Search results

This paper aims to develop an innovation management framework for achieving sustainability by managing risks associated with innovative solutions during the design process.

To achieve the abovementioned aim, a research methodology was designed to achieve four objectives. Firstly, a literature review was conducted to investigate the concepts of sustainability, innovation, innovation management and innovation and the design process. Secondly, three case studies were selected and analysed to validate the identified risks of innovation and to investigate the role of innovation management towards managing risks of innovation during the design process. Thirdly, a survey questionnaire was carried out with a representative sample of architectural design firms (ADFs) in Egypt to examine their perception and application of innovation management as an approach to managing risks of innovative solutions during the design process. Finally, developing an innovation management framework to achieve sustainability through managing risks associated with innovative solutions during the design process.

The literature review revealed that innovation plays a significant role towards achieving sustainability objectives, but integrating innovative solutions during the design process is frequently associated with risks. During the course of this research, 30 risks of innovation were identified and classified into four categories of product, process, person and press. Case studies showed that ADFs that applied innovation management approaches were successful in managing the risks associated with innovative solutions, whereas others that failed to use such approaches failed to meet sustainability objectives. Results of the survey questionnaire revealed that ADFs not only recognised the importance of innovative solutions in developing sustainable projects but also showed a gap between theory and practice. “Project delivery” is the most important type of innovation for ADFs in Egypt, followed by “building technologies” and “organisational culture”. Moreover, there is a misalignment between ADFs’ perceptions and the strategies used to deliver successful innovations. The highest risks of innovation are “unanticipated cost of innovation”, “manufacturing technologies and development issues” and “failing to meet technical criteria”.

Because of the conceptual nature of the developed framework, it has to be tested and validated to ensure its capability to achieve sustainability through managing the risks of innovative solutions during the design process which, in this research, adopted the Royal Institute of British Architects plan of work stages. Moreover, the lack of data availability directed this study to present and analyse only three case studies.

This research presents a practical solution to achieve sustainability through managing risks of innovation during the design process. It is a structured tool that can be used by ADFs in Egypt towards facilitating the shift in the direction of a more economically viable, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable built environment.

Although innovative design solutions are needed in developing sustainable buildings, a practical and systematic framework to manage associated risks during the design process is still lacking. In addition, current studies are business-oriented and need to be reinterpreted to fit with the architectural, engineering and construction disciplines. Thus, this research developed an innovation management framework to achieve sustainability through managing the risks associated with innovative solutions during the design process, which represents a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not been previously explored.

The purpose of this paper is to argue the case that libraries should use the lean startup method for developing, managing and launching radically innovative services or products.

Libraries need to innovate but do not have the management structure to handle the extreme uncertainty in implementing radical innovations. This paper examines the lean startup method for managing innovation, explores how it differs from traditional management tools, outlines the reasons for and barriers to innovation in libraries and highlights the new tools required to manage innovation. This paper also discusses the culture of innovation in libraries and how libraries innovate. The lean startup method is examined through the lens of a variety of innovation models.

The lean startup method for managing radical innovations is shown to be a sound alternative to traditional library management methods.

This paper is one of the few to examine a practical method for librarians to manage radical innovations in academic libraries.

This research aims to examine the challenges of recruiting participatory action research (PAR) in managing innovation projects. An enhanced methodology based on PAR was developed to mitigate the challenges related to recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. The proposed methodology was evaluated by comparing it to established methodologies/frameworks such as Scrum, Design Thinking (DT) and The Lean Startup (TLS). The evaluation aimed to determine the advantages and limitations of the proposed methodology in managing innovation projects.

The proposed enhanced methodology consists of eight steps, ranging from developing an understanding of the industry and business structure to learning and knowledge management. In addition, the enhanced methodology uses other techniques, such as Force field analysis and 12 boundary questions.

The research findings indicate that using the proposed methodology can improve the formalization of collaboration in PAR, enabling the organization to respond better to market changes. It helps define the project scope more clearly, encouraging innovation, addressing communication barriers and considering different worldviews and practical issues. Based on the findings, the proposed enhanced methodology could complement other methodologies/frameworks such as Scrum, DT and TLS.

