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This paper aims to analyse the influence of cooperation on the degree of novelty of technological innovations introduced by industrial firms in Argentina. This influence is analysed from three perspectives: cooperation by partner type [business partners or scientific and technological centres (S&T) partners]; cooperation by number of partner types, from no cooperation to cooperation with two partner types; and cooperation by goals pursued by firms.

The data come from one of the last national innovation surveys conducted in Argentina. The study controls for endogeneity, using instrumental variable procedures within the conditional mixed-process (CMP) framework.

The main result is the influence of cooperation with universities and S&T centres on the introduction of more novel innovations, which was found both in estimations with and without endogeneity correction. This influence was verified for more complex goals (R&D, technology transfer and industrial design and engineering) as well as for less complex ones (tests and trials, human resources training, quality management and certification). Business cooperation seems to impact only on a lower degree of novelty for more complex goals. The increase in the number of partners that the firm cooperates with, from no cooperation to joint cooperation with two partner types, influences more novel innovations.

Limitations and proposals for future research are discussed at the end of the study.

The results of this study contrast with the high propensity to cooperate with business partners shown by firms in Argentina and other Latin American countries. Therefore, this paper may help formulate more effective policies to promote cooperation conducive to firm innovation performance. Limitations and proposals for future research are discussed at the end of the study.

Although there is empirical evidence on this topic for developed countries, firm-level studies on cooperation and degree of novelty are scarce for Latin America. In addition, this paper analyses cooperation not only by type of partner but also by type of goal. This study attempted to control for endogeneity by using instrumental variables within the CMP framework.

This study aims to reflect on the interactions that result from the use of the seacoast in a small touristic town in Argentina. Agents in conflict are both beach users: on the one hand, tourists that enjoy sunbathing and, on the other hand, the artisanal fishermen who use the seacoast as a space for the circulation of tractors and boats and commercialization of their production in informal conditions. The case aimed to provide evidence on social innovation as a mobilizer of the creativity of citizens, the organizations of the third sector and public and private actors for the development of new solutions and better use of common resources.

This paper followed the methodology of the centre for research on social innovations (as per its initials in French) as proposed by Tardif and Harrisson (2005). The fieldwork was carried out with interviews to the stakeholders, visits of recognition and direct participation in the territory.

The paper provides empirical insights about how an overarching project arises from agreements between stakeholders and a public policy that promotes it. Governance mechanisms to promote sustainable fisheries, to create cooperative management methods and to support alternative livelihood programmes are essential for preventing conflicts and mitigating their impacts on fishing communities.

The value of this paper is to show how social innovation can emerge from civil society initiatives and how the state can create conditions to favour it, participating and cooperating in a process of co-construction.

The purpose of this study is to understand the different types of risks affecting the demand for the automotive sector in India. The study is further trying to illustrate an approach for analyzing the relative intensities of these risks in the present uncertain business environment.

Risk on the overall demand is assessed by a combined Bayesian – multi-criteria decision-making approach. Data related to the different factors, affecting their product demand is collected from major automobile firms. Then, weights for these factors are evaluated by applying the analytic hierarchy process approach. Further, these weights are used in the Bayesian analysis network to evaluate the risk intensity for different subgroups, namely, political, economic, social, technological and environmental.

From the literature and experts’ opinion, total 16 risk factors have been finalized and these are further grouped into 5 categories i.e. political, economic, social, technological and environmental. It is observed that the demand for organizations functioning in the automotive sector is more vulnerable to economic risk as compared to other risks considered in the study.

Managers and decision makers of associated organizations can use the proposed framework to assess the demand risks so as to pre-evaluate their demand corresponding to future changes. Factors can be added or removed and importance could be assigned to different risk factors according to the prevailing business environment for an organization or sector. This will also help the organizations to conduct a more effective risk management in an uncertain business environment.

The study will help in better understanding of the various demand risks prevalent in the Indian auto sector. The methodology used, provides a novel approach for assessing the macroeconomic demand risks and can be used by the firms working in the automotive sector. The proposed methodology could be used for assessing supply chain risk or any other business initiative risk. The suggested approach will help managers in devising flexible management techniques so as to mitigate the risk.

This paper presents the results of research carried out by the Media Education for Sustainability Project, based at the Federal University of Triangulo Mineiro (UFTM). The project investigated the potential for engaging marginalized communities with educational centers to generate and utilize media and networks, which can be used to promote healthier and resilient lifestyles in the community.

The project’s activities used the “Design of Meaning” theoretical framework to design collaborative group work in order to foster key skills for promoting agency and awareness of local problems affecting the environment. Underpinned by Action Research methodology, a series of workshops were piloted with the participation of 20 secondary school students.

