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The purpose of this paper is to map the process of opening an innovation network in the context of the Brazilian agroforestry sector.

Qualitative case study of the open innovation network Embrapa Florestas (17 semi-structured interviews, observation and documentary data). Social network analysis (SNA) of the open innovation network from primary data is available at Embrapa Florestas’ system.

Three primary triggers to the opening process of Embrapa Florestas’ innovation network were identified. The process starts with an innovation network with closed network characteristics. The process of opening the innovation network is motivated by a restructuring in its source of fundraising (trigger 1), by the change in strategic orientation toward the internationalization of its network activities (trigger 2) and by opening the black box of its innovation with greater proximity to the productive sector and partner universities (trigger 3). Comparing the pre-opening and post-opening networks (open innovation network), sociometric data allows us to verify that the opening of the innovation network presents better density, clustering and centrality indexes for the network as a whole and for the Embrapa Florestas specifically.

This is one of the first studies that aims to investigate the transition from a closed innovation network to an open innovation network by a public research institute. It may also be considered innovative because it presents practical and managerial relevance – in addition to contributions to public policy makers – which allows for improvements in the development of innovation and technology in the country's strategic sectors.

Rapid advancements in blockchain technology transform various sectors, attracting the attention of industrialists, practitioners, policymakers and academics, and profoundly affect construction businesses through smart contracts and crypto-economics. This paper explores the blockchain innovation ecosystem in construction.

Through a qualitative study of 23 diverse interviewees, the study explores how open or closed the blockchain innovation ecosystem in construction is and who its emerging orchestrators are.

The data showed that construction aims towards an open innovation blockchain ecosystem, although there are elements of hybridisation and closedness, each system pointing out to different orchestrators.

The study has implications for governments and large companies in construction, showing that open innovation initiatives need to be encouraged by policymakers through rules, regulations and government-sponsored demonstrator projects.

The data showed that there is lack of readiness for business model change to support open innovation blockchain ecosystems in construction.

This is the first study applying the open innovation theory in the construction industry and sheds light into the phenomenon of blockchain, suggesting routes for further democratisation of the technology for policymakers and practitioners.

In organisational and innovation research, the term “open innovation” refers to the inflow and outflow of knowledge to and from organisations: with open innovation theory suggesting active exchanges of knowledge with external actors leads to the development of exploitable new ideas. In the field of education, however, the exchange of knowledge with external parties represents a paradigm shift. In response, this article presents findings from research design to explore the nature and composition of school innovation networks, and the effects of such these networks on knowledge mobilisation.

The study draws on data from a representative random sample of 411 German school leaders. Respondents were asked to detail their engagement in open and closed innovation activity and their school's external collaborations during the last 12 months. A latent class distal outcome model was developed to examine whether different types of collaboration associate with different knowledge mobilisation processes.

The study findings suggest that schools in Germany mainly use internal knowledge for innovation, with external knowledge exchange taking place on a very limited basis. Knowledge mobilisation varies depending on the innovation network. The authors use the findings to indicate new insights for how schools can further innovate learning and teaching in future.

Although there is increasing discussion on Professional Learning Networks in schools, the discourse on knowledge mobilisation within educational networks is limited, making concept of open innovation so far completely absent from discourses on school improvement. This paper initiates the population of this new research space.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effect of internal and external collaboration on the degree of newness (incremental/radical) in innovation projects. This adds to the understanding of the particular patterns of open innovation (OI) and what characterizes the innovation emerging through this approach.

Tests are performed on the effect of internal and external collaboration on the degree of newness (incremental/radical) in innovation projects. This adds to the understanding of the particular patterns of OI and what characterizes the innovation emerging through this approach. The empirical analysis is based on a data set including responses from 512 Danish engineers.

The results show that external collaboration has significantly different effects on the degree of newness depending on the type of external partners involved, and they also show that radical innovation output is positively related to involving the R&D department (internal) and universities (external involvement) and negatively related to involving suppliers.

