SAPPHO updated - project SAPPHO phase II

Project SAPPHO consists of a comparative analysis of ‘paired’ successful and unsuccessful technological innovations, where one half of the pair is a commercial success and the other a commercial failure. In phase I of the project twenty-nine pairs were investigated, seventeen in chemical processes and twelve in scientific instruments. Five main areas of difference between successful and unsuccessful innovators emerged which related to the innovator's understanding of user needs, efficiency of development, characteristics of managers, efficiency of communications and marketing and sales efforts.In phase II, the project has been extended to include a new total of forty-three pairs, twenty-two in chemical processes and twenty-one in scientific instruments. The results of phase I have been confirmed with the same five underlying factors emerging as strongly differentiating between success and failure and with some inter-industry differences becoming clearer. These differences, by and large, relate to the basic structural and environmental differences which exist between the two industries.Following the statistical analysis a subjective review was made of thirty-four failure cases, and those factors which contributed maximally to the individual failures were identified. The results of this exercise support the results of the statistical analysis, but they also highlight some new and significant factors. Finally, some of the more important of the many hypotheses which have been forwarded as offering explanations for innovative success were tested in the tight of the phase II SAPPHO results.     

The commercialization of federally sponsored technological innovations

In a study of 40 federally sponsored innovation projects from five government agencies (UMTA, MARAD, DOE, NSF, and EPA), 35 of these cases had complete data on all variables for path analysis. Significantly, it was found that the probability of commercial succes of these innovations is predicted by the degree to which the innovations incorporate incremental as opposed to radically new technology (p<0.01), the pricing potential of the product or process (p<0.05) and the ease of introduction and implementation of the innovation (p<0.05). These three variables were found to account for 59% of the valid variance in potential commercial success. The project market potential, surprisingly, did not predict the probability of commercial success. It seems likely that the high percentage of projects in the sample that fell between certain commercial success and failure or were unresolved commercially could account for this result. No significant differences were found across the five agencies or the dependent variables of the study.     

The dominant role of users in the scientific instrument innovation process

A sample of one hundred and eleven scientific instrument innovations was studied to determine the roles of instrument users and instrument manufacturers in the innovation processes which culminated in the successful commercialization of those instruments. Our key finding was that approximately 80% of the innovations judged by users to offer them a significant increment in functional utility were in fact invented, prototyped and first field-tested by users of the instrument rather than by an instrument manufacturer. The role of the first commercial manufacturer of the innovative instrument in all such cases was restricted, we found, to the performance of product engineering work on the user prototype (work which improved the prototype's reliability, ‘manufacturability’, and convenience of operation, while leaving its principles of operation intact) and to the manufacture and sale of the resulting innovative product. Thus, this research provides the interesting picture of an industry widely regarded as innovative in which the firms comprising the industry are not in themselves necessarily innovative, but rather — in 80% of the innovations sampled — only provide the product engineering and manufacturing function for innovative instrument users.We term the innovation pattern observed in scientific instruments a ‘user dominated’ one and suggest that such a pattern may play a major role in numerous industries.     

科研项目负责人网络位置对项目创新的影响

在科研项目管理过程中,项目负责人和其他成员组成了合作网络。本文检验了科研项目负责人网络位置对项目创新的影响,并分析了当合作网络的创新能力处于行业不同水平时,该影响是否存在差异。利用国家自然科学基金结题数据,结果表明,科研项目负责人的网络中心度对项目创新有正向影响,结构洞数对项目创新有倒U型影响。相比较合作网络创新能力处于行业高水平,当其处于中、低水平时,项目负责人网络位置对项目创新的影响更大。本研究结论不仅完善了网络位置对创新影响的相关文献,验证了我国提出项目负责人制进行项目管理的正确性,也对项目负责人制定管理方案有一定的指导意义。     

任务导向型创新政策：框架、理论与实践

任务导向型创新政策是为应对重大社会挑战而兴起的新政策范式，已成为许多国家解决“急、难、险、重”等科学问题的系统性政策干预方案。文章围绕任务导向型创新政策的概念内涵、要素构成、主要特征、理论解释与政策实践等不同维度展开全面分析。研究表明，任务导向型创新政策主要由政策目标、政策主体、政策工具和政策过程等要素构成，并具有方向引导、市场创建、协同参与和动态评估等特征。转型失灵理论为任务导向型创新政策干预创新活动的合法性提供了理论解释。现有任务导向型创新政策实践主要聚焦于保障国防安全、实现产业追赶和应对重大社会挑战三个方面。研究可为中国制定和实施任务导向型创新政策提供理论支撑和经验借鉴。     

Determinants of environmental innovation—New evidence from German panel data sources

In most cases, empirical analyses of environmental innovations based on firm-level data relied on surveys for one point in time. These surveys allow for the inclusion of many explanatory variables such as different policy instruments or the influence of pressure groups but it is not possible to address the dynamic character of environmental innovations. This paper uses two German panel databases, the establishment panel of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Mannheim innovation panel (MIP) of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), to explore the determinants of environmental innovations. The econometric estimations show that the improvement of the technological capabilities (“knowledge capital”) by R&D triggers environmental innovations. Environmental regulation, environmental management tools and general organizational changes also encourage environmental innovation, a result that has also been postulated by the famous Porter-hypothesis.     

