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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the study of supply chain design from the perspective of complex dynamic systems. Unlike extant studies that use formal simulation modelling and associated methodologies rooted in the physical sciences, it adopts a framework rooted in the social sciences, strategic niche management, which provides rich insights into the behavioural aspects of complex innovation dynamics of emerging supply chains.

The use of the framework is illustrated by means of a case study about the development of a new biofuels supply chain in East Africa.

Three key dynamic processes are found to be at the core of new supply chain development: networking, learning and the management of actor expectations. The case analysis suggests the need to actively manage these processes and suggests possible ways of doing so.

Generalisability is limited since the research is based on one case study. Additional case studies using the same framework would help to validate and extend the results obtained.

Implications for strategic managerial decision making include the need to encourage stakeholder networking and shared learning, and managing their expectations.

The paper uses an innovative conceptual framework to examine new supply chain development, which yields new insights into how these processes can be actively managed and supported.

This paper aims to explore the impact of enterprise niche on dual innovation performance and the moderating role of innovation openness on the relationship between enterprise niche and dual innovation performance.

This study uses the panel data of the enterprise technology patents of China's Top 100 Electronic Information Enterprises from 2009 to 2018. Multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

Niche width has a significant positive impact on exploitative and exploratory innovation performance. Niche overlap has an inverted U-shaped effect on exploitative innovation performance and significantly positively affects exploratory innovation performance. Innovation openness negatively moderates the impact of niche width on exploitative innovation performance and positively moderates the impact of niche overlap on exploitative innovation performance.

This study provides new insights into the effects of enterprise niche on dual innovation performance by showing the moderating role of innovation openness. The study finds a strategic logic of moderate niche overlap, clarifies the innovative effect of different innovation openness modes and reveals the construction and management mechanisms of enterprise niche and innovation openness strategy.

Time analysis and institution analysis as well as journal analysis allow the study to show literature distribution in this research area. Research hotspots and trending among different times are revealed by network-structural properties and network-temporal property. The study aims to shed light on international cluster research progress on strategic niche management (SNM).

Using searched literature data on SNM from 1991 to 2018 from the database of Web of Science (WOS), the article maps the citation network and completes the citation analysis based on bibliometric citation analysis.

These eight research streams reveal the development of SNM from theoretical description to target-oriented study and finally diversification analysis.

The paper identifies eight continuous research streams in SNM: sustainable transition, dynamical diversity, complexity, social-technical system, social innovation, social-cognitive evolution, emerging market and policy mix.

The study ' s purpose is to review and discuss limitations of “strategic niche management” (SNM) success factors in relation to the experiences of an enterprise network to improve niche development for integrated design concepts.

The emergence of a successful passive house innovation network in the Flemish Region is described. The innovation journey of the network is related to success factors detected in SNM literature regarding market niche development.

The study identifies additional success factors for systemic innovation, such as involving small- and medium-sized innovators and demonstration projects and using a dedicated regional enterprise network.

The qualitative analysis specifically reflected on SNM success factors such as envisioning, learning, and network composition and formation. The study confirms the importance of these success factors by means of one detailed innovation journey. It identifies additional success factors and discusses opportunities to improve the relation of SNM literature with other seminal fields.

Government seed money is important in providing a breakthrough in enterprise network initiatives. A focus on architectural innovation instead of technology innovation is to be preferred for stimulating integrated design concepts.

The paper addresses the relevance and limitations of SNM success factors during the formation of enterprise networks. The study shows how an integrated design approach was used to cluster innovation opportunities and to inspire innovation development and collaboration for know-how development between multiple players.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of network competence to radical innovation.

Technological change associated with human body disposal acts as the form of radical innovation in which network competence is examined. Interviews, observations at industry conferences and secondary data are used for the case studies featured and in which network competence is investigated.

The paper establishes the importance of network competence at the regime and landscape level and the contribution of actors within commercial innovation niches to bringing cremation alternatives to market.

Some of the results are particular to the challenges of network entry and product introduction facing business start-ups and the context of body disposal is unique. Further research should examine network competence and radical innovation in other business fields.

Firstly, the context of human body disposal highlights the importance of institutional actors and social systems in bringing cremation alternatives to market. Secondly, focusing on human disposal encourages exchange amongst readers on a subject which is fundamental to man’s existence, yet the discussion of which many might normally choose to avoid.

The paper connects two areas of academic interest, namely, niche management for sustainability and radical innovation in business markets in which networking and network competence are key to the commercialisation of innovation.

Companies may spend capital and effort to ensure the survival within their niche but have limited capacity to expand into other niches or broaden their target segment. This paper aims to provide insights into how they can overcome this niche entrapment – companies becoming trapped in the very niche they have cultivated, the weight and inertia of their investment shackling them to its continued existence.

