Wisdom of the crowd and capabilities of a few: internal success factors of crowdsourcing for innovation

Crowdsourcing has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy to enhance the efficiency of a firm’s innovation process. In this paper, we focus on tournament-based crowdsourcing (also referred to as “broadcast search”), a method to solve technical problems in form of an open call for solutions to a large network of experts. Based on a longitudinal study of six companies piloting this application of crowdsourcing, we identify barriers and sources of resistance that hinder its implementation in firms. Our paper contributes to the state of research by analyzing crowdsourcing on the level of pilot projects, hence providing a workflow perspective that considers the creation of dedicated processes and operations of crowdsourcing. This project level analysis enables the identification of specific challenges managers face when implementing crowdsourcing within an established R&D organization. Following a design science approach, we derive suggestions for organizational interventions to overcome these barriers. We find that dedicated promoter roles strongly contribute to a successful implementation of crowdsourcing, turning pilot projects into an organizational routine.     

Von der Kundenintegration 1.0 zur Kundenintegration 2.0 – Implikationen für Praxis und Forschung

Customer integration has become an established topic in management research with specific attention given by marketing researchers. The term refers to a new definition of a customer’s role in market exchange. While previously the customer was considered a merely passive recipient of goods and services only he now takes over the function of active supplier of input before, while and after a market transaction. Currently, four different research lines on the topic can be identified: Each of these research lines also mirrors a distinct manifestation of practical application: (1) the business of solutions, (2) mass customization, (3) service co-creation and (4) value co-creation. For the future we expect more stimulation for both the practical and the conceptual advancement of customer integration particularly to stem from new technologies to be summarized under the label of web 2.0. For web 2.0 we distinguish between moderator centered approaches such as crowdsourcing, swarm creativity and open innovation on the one hand and community centered approaches such as social network sites on the other hand. In order to advance and substantiate our understanding of the new implications from web 2.0 on customer integration we propose to resort to the theory of social capital and the concept of the borderless organization.     

Governance Considerations for Seeker–Solver Relationships: A Knowledge‐Based Perspective in Crowdsourcing for Innovation Contests

The need to solve innovation problems and insource knowledge has led to an increasing number of organizations engaging in crowdsourcing activities and subsequently establishing working relationships with winning solution providers. Using a knowledge‐based view and the problem‐solving perspective, we develop a theoretical framework suggesting how specific innovation problem attributes (i.e. the decomposability, formulation and search space of the problem) influence the governance decision (unilateral vs. bilateral) of seekers to manage the relationship with winning solvers. We empirically analyse the framework using 582 challenges broadcast on the NineSigma crowdsourcing platform. Our results indicate that problem attributes – the formulation and search space of the problem – have a positive effect on seekers’ preference towards unilateral governance structures. However, we did not find any empirical confirmation of the effect that the decomposability of the innovation problem has on seekers’ preference towards unilateral governance structures. This study offers several contributions to the crowdsourcing literature, and also has important implications for managers of organizations aiming to insource knowledge through crowdsourcing for innovation contests.     

行为控制对威客持续参与意愿的影响:被调节的中介模型

威客的持续参与意愿是维持众包平台可持续性发展的关键因素。在众包参与过程中,平台实施的控制机制是否会影响持续参与意愿还缺乏系统的理论分析和实证研究。基于感知组织支持理论,本文构建了被调节的中介模型和相关假设,探讨行为控制如何通过归属感的中介作用影响持续参与意愿,以及在不同的程序公平水平下,行为控制通过归属感提升持续参与意愿的机制会有怎样的变化。基于“猪八戒网”搜集的290份样本数据,对模型进行实证检验。结果表明,归属感在行为控制影响持续参与意愿的关系中起部分中介作用;同时,程序公平正向调节上述中介作用,即程序公平越高,归属感在行为控制与持续参与意愿关系间的中介作用越容易实现。研究结果丰富、扩展了已有的众包理论研究,并为众包实践提供了管理启示与指导。     

试论外部取向管理创新模式生成机理的研究框架

根据DAMANPOUR等的研究建议,结合对企业典型管理创新的实地调研,提出了管理创新的分类体系,并对内外部取向管理创新的内涵进行了界定;选择外部取向管理创新作为研究对象,分析了其模式的生成过程和特征。在此基础上提出了一个企业家个体决策、企业家-组织过渡、组织创新行为3个层面的研究框架,分析了每个层面的研究内容,并进行了相应的研究方法设计;使用大连亨利测控仪表工程有限公司的战略创新案例对理论框架进行了初验,试图以此解读外部取向管理创新模式的生成过程及其机理,为提高我国企业管理创新的成功率提供理论指导。     

