Robin Kleer

Business Models with Additive Manufacturing—Opportunities and Challenges from the Perspective of Economics and Management

Technological innovation has frequently been shown to systematically change market structure and value creation. Additive manufacturing (AM), or, colloquially 3D printing, is such a disruptive technology (Berman 2012; Vance 2012). Economic analysis of AM still is scarce and has predominantly focused on production cost or other firm level aspects (e.g., Mellor et al. 2014; Petrovic et al. 2011; Ruffo and Hague 2007), but has neglected the study of AM on value creation and market structure. In this paper, we want to discuss the economic effects of AM on the locus of innovation and production. This is why we first review some current business models that successfully use AM as a source of value creation. Being a potential disruptive influence on market structures, we then discuss how AM may enable a more local production by users, supplementing the recent development of an upcoming infrastructure for innovating users and “Makers”.

The Effect of Mergers on the Incentive to Invest in Cost Reducing Innovations

Both mergers and innovation are central elements of a firms competitive strategy. However, model-theoretical analysis of the merger-innovation link is sparse. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of mergers on innovative activities and product market competition in the context of incremental process innovations. Inefficiencies due to organizational problems of mergers are accounted for. We show that optimal investment strategies depend on the resulting market structure and differ significantly from insider to outsider. In our linear model mergers turn out to increase social surplus.

Acquisition through innovation tournaments in high-tech industries: a comparative perspective

Acquisition of innovative firms is a widely observed phenomenon in high-tech industries. On the basis of distinct advantages of large and small firms, in this paper, we build a tournament model with possible acquisition activity of large firms to derive hypotheses on interdependencies between acquisition frequency and post-acquisition success rates. We find empirical support for our hypotheses that (1) acquisitions increase overall innovation output and (2) that the number of acquisitions is higher in industries with larger heterogeneity between established firms and young start-ups. However, our third hypothesis derived from the formal model that innovation success following from acquisitions varies across industries is only partially confirmed.

WALKING PARALLEL PATHS OR TAKING THE SAME ROAD? THE EFFECT OF COLLABORATIVE INCENTIVES IN INNOVATION CONTESTS

We examine the role of participants’ interactions in innovation contests. In contrast to the dominant view of a competitive organisation of innovation contests, we suggest that, especially for ideation projects, a collaborative setting may be beneficial in terms of the amount of ideation activity and the quality of the generated ideas. Using two experiments, we show the usefulness of a collaborative approach when two particular conditions are met: first, the overall effort must be compensated according to performance criteria in such a way that participants are aware of the impact of their actions. Thus, the reward mechanism has to ensure that all contributors to a specific idea benefit from their involvement. Second, the host has to provide feedback throughout the contest to make it clear for participants what idea(s) to focus on. Our results show that, while the elaboration effort can be increased by introducing a collaborative reward mechanism alone, the best results are achieved when both conditions are met.

Direct, Mold-Less Production Systems

Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies in general—and in particular, Selective Laser Melting (SLM)—are characterized by a fundamentally different relationship with respect to costs, lot size, and product complexity compared to conventional manufacturing processes. There is no increase of costs for small lot sizes (in contrast to mold-based technologies) and none for shape complexity either (in contrast to subtractive technologies). Thus, only the holistic development of a direct, mold-less production system that takes all relevant interdependencies along the product creation chain into account provides the full economic, ecologic and social benefits of AM technologies in future production. The following six subjects of the product creation chain were examined: (i) New business models and customer willingness to pay for AM parts are revealed. (ii) The Product Production System (PPS) was totally revised regarding the adoption of SLM technology into conventional manufacturing environment. (iii) The SLM manufacturing costs were examined regarding different machine configurations. (iv) A high-power SLM process was developed for enhancing the process productivity. (v) High manganese steel was qualified for the SLM process. (vi) Finally, two lattice structure types and a design methodology for customer parts were developed.

The Impact of Collaborative Incentives on Ideation Behavior: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Within this paper, we examine the role of collaborative incentives in idea contests. By developing a theoretical model and using a 2x2 between subject game theoretic experiment, we analyze how a competitive/collaborative setting, as well as performance-based/flat compensation, influence consumers in their ideation activity and elaboration effort. Contrary to prior literature and current firm practices which emphasize the important role of the competitive character of idea contests, we find that a collaborative setting increases participants’ effort as well as the interaction among participants. In particular, we find that participants in this setting allocate more time to improving the ideas of other participants, leading to a higher overall performance of the idea contest.