Increased emphasis on continual innovation — and increased awareness that it demands knowledge beyond the confines of a single organization — means research partnerships have become a more common and more important strategic tool. These inter-organizational arrangements fall broadly into two camps: the tightly coupled partnership; the more loosely coupled alternative. The former is characterized […]
Read More… from Innovation Partnerships-Loosely or Tightly Coupled?
In a popular article published by Harvard Business Review in 1999, the authors proposed that those who use stories as part of their management and strategy technique tend to become team leads, small business innovators, and CEOs. Whether the story is about the “two Steves” of Apple Computers who worked out of Steve Job’s parents’ […]
Entrepreneurial spawning — whereby an existing company gives birth to another company, founded by former employees — is prevalent in many new industries. (California’s Fairchild Semiconductor, for example, is ‘mother’ to a great many Silicon Valley semiconductor firms.) It’s also been the subject of numerous research papers: everything from the rationale and triggers for spin-outs […]
Read More… from Mothers of Invention: Companies that ‘Spawn’ New Enterprises
Giving people the freedom to work on their own ideas is commonly associated with progressive leadership and company creativity. (Google’s policy of allowing employees to spend 20 per cent of their time on ‘pet’, company-related, projects, has led to profitable innovations such as AdSense and Gmail.) But is this ‘bottom-up exploration’ consistent with the idea […]
Read More… from Ideas, Implementation and the Learning Organization
The migration of nationals from less-developed countries, once thought of as ‘brain drain’, has been ‘re-framed’. A new concept, ‘brain circulation’, has taken root — and with it the idea that members of the diaspora can be ‘mobilised’ to benefit the economy back home. Interpersonal ties are increasingly seen as a way to diffuse […]
Read More… from Knowledge Sharing Networks Between Developing and Developed Countries
Discontinuous technologies refers to when new products are created that end up transforming existing markets, such as cloud computing, digital photography, 3D printing, online news, etc. Not surprisingly, they often pose a critical challenge for executives, and how they deal with such major paradigm shifts has formed the basis of a number of recent articles. […]
Read More… from Organizational Identity and Adaptation to Disruptive Change
In 2013 Benner and Tushman’s research was awarded the impressive accolade of ‘Paper of the Decade’ by the American Academy of Management Review. For this reason alone it merits revisiting, but the research also contains findings that are as relevant and useful to businesses today as they were 10 years ago. Put simply, this research finds […]
The complexity and competitiveness of today’s business environment means knowledge of how creativity can be stimulated within organizations has become critical for effective managerial practice. Previous research has confirmed that positive affects, such as feelings of happiness and enthusiasm, lead to high creativity. But is positive effect alone all that is needed to encourage creativity, […]
A growing body of literature demonstrates the positive impact of regional clusters and networks on innovation. Including links to government agencies and research institutes as well as to similar companies and their distributors and suppliers, intra-cluster ties (ICTs) are seen as a gateway to technical know-how, trade contacts and capital for small businesses. They encourage […]
Read More… from Innovation and External ‘Clusters’ in Emerging Markets
Crowdfunding brings together the individuals or organizations that propose ideas with a ‘crowd’ of people who pool their money to support the projects. An online crowdfunding ‘platform’ links the project initiator and the crowd. In a business context, crowdfunding means the funding of a company through small amounts of debt or equity from many investors. […]
