Sigvald Harryson

Entrepreneurship through relationships - navigating from creativity to commercialisation

This paper explores the role of relationships in the emergence of a networks value creation structure. The strategic navigation from creative exploration to global exploitation through the use of so-called transformation networks is particularly highlighted. The creativity phase requires a creator with visionary leadership. The commercialisation phase, on the other hand, requires technology integration and global marketing excellence. Realising that this requires more than a bright inventor, the creator of Anoto brought in the right complementary assets at distinct phases of the commercialisation process. Our case illustrates how integrator and marketeer profiles were brought into a networked act of entrepreneurship for joint navigation across an ocean of relationships that gave birth to a global standard for digital writing. By combining theories on open innovation and networking, a theoretical framework is developed to analyse the different nature of the networks (or the value creation structure) in which complementary assets can be accessed, transferred and transformed into commercialised innovation. The analysis suggests that the value of complementary assets are embedded in and unlocked by three distinct types of networks: creativity networks, transformation networks and process networks. It also suggests that the ideal approach to accessing complementary assets shifts over the research and development management process, and happens through these three different types and levels of networks, requiring fundamentally different approaches to leadership and relationship management. Current literature describes open and networked innovation as a continuous – not dynamic – process of exploration and exploitation without any distinction of how types and structures of networks evolve and interact in the process.

Flexibility in innovation through external learning: exploring two models for enhanced industry-university collaboration

This paper draws on extensive theoretical research and literature reviews, and presents two cases to illustrate practical applications. It addresses the problem of how learning both from extracorporate sources, like universities, as well as across internal corporate functions, like R&D and manufacturing, can enhance company flexibility and performance in innovation. This paper aims at delivering a new theoretical rationale for industry?university (I-U) learning alliances as a natural way out from the managerial problem of trying to perform both exploration and exploitation within the same company boundaries. Through our theoretical framework, the academic science domain becomes a logical partner to handle the full phase of exploration and support the process of exploitation. The presented cases of Packman and HiFiPower offer new insight into how to perform this act in practice.

How Technology-Based University Research Drives Innovation in Europe and China – Leveraging the Power of Proximity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess how technology-based university research drives innovation in Europe and China. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on extensive theoret ...

How transfer of R&D to emerging markets nurtures global innovation performance

In the context of global R&D, we connect literature on knowledge management to a network-based theoretical framework helpful to explain the impact of R&D globalisation on innovation performance. This framework is applied to two case companies, both global leaders within their respective industries, in order to analyse the extent to which their strategic globalisation of R&D activities, from Scandinavia to China, has contributed to increased innovation performance. Our findings suggests that close interaction and cross-fertilisation with local knowledge networks are of eminent importance for newly established R&D offsprings to improve overall innovation performance. Pack Tech illustrates this through a collaboration-intensive approach to university competitions in China.