L. Daniel

What Makes High-Performance Teams Excel?

OVERVIEW: Managers who lead high-performance teams in highly competitive industries must balance complex interpersonal relationships with corporate deadlines and quality standards. Pressure on the team to perform and the leader to deliver can frequently produce detrimental outcomes. Insightful management of a diverse team of high-performing inter-organizational R&D professionals requires operational latitude for effective convergence of multiple complex relationships. IBM has cultivated and refined techniques that facilitate the commitment and community necessary for optimum team performance and successful product delivery.

The sociology of innovation and new biotechnologies

Understanding the social processes that support innovations in new biotechnologies presents an interesting challenge. Evidence from the Australian bioindustry reveals how the development and integration of new biotechnologies is a dynamic social process. Our findings highlight how new technology acceptance and integration rested on the micro-politics of sense-making and relational networking.

Inter-organisational networks, value creation and the process of technology integration in research and development

Traditional methods of R&D management are no longer sufficient for embracing innovations and leveraging complex new technologies to fully integrated positions in established systems. This paper presents the view that the technology integration process is a result of fundamental interactions embedded in inter-organisational activities. Emerging industries, high technology companies and knowledge intensive organisations owe a large part of their viability to complex networks of inter-organisational interactions and relationships. R&D organisations are the gatekeepers in the technology integration process with their initial sanction and motivation to develop technologies providing the first point of entry. Networks rely on the activities of stakeholders to provide the foundations of collaborative R&D activities, business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. Such complex inter-organisational interactions and relationships influence value creation and organisational goals as stakeholders seek to gain investment opportunities. A theoretical model is developed here that contributes to our understanding of technology integration (adoption) as a dynamic process, which is simultaneously structured and enacted through the activities of stakeholders and organisations in complex inter-organisational networks of sanction and integration.

Innovation agendas: the ambiguity of value creation

Innovation is said to be the key to future markets, business development and economic growth, yet the concept of innovation remains abstract and ambiguous. This paper suggests any value creation intentions need to recognise that innovation is a context-dependent process which is implicitly and fundamentally informed through the social agendas and consensus of those involved. To inform this social perspective of innovation value creation, we ask, how does the ‘sociology of innovation’ influence value creation? Using a ‘sociology of innovation’ standpoint, a qualitative study of participants in Australian bioindustry research and development (R&D) was undertaken to explore how the various socio-contextual frameworks and dominant outcome intentions were involved in value creation in the development of new biotechnological innovations. Through the two themes of context and community, we reveal how value creation was shaped by dynamic social processes involving multiple stakeholders and diverse perspectives of innovation. This research improves our understanding of how those involved in innovation development negotiate a complex social milieu of interpretive schemas to leverage various aspects of value creation. These findings present insights to managers and policy makers seeking to advance innovation value and advantages.

Creating value through social processes: An exploration of knowledge dynamics in expert communities of practice

This research explores how communities of practice facilitate knowledge dynamics through unique social processes. Despite the growing focus on communities of practice as an effective way to facilitate knowledge management and innovation; the social processes used by such communities to engage in continuous knowledge sharing and new idea generation is yet to be fully explored. In particular, this study focuses on how expert communities operating within organisational boundaries use social processes to share knowledge among members which enhances their creativity and innovative outcomes within such expert communities. The findings highlight the significance of actively encouraging and supporting the cultivation of social networks within their organisations to create value through fostering knowledge sharing and new idea generation. Therefore, it is important for managers and senior members to recognise the value of social interactions when facilitating knowledge sharing and innovation within organisational

Leveraging bioindustry knowledge: clusters of globally competitive knowledge and innovation

The challenge of cultivating an environment of innovation and knowledge development as a nexus for economic growth and global competitiveness in the biotechnology industry is examined. The experience of an emerging bioindustry cluster in Australia provides evidence for clusters as a dynamic resource of knowledge, innovation and opportunity. Social capital, networking and an engaged professional community are shown to be particularly important in biotechnology, where rapid innovation and constant evolution of knowledge and technologies can quickly undermine competitiveness. This paper reveals the vital role of relational dynamics and knowledge sharing in the bioindustry cluster as a mechanism for leveraging knowledge, innovation and competitive advantage.

Integrating innovation: frameworks for entrepreneurial leverage

Understanding the process by which innovations are adopted is a lucrative skill for entrepreneurial organisations. In practical terms accepting new ideas requires a fundamental framework, which enables entrepreneurs to recognise the potential of opportunities early in the development process. Such a framework would then enable interactions and negotiations to be strategically directed for maximum entrepreneurial leverage. A model is presented here which recognises the socio-cognitive framework for entrepreneurial leverage and innovation adoption as enacted in the acceptance and integration of emerging technologies in the Australian biotechnology industry. By recognising the key attributes of such frameworks and further developing those processes that are conducive to entrepreneurial leverage, entrepreneurs and their organisations will be better placed to ensure the effective uptake and integration of innovation opportunities.

Deconstructing the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Concept

With innovation and entrepreneurship lauded as important contributors to economic futures, there is a pressing need to unravel the complexities of entrepreneurial ecosystems as a context for cultivating new businesses initiatives. This chapter reports on the deconstruction and analysis of the entrepreneurial ecosystem concept, through a hermeneutic reflection catalysed by a symposium of international scholars. We apply the theoretical fields of business networks and systems theory within our reflective method. This reflective comparison reveals parallels and divergences as well as consistencies and contrasts between these two fields and the concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The analysis revealed that the concepts of place and dynamics are specific to entrepreneurial ecosystems and so provide a path for guiding research and policy investigations.