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The identification of consumer innovators offers marketing managers the opportunity to tailor new products to the buyers who initiate the diffusion of innovations. Progress has been made in identifying such consumers in economic and social terms, but there are advantages of cost and convenience in isolating the personality profiles of innovators, especially during pre‐launch product testing. But innovative consumers' distinctive personality traits have proved elusive. This article reports an investigation of innovative brand choice in the context of new food product purchasing which employed the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI). This highly reliable test of cognitive style correlates with several personality traits known to be associated with innovativeness; it also has high validity in the prediction of behaviour over a wide range of contexts. The research reported went beyond the common expectation of a simple, direct relationship between personality and brand choice to investigate the predictive validity of the KAI over a range of product continuity/discontinuity. The results are considerably more encouraging than those of earlier research for the identification of personality/consumer choice links. They suggest an operational measure of product continuity/ discontinuity and support the use of the KAI as a viable marketing tool.

This paper presents a method for adapting an Information Security Focus Area Maturity (ISFAM) model to the organizational characteristics (OCs) of a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) cluster. The purpose of this paper is to provide SMEs with a tailored maturity model enabling them to capture and improve their information security capabilities.

Design Science Research was followed to design and evaluate the method as a design artifact.

The method has successfully been used to adapt the ISFAM model to a group of SMEs within a regional cluster resulting in a model that is aligned with the OCs of the cluster. Areas for further investigation and improvements were identified.

The study is based on applying the proposed method for the SMEs active in the transport, logistics and packaging sector in the Port of Rotterdam. Future research can focus on different sectors and regions. The method can be used for adapting other focus area maturity models.

The resulting adapted maturity model can facilitate the creation and further development of a base of common or shared knowledge in the cluster. The adapted maturity model can cut the cost of over implementation of information security capabilities for the SMEs with scarce resources.

The resulting adapted maturity model can facilitate the creation and further development of a base of common or shared knowledge in the cluster. The adapted maturity model can cut the cost of over implementation of information security capabilities for the SMEs with scarce resources.

The identification of consumer innovators offers marketing managers the opportunity to tailor new products to the buyers who initiate the diffusion of innovations. Progress has been made in identifying such consumers in economic and social terms, but there are advantages of cost and convenience in isolating the personality profiles of innovators, during pre‐launch product testing. However, innovative consumer’s personality traits proved elusive. Reports an investigation of innovative brand choice in the context of new food purchasing employing the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI). This test of cognitive style correlates with several personality traits associated with innovativeness; it also has high validity in the prediction of behaviour. The research investigated the predictive validity of the KAI over a range of product continuity/discontinuity. The results suggest an operational measure of product continuity/discontinuity and supports the use of the KAI as a marketing tool.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how an individual's cognitive style influences the type of knowledge they prefer to work with, and to identify how this relationship influences knowledge management strategies and their outcomes.

The paper integrates adaption‐innovation theory and aspects of knowledge management theories.

Adaptors are likely to prefer to work with knowledge that is relatively more explicit and innovators are likely to prefer to work with knowledge that is relatively more tacit. Understanding these preferences, and making the appropriate type of knowledge available to the right mix of adaptor and innovator types of individuals may influence organizational performance.

Conceptual and empirical research should consider how individuals' cognitive style influences their ability to utilize organizational knowledge resources.

Organizations should consider evaluating the cognitive style of their members in order to be able to better assign them to knowledge tasks. Group tasks should be planned with the mix of individuals' cognitive style in mind. These efforts should help to avoid underutilization of appropriate knowledge as well as overuse of inappropriate knowledge.

The paper proposes that cognitive style influences the degree to which an individual prefers to work with tacit or explicit knowledge. This preference can influence the type and degree of knowledge use when performing organizational tasks.

Team role preference, as formulated by Meredith Belbin, and cognitive style are both rooted in personality. As a consequence, it should be possible to successfully hypothesise certain relationships between team role preferences and cognitive style, or one or more of its components. To test this idea, data was collected by administering the Kirton Adaption Innovation inventory and Cattell’s 16PF personality questionnaire to a group of undergraduate students (n = 183) who were reading a mixed engineering and business degree. This paper reports correlations which substantiate some of the postulated relationships. The findings, which suggest that the ideal Belbin team contains a balanced mix of adaptors, innovators and bridgers, give a new perspective to the Belbin team role model, and should provide some guidance to those who seek to build and operate “Belbinesque” teams.

