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The purpose of this paper is to present the innovation management program (IMP) (FAZ Program) and analyze its results according to the public policy goals that support it (Pró-Inova) suggesting improvements.

Intensive-direct-observation method in 43 companies; systematic data gathering and analysis (172 meeting documents); and innovation maturity diagnostics in 30 companies between August 2013 and May 2016.

The FAZ Program success rate according to the Pró-Inova goals achieved 81 percent. The percentage of completion of FAZ activities decreases during its implementation from 100 percent (strategic module) to 74 percent (management module) and ending at 46 percent (project module). The maturity for innovation of these committees/teams is decisive for those percentages. Companies whose maturity for innovation of the strategic committee and the organizational team are above average or excellent have, respectively, 1.8 and 1.7 times greater probability of implementing the program successfully.

The FAZ Program represents only 4 percent of the programs supported by Pró-Inova. The innovative products, processes and businesses produced by the FAZ Program implementation are not measured. These innovations usually happen several years after an innovative management models implementation.

The maturity for innovation diagnosis is useful both to evaluate the company’s innovation capacity and to predict its chances of implementing the program successfully. Adjusting the structure of the model (e.g. PDCA cycle for the organizational module) and improving the program’s implementation (e.g. ensure management module resources and maturity for innovation capacity) can increase the program’s success rate.

Previous research works on IMPs supported by Pro-Inova focus on describing their methodology or benefits. The results allow answering what and how one of these programs offers in a return to the public innovation support received.

This research aims to address how a firm can mobilise resources through interfirm relationships to bridge technological discontinuities.

This research adopts a processual single case study to undertake an empirical investigation from the perspective of a technology-bundled net as the research boundary.

This research produces three key findings. First, mobilising resources across firm boundaries to create an adequate bundling of product, process and marketing technologies is the cornerstone of bridging technological discontinuities. Second, resource mobilisation between firms in the transition to a new technological trajectory is affected by the sediments accrued in the existing (old) trajectory. Third, technological discontinuities may be competence-enhancing, and their radical effects may originate from non-technical causes.

This paper contributes to the research of radical innovation from an interaction and networks perspective and also by focusing on resource mobilisation taking place in the transition from an existing technological trajectory to a new one. In particular, this paper takes into account the relatedness of resources and the influences of past interaction underpinning an old trajectory in the bridging of technological discontinuities.

The commercialization of research produced by universities constitutes a core facet of academic entrepreneurship (AE). Academic literature reveals the need to shed light on entrepreneurial processes in higher education institutions (HEIs). This study intends to fill this gap by researching the mechanisms for facilitating AE and the variables that can moderate the relationship between such mechanisms and AE in Portuguese HEIs.

Our research model aims to assess the mechanisms of academic entrepreneurship (AE) within a sample of 125 Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs). To test our research hypotheses, we employed a structural equation model (SEM) using the partial least squares (PLS) method. Additionally, our evaluation examines the potential moderating effects of incubator programs, support initiatives, and proof-of-concept programs (PoCs). Our research model seeks to evaluate the mechanisms for facilitating AE and explore the effects of including incubator programs, support initiatives, and PoCs as moderators. The seven variables (Research mobilization, Unconventionality, Industry collaboration, University policies, Incubator programs and support initiatives, Proof-of-concept programs, and academic entrepreneurship) were measured using a 7-point Likert scale.

The results revealed that different drivers of AE influence the creation and development of entrepreneurial activities. Our findings also show the moderating effects of incubator programs, support initiatives, and proof-of-concept programs on AE. We find that incubator programs, other support initiatives, and PoCs maintain a moderating effect on AE and benefit their respective HEIs.

The study examines only the Portuguese HEI context. Therefore, generalizing these results necessitates reservations. However, the responses came from various actors in HEIs, from different academic backgrounds and research interests. This makes the results more generalizable. Limitations are evident in external validity, given that we gathered the data over a relatively short period.

Observed factors are explored to gain a deeper understanding of their influence on the mechanisms of AE. The implications arise from the new perspective presented and the methodology used to identify mechanisms capable of fostering AE. We hope this research will encourage other researchers to study this topic further.

the engagement of universities at the global level should be emphasised in future policy. While universities in innovation systems often have a local focus, their engagement in innovation ecosystems transcends the boundaries of geographic locations.

PoCs had a significant positive moderating effect on the impact of research mobilization and university policies on AE. Thus, we find interactions between universities and industry boost AE. This study demonstrates how AE benefits HEIs by extending orientation towards mobilizing research, unconventional approaches, cooperation with industry, and university policy implementation. We thus advocate a new approach, demonstrating the influence that the mobility of research, unconventionality, industry collaboration, and university policies hold over AE.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate three streams of literature – organizational capabilities based in resource‐based view (RBV) and the team‐ and organization‐level innovation – to provide a theoretical framework of how firms invest in developing innovative capabilities for entrepreneurship and change management.

