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This study aims at developing a better understanding of the different mechanisms that affect technology collaboration portfolio management. How do firms manage their technology collaboration portfolio? Despite some thoughtful scholars have advanced the understanding of the phenomenon of technology collaboration portfolio, there is not much research that has been done in terms of understanding the endeavors of firms when they collectively use a range of actors for the best interests of the firms. Additionally, little attention has been paid to the trade-offs and managing mechanisms for the collaborations between different partners from a portfolio-level perspective, especially in emerging markets.

A multiple-case study of two Chinese high-tech firms, an inductive approach.

The authors identified three primary mechanisms that underlie successful knowledge creation and application in technology collaboration portfolio context: informally mobilizing boundary-spanning brokers for domestic academic collaborations, formally institutionalizing learning activities for industry collaborations and integrating formal and informal mechanisms for technology collaborations between focused firms and foreign organizations.

The authors extend the line of organizational ambidexterity literature with a focus on strategic alliance, proposing that firms need to balance academic and industry collaborations from a portfolio level. Moreover, the authors intend to extend the literature of alliance portfolio by suggesting three different learning mechanisms of managing different technology collaborations for the purpose of balancing successful knowledge creation and application.

While strategic alliances is a concept increasingly discussed in the field of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), an emerging and more crucial concept regarding alliances—namely, the alliance portfolio—is mostly ignored in the SSCM context. Mainly drawing on the categorisation–elaboration model (CEM), this research develops a three-layer model to explore the effects of three alliance portfolio diversity facets on the three triple-bottom-line SSCM performances through the mediation of sustainability collaboration.

The field data are collected from 321 Vietnamese manufacturers. Scale accuracy is assessed through the confirmatory factor analysis method. Hierarchical linear regressions are applied to test the proposed model and hypotheses.

Partner, governance, and functional alliance portfolio diversities have a U-shaped, inverted U-shaped, and positive linear effect, respectively, on sustainability collaboration. Sustainability collaboration is in turn found to enhance the SSCM performances in terms of economic, environmental, and social.

This research introduced a new theoretical lens, CEM, to the SSCM field. It also provided findings that can help firms to manage their alliance portfolios more dynamically in terms of the nature and diversity level of the portfolio and in a way that adds to the triple bottom line through the mediating effect of sustainability collaboration.

Firms are driven to ride on the digital wave in today’s open innovation ecosystem. This study aims to explore the effect of digital transformation (DT) on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms’ innovation ambidexterity, namely, radical versus incremental innovation, respectively. Meanwhile, the authors evaluated the moderating role of the complexity of R&D collaboration portfolio (i.e. organizational diversity and geographic diversity) in the above relationships.

Using a panel data set of 171 Chinese listed firms in the information and communications technology services industry from 2010 to 2018, the proposed hypotheses were empirically attested.

It is found that DT has a positive relationship with radical innovation and an inverted U-shaped relationship with incremental innovation. In terms of the R&D collaboration portfolio, organizational diversity positively moderates the relationships between DT and innovation ambidexterity, respectively. The geographic diversity weakens the inverted U-shaped effect of DT on incremental innovation; however, its moderating role in the link between DT and radical innovation is not empirically verified.

Extant scholars mainly addressed the interplay between KIBS firms and their manufacturing clients, while this study reveals the different consequences of DT on KIBS firms’ innovation ambidexterity to highlight the role of KIBS firms is an independent and essential innovator in a knowledge-driven economy. Notably, the findings contribute to knowledge management (KM) and R&D literature by confirming the diversity of the R&D collaboration portfolio is a critical KM strategy for KIBS firms to develop and promote external knowledge resources.

Purpose – This chapter considers the question whether firms can contribute to poverty alleviation through engaging in ‘inclusive business’, thereby linking the macro concept of ‘inclusive growth’ to the micro concept of ‘inclusive business’. A key element in this approach is how to take so-called cross-sector partnerships into account. Partnerships are one way of bundling non-market resources in the internationalisation strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs).