Organizations are becoming more focused on time pressures when introducing innovation and creativity into their organizations. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the opportunity for organizations to focus on improvisation training as a way to gain a competitive advantage and leapfrog their competitors.

This paper takes the approach of identifying a model of improvisation training for organizations that focuses on the convergence of planning and executive for promoting innovation training practices.

This paper’s main findings are that the time pressures faced by organizations means that there is a funnel limiting the link between creativity, adaption and innovation. This means that improvisation training needs to be done quickly, and organizations need to act efficiently when introducing new practices.

This paper’s key value is that organizations can use improvisers by using bricolage and ready-mades to take existing concepts and apply them to new situations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between environment turbulence, knowledge transfer and innovation performance for emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) in an asymmetric international R&D alliance.

Data were collected through a survey of high-tech firms in Zhejiang Province of China from 2013 to 2015.

Innovation performance of EMNEs is positively influenced by knowledge transfer activities (knowledge replication and knowledge adaption), technological and market turbulence, while negatively influenced by institutional turbulence. In addition, different aspects of environmental turbulence moderate the relationship between knowledge transfer practices and innovation performance of EMNEs differently.

Future studies could use a longitudinal design to capture the dynamism driving innovation performance of EMNEs through R&D alliances.

Practical guidelines are provided particularly for EMNE managers on how to develop an innovation strategy by leveraging external knowledge, adaptive innovation and environmental turbulence.

This study deepens the knowledge of how EMNEs enhance their innovation by building the linkage between environmental turbulence and absorptive capacity through knowledge transfer activities in an asymmetric international R&D alliance.

Explores the question “How can we gain a deeper understanding of the contribution of P and Q?”, together with a version in which the following proviso is added “…while maintaining the simplicity and power of action learning as originally conceived by Professor Revans”. It is concluded that programmed knowledge P has little or no place in action learning when we accept that the programme goal is confined to personal development. Further, by emphasizing problem solving and embracing P another significant complicating issue is introduced related to “learning” versus “adaption”. Identifies the expression L = P + Q itself as a confusing expression, and proposes other simple functions emphasizing the need for vigilant Q on introduction of P. Also explores the contribution of P and Q when action learning is simply the means to becoming better action oriented under conditions of turbulence and ambiguity.

The effective management and reuse of knowledge in the early product development supports the early identification of high potential technologies, reduces barriers of accessing them and ensures technology leadership. Until now, technology databases were only a means of communicating knowledge on innovations. The purpose of this study is to analyse the design of technology databases with a processual integration into research and development. It is a concept for companies to collaboratively and effectively develop and adapt innovative technologies.

In the Design4Energy project, an interdisciplinary, inter-divisional project team, including information and communications technology managers, engineers and energy experts, developed an architectural concept and use cases of a system to integrate the technology life cycle into the building creation process. Eventually, the stakeholders evaluated the system in industrial applications.

This research reveals that the developed system supports the collaboration between professionals in the design stage. Along the development and implementation of the system, the main success factors result in four design principles: effective and efficient design, basic functionalities supporting technology adaption, interoperability and integration into the processes and organization.

The results deal with the interoperability in early phases of product development and guide through the methodological design of technology databases. Transparent design requirements based on real case learnings increase system applicability and data consistency.

The work guides the methodology, process integration and IT architecture of technology databases, which literature does not provide. Thus, it leads to decision reliability in technology management and implies the success factors for living databases.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the contribution of a global IT service provider's Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to staff retention in emerging markets. This includes a comparison of the relevant issues and implications derived from a study investigating six developing countries. The author of this paper concludes that the functionality of global HR systems should be supplemented with local adaptions in order to achieve the best support for staff retention management.

The theoretical framework for this paper is based on HR literature concerning staff retention and on the framework proposed by Martinsons for human resources management applications of knowledge‐based systems. The argument is illustrated by quotes from 16 semi‐structured expert interviews with Accenture HR executives and managers in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Latvia and Slovakia.

HRISs contribute positively to staff retention for global IT service providers in emerging markets. Especially important in minimizing turnover is the support they can provide for the allocation of employees to international engagements, including scheduling and training. Culture and local labor market differences do of course influence the HR functionalities needed. This paper provides insight into the factors that necessitate local adaptions to a global HRIS.

This paper addresses the differences and similarities in a global IT service provider's staff retention management and the contribution of its HRIS – including global functionality and local adaptions – towards this goal in six developing countries.