This is a conceptual paper based on the RBV and the team‐ and organization‐level innovation literatures.

Linking the three bodies of literature, two main models for developing innovative capabilities are proposed: organization and project team models. The “organization model” requires firms to invest at the organization level to generate the supporting organization‐level processes, i.e. communication routines, independent of when they organize for innovation, and the “project team model” calls for just‐in‐time investment as needed in the process of innovation. The paper discusses other potential models and provides directions for future research on this important and timely topic.

The paper expands the RBV of the firm by providing a theoretical framework of how firms develop the capabilities to mobilize and create knowledge for innovation as an entrepreneurial activity and for managing the changes in organizations.

This study investigates a mediational model between legitimated elements, financial resource mobilisation and subsequent early firm growth among New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs) using conformity and control perspectives of legitimacy.

To test the hypotheses, a longitudinal database of 303 NTBFs from Sweden, Finland and France is used. The ordinary least square regression analysis method is applied, and the proposed mediation relationships are studied by employing the four-step approach developed by Baron and Kenny (1986).

This study finds that based on the conformity principle, two out of three legitimated elements (business plan and incubator relationship, but not start-up experience) have an impact on financial resource mobilisation, which in turn, is associated with early growth in NTBFs based on the control principle. Thus, financial resource mobilisation positively mediates the relationships among the two legitimated elements and early growth in NTBFs.

This study has several limitations, which also generate promising pathways for future research. Future research should study the relationship between the three legitimacy elements and financial resource mobilisation and early growth across a wider range of firms and settings. The questionnaire was also based on a single point in time and could not capture the evolving nature of the legitimacy elements and fundraising. Hence, future research can examine the multidimensionality of these processes; longitudinal qualitative studies can be a complement, allowing for a better understanding of the impact of legitimacy on NTBFs.

The findings offer implications for managers of NTBFs because developing legitimacy is critical to NTBFs early growth and development. The findings indicate that NTBFs' founders must systematically develop business plans and that incubators help enhance legitimacy through a signalling.

It is believed that the study meaningfully contributes to the collective understanding of the role of legitimacy in driving the development of NTBFs. Given the importance of NTBFs in our economies, coupled with the lack of attention given to the role of mobilisation of external resources in explaining NTBF early growth, it is believed that the study is both timely and important.

The findings meaningfully contribute to the collective understanding of NTBF growth. While there are studies that have examined the antecedents of growth and finance separately, this study proposes a novel mediational model that integrates both and tests it empirically.

The purpose of this paper is to present a longitudinal case study of a regional innovation policy initiative, in which ideas with regard to how innovation might be facilitated were changing over time. Through the scrutiny of insights in industrial network studies (IMP), the authors seek to shed light on the challenges created by policy interventions aimed at constructing complementary networks for the facilitation of innovation. That is to say, the authors endeavour to understand the interfaces between innovation networks and industrial networks, and the way in which they may influence innovation.

This study is based on a longitudinal case study of four successive regional innovation projects in Norway. Data are drawn from relevant policy documents and project documentations, as well as from participatory observation of application processes and project activities.

This study shows that regional innovation policy concerns first and foremost the interaction within and between relatively established diverse networks, which affects both structuring and restructuring. Changes in innovation policy required the re-configuring of constellations of business networks, research networks and policy networks. All initiatives required mobilisation input by persistent actors – often boundary organisations or researchers. The construction of innovation networks served as an instrument in the production of new interfaces between businesses, researchers and policy makers. The use and usefulness of these networks as perceived by the business actors were heavily influenced by the way in which the networks were configured.

Generalisation based on in-depth qualitative case research requires further testing across similar and varying cases, and there have hitherto been relatively few studies of the interfaces between industrial and innovation networks. Despite this it can be argued that the conceptual distinction between constructed and emerging networks is a productive one in the study of networked innovation dynamics. During the research into this longitudinal case, it has been interesting to observe the way in which innovation research, and thus its influence on innovation policy, has changed over time. It would be beneficial if further studies were to be conducted on the way in which this has played out.

The administration of the public funding of innovation network activities requires great care. Where innovation policy initiatives are closely related to established industrial networks, it may be possible to strengthen innovation dynamics, challenge established practices and conceptions, and contribute to expanding, or even initiate innovation activities. In the first place, new activities need to be initiated in a way that supports the long-term development of actual business networks; and second, innovation policy bodies should be prepared to stimulate activity over longer periods of time.

This paper engages in, and combines, two parallel and rarely interacting debates on, respectively, innovation within innovation policy (innovation systems, clusters, networks) and industrial network studies (IMP and others). The authors make an “ideal type” distinction between alternative “constructed” networks and “emerging” networks, and the way in which they influence innovations.