The current research adds to the existing literature by identifying the challenges of recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. A deductive reasoning process was utilized because there is no comprehensive research concerning the challenges of recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. On the other hand, the PAR 4-phase cycle has been reviewed and enhanced to manage innovation projects.

The proposed methodology was used in a new product development project. The case study was done on one of the payment service provider companies that design, develop and deploy a digital product for marketing, installation, repair and maintenance of electronic funds transfer at point of sale devices.

No research has yet sought to identify the challenges of using PAR in innovation project management (IPM). Identifying the challenges associated with applying PAR in the IPM and providing an enhanced methodology to mitigate the challenges could fill a gap in IPM studies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and reflect on a set of dynamic capabilities for managing service innovation and applies a dynamic capabilities view (DCV) of firms for managing service innovation.

This theoretical paper offers a conceptual framework for managing service innovation by proposing six dynamic service innovation capabilities. This framework builds on and is integrated with a model of service innovation that covers the possible dimensions where service innovation can take place. On this basis, avenues for future research into managing service innovation are identified and managerial implications discussed.

The six dynamic service innovation capabilities identified are: signalling user needs and technological options; conceptualising; (un‐)bundling; co‐producing and orchestrating; scaling and stretching; and learning and adapting. It is hypothesized that successful service innovators, which may include manufacturing firms developing into providers of service solutions, outperform their competitors in at least some of these capabilities.

The six dynamic service innovation capabilities identified in this theoretical paper, their mutual links as well as links with dimensions of service innovation need to be tested further. Further refinement is required in order to be able to discriminate between various industries, sizes and types of firms.

Those involved in managing service innovation are offered a framework for systematically assessing dynamic service innovation capabilities.

The main contribution of this paper is that it links a service (innovation) perspective to a DCV of the firm by proposing a set of six dynamic service innovation capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations manage and integrate exploration and exploitation across the innovation project portfolio. Such ambidextrous capabilities are required for organizations to innovate and succeed in today's rapidly changing competitive environment. Understanding how exploration and exploitation projects are integrated can illustrate ways to enhance ambidexterity and boost learning for the benefit of both approaches.

A multiple-case study approach was used to explore innovation portfolio management in six large organizations that emphasize innovation in their strategies.

The findings draw upon concepts of paradox and contingency to reveal that the inherent tension between formality and flexibility in managing innovation project portfolios is aligned with the need for organizational ambidexterity that maintains effective exploitative innovation while supporting explorative innovation capabilities. Four integration mechanisms are identified that enhance ambidexterity across the innovation portfolio by embedding processes for transition from exploration to exploitation and cross-fertilizing knowledge to build innovation capability across both exploration and exploitation.

Managers may find inspiration on ways to enhance learning by bridging exploration and exploitation projects from the four types of integration mechanisms. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of the tension between formality and flexibility in project and portfolio management may also help guide organizations to effectively develop ambidextrous approaches to enhance overall innovation outcomes.

In contrast to perspectives which suggest that paradox and contingency approaches represent disparate perspectives, the authors demonstrate how they can complement each other and work together through innovation portfolio management to support ambidexterity at the portfolio and project levels.

Innovation ecosystem research has highlighted complementors as the critical force to determining focal firm innovation’s success in addition to the traditional value chain or supply chain perspective. However, literature is relatively scarce in terms of innovation ecosystem governance, especially, on how to manage various types of complementors. The purpose of this paper is to fill this theoretical gap by developing a typology of managing complementors from multiple case studies.

This study conducted multiple case studies of three leading focal firms with ecosystem strategies to understand innovation ecosystem governance. Theoretical themes are inductively generated to reveal their success in managing complementors in their ecosystems.

The case analysis reveals four generic strategies to manage complementors. These strategies are contingent on the types of complementors and level of interdependence: focal firms tend to engage functional complementors and collaborate with infrastructural complementors when the level of interdependence is higher, and acquire functional complementors and nurture infrastructural complementors when the level of interdependence is lower.

For practitioners, this study can improve their understanding on the mechanisms of innovation ecosystem governance, particularly interdependence between participants in an innovation ecosystem, and developing appropriate strategies to manage different types of complementors in innovation ecosystems.

