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1 – 10 of over 27000The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative case study of national innovation system in Canada and Sweden from the perspective of gender equality. The case study focuses…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative case study of national innovation system in Canada and Sweden from the perspective of gender equality. The case study focuses on public policy to illuminate the formal aspects of innovation systems as they are conceived by the state in relation to gender, diversity and social inclusion. Formal policy measures are contrasted with interview data to provide a holistic picture of innovation policy as it relates to gender equality in both countries.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper relies on data from 44 qualitative interviews with innovation leaders in the public sector, private sector and academia in Canada and Sweden, as well as a sample of innovation and gender experts at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in Paris, France, between 2012 and 2014. The theoretical framework draws on feminist institutionalism to explain the gendered interactions of institutions in innovation spaces.
Findings
This study finds that Sweden is a global policy leader in the development of gender-conscious innovation policy, while Canada has yet to consider a gender-conscious approach to innovation policy. Gender-conscious innovation policy norms have not traveled across the OECD because of administrative solos and political opportunity structures.
Research/limitations implications
Each of the people contacted to sit for an interview was chosen primarily on their professional title and their ability to speak from a place of knowledge about innovation in their country and or industry, and this creates a success bias within the study focusing on the knowledge of elites in the field.
Practical implications
This study explores how policy might be reimagined to support gender equality and diversity, thus changing the institutional landscape to support a wider range of innovations and distributing the benefits of innovation in a more equitable way.
Social implications
This paper challenges assumptions about the social and economic power dynamics reflected in current innovation systems in Canada and Sweden.
Originality/value
This is the first study of its kind in comparative public policy to explore differences in gender equality and innovation policy in Canada and Sweden. This research also contributes more widely to the existing body of gender, public policy and innovation literatures in Canada and Sweden, respectively.
Karin Schnarr, Anne Snowdon, Heidi Cramm, Jason Cohen and Charles Alessi
While there is established research that explores individual innovations across countries or developments in a specific health area, there is less work that attempts to match…
Abstract
Purpose
While there is established research that explores individual innovations across countries or developments in a specific health area, there is less work that attempts to match national innovations to specific systems of health governance to uncover themes across nations.
Design/methodology/approach
We used a cross-comparison design that employed content analysis of health governance models and innovation patterns in eight OECD nations (Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States).
Findings
Country-level model of health governance may impact the focus of health innovation within the eight jurisdictions studied. Innovation across all governance models has targeted consumer engagement in health systems, the integration of health services across the continuum of care, access to care in the community, and financial models that drive competition.
Originality/value
Improving our understanding of the linkage between health governance and innovation in health systems may heighten awareness of potential enablers and barriers to innovation success.
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Properly nurtured and financially supported independent industrial R&D institutions (IRDIs) can play a pivotal role in converting knowledge into commercially exploitable…
Abstract
Purpose
Properly nurtured and financially supported independent industrial R&D institutions (IRDIs) can play a pivotal role in converting knowledge into commercially exploitable applications in manufacturing industries particularly in the small and medium ones. The purpose of this paper is to present various evidence to enhance government awareness that Canadian R&D funding agenda should be streamlined as the way to strengthen the outreach capacity of Canadian IRDIs.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a variety of evidence, the position and role of IRDIs in Germany, Japan, the USA and Canada are highlighted. This is done to reveal the current position and outreach of IRDIs in each country and through that to recommend helpful strategies to strengthen the Canadian IRDIs and foster their contribution to the manufacturing technology development.
Findings
The study revealed the weak position of Canadian IRDIs in comparison with their counterparts in the USA, Japan and Germany. The paper proposed strategies and approaches on how IRDIs should be financially and technically supported to expand their outreach in the Canadian manufacturing sector.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides secondary data‐based evidence intended to serve as a background for more focused case supported future research.
Practical implications
Stakeholders at both government and industrial sectors may find the recommendations given in the paper as helpful inputs for formulating suitable policies and strategies in this area.