产学研协同创新项目绩效评价指标体系研究

在分析产学研协同创新(项目)内涵和特点的基础上,指出产学研协同创新项目绩效评价的要点,进而基于该要点构建包括"显性绩效"、"隐性绩效"和"协同绩效"三个维度的产学研协同创新项目绩效评价指标体系,并通过调查问卷和统计分析对该评价指标体系的信度与效度进行实证检验,从而最终建立比较科学和实用的产学研协同创新项目绩效评价指标体系。     

Government policies towards industrial innovation: a review

Existing economic theories show that continuing innovation, diffusion, and technical and managerial improvement are necessary for economic growth and international competitiveness in the industrially advanced countries. But knowledge of why, where and how governments should intervene in the processes of industrial innovations stems more from trial and error than from systematic empirical information of the nature and extent of the hindrances to economically and socially desirable innovations, and of the effectiveness of alternative government policies to remove them. Nonetheless, past empirical studies do offer some clues.Differences amongst industrial sectors. The sources of new technology vary widely amongst inustrial sectors: in the costs of innovation, in the relative importance of outside suppliers of equipment and materials, of large and small firms, and of full-time R & D departments as compared to part-time innovative activities (sect. 7, 8). Similarly, the conditions for successful innovation vary amongst sectors (sect.6). Thus, government policies designed to influence innovation are likely to act with different intensities in different industries.The management of innovation. Nonetheless, there are some features common to innovation in different industries. Considerable costs beyond R & D are often necessary before the innovations reach commercial use (sect.4). And the following managerial characteristics are in general associated with successful innovation: a deliberate policy of seeking innovations; close and careful attention to customer requirements; good personal communications both within the firm and with outside sources of relevant knowledge; a style of management that is ‘organic’ and ‘participatory’ rather than ‘hierarchical’ and ‘authoritarian’; strong project leadership; and a strong engineering capability (sect. 6).R & D managers are still unable to predict the outcome of R & D projects to a useful degree of accuracy and, in the literature on methods of project selection, very little attention is paid to market uncertainties. Furthermore, a greater use of conventional investment appraisal criteria in deciding on R & D projects may re-inforce the already observed tendency in industry towards short-term, low-risk projects, to the neglect of longer-term, high-risk projects (sect. 5).Governments should therefore examine whether the benefits of policies towards education and management advisory services for innovation might outweigh their costs. They may also have a significant role to play in financing longer-term research that is basic to the development of industrial technology (subsect. 12.5).The nature of market and production demands. The direction of industrial innovation is often very sensitive to market and production demands (sect. 3). This fact, together with the high degree of market uncertainty facing innovating firms (sect. 5), suggest that governments can potentially influence both the pace and the direction of industrial innovation through their influence on the scale of industrial, consumer and public service demands. However, this potential influence will become real only if users of innovations are able to specify the innovations that they need, or to evaluate those that they get. This is generally the case for industrial demand, but not in consumer and public service markets, where fashion, insensitivity to users' needs and lack of technical competence often prevail. Government-funded technological institutes and laboratories are ideally placed to provide such technical competence (sub-sect. 12.3).Economic incentives and rewards for innovation. A whole range of economic factors are said to influence the resources, the incentives and the rewards for innovation: for example, the degree of monopoly or the degree of competition, the patent system, the level of profits, the level of taxation, and the level of demand. The empirical evidence on the effects of most of these factors on industrial innovation is either inconclusive or non-existent. However, in the USA a close relationship has been observed between growth of industry sales and growth of industry-financed R & D activities (sect. 10). The rate of growth of demand is also one of the key factors influencing the rate of diffusion of innovations amongst their potential population of users (sects. 11, 12.2).The government-financed scientific and technological infrastructure. Scientific and technological knowledge from outside of innovating firms is often crucial to the completion of successful innovations, and three UK studies show that a significant proportion of this outside knowledge comes from government-financed technological institutes and laboratories, and from the universities (sect. 3). If the same is true in other countries, it should be an essential feature of any government policy towards industrial innovation to know how effectively government-funded laboratories and universities provide supportive knowledge to industry, and how government laboratories should be organised and financed (subsect. 12.4).Direct government-financing of innovative activities in industry. Governments specifically finance R & D activities in industrial firms, although these expenditures are less than those for general industrial development (sect. 13). These R & D activities in industry are relatively more important in France and UK, than in F.R. Germany and the Netherlands.In the four countries, more than 70% of all civilian government R & D activities related to industry are spent on aircraft, space, nuclear energy and electronics (subsect. 14.4). In all these high technologies, governments attempted in the 1960's to implement ‘policies for innovation’, involving government procurement, industrial mergers and attempts at European co-operation, in addition to the financing of R & D (subsect. 14.5). Government expenditures on civilian R & D related to other industrial sectors are very much smaller in all four countries (subsect 14.4).Where should governments intervene? A, number of attempts have been made to develop a formal framework of criteria to assist governments in deciding where they should intervene in industrial innovation. They all run into the following difficulties: dealing with multiple policy objectives; assessing national costs and benefits; comparing with alternative policies, choosing appropriate policy instruments (sect. 17).How should governments intervene? Very little information is available on the effectiveness of various policy instruments that have been used by governments in order to promote innovation in industry. Although it is often possible to measure the inputs into such policies, the measurement of their outputs (or results) is more difficult. Nonetheless, detailed studies would enable some such measurements to be made, and internationally comparable studies would increase the range of experiences and the number of cases that could be examined (sect. 18).Why should governments intervene? A full appreciation of the nature and scale of hindrances to industrial innovation, on which governments should act to remove, requires direct information on what innovations are (or are not) being introduced by industry, and why they are (or are not) being inyroduced. This information can best be obtained from analyses of the behaviour of industrial firms. They would differ from most existing innovation studies that concentrate on asking how firms must behave in order to make successful innovation, by asking what innovations are attempted, and why firms are stimulated to attempt them (sect. 19).     

