S. Conn

Assessing the management of innovation with software tools: an application of innovationEnterprizer

This paper presents an NPD managerial decision-making software system: innovationEnterprizer. Furthermore, the paper reports on the application of the system at a major European parts supplier to the German automotive industry which was carried out during September 2004. Ten facilitated sessions were conducted with managers. The main results indicated that the project team (human and integration factors) were extremely weak when compared with the formal side of innovation, for which the company had formal processes and scored very strongly. Furthermore, the consistency between units was very high, indicating that general innovation policy, which was formulated at corporate board level, was not adapted to the unit-specific level. This was despite the boards recognition that each unit has a need for its own uniquely combined set of success factors.

SMART: System for the development, management and support of strategic alliances

Abstract Despite the increasing number of strategic alliances (SAs), how to ensure their success is poorly understood. Studies suggest that up to 75 percent of alliances fail to meet their initial objectives due to a multitude of cultural, political, technological and human factors. If such an eclectic set of competencies is required for success, alliance management is clearly a difficult task for todays manager. Traditionally, managers wishing to develop SA competencies have relied on ad-hoc consultancy services and training. This has not, to date, resulted in a notable improvement in alliance success. The SMART project redresses this growing need by developing a knowledge-based software support system to help managers conceptualise, implement and manage SAs. First, this paper introduces the field of SAs; then the foundations of knowledge-based support systems are discussed. Finally, how the SMART approach will create value for managers is relayed.

EDITORIAL: First Special Issue for the ISPIM

The ISPIM conference in Barcelona, Action for Innovation: Innovating From Experience, attracted more than five hundred delegates from almost fifty countries, which made it the largest ISPIM event to date. From the papers presented, eight were invited for formal review, and the six papers in this special issue are the result of further development and refinement of these submissions. Mazzola et al. focus of this paper is on exploring linkages among Open Innovation practices and firm performance. They investigate the concurrent influence of specific inbound, outbound and combined Open Innovation practices on both innovation and economic-financial firms’ performance using data from a sample of 105 companies listed on the IM&C of NASDAQ. Land sperger et al. analyse network managers’ direct and indirect influence on network’s relational and goal achievement performance. Their results suggest that a network manager enhances innovation network’s core management functions, which in turn improve the relational performance (RP) and significantly drives the goal achievement performance. This paper received the Alex Gofman Award for the best student paper. Schweitzer and Gabriel analyse the impact of creativity, knowledge gathering, project planning and formalization on the efficiency and effectiveness of the early stages of development using data from 352 B2B-companies from technologyintensive sectors. They find that project planning is fundamental for front-end efficiency, but has no direct influence on effectiveness, whereas knowledgegathering has the opposite relationship, and that the quality of collaboration is more important than that quantity. Interestingly, creativity appears to have no influence on efficiency nor effectiveness of the early stages. Simula and Vuori also International Journal of Innovation Management Vol. 16, No. 6 (December 2012) 1202002 (2 pages)

Editorial: Thirteenth Special Issue for the ISPIM

Welcome to the thirteenth special issue of the IJIM for ISPIM. This draws upon papers presented at two ISPIM events in 2014: the Asia-Pacific Innovation Forum, Singapore, and Americas Innovation Forum, Montreal, Canada. From this pool of almost 200 papers 10 were invited for formal peer review by the IJIM, and the eight papers published in this issue are the results of review and revision. The first three papers continue interest in business model innovation. Amshoff et al. present a methodology for pattern-based business model design simplifying development and analysis of business models for disruptive technologies, and validate this with several industrial projects. Bhardwaj, Agrawal and Tyagi explore the innovation options in oncology clinical development, and find that different companies are focusing on standalone interventions (exploratory innovation) and combination therapy (exploitative innovation) in clinical development. They examine the role of capability, scientific networks & market access in the choice of strategic priorities. Krech, Ruther and Gassmann study the different business models of patent aggregating companies, and in particular how patent holders can use patent aggregating companies as means to capture value from their inventions. Drawing upon data over a five-year period and interviews they identify four groups of patent aggregating companies based on the values provided to the original patent holders: guarders; shielders; funders; and earners. The next four papers explore the internal and external sources and flows of knowledge. Tahmooresnejad and Beaudry evaluate whether an increase in government funding for academic scientists enhances the performance of researchers in both scientific publications and academic patents in the field of nanotechnology. Their analysis reveals a strong relationship between funding and publication productivity, as well as the citation impact of publications, and a strong influence International Journal of Innovation Management Vol. 19, No. 3 (June 2015) 1502001 (2 pages)

Editorial — SEVENTH SPECIAL ISSUE FOR THE ISPIM

Welcome to the seventh special issue of the IJIM for ISPIM. This draws upon papers submitted to the ISPIM Innovation Symposium — Managing Innovation for Sustained Productivity: Creating Advantage and Resilience, held in Wellington, New Zealand, December 2011. From this pool of potential papers nine were invited for formal review by the IJIM, and the seven papers published in this issue are the results of review and revision. The first three papers are concerned with the development and growth of new ventures, and the role of different innovation practices at different stages. The next two papers explore the resources and practices necessary to exploit inbound open innovation. The final two papers examine the influences of research leadership on innovation. Waal and Knott examine technology-based new ventures executing their first projects, and provide insights into how their adoption of innovation tools evolves over time. They find that there is an hierarchy of tool adoption states, starting with an exclusive focus on effectiveness, and over time progressively moving to problem-solving, efficiency, and finally resource management. However, they find that less experienced new ventures often progress to the next state only in response to costly mistakes and delays, whereas more experienced teams operated in all four states from project initiation. Karlson and Callagher explore the motives of small innovative firms for selecting university partners. As well as risk-reducing, cost-reducing, and value creating motives that are established in the literature, ‘enabling’ is proposed as a fourth motive, which asserts that firms select university partners that enable the firm to remain flexible and adaptable in commercialising early-stage innovations. Grundstrom et al. study the factors which differentiate high and low growth SMEs. In a study of 409 SMEs over four years, the highest growth firms had a significantly higher portion of new products as part of the turnover during the four International Journal of Innovation Management Vol. 16, No. 3 (June 2012) 1202001 (2 pages)