Originality/value
The paper presents vital background information on the important but neglected role of IRDIs in the application and commercialization of knowledge in manufacturing technology and the need to strengthen their position by granting the necessary financial assistance.
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David Doloreux and Ekaterina Turkina
This paper aims to explore the effects of multiple external sources of knowledge and of the use of winemaker consultants on innovation in the Canadian wine industry.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the effects of multiple external sources of knowledge and of the use of winemaker consultants on innovation in the Canadian wine industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for the study are taken from an original survey of wine firms in Canada covering the 2007-2009 period. The survey was carried out by computer-assisted telephone interviews, and it was addressed to winery firms that are engaged in growing grapes and producing wine.
Findings
The results show that the use of winemaker consultants positively affects all forms of innovation. At the same, as far as external knowledge sources are concerned, marketing sources positively affect all types of innovation, while research sources and general sources have a positive influence on particular forms of innovation. The results also show that winemaker consultants interact with other knowledge sources. Nevertheless, there are important nuances with regard to which type of knowledge sources is more compatible with the use of winemaker consultants for which type of innovation.
Originality/value
To date, there is no empirical evidence of the extent to which the use of external winemaker consultants and external knowledge sources interact together and what are their impacts on the introduction of different forms of innovation.
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David Doloreux and Anthony Frigon
Despite the importance of innovation in and the growth of the wine industry in recent years, empirical research devoted to innovation in this industry remains scarce. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the importance of innovation in and the growth of the wine industry in recent years, empirical research devoted to innovation in this industry remains scarce. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to filling this gap by exploring innovation among Canadian wine firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The data used in this paper are drawn from an original firm-level survey conducted between April and July 2018 to study the business and innovation strategies of Canadian winery firms over the 2015–2017 period.
Findings
First, the study has identified four innovation modes which are distinct in terms of firms’ strategy, innovation activities, and knowledge sourcing and openness. The second finding is that these different innovation modes are associated with different innovation outputs. The third finding is that there here is a tendency for certain innovation modes to better reflect firms in some regions, although all innovation modes are represented to different degrees in each of the three wine regions.
Originality/value
Empirical research devoted to innovation in this industry remains scarce. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring innovation among Canadian wine firms. These firms deal with several challenges and opportunities arising from the production and transformation of cool-climate grapes that impact on business innovation approaches.
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David Doloreux and Evelyne Lord‐Tarte
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the spatial organisation of the open innovation model in the wine industry in Canada.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the spatial organisation of the open innovation model in the wine industry in Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a micro‐firm level survey among 146 wine firms in Canada. Descriptive and non‐parametric tests are used in the analysis.
Findings
The results on the occurrence of collaborations depict modest collaborative activities with external sources. Most of the collaborations and information are sourced locally because the local climate and growing conditions are so specific that alternative sources and collaborations are less relevant. The results also show that the firm's openness strategy has a weak influence on innovation capacity but firms that introduce more innovations are those that embrace an open innovation strategy to a greater extent than the less innovative.
Research limitations/implications
The number of respondents is still limited (i.e. about 150). Moreover, only the relationship between some firm‐specific factors related to innovation and the degree of openness is studied.
Practical implications
The paper provides managerial implications because it suggests that firms adopting an open innovation strategy through collaborations have a higher impact on innovation development by means of introducing new types of innovation and on R&D activities.
Originality/value
The paper introduces the spatial dimension of the open innovation strategy in the wine industry in order to understand the link between the geographically‐dispersed open innovation networks and their impacts on innovation capacities and innovation development of winery firms.