Innovation regimes, R&D and radical innovations in telecommunications

By introducing the concept of innovation regimes, the aim of this article is to show how the rapid pace of technological development in the telecom sector may be explained by the close links between the sector's own R&D and the creation of numerous innovations, many of which are radical. In contemporary innovation theory, a theoretical antinomy exists: Whereas, the creation of incremental innovations is variously explained in terms of «rational» responses to markets, dynamics of technological regimes, dominant design, etc., radical innovations, in contrast, are explained in terms of serendipity, chance or haphazard scientific discoveries. Evidence from analysis of innovations in the telecom sector suggests that innovation regimes have provided a capability of coordination, direction and leadership in the creation of many of the radical technological innovations that have emerged in the sector. Thus, one may claim that the strong innovation regimes and high R&D intensity of the telecom sector, at least until recently, have provided a capability of creating innovations on purpose — for a purpose. The policy implications of this contradict some of the assumptions on which the prevailing market-oriented R&D governance models and policies are based — and which are supported by contemporary innovation theories.     

Behavioral innovation: Pilot study and new big data analysis approach in household sector user innovation

Innovation researchers have begun to look beyond how users develop tangible objects or product innovations and moved to investigate the existence and impact of intangible user-developed innovations in techniques and services in the household sector . In this paper, to incorporate technique and service innovations and other varieties of intangible innovations not yet described in the literature into an efficient and encompassing typology, we propose the new concept of intangible Behavioral Innovation as an overarching category that stands in contrast to tangible product innovation. Behavioral innovation is defined as consisting of one or a connected sequence of intangible problem-solving activities that provide a functionally novel benefit to its user developer relative to previous practice. We demonstrate in a pilot study using a relatively novel big data-gathering and semantic analysis approach that behavioral innovation exists and can be identified in user-generated content posted openly online in peer-to-peer discussion forums relating to household sector activities such as parenting. The preponderance (N = 138) of the 168 user innovations captured in our samples of discussion comments were intangible behavioral innovations, most of which were developed by women. The majority of behavioral innovations identified were diffused by their user developers in response to specific requests for help or advice from peers in their online community. Thus, incorporating the new concept of intangible behavioral innovation into studies of user innovation's scope and significance in the household sector can serve to clarify which users innovate in our communities of interest, what and how they innovate, why they are triggered to diffuse their innovations peer-to-peer, and how their innovative activities might impact social welfare.     

