Effie Kesidou, Ram Narasimhan, Serdal Ozusaglam and Chee Yew Wong
Prior research on open innovation has not investigated changes in knowledge acquisition strategies of firms over time overlooking how learning from past knowledge acquisition can…
Abstract
Purpose
Prior research on open innovation has not investigated changes in knowledge acquisition strategies of firms over time overlooking how learning from past knowledge acquisition can change subsequent search strategies. Also, prior research has focused principally on product innovation overlooking process innovation. The purpose of the paper is to introduce the concept of dynamic openness, which is defined as temporal changes in external knowledge search strategy. We explore four dynamic openness strategies – closing down, opening up, persistent open and persistent closed – and examine the impact of these strategies on both product and process innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a panel dataset of 16,021 firms based on five waves (2009–2017) of the UK Community Innovation Survey (UKIS). All models are estimated using firm and year fixed effects (FE) method to control for endogeneity that arises from unobserved heterogeneity. Endogeneity and robustness tests were carried out to ensure the validity of results.
Findings
The results show that firms do use dynamic openness strategies over time leveraging learning from past searches. Specifically, the study indicates that closing down is not an effective strategy for either type of innovation. For process innovation, firms should pursue opening up strategy rather than persistent open strategy, whereas for product innovation firms could pursue either strategy, highlighting important contextual differences.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the literature on knowledge acquisition in open innovation: (1) by theorizing the underlying reasons – learning from past collaborations, absorptive capacity and external knowledge heterogeneity – why firms pursue one dynamic openness strategy over another and (2) by extending literature by delineating the dynamic openness strategies that firms should pursue in process innovation vs product innovation.
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Cassia Goulart Heinzen, Rosalia Aldraci Barbosa Lavarda and Christiane Bellucci
This study seeks to comprehend how sociomateriality influences the openness paradox within the context of open strategising.
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to comprehend how sociomateriality influences the openness paradox within the context of open strategising.
Design/methodology/approach
We adopted a qualitative approach and developed a case study as a research method. The data included 10 semi-structured interviews, direct observation and documentary analysis, including virtual documents, collaborative platforms and communication systems.
Findings
We found that sociomateriality influences the transition between openness and closure in open strategy (OS) dimensions, namely inclusion, participation and transparency, once organisational practitioners actively build on social relationships and engage with material elements within this paradoxical context.
Research limitations/implications
The primary limitation was the challenge of managing extensive data, especially tracking all meetings and interactions. Nonetheless, we aimed to provide a comprehensive view and meaningful insights from the data. Future research could employ mixed methods to achieve a more holistic understanding of the phenomenon.
Practical implications
By understanding the role of formalisation and legitimation played by sociomateriality during open strategising, practitioners can navigate the complexities of balancing openness and closure, fostering innovation and engagement while ensuring the legitimacy of strategising. Recognising the coexistence of exclusions in social practices enables society to comprehend this paradox and highlight the need to address it, fostering an inclusive environment and promoting balanced openness in various social contexts.
Originality/value
Our study contributes to the OS literature by highlighting the role of sociomateriality in shaping the openness and closure interplay. Additionally, we emphasise the importance of formalisation and legitimation practices involving materiality in the balance between openness and closure in a context where openness is deemed essential for strategic success.
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Gustavo A. Barboza and Sandra R. Trejos
Free trade reform promotes and consolidates businesses’ orientation to international markets. Using a sample of twenty Latin American countries, this study finds support for the…
Abstract
Free trade reform promotes and consolidates businesses’ orientation to international markets. Using a sample of twenty Latin American countries, this study finds support for the hypothesis that higher revealed trade openness implies faster economic growth. However, at low output growth levels, increased revealed trade openness does not translate to faster output growth. Why more trade does not necessarily imply faster growth at all levels of revealed trade openness growth remains a conundrum. Failure to derive faster economic growth may compromise the prospects for sustainable trade reforms and thus the consolidation of new business ventures as engines for further growth.
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Rudra P. Pradhan, Mak B. Arvin and Neville R. Norman
The purpose of this paper is motivated by research-based assertions that: the causes of economic growth in countries like India are not well understood; they are not elucidated by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is motivated by research-based assertions that: the causes of economic growth in countries like India are not well understood; they are not elucidated by using simple bivariate relationships between economic growth and other variables, taken one at a time; and dynamic linkages between growth, trade openness and financial sector depth are required for any comprehensive treatment of this inquiry.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper investigates the pivotal role of financial depth (defined as the relative importance in the economy of the banking sector or the stock market) and whether it bears any evidential relationship to trade openness and economic growth during the era of Indian post-globalization since 1990. Two key objectives are to uncover whether there is a long-run relationship between the variables and whether they can be said to cause one another. Autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedures and vector autoregressive error correction model (VECM) approaches were used to derive the results.
