Stefanie Bröring

Organising new business development: open innovation at Degussa

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse different organisational tools of business development used in practice. This analysis seeks to address the question of how an organisation can achieve the recurring shift from exploration to exploitation and at the same time manage to balance its open and closed innovation tools.Design/methodology/approach – The empirical basis for analysing the organisational implications of open vs closed innovation is built by Creavis, the business venturing arm of Degussa AG, a specialty chemicals company headquartered in Germany.Findings – Companies face the ambiguity of creating new business options and exploiting these at a later stage. Since exploitative and explorative units require a different organisational set‐up, it is difficult for a company to shift its exploratory endeavours to exploitative means. The presented case study offers an answer to this dilemma by showing how organisations manage to combine both by a unique organisational set‐up allowing for an e...

Industry Convergence and its Implications for the Front End of Innovation: A Problem of Absorptive Capacity

This paper explores industry convergence and its implications for the front end of innovation. Conventional practice of idea generation and selection seems to be difficult in times of convergence, since actors face new knowledge and competencies owned in different industries. Given these particularities of industry convergence, this paper analyses decision processes at the front end of 54 R&D projects by using a mixed-method research design. Findings indicate that there are different approaches of how firms engage in innovation in industry convergence. A central implication is the need to differentiate between the market and technological side of a firms absorptive capacity.

Value‐creation in new product development within converging value chains: An analysis in the functional foods and nutraceutical industry

Purpose – This paper seeks to shed some light on value‐creation in new product development (NPD) projects within the context of industry convergence and to explore alternative types of projects characterised by different buyer‐seller relationships.Design/methodology/approach – There has been much research on value‐creation in general, but limited emphasis on value‐creation in NPD projects addressing new industry segments emerging from industry convergence (for example, the segment of nuctraceuticals and functional foods (NFF) products that is positioned between the food and the pharmaceutical industries). Based on a multi‐case study approach, this paper pursues an exploratory research strategy and investigates 54 NPD projects drawn from a Quebec (Canada) NFF foods cluster.Findings – In the context of convergence a new value chain is emerging between two formerly separated sectors. Value‐creation networks spread across industries and reinforce trends of convergence. Firms face competence gaps in NPD and se...

Radical or not? Assessing innovativeness and its organisational implications for established firms

Established firms try to rejuvenate their mature product portfolios by fostering innovation. In this paper, we present a concept on how innovative initiatives can be distinguished concerning their innovativeness. We also discuss organisational requirements to cope with the innovation process. Different forms of organisation are assigned distinct degrees of innovativeness. Cases from the chemical industry illustrate the theoretical concept.

Reviewing the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006: What do we know about its challenges and potential impact on innovation?

Abstract Health claims potentially represent an opportunity for firms to engage in product differentiation and thereby induce investment into R&D and innovation in the food sector. The Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 (NHCR) aims at protecting and promoting innovation as one of its objectives. However, existing studies indicate that this regulation may create several challenges for innovation in the food sector. To this end, we review the challenges related to the NHCR (Article 13.1) and its impact on innovation. Extant literature suggests that companies face challenges related to changing list of ingredients, missing transparency, wording of claims, limited financial resources, limited R&D resources, switching product categories and abandoning the functional foods sector. Moreover, current studies imply that so far the NHCR (in specific Article 13.1) does not seem to encourage innovation in the EU food sector.

Drivers of innovation in Italy: Food versus pharmaceutical industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it aims to investigate how internal and external drivers affect innovation in the Italian food industry. Second, the authors are interested to understand to what extent these drivers are industry specific, and therefore, they are contrasted against those relevant for the pharmaceutical industry in Italy according to the increasing growth of cross-industry innovation between these two sectors. The paper aims, thus, to shed light on the differences between food and pharmaceutical industries in terms of innovation drivers to understand potential precursors of emerging industry convergence. Design/methodology/approach – Both probit and bivariate probit models are estimated, using data from the Italian Community Innovation Survey, in order to provide empirical evidence on drivers affecting innovation in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Findings – The innovation activity of Italian food and pharmaceutical companies strongly relies on the presence of ...