Commercialization of disruptive innovations: Literature review and proposal for a process framework

The challenges of disruptive innovations have gained significant attention from both academics and practitioners, commercialization being one of the most critical phases. At the same time, however, it is the less studied area of disruptive innovation. Therefore, this article examined scholarly papers on the commercialization of disruptive innovations through a multidisciplinary systematic literature review. It resulted in the analysis of 64 high-quality peer-reviewed academic articles. The analysis highlighted the commercialization models and main constructs that are affecting the commercialization process: market orientation, market learning, user's involvement, market configuration, adoption networks and stakeholders, and innovation transference. The study evidences how commercialization has evolved from a later stage in innovation to influence even the early phases of innovation, characterized in turn by exploration, learning and ecosystem creation activities. Additionally, the analysis led to a proposition that established an integrated commercialization model for high uncertainty innovations. The model has three phases: 1) Concept/value proposition validation, 2) Business model validation & Market creation, and 3) Creating sales in the majority market. Lastly, the article contributes to a better understanding of commercialization processes in high uncertainty innovations, bridging also the academic-practitioner divide.     

Innovation can be taught

This paper summarizes the results of an extensive programme on stimulating industrial innovation in the Netherlands (the Project Industrial Innovation, Pii). Over five years (1980–84) 155 small and medium-sized industrial firms were taught by nearly 60 management consultants on how to innovate. The results in December 1984 were very positive: 71 percent of the companies have formulated businessplans for innovation; 21 innovations were introduced on the market; 76% of the companies stated that they had learned enough to go on with the process of innovating. This last result was questionable, because of its subjective nature. In December 1985 a study was carried out to investigate the long-term effects of this programme. The number of firms with businessplans had grown to 83 percent; the number of market introductions had increased to 43; the learning effect was up to 88 percent. This time it was possible to do some empirical observations which validated these results.The study also shows that innovations are not produced without considerable efforts. Nearly all companies encountered bottle-necks. The most influencial bottle-neck is management capacity. This (lack of) capacity is described in more detail by the participating management consultants. The quality of key personnel, inadequate project management and different management visions on innovation are mentioned by them. The paper shows the distribution of these bottle-necks among the different types of innovation. The exact influence of these bottle-necks remains undiscovered. The overall conclusion of the evaluation is that in spite of these bottle-necks innovation can be taught to small and medium-sized firms.     

The economic impact of technological and organizational innovations. A firm-level analysis

By using firm-level data provided by the last round of the (Italian) Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) this paper explores (in a manufacturing-services comparative framework) the relationship between technological and non-technological innovations and their impact on firms’ performances. The empirical evidence presented shows that including the organizational dimension of innovation provides a much more comprehensive picture of the variegated universe of innovation in both macro-sectors. Four distinct innovation modes have been identified on the basis of the ways firms combine technological and non-technological innovations. These different modes of innovation are present and relevant in both manufacturing and service sectors and have been found to have a differentiated impact on firms’ performances. Strategies characterized by the joint introduction of product, process and organizational innovations have been found to give to both manufacturing and service firms a clear competitive advantage vis à vis both non-innovating firms and firms with a narrow approach to innovation. A few significant differences between services and manufacturing firms in the relevance and economic impact of different types of innovation strategies have also been found.     

探索性创新和挖掘性创新整合模式的研究——基于组织双元结构观视角

基于组织双元结构观,通过企业案例的形式探讨探索性创新和挖掘性创新活动的四种整合模式,为企业消除两种创新活动的冲突,实现两种创新形式的协同整合提供对策思路。     

Innovation capabilities of European nations: Cross-national analyses of patents and sales of product innovations

The relationships among R&D and other innovation activities, patents granted and sales of product innovations influenced by various specified characteristics of a NIS are investigated at the national level and tested on data for 14 EU nations in 1992 and 1996. The statistical results show patents to depend on sales of product innovations. Furthermore, both national innovation outcome indicators depend on largely the same macro- and micro-economic conditions while they differ in additional explanatory conditions, namely governmentally regulated institutional conditions for patents and firm specific characteristics for sales of product innovations.     

The prevalence of publicly stimulated innovations –A comparison of Finland and Sweden, 1970–2013

While the role played by the state in stimulating innovation in the private sector has been a prevalent interest in innovation research, studies analysing the impacts of public interventions have usually focused on individual policies, programs or projects. Public stimulation is hence often studied from a relatively restricted and temporarily confined perspective, leaving a macro-level and longer-term perspective unrecognized. This article provides further evidence on the matter by examining how many innovations in Finland and Sweden have been publicly stimulated through funding or research collaboration, over a period of more than four decades (1970–2013). Our main source is a new innovation database constructed following the Literature Based Innovation Output (LBIO) method, which gathers the most significant innovations of both countries for the study period, totalling approximately 4100 Swedish and 2600 Finnish innovations. Our results indicate that the public sector has played a very prominent role in stimulating private innovation in both countries, and with an increasing trend. This is especially true for Finland, where 35–55% of the innovations of the period have been stimulated by public funding and 25–65% by collaboration with public research. In Sweden, the share of publicly stimulated innovations has been somewhat lower and erratic, but has increased over time.     