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Sam Boutilier and Rod B. McNaughton
Collaboration as a means to enabling and nourishing innovation is an important theme in the extant literature, which posits that face-to-face interactions lubricate the knowledge…
Abstract
Collaboration as a means to enabling and nourishing innovation is an important theme in the extant literature, which posits that face-to-face interactions lubricate the knowledge flow between actors, and that clusters of complementary knowledge assets provide the necessary infrastructure for this process. What happens to firms that are located outside of urban agglomerations or in peripheral regions? Are they less innovative, or can information and communication technologies (ICT) serve as a proxy for face-to-face collaboration? Theory is polarized in terms of the role that ICT may play in collaborative transactions. For example, network theory explains that weak ties are important in terms of refreshing a firm's innovation capacity by forcing it to include ideas from the periphery. Others argue that ICT cannot supplant face-to-face interaction since it is not an efficient medium for transferring tacit knowledge. This chapter uses data from the Statistics Canada 2003 Survey of Innovation to investigate empirically the relationship between firm location, innovativeness, and the extent of local and more distant collaboration.
The paper's purpose is to show that the reported (and growing) labour productivity gap between the G7 and OECD countries and the USA might be a factor of the rapid adoption of…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper's purpose is to show that the reported (and growing) labour productivity gap between the G7 and OECD countries and the USA might be a factor of the rapid adoption of shadow banking structures and techniques in the USA versus the adoption of those structures in OECD and G7 economies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper explains the concept and practice of shadow banking and explores the ways in which the various conventions adopted distort reported productivity figures.
Findings
The growing adoption of shadow banking over the period 1974‐2007 has had the effect of increasing the metrics for labour productivity over the same period.
Practical implications
It is clear that those who wish to understand the apparent growing gap between labour productivity of the USA and other G7/OECD nations must look beyond the simple reported figures to identify the ways in which figures are calculated and reported.
Originality/value
The paper shows that reporting of figures to established conventions can be affected by a range of factors, not apparent from looking at those conventions themselves.
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Jacqueline Walsh and Blair Winsor
The purpose of this paper is to provide a contextual analysis that helps explain how socio-cultural factors are negatively impacting the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a contextual analysis that helps explain how socio-cultural factors are negatively impacting the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a struggling regional economy.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study method is used to provide a detailed contextual analysis triangulating primary and secondary data.
Findings
This paper provides insight into a region impeded from embracing the benefits of innovation-driven entrepreneurship in fostering economic development. The authors show that socio-cultural factors may be inhibiting the region from having a functional entrepreneurial ecosystem that can support innovation. Specific aspects of culture and social capital weaknesses are identified and insight into the potential causes of these impediments were offered. As well, the paper shows how the fundamental nature of culture may be affecting other elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem from maturing.
Originality/value
This paper adds to a small, but growing, body of literature that is illustrating the evolutionary nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems and the significant impact of socio-cultural attributes to that evolution. This paper responds to calls to investigate contexts in which innovation does not thrive and where economic challenges prevail. The value of this research paper is to provide conceptual contributions in a contextual analysis from which other researchers can draw comparisons, insights and inspiration for similar approaches. Despite the abundance of research discussing the importance of culture, there are very few actual case studies showing concrete examples of culture and its influence on a region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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Wendy Cukier and Zohreh Hassannezhad Chavoushi
This paper aims to provide a multi-level framework for exploring women entrepreneurship in Canada. The authors examine the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH), a platform…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a multi-level framework for exploring women entrepreneurship in Canada. The authors examine the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH), a platform to advance women entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze the major elements associated with the processes and strategies in WEKH through a case study approach.
Findings
The findings presented in this paper clearly show how creating an inclusive innovation ecosystem linking micro-, meso- and macro-level factors has the potential to advance women entrepreneurship
Research limitations/implications
This case study presented here is in the early phase and results are not yet available.
Practical implications
The lessons from WEKH provides a model for other countries.
Social implications
Entrepreneurship drives economic development and gender equality is a critical sustainable development goal. WEKH activities will advance opportunities for women by creating a more inclusive innovation ecosystem.
Originality/value
WEKH is a knowledge hub in Canada that aims to help foster women entrepreneurship in Canada related to the women entrepreneurship strategy national program.
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