The EU health claims regulation: implications for innovation in the EU food sector

Purpose One of the objectives of the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 (NHCR) is protection and promotion of innovation in the food industry. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the NHCR on both innovation and the sourcing of external knowledge in the European Union (EU) food sector. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted which resulted in a sample of 105 EU companies for the study. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the nature of relationships that existed among the challenges related to the implementation of the NHCR, external sources of knowledge and innovation. Findings Challenges related to the NHCR are currently found to have a negative direct impact on product innovation. However, they have a positive indirect effect on product innovation, especially in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises. They also seem to positively affect external knowledge sourcing. Additionally, sources of external knowledge are found to have a positive effect on product and process innovations. Practical implications This study provides insights to different stakeholders in the food industry who might wish to work jointly and address the various issues related to the requirements of the NHCR and facilitate compliance with the regulation. Originality/value Understanding the impact of the NHCR on innovation seems pivotal because innovation plays an important role in the EU food sector. To this purpose, the paper delivers insights into some main compliance challenges and their effect on innovation.

Exploring the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006: What is the impact on innovation in the EU food sector?

Abstract Literature suggests that despite its positive aim of promoting innovation, the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006 (NHCR) may bring along several compliance challenges, which might affect innovation in the EU food sector. This study investigates the challenges faced by companies to comply with the NHCR (specifically Article 13.1) and their impact on innovation. To this end, we conducted an online survey with 105 companies involved in the EU food sector. Results indicate that companies perceive wording of claims, missing transparency and limited financial resources as major challenges to comply with the NHCR (Article 13.1). Companies reported not to have increased their R&D expenditure or innovation activities after the NHCR (Article 13.1) was implemented. Thus, this study highlights specific compliance challenges related to the NHCR (Article 13.1) and indicates that currently, the regulation does not seem to have fostered innovation in the EU food sector.

Market convergence in the field of stationary energy storage systems

In order to develop and market powerful stationary energy storage systems, competences of different industries like the battery, chemical, energy, and electronics sector are necessary, which may lead to a convergence of these formerly distinct industries. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to anticipate industry convergence in the area of stationary energy storage by analyzing market convergence. A potential market convergence can be indicated by collaborative activities such as strategic alliances, joint ventures or mergers and acquisitions. As a main source of information on such activities, we use the full text database Nexis® to conduct a search in English news sources referring to collaborations on stationary energy storage systems. As a result, we find signs for an ongoing market convergence, whereby a detailed analysis of collaborations in this field reveals that the mainly involved industries are the battery, electronics and energy industry sectors. In this context, the dominance of cross-industry collaborations indicates that competences from a variety of industries are needed to develop and introduce new solutions for stationary energy storage. Our analyses and findings contribute to the convergence research field by extending the currently scarce body of empirical literature on market convergence and by validating a recently developed analytical framework to anticipate and assess the status of market convergence.

Emerging value chains within the bio-economy: structural changes in the case of phosphate recovery

Abstract The needed transition from a fossil-to a bio-based economy fosters the utilization of biological resources derived from recycled low value by-products and waste streams. Chain actors face multiple challenges associated with the adoption of novel processing technologies. Bio-based technologies might be related to high switching costs, missing downstream processing technologies, lack of quality standards, missing industry standards, emerging regulatory frameworks. Moreover, as previously unrelated actors form new relationships, value chains are moving towards new structural changes. This paper thus seeks to explore the challenges associated with the emergence of novel value chains with an exploratory case study approach that reviews a new process of recovering phosphate - a typical scarce and fundamental resource - from rapeseed oil press cakes. The contribution of our paper is thus not only to provide conclusions for this specific case, but also, and more importantly, to present a blueprint for other cases of scarce resources that require the establishment of novel supply chains to foster cascading usage of by-products. Expert interviews with different value chain actors have been conducted to investigate arising challenges, and derive implications and a further research agenda. Despite the advantages of the bio-based process, interviews revealed several challenges associated with the emergence of novel value chains: hesitation of respondents in making new investments in terms of equipment and know-how, missing complementary competencies, and difficulties in integrating different industrial sectors to engage in cross-industry innovation, such as food processing (rapeseed oil cakes) and specialty chemicals/mineral (phosphate and its derivatives). These exploratory results open the way for some useful recommendations, enabling us to propose an agenda for further research and policy development in areas such as: development of synergies between academia and industry; formulation of management strategies to support the flexibility of firms to capture opportunities associated with by-product valorization; building a systemic approach at a local level to implement bio-based technology clusters.