Findings
This paper affirms that the variables are indeed formally cointegrated. It was also found that trade openness, economic growth and financial sector depth Granger-cause each other.
Practical implications
This paper demonstrates that greater trade openness can predictably accelerate India’s economic growth. If policymakers wish to maintain sustainable economic growth in India, they can do so by encouraging both freer trade and financial market development in the long run.
Originality/value
No investigation of this type and sophistication has hitherto been performed for India. The methods developed for this study can also be applied to any of the vast range of countries for which dynamic growth-openness-financial depth interactions have not already been investigated.
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Ibraiz Tarique and Ellen Weisbord
The “adult third culture kid” (ATCK) is an individual who has spent significant periods of childhood living outside his or her parents’ culture(s). Research is needed to identify…
Abstract
Purpose
The “adult third culture kid” (ATCK) is an individual who has spent significant periods of childhood living outside his or her parents’ culture(s). Research is needed to identify specific experiential variables responsible for the development of components of cross-cultural competencies (CC) in ATCKs. The goal of this study is to gain insight into these relationships and provide a foundation for continuing investigation by examining how early international experience and personality variables impact CC in ATCKs. Specifically, the study examines how four components of early international experience and two characteristics of stable CC impact three dynamic characteristics of CC.
Design/methodology/approach
Study participants (159) had spent their childhood years living in one or more foreign countries. In all, 54 percent of the sample was women, and the average age was 22 (SD=1.52). None of the subjects had any international work experience, allowing us to look at the impact of non-work experience without the confounding effect found in other research of this type. Data were collected at the beginning and end of a three-week period.
Findings
There are five important predictors of CC in ATCKs: variety of early international experience (number of different countries lived in), language diversity (the number of languages they speak), family diversity (the number of different ethnicities in their family's background), and the personality trait of openness to experience.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of study findings is limited by the nature and size of the sample. In addition, the single source sample of this study is also a limitation, as single source samples are subject to common method bias. We reduced this potential bias by using a time lag (Podsakoff et al., 2003) to create a temporal separation between the measurement of the predictors and the dependent variables, a procedural remedy suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003).
Practical implications
The practical uses for the findings of this study by human resource management (HRM) professionals are in the areas of hiring and assignment of expatriate managers. Study findings provide HRM professionals with an initial set of criteria to assist in the process of identification and training of expatriate managers. Global organizations have traditionally used training to increase the pool of effective global managers. This study provides initial evidence that identification of individuals with early international experiences should prove a useful addition to the process of selecting candidates for foreign assignment.
Social implications
The practical uses for the findings of this study by HRM professionals are in the areas of hiring and assignment of expatriate managers. Study findings provide HRM professionals with an initial set of criteria to assist in the process of identification and training of expatriate managers. Global organizations have traditionally used training to increase the pool of effective global managers. This study provides initial evidence that identification of individuals with early international experiences should prove a useful addition to the process of selecting candidates for foreign assignment.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge this is one of the first studies to empirically examine ATCKs and provides a starting point for future researchers in this area. Obtaining a sample of ATCKs is extremely challenging.
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Devaki Rau, Luis Flores and Aditya Simha
This study builds on the practice-based view of strategy to examine whether the three most commonly prescribed strategic planning best practices – scanning, communication openness…
Abstract
Purpose
This study builds on the practice-based view of strategy to examine whether the three most commonly prescribed strategic planning best practices – scanning, communication openness and participative decision-making – actually strengthen the planning-performance relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses objective performance data and data from a survey of 159 managers from 43 publicly listed US firms to test the hypothesized moderation effects of best practices. The analysis uses hierarchical regression.
Findings
At high levels of planning, firms high in participative decision-making and low in openness and scanning outperform firms low in participation and high in openness and scanning. The results reverse at low levels of planning.
Research limitations/implications
This is a cross-sectional study with a small sample. The response rate was modest; hence, the results should be treated as exploratory. Since the sample is not random, the results may not be generalizable.
Practical implications
While managers may find a best practice label helpful, the best practices implemented within a firm need to fit existing planning processes in order to increase planning effectiveness.
Originality/value
While academic scholarship sometimes struggles with generating actionable prescriptions for improving strategic planning, recommendations by practitioners lack empirical backing. This study builds on the practice-based view of strategy to bridge this gap. These results are consistent with both academic and practitioner literature on strategic planning in finding that the best practices of scanning, openness and participative decision-making strengthen the planning-performance relationship at different planning levels, possibly by underpinning the firm’s dynamic capabilities.
