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The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to understand recombinant innovation (RI) as a potentially significant part of an open innovation (OI) strategy and second, to suggest key routines which would underpin a capability for RI, locating these within the context of enhanced absorptive capacity (AC). Finally, the paper considers how such routines could be developed, drawing on some case examples.

The authors start with a literature review on OI and use the lens of AC to explore challenges in finding, assimilating and deploying external knowledge posed by the emerging knowledge-rich context of OI. The authors then explore one OI route – RI – and suggest a model framework for operationalizing it based on routines for search, acquisition, assimilation and deployment.

The authors suggest three sets of routines required for RI, around abstract-driven search (ADS), brokerage and cyclic adaptation. As with much of the now widely available toolkit for OI, the challenge is one of moving from potential to realized opportunity and this will require investments in learning and capability building.

The authors suggest that for organizations to enhance their AC around RI, three core routines are needed: ADS, brokerage and cyclic adaptation.

The view that supply chain learning (SCL) has become a fundamental capability that supply chains must employ to innovate and improve their financial, technological, operational, environmental and social performance is widely accepted. However, the SCL phenomenon is still understudied and not fully understood by scholars, decision-makers and government representatives. This article aims to make sense of the existing literature and to identify important research directions that require further attention.

This article reviews the diversity of SCL in the literature, proposes a typology of such a phenomenon, provides an overview of key articles in the literature and identifies a series of recommendations for the future development of the field.

This article combines two fundamental dimensions from the literature (i.e. SCL driver and SCL network) to produce a typology of four types of SCL: Captive, Consortium, Selective and Distributed.

The typology proposed here offers an important framework for supply chain decision-makers to rely on when implementing SCL initiatives. The implications of each type of SCL offer a robust rationale for decision-makers to adopt the most appropriate type of SCL or combinations of SCL types, given each situation. In addition, the typology supports policy-makers in further understanding the SCL phenomenon and creating effective innovation, economic development and sustainability policies through supply chains.

This article offers a novel typology that the authors hope will help scholars to advance the field of SCL in order to understand this important phenomenon. There is no good/bad/better/worse SCL type in the proposed typology, but the critical element for the success of SCL efforts is the level of fit between the type of SCL, the type of knowledge to be created and diffused, and the outcome supply chains aim to achieve with that learning effort. In addition, the authors coin the construct of “the learning supply chain”, which refers to a supply chain that learns constantly by employing all four types of SCL simultaneously.

This paper aims to discuss the interview held with Professor John Bessant conducted by Professor Peter Totterdill. John Bessant has been active in research, teaching and consultancy in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. He currently holds the Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Exeter University where he is also Research Director.

This wide-ranging and insightful interview looks at the challenges of implementing workplace innovation and the realities involved in the process. It covers questions concerning the importance of innovation to businesses coming out of recession and the relationship between employee involvement and innovation.

Professor Bessant also discusses the challenge of releasing individual potential and how to harness random creativity. He looks at the “starter conditions” for workplace innovation as well as the factors that mitigate against sustaining it.

Key to sustaining workplace innovation, he argues, are a number of elements including momentum, self-belief and confidence, appropriate resource, leadership and empowerment. In addition, the implementation of workplace innovation does not occur as one big hit but a series of small steps which evolve and develop.

New technology via intranets and social media also help to mobilise a lot more participation. Technology now provides the potential to reach every employee and their involvement can be instantaneous. This can create a notion of shared creativity, the Facebook process of “good idea, I like that, why don’t you try that?”

The article argues that many of the difficulties encountered in exploiting computer‐integrated technologies result from their being implemented as part of an attempt to change from a mass production to a flexible manufacturing paradigm. It is further argued that this also requires changes in the organisational paradigm in order to create a social system capable of supporting flexible manufacturing. Results of a study of 28 companies and 46 applications of computer‐integrated technologies are reported showing that there are widespread changes in organisation at the levels of work, management and inter‐organisational relationships. The empirical findings support the argument of a paradigm shift and detail the organisational dimensions on which this is taking place.

In developing CI capability, organisations need to move to a level of development in which strategic goals are communicated and deployed and where improvement activity is guided by a process of monitoring and measurement against these strategic objectives. Policy deployment of this kind is more prevalent in Japanese examples and in a handful of cases in Western firms. Implementing it poses significant challenges and requires a different and additional toolkit of enabling resources. This paper reports on the experience of policy deployment in Japan and in Western enterprises and explores some of the implementation issues raised.

This paper is based on longitudinal case studies of research into strategy formulation within six plants from large firms – three in the car industry and three from the computer industry – that have embarked on mass customisation. The core theme of this paper is that, in spite of the increasing attention given to manufacturing strategy from the seminal work of Skinner through to the plethora of articles in recent times, little is mentioned about its application to paradigms of agility or mass customisation. As a consequence firms attempt to become agile and to pursue mass customisation without appreciating the contribution of plant‐specific manufacturing strategies that might enable them to achieve these aspirations. We examine the enablers and strategic blockages in pursuing mass customisation, via a mapping process, and reveal reasons why some firms remain unable to devise and implement manufacturing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of inter‐firm learning and the ways in which “learning networks” can be established and facilitated. Underlying this is the argument that significant traction on the problem of organizational learning – in this case around process innovations – can be gained through deploying structured and purposeful inter‐organizational learning networks.

The paper builds on three case studies drawn from the experience of firms in South Africa, covering both vertical (supply chain) and horizontal (cross‐sector) groupings in automotive components and timber products.

The paper reports on the ways in which the learning networks were set‐up and operated, mapping this experience against a model framework which emphasizes a number of core operational processes. It suggests that the success of both the automotive component groupings and the failure of the timber products network can be explained through reference to this model and the different approaches taken to managing these core processes.

The research reported here draws on a small number of detailed cases and further work is needed to verify the model and the guidelines for action.

The paper highlights guidelines for policy agents – for example, in business support agencies or regional development authorities – in setting up and running effective learning networks.

The paper contributes to theory around inter‐organizational networking and organizational learning and provides micro‐level detail of how learning networks can be established and sustained.