Modeling the relative efficiency of national innovation systems

Although a large amount of past research has theorized about the character of national innovation systems (NISs), there has been limited process-oriented empirical investigation of this matter, possibly for methodological reasons. In this paper, we first propose a relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model for measuring the innovation efficiency of the NIS by decomposing the innovation process into a network with a two-stage innovation production framework, an upstream knowledge production process (KPP) and a downstream knowledge commercialization process (KCP). Although the concept of innovation efficiency is a simplification of the innovation process, it may be a useful tool for guiding policy decisions. We subsequently use a second-step partial least squares regression (PLSR) to examine the effects of policy-based institutional environment on innovation efficiency, considering statistical problems such as multicollinearity, small datasets and a small number of distribution assumptions. The hybrid two-step analytical procedure is used to consider 22 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. A significant rank difference, which indicates a non-coordinated relationship between upstream R&D (research and development) efficiency and downstream commercialization efficiency, is identified for most countries. The evidence also indicates that the overall innovation efficiency of an NIS is mainly subject to downstream commercial efficiency performance and that improving commercial efficiency should thus be a primary consideration in future innovation policy-making in most OECD countries. Finally, the results obtained using PLSR show that the various factors chosen to represent the embedded policy-based institutional environment have a significant influence on the efficiency performance of the two individual component processes, confirming the impact of public policy interventions undertaken by the government on the innovation performance of NISs. Based on these key findings, some country-specific and process-specific innovation policies have been suggested.     

职业教育和培训与创新

本文主要论述了职业教育和培训与创新过程的关系,认为创新需与教育结合,而教育本身也在经理创新的过程,指出了导致后现代科学现代化压力的发展趋势及其对教育和培训体系的挑战.针对这种现状,文章重点考察了德国职业教育和培训体系,分析了德国体系的特点和结构以及近三十年来的主要危机与改革的措施.文章指出每次危机的发生都带动了创新和改革的发展,特别介绍了今年来最重要的改革发展步骤,即所谓的"实地学习概念",文中详细介绍了教学模块创新的基本思想和原则.     

基于中小企业技术创新激励的环境工具设计

环境政策工具对企业环境技术创新的激励程度,是评估环境政策工具的重要标准。但是以往文献主要针对不完全竞争市场条件下大企业的技术创新激励效果进行研究,忽略了中小企业,而中小企业占我国企业总数的绝大部分,因此对中小企业进行相关研究非常必要;同时以往文献也没有对企业的清洁工艺和末端治理技术做出明确区分,而这两种技术创新对企业的作用机制是不同的。有鉴于此,本文从完全竞争市场条件下的中小企业出发,将环境技术创新严格区分为清洁工艺和末端治理技术,并通过构建企业利润变化模型和社会福利函数,得出了排放标准、排污费、补贴和排污许可证价格的临界值,以及社会福利最大化条件下的最优水平;同时,本文还为企业在四种环境政策工具下灵活选择技术创新方式进行了区分与比较;最后本文对四种环境政策工具的企业环境技术创新的激励效应做出了排序。本文的研究结果能够为政府选择环境政策工具提供政策建议,同时能够为中小企业在不同的环境政策工具下灵活选择环境技术创新方式提供参考意见。     

In the eyes of the beholder: The effect of participant diversity on perceived merits of collaborative innovations

Technological innovations often involve collaboration among firms from diverse industries. Existing literature has largely viewed participant diversity as a conduit for non-redundant information or complementary resources, thereby affecting the ex-post outcomes of innovation projects. However, it is seldom examined how projects are initially evaluated during the resource competition stage. In this study, we develop a theory of diversity as a cognitive primer, asking how collaborators from diverse backgrounds may affect external reviewers’ ex-ante evaluation of potential merits of an innovation project. We argue that there are two logics at work in the process of evaluating innovations: the logic of technological advancement and the logic of market value. When an innovation project involves firms from diverse industries, it may be perceived as having a fuzzier market identity, hence making it less appealing to reviewers who hold with the strong market value logic. However, the penalty associated with participant diversity should be less pronounced among reviewers who hold the technological advancement logic. We also expect the relationship between participant diversity and reviewers’ ratings to be moderated by project novelty and fuzziness of technology category. We find support for our hypotheses with a sample of collaborative innovation projects funded by the Advanced Technology Program of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.