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The authors address how a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing --- adaptive data management systems that monitor, analyze, make decisions and learn -- will transform businesses, work and customer offerings.

A survey of 6,050 C-suite executives worldwide identified a small group of cognitive innovators and revealed what they are doing differently.

Cognitive innovators identify customer satisfaction, retention, acquisition and revenue growth as the primary rationale for embracing cognitive technologies.

Cognitive computing systems are already helping make sense of the deluge of data spawned by ordinary commerce because they are able to adapt and learn.

The authors offer a four-step approach to cognitive computing innovation based on their research findings.

This chapter explores the role of individual cognitive abilities in the radical innovation of business models and their value proposition. The focus on a specific cognitive construct – metacognition – contributes to understanding the specificities of “criticism,” an approach relevant to addressing the challenges of the radical innovation of value drivers. Based on empirical data, this exploratory research identifies the characteristic elements of criticism from a metacognition perspective, pinpointing the key moments and attitudes of innovators, i.e., cognition of own cognition. The analysis of the findings shows that successful innovators are able to leverage the perception and control of own cognition to more effectively develop and negotiate the radical innovation of the business model in their organization, going beyond the dichotomy between rational and affective mental states. This chapter concludes with a discussion and future research outlook.

Traditional paradigms of leadership have celebrated decisive top-down control and analytical decision making. But times are changing. The world is becoming more connected, complex, fluid, and interdependent.

Leading people in this age requires empathy, collaboration, curiosity, and creativity. It’s more about designing elegant solutions than mandating feasible ones. It’s more about becoming optimistic beacons of change than authoritative custodians of the status quo. The leaders of tomorrow are not commanders, they are innovators; and in that, they have a natural ally in designers – the poster children of innovation.

This chapter focuses on how leadership can leverage tools and frameworks usually associated with design to innovate, solve complex problems, motivate teams, inspire people, and nurture the next generation of leaders. It discusses design methodologies – user-focused design, lean, design thinking – as potential approaches to optimizing organizational leadership. We elaborate these ideas through real-world examples.

The chapter also offers actionable tips and techniques that designers use to respond empathetically and elegantly to complex human needs, which are rooted deeply in behaviors and attitudes, governed by complex interactions, and therefore, hard to grapple through a purely analytical approach.

It debunks the myth that leaders need to be creative similar to designers to apply Design Thinking. Applying design approaches and practices to organizational leadership is not just about its leaders becoming more creative. It is definitely not about the person at the top coming up with the grand answer. It is a collaborative effort that brings people from all levels together in pursuit of a common goal.

Offers the concept that leadership narrative is the key to managing transformational innovation.

The author has studied the leading innovation theorists and corporate innovation efforts.

Transformational innovation is disruptive because it introduces products and services that change the business landscape by providing a dramatically different value proposition. And championing transformational innovation involves going to war with all the elements inside an organization that benefit from the status quo.

The author's research is primarily anecdotal.

If leaders, consistently use narrative tools, in combination with thorough strategic analysis, they can show their organization how to tackle the most difficult challenge facing management today – transformational innovation. Examples and a step‐by‐step process are provided.

First publication of the concept of how leaders can use narrative to achieve employee commitment to transformational innovation.

This paper aims to present a framework that includes six essential factors and four strategic intervention points that provide the necessary context to sustain and support innovation.

Based on our academic and consulting experience, this article summarizes our knowledge of what it takes to be a top innovator and how organizations should best pursue innovation agendas. The model presented is supported by our research which considers assessments from 3,642 employee responses assessing the innovation cultures of organizations.

We find that companies need to ask six questions to assess their innovation cultures. These questions relate to creativity, incentives, processes, leadership, knowledge management and resources. Our framework presents four intervention points to support implementing and sustaining an innovation culture including objectives, behaviors and actions, context and management for execution.

Our framework is effective, but we acknowledge that there are other means to creating and sustaining an innovation culture.

We present six questions that companies need to ask themselves to assess their innovation culture and offer strategies to enhance it.

Given the contribution of innovation culture to competitiveness and performance, our recommendations will allow managers to set themselves apart from their competition and further their financial and nonfinancial corporate objectives.

Everyone likes the idea of change, but it is the process of change that is difficult. We offer strategies that put such intentions to work.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how different innovation patterns affect the financial performance of global technological firms.

The authors integrate the theories of innovation performance with those of Schumpeter’s innovation patterns, namely, creative destruction and creative accumulation. Data spread over 20 years is used to investigate the influence of innovation on the firm performance.

Panel regression results indicate that, as compared to creative-destruction innovation, creative-accumulation patterns have a better firm performance, have a moderating effect on innovation-performance relationships, and have a better propensity to deal with difficult economic periods.

There is a scarcity of research that considers the effects of Schumpeterian patterns on innovation performance, especially ones dealing with the technology sector. Future work could consider other innovation variables (besides innovation patterns), as well as whether the results hold in other sectors.

The findings indicate that in the tech-sector firms must continue to innovate.