R&D员工领导创新期望、内部动机与创新行为研究

在现代组织行为研究领域推动员工创造、创新的组织行为研究是一个热点问题。本文通过对我国跨地区企业研发员工的问卷调查研究对领导创新期望、员工内部工作动机及其创新行为间的关系进行了实证探讨。研究发现,在我国背景下,直属领导对下属员工的创新期望、员工之间横向交换对研发员工创新的行为都具有正向预测作用,其中员工内在工作动机在领导创新期望、员工横向交换对员工创新行为的作用路径关系中起到中介效应。本研究的调查结论不仅有助于加深我们对组织内员工创新行为推动和作用机制的深入了解,同时也会对我国企业,特别是高新技术企业推动员工创新的管理实践提供借鉴。     

Introduction to Innovation WITHIN and ACROSS Borders: A Review and Future Directions

Innovation is an integral part of every firm's ongoing operations. While new product and service creation is an essential task to ensure a firm's immediate success in the marketplace, process and supply chain innovations can also create a unique source of competitive advantage for the future. Encouraging innovative thinking, developing new innovations, and managing the processes by which those innovations are developed are critical aspects of today's firm. Consequently, research which aids in the creation and maintenance of innovative firms is an important topic of inquiry for research communities on innovation management, including the operations management and information systems communities. We review the literature in this important area and offer suggestions for future research on the following topics: innovation within a firm and across the supply chain, technology management, and new product and service development.     

A Reflective Review of Disruptive Innovation Theory

Disruptive Innovation Theory has created a significant impact on management practices and aroused plenty of rich debate within academia. Copious as the studies are, the scattered and conflicting nature of the literature on disruptive innovation in the last decade may pose a state of ambiguity for future research, thus necessitating a comprehensive review at this juncture. This paper first clarifies the basic concept and potential misinterpretations of the theory. Believing in the predictive value of the theory on firm performance, the authors then summarize and critique the research on how to enable potential disruptive innovation from internal, external, marketing and technology perspectives. The different perspectives inspired the authors to identify a number of key research directions within the disruptive innovation research domain. Potential future research is also briefly discussed by integrating disruptive innovation with other research domains, such as open innovation. Finally, in addition to theoretical contributions, the authors make practical contributions by outlining a series of potential inhibitors and enablers of disruptive innovation as managerial ‘take‐aways’.     

Management innovation: A systematic review and meta-analysis of past decades of research

Managerial innovation has gained increased popularity in research and practice because of its positive effects on organisational renewal and performance. Regardless of the growing number of studies on management innovation, there is still a lack of research that integrates and synthesises this body of knowledge. This study undertakes a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature to gain insight into existing empirical studies on management innovation. Our content analysis and review of 66 studies from 1981 to 2017 analyses the trends and background of research into management innovation. In addition, we develop a model of management innovation grounded in selected theoretical lenses to advance our understanding of the different drivers, moderators, mediators and outcomes of management innovation. Results of the meta-analysis show that management innovation is positively related to organisational size (r_c = .282), knowledge management (r_c = 0.608), organisational learning (r_c = 0.692), firms’ overall performance (r_c = 0.393), and financial performance (r_c = 0.269). Finally, we have identified several research gaps and provided a future research agenda in the context of managerial innovation.     

How to reconsider risk management in SMEs? An Advanced,Reasoned and Organised Literature Review

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to reconsider the fundamental role of risk management (RM) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by identifying and critically analysing the most important international works; and to define opportunities for further studies by suggesting a different approach to study the topic. This research is based on a new hybrid method developed by the authors, called Advanced, Reasoned and Organised (ARO) literature review, which improves the quality of literature reviews by integrating the systematic review for quantitative papers, the meta-synthesis for qualitative research and the critical interpretative analysis. Forty-eight articles were included in the literature review. Bibliometric and cluster analyses were carried out. Two hypotheses were applied as filters in the interpretative synthesis of the content and guided the analysis to answer two research questions. The findings underline that RM in SMEs is still a ‘spot’ subject as they put little effort into the risk identification, assessment and monitoring. The lack of procedures and strategies is due to the lack of risk mindfulness and knowledge, and it is related to the managers’ and owners’ risk attitudes. It is fundamental to understand why risk procedures are not implemented and to find a way to raise awareness of the potential benefits of risk and control measures. The topic is current, and the multidisciplinary perspective and mixed-method approach enhance both theoretical and practical contributions for academics and SME owners.     