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Aylin Ates, Peter McKiernan and Akwal Sunner
Strategic management is traditionally seen as an exclusive managerial task rather than inclusive where accountability is reserved for top managers. However, contemporary strategy…
Abstract
Strategic management is traditionally seen as an exclusive managerial task rather than inclusive where accountability is reserved for top managers. However, contemporary strategy management practices increasingly pay attention to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) by engaging with broader internal and external stakeholders via more open business models such as ecosystems. Hence, central to our examination is the concept of openness disposition, which in the context of strategic management refers to the tendency of individuals, collectives, and managers to make strategy transparent, participatory, and/or inclusive, or look for closure. While openness in strategy is regarded as a positive means of contemporary management, fostering diversity, creativity, innovation, and empowerment, there are some researched downsides too. The purpose of this chapter is to address the openness puzzle in strategy and gain a deeper understanding of the dilemmas of bottom-up strategy initiatives, and investigate the associated dilemmas, if any in the context of manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We contribute to addressing the performative effects of the dynamic expansion and contraction in openness within the SME strategy process while using the concept of openness dilemmas, tensions, and disposition. Using the Management Control Theory, this chapter will combine theory with SME practitioners’ experiences of bottom-up strategy initiatives to increase EDI in their organisations. Based on findings that emerged from a four-year longitudinal multiple case study research with 10 European SMEs, we found that bottom-up strategy exercises are more interactive. They consider a greater number of views, increase legitimacy, and EDI at the workplace, and yield more process benefits, but are time-consuming and difficult to organise that require special attention to the capability, reciprocity, and credibility dimensions.
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International experience (IE) has been acknowledged to be the most useful method for developing global leaders. However, not everyone benefits equally from IE. During the last two…
Abstract
International experience (IE) has been acknowledged to be the most useful method for developing global leaders. However, not everyone benefits equally from IE. During the last two decades, our understanding of why this is the case and how global leaders learn from IE has rapidly increased. Several individual and organizational enablers facilitating global leader learning from IE have been identified in the literature, as have learning mechanisms that make such learning possible. However, the literature remains fragmented, and there is a great need to integrate the findings in the field. Therefore, the present paper systematically examines peer-reviewed studies on global leaders' learning from IE published between 1998 and 2019. The study contributes to the extant literature by identifying and integrating individual enablers, organizational enablers, and key learning mechanisms from global leaders' IE and by suggesting topics for future research.
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The purpose of this paper is to establish the relationship between psychological empowerment (PE) and four variables: autonomy, openness, superior-subordinate relationship (SSR)…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to establish the relationship between psychological empowerment (PE) and four variables: autonomy, openness, superior-subordinate relationship (SSR), and climate of innovation (CI). The paper also aims to establish the mediating effects of SSR and CI on PE.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample size for the study was 319 employees (197 managers and 122 team leaders) from ten leading information and communication technology companies of India. Structural equation modelling was used to test the model under study. Bootstrapping was applied to provide better estimation of the sample.
Findings
The exogenous variables under study were autonomy and openness. The mediating variables were SSR and CI. Results supported the model and indicated a significant direct effect between exogenous variables and PE. The role of SSR and CI as mediator was also ascertained.
Practical implications
The paper highlights that the managers of service organisations should take initiatives to provide a conducive climate for innovation. Having the right climate for innovation and support from superiors will make employees feel psychologically empowered.
Originality/value
Although as researchers and as practitioners the authors understand the importance of innovation climate and role of superior, few studies have sought to explain the mediating effects of SSR and CI.
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Annette L.M. van den Bosch, Wim J.L. Elving and Menno D.T. de Jong
The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model to investigate corporate visual identity (CVI) management from an organisational perspective. It is assumed that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model to investigate corporate visual identity (CVI) management from an organisational perspective. It is assumed that characteristics of the organisation and of the way a CVI is managed will affect consistency of CVI.
Design/methodology/approach
The model was tested in a survey carried out among employees in 20 Dutch organisations. Structural equation modelling with AMOS was conducted to get insight into the various influences and relationships.
Findings
CVI management characteristics – socialisation processes related to CVI, knowledge of CVI strategy, and CVI tools and support – have a strong impact on the consistency of CVI, and organisational characteristics affect the way CVI is managed. With the exception of the openness and dynamics of an organisation, no supporting evidence was found for a direct relationship between organisational characteristics and CVI consistency.
Research limitations/implications
CVI has been measured by the judgement of the respondents, all employees of the organisation concerned. Therefore the measure was the perceived consistency of CVI. Further research could include a visual audit and the perception of external stakeholders towards the visual identity. There was no distinction examined among the main corporate visual identity and sub‐ or product brands. The study was conducted in the Netherlands, where the Dutch term huisstijl is unambiguous and clearly related to the corporate brand or identity. Future research can take different brands into account or can broaden the concept of CVI (including cultural aspects, language, rituals, myths, etc.).
Practical implications
The results indicate that CVI management matters, that CVI management is related to more general organisational characteristics, but that communication managers nevertheless have a considerable amount of freedom in determining the way they manage their CVI.
Originality/value
Corporate visual identity has received little attention in research and hardly been studied at all from the perspective of this paper. This paper has value to both researchers in the fields of corporate identity and organisational identity, as well as professionals involved in managing the corporate identity.