The results provide a more detailed understanding of how different OI patterns affect the development of incremental vs radical innovation in existing organizations. In particular, three findings add new insights into how OI affects innovation to reach the highest degree of newness: high importance of collaboration with external partners with distinct interests and skills; low reliance on existing customers and suppliers for the development of radical innovation; and narrow and focused internal involvement rather than broad internal involvement.

The role of patents for appropriating (capturing) value from innovation investments has for decades been of major interest to both practitioners and academics in innovation management. Many studies have implicitly assumed that firms appropriate value through in-house creation and marketing of innovative products and services, and that the main function of patents is to protect the exclusive sales in product and service markets. We challenge this assumption in light of the variety of business models, strategies and markets now being available, including different organizational and market forms of open innovation.

A conceptual framework and typology of open innovation markets is developed, and the role of patents for appropriation is investigated in these markets among 172 Swedish technology-based firms.

The results show that the importance of patents has a skewed distribution with some firms rating patents very important and with a fat tail of firms rating patents less important. Most importantly, the results indicate that patents are enabling exchange and technology trade in various types of open innovation markets rather than only supporting vertically integrated business models. Thus patents were found to help rather than hinder the use of open innovation markets.

The paper makes two main contributions. First a theoretical reinterpretation of open innovation with a conceptualization of open innovation markets for appropriation of innovation values. Second an empirical illustration of new roles of patents for appropriating innovation values in these markets. The paper in addition illustrates the use of a counterfactual approach to questionnaire surveys, as well as the complementarities between patents and other means of appropriation.

Suppliers are essential partners in innovation projects, as they own resources, knowledge assets and capabilities that complement those of buying firms. In today’s competitive environment, firms may choose to collaborate with suppliers beyond dyads, forming triadic or three-party relationships. Using the theoretical lens of the relational view (RV), this study aims to explore what type of triad configurations firms use to govern supplier relationships in collaborative innovation projects, how they choose to share resources and implications for project performance.

The authors use interview data from buyers and suppliers in six case studies of firms involved in ten collaborative innovation projects. The four constructs of the RV are used to observe how firms govern triadic relationships, combine complementary resources, invest in relationship-specific assets and manage information and knowledge exchange with and between suppliers in innovation projects.

Four archetypes of triadic relationships in innovation projects – labeled Triangle, A-frame, D-Frame and Line – are presented and characterized in terms of their structural and relational features. The authors discuss how each triad archetype is applicable to different innovation projects according to specific project characteristics.

This study is pioneering in its empirical examination of triadic relationships in collaborative innovation projects. It provides a novel typology of four archetypes of triad from the perspective of collaborative relationships with suppliers. Through applying the RV, it advances understanding of how triadic relationships are governed, how they invest in relationship-specific assets, how they combine complementary resources and how they exchange knowledge and information in each type of triad appropriate to different innovation project settings. To date, much of the extant literature has focused on dyads.

This study aims to suggest directions for innovation-driving paths for sustainable growth through an in-depth case analysis of a successful Internet of Things (IoT) in small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) in South Korea. IoT is expected to play a significant role in the future industry 4.0 platform. Yet, little is known about how SMEs in the IoT industry (IoT-SMEs hereafter) pursue innovation in alignment with attributes inherent in the IoT.

This study addresses relatively unexplored key research questions on innovation strategies of IoT-SMEs. To do so, we employ an exploratory research methodology, along with an extensive review of the literature in the areas of the IoT, SMEs innovation and sustainable growth strategy. Specifically, we conduct intensive individual interviews to find IoT inherent innovation attributes and a case study to explore the process of linking these attributes to innovation-driving paths.

The analysis results reveal that there exist disruptive and open innovation attributes in the IoT industry that enable IoT-SMEs to enhance their structure and process related capabilities, to create business models for products and services and to collaborate with external parties in marketing to enter the market. We excavate practical insights into driving innovation based on IoT attributes and suggest enabling paths for pursuing innovation and entering overseas markets for IoT-SMEs.

This study investigates an underexplored significant area of research on the relationship between IoT attributes and innovation paths. The findings provide profound theoretical and practical implications. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first attempt to link disruptive and open IoT attributes to innovation paths of IoT-SMEs. The results provide directions for pursuing effective innovation in responding to the IoT market for sustainable growth.