Search results

Strategy is examined, using newness of products, markets and technology as the variables. An understanding of newness with reference to the concept of continuous vs. discontinuous innovation along these three dimensions could facilitate evaluation of market and profit potential and the risk factor. Furthermore, this classification system may suggest new business opportunities by indicating gaps in the market and pointing out the critical factor(s) associated with those gaps.

To examine the nature and the determinants of the incidence and diffusion of a range of new technologies.

We collected new survey data in 2001 for medium sized establishments in upstate and central New York.

Our econometric findings suggest that the use of new technologies tends to be more extensive in firms in which greater use is made of flexible work practices and flexible compensation practices and when skill levels are high. We find that the use of IT, the intranet, and computer literacy training is greater when the average tenure of managers is low, which might reflect a greater comfort with new technologies by younger managers. Larger establishments tend to use the Internet more extensively, which may reflect the cost of setting up Internet billing and purchasing systems, and an intranet communication system. Managerial tenure does not affect the use of the Internet in general perhaps because these might be operations that are less central to the activities of more senior managers. Also, we find mixed evidence for our digital divide hypothesis that predicts that the use of new technologies would be greatest in metropolitan areas and least in rural locations.

We recognize it is potentially risky to draw inferences from a relatively small survey.

Some findings mesh with those contained in earlier studies (e.g., Black & Lynch, 2004) though, importantly, now finding emerge when a broader range of new technologies is being considered.

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for studying the process of technology‐based service system innovation from a broad perspective using an approach that elucidates the non‐linear facets of this process. The framework draws on Lévy‐Strauss's concept of bricolage, which implies that individuals' “making do with resources at hand,” as opposed to managerial visions, can trigger innovation. This concept is combined with the notion of technological drift and with a model of emergentism.

The paper uses case study data from the Swedish elderly homecare setting.

The findings illustrate how the emergence of technology‐based care services can be triggered by an injection of energy in terms of a new technological resource being made available in an organization, proceeding as a continuous interaction between personnel repurposing and recombining resources at hand, positive and negative feedback dynamics, institutional regulations and culture‐related stabilizing mechanisms.

New services can arise as a result of a number of efforts and events that, in isolation, might appear insignificant. Taken together, and interacting with enabling and constraining forces that promote the emergence of certain new services and prevent others, such acts and events generate unpredictable outcomes. The result may be incremental but by no means trivial innovations.

The paper suggests an approach to innovation that complements conventional thinking in the new service development literature. The proposed framework can help to explain how and why certain new services emerge and why others do not in unexpected and unpredictable ways.

This study examines the role of hybrid products employed in companies' innovation strategy within three American industrial sectors: tires, typewriters and photography cameras.

The authors selected historical cases that enabled us to present the role of hybrid products in periods of discontinuous change. Different sources are employed in this study: papers, books, cases, working papers, videos, manuals and product catalogues, companies' annual reports, company websites, advertising, collectors' websites and museums, in addition to press and other media reports.

The authors’ historical case analysis points to two forms of hybrid products. (1) Exploitation-hybrid, which incorporates significant elements from the existing dominant design and aims at extending the revenue-generating opportunities of the existing products. (2) Exploration-hybrid, which works as an offensive strategy, as the firm uses the exploration-hybrid to promote a gradual and controlled adoption of new technology by reducing risks and the cost of change for the customer.

The authors’ proposed definitions strengthen the idea that hybrids are not only a reflection of organizational inertia (exploitation-hybrid). Hybrids can also mean a more proactive stance in the strategy of developing and adopting new technology (exploration-hybrid).

This study acknowledged hybrid products as a learning instrument that materialized the organizational ambidexterity, favoring at the same time exploitation, generally attributed to organizational inertia, and the exploration of new segments of customers or the use of new technologies.

Some small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Thai food industry put a lot of effort into keeping up with changes of consumption patterns locally and in the South East Asia region. To see how successfully they are able to create competitive advantage, aims to examine the impact of environmental scanning practices on new product development (NPD) outcomes among SMEs in the Thai food industry. The technology strategy of the company influences how much it uses environmental scanning, and technology turbulence can play a role in exactly how critical is good knowledge of the external environment.

Qualitative research was conducted using semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with food experts and SME owners.

Results suggest that SMEs that practice environmental scanning are better able to develop appropriate new food products. Technology strategy plays a role in how much scanning they use, with a more proactive technology strategy requiring more extensive scanning. Environmental turbulence, including changes in technology, can cause failure in NPD if scanning does not keep companies aware of the situation.

A simple conceptual model is proposed to show how technology strategy, technological turbulence, and environmental scanning affect NPD performance.

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of tensions between old and new in the emerging global society driven by information and communication technology (ICT); and to argue that creation of a theory of this society would contribute in the easing of these tensions.

The methods used in this paper are mostly analytical, descriptive, and qualitative. An analysis of the creation and development of ICT from a mathematical discipline of computer science to a universal tool and a driving force of the emerging global society, a development which is paralleled by the commercialization of ICT, is followed by two case studies illustrating the tensions between old and new and the role ICT plays in them. One case is centered on the challenges of traditional models of education by new, ICT‐friendly approaches, like the Multiple Intelligences Theory; the other addresses tensions between old and new that in many societies presently take the form of tensions between local/national and global.

A claim is formed that the existing tensions between old and new are closely linked to the tensions between the two most common forms of society, inclusive (egalitarian) and exclusive (elitist).

The paper will help understand some of the reactions to the process of globalization. It can serve as a tool for assessment and prediction regarding this process. Lastly, the paper contains a justification of merit in the creation of a “grass root” theory of an ICT‐driven global society built on a universally accepted ethical foundation.