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The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the question: to what extent does the process of establishing radical innovation proposals identify new potential for improved performance? The goal is to determine the types of early stage concepts that are developed, their potential performance impact on the existing business and their potential value to the organization ex ante decision making with respect to choice of projects to pursue.

The authors apply a participatory case study approach combined with a content analysis of data from an idea management system that was utilized by the case organization. The authors build new empirically based theory on the direct and indirect value that emerges by creating new potential concepts to the innovation stream of an existing company.

The authors conclude that three types of performance-improving activities are developed to be exploited during opportunity recognition and concept development, through a disciplined approach to uncovering potential RI projects. These concern existing products and production, as well as the conceptualization of new products to the organization, market and world.

Approaching high uncertainty projects in a disciplined manner can be beneficial to an organization, since knowledge that is directly exploitable to improve performance is identified during the exploration process.

The paper is original since the authors treat the study of innovation as an independent variable. The authors apply a theory-building approach based on empirical evidence that was collected in a real life setting and not in a business school setup. The findings are novel because the authors examine the potential value of radical innovation processes ex ante realization and decision making. Hence, the authors examine what happens before the archetypical performance measurements of realized innovation projects can be utilized to verdict the success or failure.

Interest in reverse innovation (RI) is increasing. According to the authors’ review, more than 350 reliable sources (scientific publications, academic books and working papers) examine or at least discuss the concept. As RI gains popularity among academic authors, some discrepancies have started to appear. This wealth of publications could impact prior advancements related to understanding of the phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to decrease fragmentation and focus on identifying and understanding RI.

A systematic review of RI was conducted. The review conformed to a rigorous set of core principles: it was systematic (organized according to a method designed to address the review questions), transparent (explicitly stated), reproducible and updatable, and synthesized (summarized the evidence relating to the review question).

This systematic review provides an improved theoretical and practical framework for the concept of RI. In terms of theory, the authors have demonstrated that the idea behind the concept is not entirely new. A consensus on the definition of RI is not reached in the literature, and descriptions in organizational theory contexts are sometimes misleading. The authors analyzed all the various definitions provided in the literature. From a practical point of view, the authors have explained the academic interest in RI in relation to organizational strategy, in particular the context in which strategies are adopted. The concept of RI has significant managerial implications, and the authors have proposed a conceptual framework to help managers understand and grasp the implications of RI. Finally, the authors have provided suggestions for future research on RI.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first exhaustive literature review on RI.

The purpose of this article is to look at the authors' own definition of systems thinking, which is applied to investigate management concepts. These are the most influential management concepts in Slovenia, a new EU member.

Between 1999 and 2003 a letter survey was used in Slovenian organisations. In 1999 about 300 organisations and in 2003 more than 400 were addressed. The authors tested their questionnaire on a pilot sample of organisations, all items being closed qualitative questions. Data from questionnaire were entered into Lotus Notes database and from it into excel and SPSS for a statistical analysis. The management concepts were analysed by the factor and discriminatory analysis. Both of them enabled the authors to comprehend innovation of management concepts in the Slovenian economy.

Management innovation is the crucial precondition for innovation management, where innovation has not yet become the prevailing culture.

In Slovenia, the authors came across no research on this topic, theoretical and applied at the same time. The governmental support gives the research a broader societal importance and a chance of a rather active impact over transition in Slovenian economy.

This paper offers broader possibilities for researchers and business people in order to better understand different management concepts and differences among them. This will help the reader to make better judgements while deciding to introduce the appropriate one.

This study aims to investigate how configurations of boundary objects (BOs) support innovation teams in developing innovative product concepts. Specifically, it explores the effectiveness of different artefact configurations in facilitating collaboration and bridging knowledge boundaries during the concept development process.

The research is based on data from ten undergraduate innovation teams working with an industry partner in a creative industry. Six categories of BOs are identified, which serve as tools for collaboration. The study applies fsQCA (fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis) to analyse the configurations employed by the teams to bridge knowledge boundaries and support the development of innovative product concepts.

The findings of the study reveal two distinct groups of configurations: product envisioning and product design. The configurations within the “product envisioning” group support the activities of visioning and pivoting, enabling teams to innovate the product concept by altering the product vision. On the other hand, the configurations within the “product design” group facilitate experimenting, modelling and prototyping, allowing teams to design the attributes of the innovative product concept while maintaining the product vision.

This research contributes to the field of innovation by providing insights into the role of BOs and their configurations in supporting innovation teams during concept development. The results suggest that configurations of “product envisioning” support bridging semantic knowledge boundaries, while configurations within “product design” bridge pragmatic knowledge boundaries. This understanding contributes to the broader field of knowledge integration and innovation in design contexts.