Results suggested that such a creative learning environment can help students develop the skills needed to be active citizens, such as the ability to access, evaluate, use, and contribute to public information addressing issues of democratic participation and accountability. Nevertheless, challenges centered around student motivation and difficulties in engaging with their communities’ contexts will need to be dealt with in future Action Research cycles.

Based on our observations during the workshops, and subsequent feedback from participants, we suggest that Media Education tools show potential for improving school learning, encouraging the community in the search for answers based on local knowledge, and engaging students in a debate about critical issues and challenges at the local level. We believe that this outcome was achieved in part due to the deployment of multimodal languages and creative use of technologies.

The success of corporate innovation is based less upon the success of a single innovation program than on a holistic and overarching corporate innovation system integrating various activities. Taking this perspective, the purpose of this paper is to extend existing research on the design of innovation programs.

Utilizing an inductive theory-building case study approach, this study provides a detailed analysis of how one of the largest and most successful German technology companies structures its many innovation activities.

The analysis identifies key elements of innovation programs and suggests three configurations that illustrate how these generic elements can be structured so as to offer the best fit with the underlying logic of the respective innovation program. Furthermore, this study highlights how the identified configurations come together to deliver overarching strategic innovation goals.

Existing research too often focuses solely on single innovation programs. The current research is among the first to take a holistic and overarching perspective, considering different innovation programs within a single company and analyzing their configuration and their interplay.

To ensure that more people will benefit from integrated care initiatives, scaling-up of successful initiatives is the way forward. However, new challenges present themselves as knowledge on how to achieve successful large-scale implementation is scarce. The EU-funded project SCIROCCO uses a step-based scaling-up strategy to explore what to scale-up, and how to scale-up integrated care initiatives by matching the complementary strengths and weaknesses of five European regions involved in integrated care. The purpose of this paper is to describe a multi-method evaluation protocol designed to understand what factors influence the implementation of the SCIROCCO strategy to support the scaling-up of integrated care.

The first part of the protocol focuses on the assessment of the implementation fidelity of the SCIROCCO step-based strategy. The objective is to gain insight in whether the step-based strategy is implemented as it was designed to explore what works and does not work when implementing the scaling-up strategy. The second part concerns a realist evaluation to examine what it is about the SCIROCCO’s strategy that works for whom, why, how and in which circumstances when scaling-up integrated care.

The intended study will provide valuable information on the implementation of the scaling-up strategy which will help to explain for what specific reasons the implementation succeeds and will facilitate further improvement of project outcomes.

The expected insights could be useful to guide the development, implementation and evaluation of future scaling-up strategies to advance the change towards more sustainable health and care systems.

The purpose of this research is to analyze the ability of agrifood systems to construct “customized competitiveness” strategies that can allow firms to meet the specific and constantly changing demands of foreign markets.

The research performs a comparative analysis of three case studies of agrifood systems in Argentina: lemon, pork, and dairy products. The authors obtained primary data from 79 semi-structured interviews with key persons in each agrifood system carried out online between March 2020 and February 2021. Secondary data was obtained from databases, academic studies, and reports from business associations and public agencies.

The authors find wide disparities in the development of customized competitiveness strategies between the studied agrifood systems (higher in lemon, lower in dairy products, and incipient in pork). The authors attribute the disparity to the varying degrees in which these systems are capable of coordinating their own actions and their interactions with State agencies.

The paper provides comparative evidence about the role of private coordination in the ability of agrifood systems to construct customized competitiveness strategies.

Drawing on the principal-principal conflict and identity literatures, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the Agency Problem Type II-bis in the context of family business. Specifically, the authors hypothesize that the size of the family owner group is related to firm growth and that this relationship is moderated by the extent to which the family identifies with the firm.

The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 265 medium and large German family firms (FFs) via moderated hierarchical regression analysis.

The main findings suggest that business family identity moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between the size of the family owner group and firm growth in such a way that FFs with medium-sized family owner groups and high levels of business family identity reach higher firm growth.

In the context of FFs fully owned by one family, family owners might have different strategic preferences, goals, and identities, thus potentially making them subject to the conflict that could arise among the different family owners in relation to growth expectations. Recognizing this problem could help family owners find potential solutions to ensure the well-being of both the family and the business.

The combination of family ownership structure and family ownership dynamics affects firm growth. Challenging the homogeneity of the family owner group, the authors highlight the role of Agency Problem Type II-bis in hindering growth of FFs. A finer-grained view of principal-principal conflicts in FFs is thus discussed.