In industrial buyer–supplier relationships, being an attractive customer has been found to result in superior supplier performance. However, there is a limited understanding of how these benefits transfer to the public domain. This study aims to explore the influence of customer attractiveness on supplier resource mobilization efforts toward the public sector.

A qualitative approach was used, focusing on in-depth interviews with 23 informants from 3 critical and complex supplier markets. The data were processed using inductive coding and thematic analysis.

The findings indicate that customer attractiveness in the public sector influences suppliers’ mobilization efforts on several dimensions. In addition to stimulating competition in the tender phase, customer attractiveness can yield important benefits to quality, supply stability and innovation during the business relationship. It appears imperative for the public sector to improve its standings with suppliers to both mitigate the apparent risk of sub-par treatment and to unlock the preferential supplier treatment associated with being an attractive customer.

Receiving increased mobilization from suppliers will result in better use of public money and help improve resilience and innovation in public procurement.

This study extends the research on customer attractiveness in the public sector by being the first to explore the range and nature of its influence on supplier mobilization efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how state actors mobilise resources in business networks to facilitate innovation.

A single case study method is used. The case from the Chinese biotechnology sector illustrates how state actors mobilise resources in a network context in order to develop, produce and use a vaccine.

The case findings demonstrate that state actors indirectly, as well as actively, are involved in the whole innovation process by mobilising resources necessary for the development, production and use of the vaccine. State actors influence other actors, both political and business, and provide resources in order to facilitate innovation.

The paper illustrates that state actors, in the specific case, play an important and active role throughout the whole innovation process. This opens up the issue of the possible extended role of state actors in innovation.

Over the past decades, Chinese state actors have played an active role in the business landscape. This paper explores state actors’ influence on the innovation process on the network level.

This paper aims to apply innovation networks (INs) theory to the context of domesticated markets, where innovation triggers deinstitutionalization. In such contexts, the success of INs depends on their capacity to transform the business field in which they are embedded, so that it accommodates innovative business models. Such “institutional INs” beget a meso-level finality, and this poses different requirement on their effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to confront extant models of collaborative innovation in networks with this specific context to offer exploratory insights into how innovation can be achieved in domesticated contexts and what the differential implications are for network configurations and strategic “reinstitutionalization” practices.

Based on an illustrative embedded case study in the Dutch steel industry, a framework offering indications on the effectiveness of discrete configurational dimensions and their fit with reinstitutionalization practices for institutional INs is suggested. The case builds on 26 semi-structured interviews and 4 focus groups with top managers in the industry. As the aim is to extend theoretical models of INs to this under-researched context, an abductive approach to theorizing, consistent with the extended case method, is adopted.

Findings suggest that collaborating to redesign an institutionalized business field collectively implies a more explicit attention to interdependencies within the business field.

Besides suggesting modifications to extant frames regarding heterogeneity in and the configuration of networks, this paper has some practical implications. The framework proposed offers managers some support in the largely ignored issue of developing a collective action network. With these findings, we aspire to stimulate further research into this relevant, yet underdeveloped, topic.

The study extends IN theory toward innovation realization in domesticated contexts. In such contexts, IN’s success depends on their capacity to transform the business field in which they are embedded, so that it enables innovative ways of creating end-customer value. Besides suggesting a new area for theorizing about innovation networks, institutional innovation networks are also a useful template for institutional innovation and collective action research. The paper offers a framework to support managers in the largely ignored challenge of developing a collective action network. In an increasingly transparent, connected and consolidated business environment, such a challenge becomes ever more essential.

This paper aims to explore how companies access resources through network relationships when developing service innovations. The paper identifies the types of resource that companies seek from other actors and examines the nature of relationships and resource access strategies that can be applied to access each type of resource.

A longitudinal, multi-case study is conducted in the field of technical business-to-business (b-to-b) services. An abductive research strategy is applied to create a new theoretical understanding of resource access.

Companies seek a range of resources through different types of network relationships for service innovation. Four types of resource access strategies were identified: absorption, acquisition, sharing, and co-creation. The findings show how easily transferable resources can be accessed through weak relationships and low-intensity collaboration. Access to resources that are difficult to transfer, instead, necessitates strong relationships and high-intensity collaboration.

The findings are valid for technical b-to-b services, but should also be tested for other kinds of innovations. Future research should also study how actors integrate the resources gained through networks in the innovation process.

Managers should note that key resources for service innovation may be accessible through a variety of actors and relationships ranging from formal arrangements to miscellaneous social contacts. To make use of tacit resources such as knowledge, firms need to engage in intensive collaboration.

Despite attention paid to network relationships, innovation collaboration, and external resources, previous research has neither linked these issues nor studied their mutual contingencies. This paper provides a theoretical model that characterizes the service innovation resources accessible through different types of relationships and access strategies.