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter is largely exploratory and primarily aimed at validating a general taxonomy of inclusive business. The creation of a multi-level taxonomy of business models of MNEs towards inclusive business takes into account the role of cross-sector partnership portfolios. The taxonomy makes it possible to come to a first comparison of the strategies of MNEs across national and cultural boundaries, distinguish some patterns and discuss determinants of strategies in which partnerships play a role in the inclusive growth strategies of MNEs.

Findings – A first application of this taxonomy on the business and partnership models adopted by the first 100 Global Fortune companies shows that in general firms still adopt very reactive strategies when integrating inclusive business strategies in their cross-sector partnership portfolios.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter takes a company-specific level of analysis for the relationship between Foreign Direct Investment and development, which is habitually researched at the macro level of analysis. It documents business models as well as the related cross-sector partnerships. Cross-sector partnership portfolios of companies are not yet researched at any systematic level. They form the meso-level link between micro-level business models and macro-level national development strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on large-scale portfolio entrepreneurship and its impact on the creation of stable wage employment in African economies.

The three studies focussed on Egypt, Uganda, and Malawi were all exploratory, inductive, and qualitative studies, which involved semi-structured interviews with 65 entrepreneurial founders of some of these countries’ most prominent business portfolios between 2009 and 2012. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews, which lasted between one and four hours, with the founders of each of these portfolios.

This inductive and qualitative study finds a connection between the creation of stable wage-paying jobs and portfolio entrepreneurship in three countries, representing three of the four different archetypal African economies. It also finds a strong connection between the development of new industries and portfolio entrepreneurship.

The practical and societal implications of these findings are incredibly important. The current and looming shortage of stable wage employment in Africa is reaching calamitous proportions. The growth in religion-affiliated terrorism and high-risk economic migration to Europe can be directly related to the lack of employment opportunities in African nations. The findings indicate that portfolio entrepreneurs are major players in the creation of such employment opportunities and government policies focussing on this area, as compared to focussing solely on SMEs, may be more effective in mitigating some of the drivers for emigration and terrorism.

This is the only study of its kind that investigates the role of large-scale portfolio entrepreneurship in the growth of employment opportunities in Africa.

Drawing upon insights from knowledge-based theory and the learning perspective, this study aims to explore safeguarding strategies in open innovation. Geographic diversity and collaborative breadth can effectively protect proprietary innovations that limit knowledge leakage concerns.

Using a cross-industry sample from the Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey III, which covered 1,519 firms, the authors investigate the conditions under which partnership portfolios affect radical innovation.

The findings suggest that the partnership portfolio has an inverted U-shaped influence on radical innovation and that this relationship is moderated by geographic diversity and collaborative breadth. This work identifies a balance in the tension between diverse partnership portfolios and knowledge leakage with regard to open innovation activities.

This study provides senior managers with an indication of the relationships between partnership portfolios and innovative knowledge protection, identifying the geographic diversity and collaborative breadth that serve as safeguards to prevent leakages of a firm’s innovative knowledge.

This study makes an original contribution to the empirical exploration of innovation knowledge protection and provides new insights into the field of open innovation. The authors, thus, balance the tension between partnership portfolios and knowledge leakage.

This study aims to investigate the importance and effect of asymmetric technological collaborations’ key success factors in developing countries. The number of collaborations between large enterprises and SMEs, known as asymmetric technological collaborations (ATC) is growing considerably. But this asymmetry in itself can increase the number and intensity of collaboration challenges. So far, limited studies have been conducted on the stability of ATCs, and most of them have been in the context of developed countries. Meanwhile, studying the strength and stability of collaboration in the nano industry with growing market value and increasing newcomers is of particular importance.

Here, with bionic engineering approach, we used chemistry for the first time to identify the main stability factors of ATCs and build our hypotheses and research model. To this end, we introduced the factors affecting the stability of the dative chemical bond as a bionic counterpart of corporate venture capital (CVC), which is a type of ATC, and proposed 4 hypotheses. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least squares (PLS) method to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The analysis of survey questionnaire data from 26 asymmetric collaborations in Iran’s nanotechnology industry shows that “learning of the acceptor company” with a negative effect, “network ties” and “development of the collaboration host region” with a positive effect and “diversity in the collaboration portfolio” with an inverted U-shaped effect are the most influential factors in the stability and continuity of CVCs, respectively.

