BVP considers more values from the whole supply chain. To promote innovative construction, existing BVP should consider adopting progressive enhancements toward updating procurement guidance, encouraging effective communications, collaborating and promoting changes in stakeholders’ mindset.

Identified barriers to BVP implementation set up a platform for framing guidance, which could provide an effective approach as it enables a better understanding of what BVP means to NZ and what needs to be overcome. Taking this into account, similar small size markets around the world would be able to consider the applicability of BVP for innovative improvements.

This paper provides insights into value concepts in project procurement. It theoretically and practically possesses originality in linking BVP to innovative construction. The study of BVP and its application further reveals the importance of establishing a distinct regulation and fostering organizational competition from value aspects to achieve construction innovation.

This chapter reviews the key findings and innovation leadership insights from this book, as well as pointing out directions for future research. We find a series of learning insights for people engaged in innovation leadership, at the distinct levels of self-leadership, team leadership, organisational leadership, and ecosystem leadership. We also find commonalities across these levels, as well as differences that reflect the complexity of these different leadership arenas. Leadership practice that orchestrates contributions from diverse viewpoints, seeing itself as with the group, rather than above it, is most likely to help turn ideas into value in repeatable ways. We also find evidence that mindset, skills, and behaviours are all important in the make-up of competencies. We point to the requirement for further research at all four levels, to bring further insights in what is still an emerging field; as well as a need for more research into competency development for innovation leadership; and we advocate a research approach that emphasises relational leadership, acknowledging that most leadership practice is shared across people.