Sandor Lowik, Jeroen Kraaijenbrink and Aard J. Groen
The paper aims to understand how individuals differ in individual absorptive capacity – their ability to recognize, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge. These…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to understand how individuals differ in individual absorptive capacity – their ability to recognize, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge. These individual absorptive capacities are a key knowledge management building block for an organization’s open innovation practices. The study examines individual antecedents – human capital, social capital and cognition – and innovation outcomes of individual absorptive capacity.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a quantitative study of 147 employees in a single medium-sized Dutch industrial firm. Based on a survey and structural equation modeling, the antecedents’ prior knowledge diversity, network diversity and cognitive style are examined in relation to individual absorptive capacity. Further, the mediating effects of individual absorptive capacity on its antecedents and innovation outcome are investigated.
Findings
The main findings are that prior knowledge diversity, external network diversity and a bisociative cognitive style explain differences in individual absorptive capacity. A bisociative cognitive style appears to be the most important factor. Also, this study finds that individual absorptive capacity mediates between its antecedents and individual innovation performance and is therefore a relevant factor to capture value from external knowledge sources.
Research limitations/implications
The study extends open innovation theory by exploring individual-level factors that explain the ability to capture value from external knowledge. It suggests that differences in open innovation practices are explained by heterogeneity at the individual level. Further, it explains how individuals’ potentials for open innovation are mediated by their absorptive capacities. These insights enable future researchers to further examine individual-level factors in knowledge management practices and to explore cross-level individual-organizational interactions for open innovation.
Practical implications
This paper highlights that individuals’ engagements in open innovation practices are explained not only by individuals’ motivations but also by their abilities to absorb external knowledge. Further, it helps managers to design knowledge management practices to promote employees’ absorptive capacities, to improve open innovation processes.
Originality/value
This study investigates the neglected individual-level factors of open innovation practices from a micro-foundational and knowledge management perspective. To our best knowledge, this is the first study to examine individual-level antecedents and outcomes of individual absorptive capacity.
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Paul Kirwan, Tiago Ratinho, Peter van der Sijde and Aard J. Groen
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early development stages of International New Ventures (INVs). Specifically, the authors explore how INVs acquire and leverage four…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early development stages of International New Ventures (INVs). Specifically, the authors explore how INVs acquire and leverage four kinds of capital – strategic, managerial, financial and social – to recognise a foreign opportunity, begin the pre-foreign entry activities, and finally start the INV.
Design/methodology/approach
A stage-based, multidimensional framework was used to investigate how INVs acquire and use the four capitals throughout the internationalisation process. Drawing on four case studies of high-tech INVs, this study tracks their development in three stages: foreign opportunity, pre-foreign operation and post-foreign operation.
Findings
Results indicate INVs build advantages and internationalisation activities occur before formal operations begin. INVs deliberately orchestrate certain kinds of capital contingent to the specific internationalisation stage. Further, the authors find that not all types of capital are equally important throughout the internationalisation process: INVs identify foreign opportunities when endowed with managerial and social capital; INVs source a majority of their managerial and financial capitals externally before internationalising; and INVs only contribute all four capitals simultaneously after internationalising.
Research limitations/implications
Findings contribute to knowledge about the development of INVs pre-internationalisation and pre-founding. The study is limited to a comparative sample of INVs, which impacts the generalisability. However, the findings provide a starting point for investigating similar effects using more representative samples.
Practical implications
Entrepreneurs can be proactive in networking activities to allow them greater opportunity to interact with potential resource providers dependent on the stage of internationalisation.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the international entrepreneurship literature with qualitative evidence of the micro-level processes of internationalisation. Very few studies investigate the early, pre-internationalisation and pre-foundation, development stages of INVs.
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Sílvia Costa, Inna Kozlinska, Olga Belousova, Aard J. Groen, Francisco Liñán, Alain Jean-Claude Fayolle, Hans Landström and Aniek Ouendag
Zeynep Didem Nohutlu, Basil G. Englis, Aard J. Groen and Efthymios Constantinides
The purpose of this article is to obtain an in-depth insight into the nature and impact of customers´ cocreation experiences in online communities and the effects of customer…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to obtain an in-depth insight into the nature and impact of customers´ cocreation experiences in online communities and the effects of customer cocreation on innovation processes.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is focused on an online cocreation community created by a market research company on behalf of a company. By means of a case study approach and through in-depth interviews, the authors identify the actual customer experiences and measure (or assess) the degree of involvement of customer creativity and experience in new idea generation.
Findings
Cocreation experience can be enhanced through evoking pragmatic, sociability, usability and hedonic experiences and more positive experiences and therefore, outcomes of collaborative innovation in online communities can be achieved. Findings show a classification of each role the community moderator/community manager and peer online community members perform as antecedents of cocreation experience, highlight the value of group feeling/sense of community/sense of belonging and homophily/communality in achieving that, the nature of a supportive online platform and give an overview of positive and negative outcomes of cocreation experience.
Originality/value
This case study provides with valuable insights in the phenomenon of customer cocreation and how to enhance participation of community members in collaborative innovation in online communities through positive experience, which is important for businesses involved in innovation trajectories and product and service improvement efforts.