The findings of this research can be the beginning of a broad path leading to exploring and getting inspiration from chemistry to analyze management issues.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the inter‐organizational patterns of an events network that shape a host community's capacity to capitalize on its event portfolio.

Network analysis was employed to measure the relationships within an events network. The network included nine organizations that participated in the organization of the host community's event portfolio. Data were collected using an instrument adapted from Provan et al. and analyzed using the statistical software for social network analysis, UCINET. Four types of links were measured (shared information, shared resources, help sent, and help received) as well as attitudes toward trust and collaboration.

Results showed that collaboration was not consistent across all types of links. The most central organizations in the network were the Tourism Department and the Chamber. Shared information was the predominant type of link with other types of links being weaker resulting in low multiplexity scores. Reciprocity among existing links was above average. Finally, the organizations appeared to have high levels of trust and positive attitudes toward collaboration.

An events network can be studied as a measurable mechanism assessing community capacity building in event management and explicating the collaboration patterns in event portfolios that facilitate the joint use of an integrated set of resources for sport and cultural events.

Network analysis can be employed to explore and assess the nature, patterns, and effectiveness of inter‐organizational relationships affecting event planning, implementation, and leveraging.

The paper demonstrates the usefulness of network analysis as a tool for host communities to help build their capacity in event management through the development of local networks. It also suggests that the study of event portfolios provides a suitable context for future research to examine community capacity building in terms of fostering the necessary relationships and synergies to plan, implement, and leverage a series of different events.

Teacher retention and continued teacher growth and development have long been critical global issues in education. The recent pandemic crisis and subsequent “great resignation” (Lodewick, 2022) have returned our attention to the need for positive and enriching educational landscapes that promote teacher collaborative reflection, knowledge, and growth in order to sustain teachers in the field. This chapter explores the ongoing teacher learning that has occurred within two knowledge communities (Craig, 1995b) in the United States. It begins with an overview of Craig's early work with teachers, during which her conceptualization of knowledge communities emerged. According to Craig, knowledge communities are safe, collaborative spaces that cohere around teachers' intra/inter-school dialogue and their storying/restorying (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996, 1998) of experiences. Additionally, knowledge communities (Craig, 1995b) begin with originating events, allow teachers' experiences (Dewey, 1938) to resonate with others in the group, feature reciprocity of members' mindful responses, and promote the development of shared ways of knowing. Equally important, knowledge communities evolve and change, fuel ongoing reflection in community, and bring moral horizons into view. Employing these knowledge community qualities as our lens, we examine the interactions of the Portfolio Group and the Faculty Academy. The Portfolio Group is a teacher/teacher educator/researcher group formed in 1998 during a US education reform era (Craig, Curtis et al., 2020). Its sister group, the Faculty Academy, is a cross-institutional, cross-discipline higher education group of teacher educators/researchers formed in 2002 (Craig, Turchi et al., 2020). Employing a parallel stories representation (Craig, 1999), exemplars (Mishler, 1990) from both groups show how teacher collaborative groups have the capacity to be safe spaces in which critical professional dialogue, reflective exchanges, and generous scholarship occur among members. Furthermore, they are nurturing spaces in which teachers can thrive and be their best-loved selves (Craig, 2013; Schwab, 1954/1978). These two groups exemplify the ways in which knowledge communities support teacher collaboration, promote ongoing teacher growth and development, and foster teacher sustainability.

In this chapter, we make the argument that science-based firms in the life sciences are expected to actively expand the volume and scope of collaborations, and broaden the kinds of partners with whom they collaborate, as they grow larger, older, and become successful. We base our arguments on a general process of organizational learning in which organizations with diverse ties are exposed to a broader stock of knowledge, heterogeneity in the portfolio of collaborators facilitates innovation, and repeat contracting enables organizations to deepen their protocols for the exchange of information and resources. We draw from these ideas the conclusion that interfirm collaboration is not a transitional stage, or stepping stone, to success or maturity, but a significant organizational practice in technologically advanced fields. Extending this argument, we suggest this strategy of interfirm collaboration represents neither dependency nor specialization but an alternative way of accessing knowledge and resources.