This study contributes to innovation ecosystem literature by enriching the conceptualization of interdependence in innovation ecosystems and unpacking innovation ecosystem governance with the inductively developed holistic typology of strategies to manage complementors. Meanwhile, this study also suggests underlying mechanisms for how innovation ecosystem governance and, therefore, contributes to a systematic theory on understanding innovation ecosystem governance.

Biotech companies are generally faced with the paradoxes of simultaneously managing growth and innovation, as well as addressing explorative and exploitative aspects of innovation. Scholars have urged them to re‐evaluate their business model. The purpose of this paper is to explore how biotech companies in emerging economies address these paradoxes, focusing upon the nascent biotech industry in India, in order to investigate their growth and innovation patterns, as well as identify the challenges that they may face.

A qualitative data collection, using in‐depth interviews with representatives of organizations that deal directly with improving the quality of the business environment for biotech industry in India, as well as biotech entrepreneurs and leaders were undertaken. A total of 13 interviews provided insights related to innovation and growth that is discussed in the paper.

Data indicate that Indian biotech companies are ambidextrous and have managed to transcend the aforementioned paradoxes by developing and maintaining distinct organizational capabilities. They were found to pursue an integrated model of efficiency and innovation and utilize both exploitative and explorative aspects of innovation to fuel growth and innovation. The authors also found evidence of some of the characteristics of the “India Way”, proposed by Cappelli et al.

The authors conclude that Indian companies offer an opportunity for learning for American biotech companies with respect to building new competencies and balancing growth and innovation in today's competitive environment.

Despite being labeled as the “industry of the decade”, biotechnology has been neglected in technology and innovation literature. It is hoped that the paper's findings will generate interest in the study of biotech industries in emerging economies, to help scholars develop interesting new theoretical models of innovation and aid managers in coping with the innovation and change paradoxes that they are faced with in developing new products and services.

This chapter asks how we can understand the managerial practices in open innovation, a recently popularized way of organizing innovative work. Open innovation implies opening up the borders of the organization, creating a context where conventional steering and managerial tools no longer apply. Utilizing a collaborative research approach, following an open innovation collaboration over 8 years, this chapter outlines the managerial practices that direct the collaboration. These practices are important for meaning making and identity creation in the collaboration and can be understood as a form of authorship, a continuous intervention strategy to manage, develop and change the organizational context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevant factors that influence the implementation of innovation contests, an open innovation (OI) practice that has been extensively reported in the literature as a managerial tool for external knowledge search. The authors focus the study on the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The approach is a retrospective case study. This methodology allows an in-depth view into a Spanish SME that successfully undertook two new product development processes thanks to the deployment of innovation contests.

The main context factors influencing innovation contests as managerial tool are ambidexterity, technological and marketing turbulence and intermediaries, among others. Regarding design factors, this work highlights the role of attraction and facilitation. Additionally, the repetitive implementation of innovation contests creates a corporate culture that promotes OI activities.

Managers will understand that they can use innovation contests as a managerial tool, and knowing the factors that need to be taken into account when implementing an innovation contest will help SMEs managers to make better use of this practice.

This case study enriches the literature of both innovation contests and topics relevant to SMEs. Based on a theoretical framework of the design factors that influence the implementation of innovation contests, the authors propose a research framework that incorporates those context factors in association with an SME.

Managing educational innovation in higher education institutions is a complex process that requires specific strategies based on research and proven frameworks. The aim of this paper was to examine how Bolman and Deal’s (2003) theoretical framework can be used to analyse organisational change processes and to evaluate the progress and outcomes of an educational innovation initiative at a university in the Gulf. This educational innovation involved the use of iPads in curricular practices to enhance pedagogical strategies and student learning outcomes.

An ethnographic case study methodology was used to make an empirical inquiry that investigated data obtained from direct observations, informal interviews, holistic field notes and documents to better understand a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context.

A critical analysis of this iPad initiative suggested that the main areas of leading and managing this innovation, through Bolman and Deal’s framework, were effectively centred around the human resources, structural and political frames but were less affected by the symbolic frame.

The authors provide suggestions, based on their experiences as faculty members and academic administrators, on how such innovations can be effectively led and managed. In addition, a new cross-cultural model is proposed for managing future educational innovations in higher education, particularly in the Gulf region. This new model could also be used to effectively evaluate the implementation and management of other educational changes such as those precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.