Emotion in strategic management: A review and future research agenda

Emotion in strategic management has attracted increasing scholarly interest during the past twenty-five years. Researchers have demonstrated the nature and significance of emotion in strategic management from a broad range of perspectives across different levels of analysis. Given the expanding research on the topic, the time is ripe to synthesize this diverse and multifaceted body of knowledge. In a thematic synthesis of the literature, we address the following questions: how does emotion influence strategic management, and how can the field be further developed? We review emotion constructs used in the extant literature and identify three themes related to how emotions influence strategic management: the nonconscious influence of emotions, emotion regulation, and collective emotions. Based on these themes and our analysis, we propose three areas of future research to inspire the field to develop further: (1) scope conditions of emotion research in strategic management; (2) capturing emotion in strategic management; and (3) the ethics, power and politics of emotions in strategic management.     

Accelerating the Innovation Process: A Systematic Review and Realist Synthesis of the Research Literature

There is continued interest among academics, practitioners and policy‐makers in methods to achieve accelerated innovation. Academic studies of this complex phenomenon have succeeded in reaching a high degree of consensus on the antecedents of innovation speed. The aim in this review is to elucidate further the mechanisms underlying management interventions to promote speed. The review adopts a theory‐led, realist synthesis of innovation speed research – the first example of this methodology in management studies. The authors develop a new time‐based framework for categorizing the innovation‐speed literature. The framework has a CIMO logic, and is built by invoking the organizational studies literature on time. The authors contextualize the innovation‐speed literature in relation to the three generic temporal challenges faced by all organizations: reducing temporal uncertainty; resolving temporal conflicts over activities; and allocating resources amid conditions of temporal scarcity. They problematize extant explanations of innovation speed as not taking account of different temporal orientations (temporal dichotomies) within innovation work, and thereby neglecting a potential barrier to achieving accelerated innovation outcomes. They further draw on the literature on time in organizations to suggest new avenues of research, and methodological approaches new to the study of innovation speed. The principal contribution of this review is to offer a new conceptual perspective on the complex empirical research examining how innovation projects may be accelerated from original idea to launch.     

SMEs and Marketing: A Systematic Literature Review

This paper presents a systematic review of recent academic literature analysing the role, organization and management of marketing activities in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). To this end, 310 articles published between 2006 and 2015 in 69 main journals devoted to small firms/entrepreneurship and management/marketing fields were analysed. This review shows that SMEs’ marketing has received great attention in both management and marketing literature in recent years. Findings reveal, on the one hand, the emerging role of networks and information and communication technologies in marketing behaviour by SMEs, and on the other hand a research gap in terms of specific marketing practices. Entrepreneurial marketing has been used as the main conceptual framework in reviewed studies, even if findings overall still point out a distance between the theoretical bases of reviewed contributions and the study of SMEs’ marketing behaviour and practices. Therefore, future research on the role of resources, relationships and networks could benefit from the combination of theories developed within the field of entrepreneurship with other approaches such as the resource‐based view, the dynamic capabilities theory and the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) framework.     

Who benefits from benefits? Empirical research on tangible incentives

Although a broad field of literature on incentive theory exists, economic research on employer-provided tangible goods (hereafter called benefits) is still in its infancy. The empirical study by Oyer (Res Labor Econ 28:429–467, 2008) is one of few exceptions focusing empirically on the dispersion of tangible incentives. In our study, we test some of his findings by drawing on a German data set. We use two waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel data (2006, 2008) to analyze the occurrence of benefits and their effects on employees’ satisfaction. Our results provide evidence for economic as well as psychological explanations. Looking at differences in firms’ and employees’ characteristics we find that cost efficiency concerns, the purpose to signal good working conditions and the aim to ease employees’ effort costs are evident reasons to provide benefits. Furthermore, analyzing the impact of tangible and monetary incentives on satisfaction and employees’ feeling of being acknowledged by employers, we find different motivational effects. Our results support the psychological explanation that benefits are evaluated separately from other monetary wage components and are more likely to express employers’ concern for their employees and recognition of their performance.     

The dark side of business model innovation

Existing literature has tended to focus on the positive benefits and outcomes of business model innovation (BMI), despite emerging evidence that BMI can also have a dark side, with negative consequences. We systematically review the existing BMI literature, articulating it around three clusters of negative consequences: those affecting the firm as an entity; those affecting the firm's stakeholders; and those that are specific or context-dependent. In a similar fashion, we identify the driving factors and circumstances leading to these negative consequences and group them into four clusters: (1) managerial choices and processes, and three underpinning circumstances that influence such choices or processes; (2) trade-offs between the new and current business models; (3) managers’ ability to manage BMI; and (4) context within which BMI is situated. The paper provides the first attempt to gather prior research on the phenomenon and thereby develop a conceptual understanding of the dark side of BMI. Furthermore, by proposing a model that explains how the dark side of BMI may occur, we inform ongoing debates on the theorization of the consequences that may derive from BMI and how these can be managed to support firms’ innovative growth, arguing how the disruptive innovation literature can only partially explain the phenomenon. Second, our model provides important foundations to further distil the complex link between BMI and performance. Finally, we suggest a number of future research avenues, accounting for different dimensions of the phenomenon.     