Cedar Fair’s acquisitions and its organizational structure are carefully examined to illustrate the need for considering niche entrapment as a concept. To understand the complexities that firms face in their attempts to overcome the niche entrapment, this paper analyzes Cedar Fair using the concepts of categories and inherited identities.

The following important lessons are elaborated for helping business organizations overcome niche entrapment: embrace the organizational complexity; use gateway and complementary identities; consider brand disassociation; and achieve ambidexterity through a portfolio of offering.

This paper deviates from the traditional treatment of niches as a focus strategy that firms can select to build competitive advantages but instead provides insights into how those very niches can become constraints. It also conceptually evaluates the attempts to overcome these constraints from an organizational perspective instead of an industry perspective. Apart from using categories in a novel way, it also introduces a new concept of inherited identities, which are the organizational identities that firms inherit as they acquire and assimilate other firms.

The potential impact of farmer's innovations for the development of food regimes is the topic of this chapter. Two case studies analysed from the perspective of strategic niche management show that there is niche formation visible as an alternative to the dominant modern food regime. These innovations are based upon the active rediscovery of marginalised and often forgotten knowledge and result in effective linkages between old and new knowledge. This retro side of innovations can have a large potential for developing viable alternatives for rural development. Social scientists play an important role in the understanding of the retro side of innovations and its potential and influence on the prevailing knowledge and information systems inside and outside of the scientific domain.

This paper reflects on the evolution of implicit and explicit behavioral ideas in the field of strategic management using Herbert Simon’s scholarship as a starting point, that is, his emphasis on empirically driven; interdisciplinary theorizing allowing and enabling two-way street learning. We argue that historically, there were plenty of behavioral ideas embedded in the field and, together with the recent movement towards explicit “behavioral strategy,” these provide several possible paths for future developments in strategic management research. In the spirit of broadening the tent for behavioral strategy in the future (Hambrick & Crossland, 2018), we suggest some topics and approaches for behavioral strategy in empirically driven, interdisciplinary directions which allows also for two-way street learning between concepts and real-world strategic phenomena.

Over the last 30 years, a range of different complementary currency models have been developed and diffused across the world. Such currency systems have been researched from a variety of different perspectives, such as policy tools (Williams et al., 2001) and social movements (North, 2006). Many of these have explicit links to sustainability objectives and the green movement (Helleiner, 2000; Longhurst & Seyfang, 2011; North, 2010a; Seyfang, 2009), and some environmental writers argue that monetary reform and the development of multiple currency systems are critical factors in achieving environmental sustainability (Douthwaite, 1999). This chapter explains how such a ‘green’ currency emerged from within the environmentally focused Transition Town social movement. This movement has given rise to a range of locally based grassroots enterprises that deliver local services and goods. However, it is argued here that such enterprises can also act as instigators of radical innovations, such as complementary currencies. As such it conceptualises currencies as a form of technology and uses the empirical case of the Totnes Pound currency as an example of a technology that has emerged from civil society. Adopting this framing, the chapter draws on theory relating to the formation of innovative technological ‘niches’ to provide insights into the challenges that they have to overcome in order to survive and flourish. The chapter therefore argues that exploring complementary currencies through the lens of innovation theory can provide valuable insights into their development, and that such an approach may prove useful where grassroots enterprises are engaged in other forms of innovative activity.

Over the last few decades, more emphasis has been placed on those innovations that can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals in order to achieve a “win-win-win” situation. This paper aims to systematise the scientific literature on Sustainable Innovation as a broad field in order to identify the most relevant scholars and their significant contributions as well as existing lines of research. Finally, future research directions are suggested.

A novel methodology, the Systematic Literature Network Analysis, has been applied. By using a dynamic approach to the traditional Systematic Literature Review, the present review investigates the creation, transfer, and development of knowledge throughout the epistemic community of Sustainable Innovation.

Starting from a sample of 1,108 articles, the critical assessment of the results detected five main themes: (1) “the role of Regulation, Market and Technology”; (2) “Eco-Innovation determinants and firm specific factors and the debate between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial performance”; (3) “Green innovation and internal and external drivers”; (4) “The strategic determinants of green (non-green) innovation”; (5) “The interplay between policy, regulations and the green innovation”.

From a practitioner's perspective, this study provides an objective view on the current internal, external drivers and strategic determinants of sustainability-oriented innovations and relevant studies that can guide managers in their decision-making processes and enhance sustainable innovation performance.

This study is a first attempt to unveil the evolution of knowledge in the field of sustainable innovation by utilizing bibliometric tools.