From the research perspective, the work integrates two streams of literature into a comprehensive model, and provides a holistic test for it. For tech-sector managers, the research provides one point of motivation for carrying out innovation even during a troubled economy.

The purpose of this study is to describe latent classes explaining the innovation logic in the Finnish construction companies. Innovativeness is a driver of competitive performance and vital to the long-term success of any organisation and company.

Using finite mixture structural equation modelling (FMSEM), the authors have classified innovation logic into latent classes. The method analyses and recognises classes for companies that have similar logic in innovation activities based on the collected data.

Through FMSEM analysis, the authors have identified three latent classes that explain the innovation logic in the Finnish construction companies – LC1: the internal innovators; LC2: the non-innovation-oriented introverts; and LC3: the innovation-oriented extroverts. These three latent classes clearly capture the perceptions within the industry as well as the different characteristics and variables.

The presented latent classes explain innovation logic but is limited to analysing Finnish companies. Also, the research is quantitative by nature and does not increase the understanding in the same manner as qualitative research might capture on more specific aspects.

This paper presents starting points for construction industry companies to intensify innovation activities. It may also indicate more fundamental changes for the structure of construction industry organisations, especially by enabling innovation friendly culture.

This study describes innovation logic in Finnish construction companies through three models (LC1–LC3) by using quantitative data analysed with the FMSEM method. The fundamental innovation challenges in the Finnish construction companies are clarified via the identified latent classes.

The purpose of this paper is to question the conventional wisdom that China fails to produce distinctive innovation; its capabilities limited merely to copying and reverse engineering. The author postulates that the lack of innovation is a delayed activity since China is undergoing a process of building absorptive capacity (AC) as a precursor to innovation.

The author probes this question by drawing on the concept of AC, a competence separate from innovativeness and a precursor to it. By drawing on the AC literature three propositions are established. Subsequently, these propositions are examined, in part, with data drawn from 34 interviews conducted in China with CEOs, other senior corporate officers and government officials. In this way, the author explores the challenges to innovating.

Thomson Reuters 2015 Top Global Innovators report listed no Chinese company among its top 100 list of innovative companies. The author’s belief, however, favors China to become a source of innovation. A positive tilt derived from both interviews and recent reports published by Bain & Company, Booz and Co as well as McKinsey & Co. This evidences, the author argues, China is acquiring AC, a competence independent of innovation but a necessary antecedent to decoding and deploying the intellectual property in its portfolio. The collective effect of this is that the perception of China as a source of innovative activity will show an uptick when the AC threshold is reached.

This is a viewpoint paper grounded on an exploratory study.

Guidance on AC development is valuable to government policy makers promoting innovation in China and those attempting to arbitrage these developments. Similarly, policy makers in competitive nations should also be aware that their innovation-focused industries may need nurturing and bolstering since they may be at risk of being swept away by a tsunami-like innovation wave from China.

This is an original take on the relationship of AC and innovativeness in China. The author argues that in contrast to the conventional wisdom China has the potential for innovativeness.

This study sought to examine the detailed mechanism of employee perceptions of commitment-based human resource practices (CBHRPs) to employee knowledge-sharing behavior (i.e. knowledge collection and knowledge contribution) by unveiling the “black box” of trust in the workplace.

Based on data from 383 employees in China's Top Innovators in 2016, path analysis was used to test six hypotheses.

Employee perceptions of CBHRPs, namely, selection, incentives and training and development, were positively related to employees' trust in coworkers, supervisors and the organization, which in turn was positively related to employees' knowledge collection and contribution behavior. Trust in the workplace fully mediated the relationship between employee perceptions of CBHRPs and employee knowledge sharing. Among CBHRPs, training and development practices had the strongest effects on employees' knowledge-sharing behavior. Among trust, trust in coworkers was found to be the closest related to knowledge-sharing behavior. Knowledge contribution was more related to CBHRPs through trust than knowledge collection was.

Organizations can employ CBHRPs to enhance trust in the workplace and encourage employees to contribute toward and collect knowledge. Organizations need to pay more attention to employees' long-term investment, such as employee training and development. Organizations can perform human resource practices consistently and ensure that all employees are aware of practices in use to enhance employees' understanding of these practices.

This study provides a detailed understanding of the relationship between human resource management and knowledge sharing. It also presents new empirical evidence in the research fields of human resource management and knowledge management, with implications for the development of employees' knowledge-sharing behavior.

Aims to look at the innovations recognized by Institution of Engineering and Technology's (IET) third annual Innovation in Engineering Awards.

The paper examines a “digital plaster” that enables healthcare providers to remotely monitor the wearer's vital signs in real time, a battery that can be recharged using USB connections, and an Acoustic Detection Technology for drug discovery, diagnostics and bio‐terrorism detection which were among the innovations recognized by IET.

The IET is one of the world's leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community, and the stated aims of these Awards are to recognize and reward innovative organizations; to raise the profile and the importance of innovation; to recognize and reward successful innovation; and to provide an indirect method of improving business, by providing a framework to encourage organizations to invest in innovation.

The paper shows useful innovations in the field of technology.