This metasynthesis aims to build a theory on the concept of innovation ecosystem from the state of the art of qualitative case studies available in indexed scientific production using interpretive synthesis (Hoon, 2013).

This research was conducted by the postulates of the metasynthesis method (Hoon, 2013) to generate theory from qualitative case studies. The authors retrieved 77 research papers from databases, of which 6 were used for synthesis purposes. Each selected research paper reported one or more cases, which were analyzed separately. At the final stage, a data synthesis was structured and the cases were crossed, which allowed the development of a schematic representation and a theoretical construction of the innovation ecosystem concept. The approach used in this research is a metatheoretical assumption from economics and management and ecology to explore the theoretical gap in the concept of innovation ecosystems.

There is not yet a conceptual consensus on the term, which sometimes leads researchers to address partial or complementary concepts. The analysis identified constitutive elements of an innovation ecosystem that lead to structuring a framework of organic and dynamic interrelationships that a given organization has with various external organizations, allowing the creation of innovative products in a faster way.

This paper helps scholars and researchers consider a new metatheoretical perspective to analyze dynamics, constitutive elements and multilevels of an innovation ecosystem.

For practitioners, this paper sheds lights on the importance of recognizing a systemic consideration of innovation ecosystems that falls in global relationships, industry dynamics and identification of main global–local actors/enablers to produce innovations internally at a given organization.

The novelty of this paper lies in a more delineated definition and a schematic representation of an innovation ecosystem based on a global–local perspective of product creation and manufacturing and interactions that a given company has, regardless of the geographical location of its dispersed strategic partners.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

Companies are increasingly adopting design processes as a key driver for their innovation practice. Design processes help companies develop innovations that produce high user value as well as economic value and business value. The purpose of this paper is to describe how design processes can be effectively used in innovation projects through a good understanding design principles, tools, and frameworks.

The frameworks in this paper are based on our direct experience with several innovation projects within leading companies. The processes adopted by many other companies and innovation projects, both academic and professional from around the world, were also studied as drawn from various sources. The goal was to uncover insights about the types of processes adopted by successful innovators.

These analyses reveal that there is a new focus on “design innovation” that produces offerings with a better fit with users and results in higher rates of adoption. It is found that these design processes are transforming the innovation practice of companies. The paper has identified four key principles that innovators use to ensure the success of their innovation practice. Further, it has developed a generic design process model that can be used as a guide for innovation projects, and identified a set of specific tools and frameworks that support the various stages of this generic process.

As design innovation processes are increasingly becoming a core part of the innovation practice in companies, there is a growing need to understand how companies can gain competence in this area. The generic design process model discussed in this paper, and a good understanding of the associated tools and frameworks, is a valuable resource for successful innovation practice.

This conceptual paper articulates an analytical framework, which collectively borrows from the concepts of Sectoral, National and Technological Innovation Systems, for examining the prospects for the emergence of renewable energy industries in a given country. In order to examine the dynamics within the national energy system under consideration, a list of system functions has also been compiled from the literature. It is believed that the adoption of such a functions approach has the potential to enhance our understanding of the process of, and drivers behind, the emergence and transformation of energy innovation systems. Towards the end of this paper, other theoretical concepts are acknowledged as also relevant for investigating the potential establishment of renewable energy industries. While every theoretical approach has its strengths and weaknesses, an effort has been made in this paper to justify the adoption of a suitable framework that is based on the systems of innovation approach.

This research contributes to the development of the theory of intrapreneurship by clarifying the intrapreneurship concept. Intrapreneurship is more precisely defined by referring to emergent behavioral intentions and behaviors that are related to departures from the customary ways of doing business in existing organizations. The intrapreneurship concept is positioned in the management literature, is contrasted with other similar management concepts and developed as an integrative concept composed of eight distinct, yet related dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify forthcoming fields of innovation management themes with an outline for the most important areas and directions of academic research and management practice.

Key trends in innovation research are derived from an extensive literature review. In addition, major macroeconomic trends and new technologies were identified to finally develop a conceptual framework.

The paper identifies seven major fields for future research in innovation management theory and practice. These areas are namely customer orientation, network organisation, sustainability, frugality, intellectual property, business model and global innovation. Based on the paper literature review, the paper develops a conceptual framework built on intra‐firm and external openness as well as the short‐ and long‐term strategic perspective. Future research areas are finally introduced.

The paper shows a new conceptual framework and establishes a holistic view of innovation management themes in the next years. Based on the framework, future research areas may be identified and managers can identify important concepts.