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Kristian J. Sund, Robert J. Galavan and Marcel Bogers
In this paper, we reflect on an expanding literature that links theories of cognition and business models. Managers hold in their mind perceptual constructs or schemas of the…
Abstract
In this paper, we reflect on an expanding literature that links theories of cognition and business models. Managers hold in their mind perceptual constructs or schemas of the business model. These guide the process of distinguishing between options and making choices. Those familiar with business model development will easily recognise that the perceptual construct provides only a summary of the business model, and that a more complex conceptualisation of how business model elements interact is needed. The business model is then much more than a visualisation. It is a schematic model of theorised interaction that is created, shaped, and shared over time. The underlying processes of this creation, shaping, and sharing are cognitive activities taking place at individual, organisational, and inter-organisational levels. Theories of managerial and organisational cognition are thus critical to understanding the acts of business modelling and business model innovation. Here we suggest some of the ways that business model and cognition literatures can be connected, present existing literature, and reflect on future avenues of research to explore the cognitive foundations of business modelling.
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Robert Tierney, Aard J. Groen, Rainer Harms, Miriam Luizink, Dale Hetherington, Harold Stewart, Steve T. Walsh and Jonathan Linton
Twenty first century problems are increasingly being addressed by multi technology solutions developed by regional entrepreneurial and intreprepreneurial innovators. However, they…
Abstract
Purpose
Twenty first century problems are increasingly being addressed by multi technology solutions developed by regional entrepreneurial and intreprepreneurial innovators. However, they require an expensive new type of fabrication facility. Multiple technology production facilities (MTPF) have become the essential incubators for these innovations. This paper aims to focus on the issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors address the lack of managerial understanding of how to express the value and operationally manage MTPF centers through the use of investigative case study methods for multiple firms in the study.
Findings
Owing to the MTPF centers' novelty and outward similarity to high volume semiconductor fabrication (HVF) facilities, they are laden with ineffective operation and strategic management practices. Metrics are the standard for both operational and strategic management of HVF facilities, yet their application to this new type of center is proving ineffectual.
Research limitations/implications
These new types of regional economic resources may be at risk. A new approach is needed.
Practical implications
The authors develop an operational and strategic metrics management approach for MTPFs that are based on these facilities' unique nature and leverages both the HVF and R&D metrics knowledge base.
Social implications
Innovations at the interface of micro technology, nanotechnology and semiconductor micro fabrication are poised to solve many of these problems and become a basis for job creation and prosperity. If a new management technique is not developed, then these harbingers of regional economic development will be closed.
Originality/value
While there is an abundance of research on metrics for HVF, this is the first attempt to develop metrics for MTPFs.
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Dennis J. Aigner and Antonio Lloret
– This paper summarizes the findings of a research project aimed at benchmarking the environmental sustainability practices of the top 500 Mexican companies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper summarizes the findings of a research project aimed at benchmarking the environmental sustainability practices of the top 500 Mexican companies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper surveyed the firms with regard to various aspects of their adoption of environmental sustainability practices, including who or what prompted adoption, future adoption plans, decision-making responsibility, and internal/external challenges. The survey also explored how the adoption of environmental sustainability practices relates to the competitiveness of these firms.
Findings
The results suggest that Mexican companies are very active in the various areas of business where environmental sustainability is relevant. Not surprisingly, however, the Mexican companies are seen to be at an early stage of development along the sustainability “learning curve”.
Research limitations/implications
The sample consisted of 103 self-selected firms representing the six primary business sectors in the Mexican economy. Because the manufacturing sector is significantly overrepresented in the sample and because of its importance in addressing issues of environmental sustainability, when appropriate, specific results for this sector are reported and contrasted to the overall sample.
Practical implications
The vast majority of these firms see adopting environmental sustainability practices as being profitable and think this will be even more important in the future.
Originality/value
Improving the environmental performance of business firms through the adoption of sustainability practices is compatible with competitiveness and improved financial performance. In Mexico, one might expect that the same would be true, but only anecdotal evidence was heretofore available.
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Mirjam Leloux, Peter van der Sijde and Aard Groen
Conventional models for the business valuation of technology are usually financially oriented and only measure economic value. Several of these financially oriented approaches…
Abstract
Conventional models for the business valuation of technology are usually financially oriented and only measure economic value. Several of these financially oriented approaches have been reviewed by Leloux and Groen (2007). Current monetary (financial) valuation methods for technology include cost-based methods, income-based methods and market-based methods (Martin, 1999; Goldheim, Slowinski, Joseph, Edward, & John, 2005).
Sandor Lowik, Jeroen Kraaijenbrink and Aard Groen
The paper aims to understand how knowledge-intensive teams can develop and enhance their team absorptive capacity (ACAP) level, by exploring whether individual and organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to understand how knowledge-intensive teams can develop and enhance their team absorptive capacity (ACAP) level, by exploring whether individual and organizational factors are complements or substitutes for team ACAP.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies a configurational approach using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify combinations of individual and team factors that are associated with team ACAP. Data were gathered through a survey among 297 employees of four medium-sized Dutch firms, working in 48 functional teams.
Findings
The primary finding is that knowledge-intensive team ACAP depends on a triad of complementary factors: team members’ individual ACAP, factors that enable knowledge integration and factors that motivate knowledge integration. Underdevelopment of one or more factors leads to lower team ACAP.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes to the discussion on the locus of knowledge-creation and enhances understandings of why knowledge-intensive teams differ in knowledge processing capabilities. It suggests future research on cross-functional teams in new ventures and large firms.
Practical implications
The paper informs managers and team leaders about the factors that determine knowledge-intensive teams’ ACAP, enabling them to develop team-specific strategies to increase their teams’ performance.
Originality/value
The study takes a holistic perspective on knowledge-intensive team ACAP by using a configurational approach. It also highlights the potential of team-level research in the knowledge management literature for both researchers and practitioners.