Search results

Public-private innovation (PPI) is often claimed to contribute to societal welfare, to bring positive effects to the public sector and to open new markets to private firms. Engaging in public-private relationships for innovation is, however, also recognised as challenging and problematic. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the managerial and strategic challenges faced by private firms when engaging in public-private relationships for innovation.

This qualitative study presents ten firms’ engagement in public-private relationships. Half of them are experienced in innovation in public-private relationship, the other half are engaging in public-private relationships for the first time. Cross-case analysis brings insight into how these different types of firms strategize for handling relationships with public partners.

Contrary to non-experienced firms, experienced firms deliberately build a long-term strategy for engaging in PPI in expectation of outcome from more than a single project. They not only engage in building an understanding of the public using setting, but also seek to bridge with the public developing and producing setting to a greater extent than less experienced firms. The experienced firms utilise relationships with actors in the wider public network as a device and an asset for overcoming challenges and for reaping benefits from their engagement.

The study outlines the characteristics of strategizing among the most experienced firms and their special ability to embrace the complexity of the public sector network while working simultaneously on developing innovation for specific public counterparts.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and application of a theoretical framework to examine the connections between different types of suppliers, their capabilities and opportunities in customer relationships, and the illustration of these connections through the findings from empirical case studies of small and medium‐sized suppliers in the metal industry in Denmark.

Multiple case studies involving 17 small and medium‐sized suppliers within the Danish metal industry were undertaken.

By focusing on the development of capabilities that are “valuable” to customers in specific types of supply, small and medium‐sized suppliers may improve their responses to opportunities in their customer relationships.

Further investigation is needed on the longer‐term impacts of valuable capabilities on opportunity enactment by suppliers, and the examination of key issues arising from these findings across different industries and countries.

Small and medium‐sized suppliers, their customers and government agencies involved with suppliers should advocate and actively support the development of valuable capabilities to enhance the effectiveness of suppliers' relationship and network strategies and their potential to seize opportunities.

This study highlights that different types of suppliers require different types of current and future valuable capabilities to seize opportunities and sustain current customers or develop new customer relationships.

There is a clear focus upon increasing research output, improving research quality and securing closer interaction between universities and the private market of businesses. Research should be evaluated according to usefulness and relevant criteria, where increased competition between universities and business schools for research grants should be established, such that the greatest number of publications, with the highest impact factors and most citations trigger most funding. Measurements and rankings have become hot topics for universities and business schools – this paper aims to discuss possible measurements and ranking impact for research and education.

This paper discusses development trends in research and education based upon available research literature and analyses a brief questionnaire‐survey completed by professors from 13 different European countries, which includes quantitative and qualitative features.

There is a clear trend towards publishing research in high‐ranked journals and developing student financed MBA programmes. However, there is a conflict between the political objectives of trying to connect universities and business schools with industry, while supplying further incentives to fund research grants through, for instance, publications and citations.

Given a continued policy of furthering research merely for publication in high‐rankling journals, the consequence may be a widening gap between research output and its practical relevance.

The paper provides novel data and evidence for the issue of European research development.