Generations in organizations

Despite a rich tradition of scholarship across many disciplines, organizational research on the topic of generations has been relatively scarce. In this article we develop a framework for studying generations in organizations that draws on multiple conceptualizations across multiple disciplines. Our framework distills two distinct critical elements that give ‘generations’ agency in organizational settings – chronology (the idea that a unique location in time creates a ‘generation’) and genealogy (the idea that generations are linked through the transmission/descent of ideas/values/skills/knowledge). After an historic overview of the evolution of the topic of generations, we review generational research across the fields of political sociology, family sociology, psychology, social anthropology, cultural sociology, demography, and gerontology. Our framework elucidates how linkages between generations, based on chronology and genealogy, can be characterized in organizations and how the nature of intergenerational contact and transfer predicts a wide range of organizational outcomes such as change/innovation, conflict, turnover, and socialization. We outline the implications of this framework for future research on generations in organizations.     

Learning by exporting: A system-based review and research agenda

Over the past four decades, flourishing empirical research has attempted to establish the mechanisms and conditions underpinning improvements in exporters’ innovation and productivity via the learning-by-exporting (LBE) effect, and the domain has gained legitimacy and empirical credibility. However, the literature's findings are largely fragmented and require systematic review and analysis to draw definitive conclusions on the factors that influence the subsequent realization of learning from exporting. To fill this void, we critically examine the extant LBE research for the period 1984–2021. We systematically review 167 articles to develop a system-based taxonomy and conceptual model of LBE, which comprises five major components: system outputs (productivity and innovation), inputs (e.g., institutional factors and resources), firm-level capabilities (e.g., absorptive capacity and innovation persistence), managerial characteristics (e.g., entrepreneurship skills) and internationalization strategies. In doing so, we uncover paradoxical tensions within the system brought about by the conflicting roles of some components of the LBE system, such as firm-, industry- and country-level technological capabilities. Our review also reveals research gaps that open relevant opportunities for further research and conclusions that hold novel implications for managers and policymakers.     

Exploring the impact of motivations on the attraction of innovation roles in open innovation web-based platforms

Recently, a large number of new innovative enterprises engaged in different competitive markets by promoting innovation both in products and in services through open innovation web-based platforms, which allow for the collaboration of individual users and companies and for so-called crowdsourcing. A key issue concerns the identification of the most important motivations that could attract users with a specific role to proactively participate and contribute to the open and collaborative innovation processes. This article, after highlighting the theoretical background, grounded on large body of psychology and sociology literature on the motivation behind collaboration, discusses the results of the analysis of 26 open innovation web-based platforms based on a multiple research methodology (qualitative empirical study, factor analysis and multi-dimensional scaling). It also discusses the effects of ‘motivational systems’ and platform models on the attraction of the individuals characterised by different innovation roles.     

Healthcare 4.0: trends,challenges and research directions

Abstract

This paper aims at examining the trends, challenges and theoretical gaps in the implementation of Healthcare 4.0 (H4.0) based on a scoping review of the literature. For that, we searched journal articles in four widely known databases and screened the retrieved articles to obtain a publications’ portfolio. Our findings indicate that, despite the recency of the subject, research in H4.0 has been conducted in an interdisciplinary way with a diversified set of applications and functionalities. In terms of its implementation, H4.0 has been more commonly found in hospitals’ information flows, especially the ones related to healthcare treatments. The identified implementation trends, however, neglect a more holistic approach for H4.0, which originated three main research directions for this topic. Although identified as a trending topic in the area of healthcare operations management, literature on H4.0 may be viewed as randomly conceived, lacking academic alignment and practical orientation based on a grounded theory, which we aim at providing with the present study.     

Innovation and Organizational Learning: the Case of Computer-Aided Production Management

Recent experience of unsuccessful implementation of integrated advanced manufacturing technology suggests that much of the problem is due to a lack of innovation in organizational in parallel with the technological dimension. Discussion of this issue argues the need for some kind of ‘organizational learning’ to obtain the full benefits of AMT. This paper reviews the topic of organizational learning in technology and explores its relevance to the problem of AMT implementation through the case example of computer-aided production management systems.