A framework for analysing blockchain technology adoption: Integrating institutional,market and technical factors

The adoption of blockchain technologies require the consideration of a broad range of factors, over and above the predominantly technology focus of most current work. Whilst scholarly literature on blockchain technology is only beginning to emerge, majority are focused on the technicalities of the technology and tend to ignore the organizational complexities of adopting the technology. Drawing from a focused review of literature, this paper proposed a conceptual framework for adoption of blockchain technology capturing the complex relationships between institutional, market and technical factors. The framework highlights that varying outcomes are possible, and the change process is focal as this shapes the form blockchain applications take. Factors presented in the framework (institutional, market and technical) interact and mutually influence each other. The proposed framework can be used by organisations as a reference point for adopting blockchain applications and by scholars to expand, refine and evaluate research into blockchain technology.     

The role of makerspaces in supporting consumer innovation and diffusion: An empirical analysis

Makerspaces are open communities for tinkering, innovating, and socializing: They are equipped with tools and training that support “making” by participants. It has been argued that makerspaces can be a powerful vehicle to enhance both innovation and innovation diffusion by consumers. This research note offers initial empirical evidence for these claims. Through a survey of 558 participants drawn from makerspaces worldwide, the study shows that the innovation rate is about 53% and that the diffusion rate is about 18% among these individuals – substantially higher than the innovation and diffusion rates found in national innovation surveys of general populations, i.e. individuals who innovate independently at home at their own discretion.These findings doubtless reflect both a selection and a treatment effect: Individuals inclined or motivated to innovate and/or diffuse, tend to join makerspaces; and once individuals do participate, the rich resources they find in makerspaces most likely will improve the opportunities to innovate and/or diffuse successfully. Since innovation by consumers is both personally and economically valuable, these findings support the case for further research into the nature of successful makerspaces, and suggest the potential social welfare value of public investment.     

Initiation,Experimentation, Implementation of innovations: The case for Radio Frequency Identification Systems

This research primarily examines the stages hypothesis of the process of technology adoption by management personnel of organizations in the supply chain sector involving the Initiation, Experimentation, and Implementation stages. Further, this research examines key antecedents that may influence the various stages, including top management support, external pressure, and organization size. Using responses provided by top management representatives of 210 supply chain organizations on their organizations’ engagement with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies, this research finds that the stages hypothesis holds for RFID technologies. Specifically, organizations were seen to sequentially progress through the Initiation, Experimentation, and Implementation stages. Over 80% of organizations, who had reached the Implementation stage of adoption, had gone through the Initiation and Experimentation stages as well. Additionally, the data showed that the antecedents exerted varying levels of influences on the three stages. Top management support strongly influenced all three stages; external pressure influenced the Initiation and Implementation stages, and organizational size influenced Experimentation and Implementation stages. The paper discusses several implications for research and practice.     

Transfers of user process innovations to process equipment producers: A study of Dutch high-tech firms

A detailed survey of 498 high technology small and medium-sized enterprises in the Netherlands shows process innovation by user firms to be common practice. Fifty-four percent of these firms reported developing entirely novel process equipment or software for their own use and/or modifying these, both at significant private expense. Twenty-five percent of the user innovations in our sample were transferred to commercializing producer firms. Many transfers were made without any direct compensation. Very importantly from the perspective of effective diffusion of user innovations, innovations with higher commercial potential - and more general appeal for users - are much more likely to be transferred to producers. The pattern we document of frequent innovation by individual user firms at substantial cost, followed in many cases by voluntary, no-charge information spillovers to producers, suggests that “open source economics” may be a general pattern in the economy.     

The evolution of mission-oriented policies: Exploring changing market creating policies in the US and European space sector

Market creation is moving to the centre of mission-oriented innovation policy. This is particularly visible in the space sector. Agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are developing market-creating innovation policies in response to (a) the increasing emphasis on societal grand challenges, (b) the rise of a new wave of space companies (often referred to as “New Space”) and (c) the global trend towards interconnecting and interlinking of industries (a trend referred to as Industry 4.0). In this paper we explore the changing nature of mission-oriented innovation policies for market creation for two agencies, NASA and ESA. For these agencies, earlier mission-oriented policies focused on clear challenges with identifiable concrete problems and directed by a strong centralized agency. Contrast this with today, with broadly defined grand challenges, decentralized innovation systems with mixed top-down and bottom-up problem definition. We describe the current drivers and pressures that are creating a window for policy change, and we present examples of how NASA and ESA are responding to these pressures and use this exploration to dig deeper into the evolving frames of market-creating innovation policy in the space sector to identify the challenges for such policies and to further articulate a research agenda.     

Environmental policy vs. public pressure: Innovation and diffusion of alternative bleaching technologies in the pulp industry

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, concern over dioxin in both paper products and wastewater led to the development of techniques that reduced the use of chlorine in the pulp industry. Both regulatory and consumer pressure motivated this change. Unlike previous studies, we use patent data to examine the evolution of two competing bleaching technologies in five major paper-producing countries, both of which reduce the use of chlorine in the pulping process. The use of patent data allows us to focus on the invention stage. However, adoption data are also presented, and by the end of the 1990s, nearly all pulp production in these countries used one of these technologies. While previous studies emphasize the importance of regulation for inducing innovation, here we find substantial innovation occurring before regulations were in place. Instead, pressure from consumers and the public at large to reduce the chlorine content of paper drove invention, prior to the introduction of environmental policies in any of the countries concerned.     

Technological regimes and the variety of innovation behaviour: Creating integrated taxonomies of firms and sectors

This paper presents an integrated set of innovation taxonomies for firms and sectors. It discards the practice of representing industries by some average behaviour, instead characterising them by the distribution of diverse innovation modes at the firm level. The theoretical focus is on (i) Schumpeter's distinction between ‘creative’ and ‘adaptive response’, and (ii) differences regarding technological opportunities, appropriability conditions and the cumulativeness of knowledge. Applying statistical cluster analysis, the empirical identification is based on the micro-data of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) for 22 European countries. The final cluster validation highlights the simultaneous diversity and contingency of firm behaviour with distinct technological regimes exhibiting systematic differences in the distribution of heterogenous firms.     

Understanding consumer adoption of mobile payment in India: Extending Meta-UTAUT model with personal innovativeness,anxiety, trust,and grievance redressal

Mobile payments are the future as we move towards a cashless society. In some markets, cash is already being replaced by digital transactions, but consumers of many developing countries are slower in transition towards digital payments. This study aims to identify major determinants of consumer mobile payment adoption in India the country with second largest mobile subscribers in the world. Existing mobile payments adoption studies have predominantly utilised Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which was primarily developed in organisational context and criticised for having deterministic approach without much consideration for users’ individual characteristics. Therefore, this study adapted meta-UTAUT model with individual difference variable attitude as core construct and extended the model with consumer related constructs such as personal innovativeness, anxiety, trust, and grievance redressal. Empirical examination of the model among 491 Indian consumers revealed performance expectancy, intention to use, and grievance redressal as significant positive predictor of consumer use behaviour towards mobile payment. Moreover, intention to use was significantly influenced by attitude, social influence, and facilitating conditions. The major contribution of this study includes re-affirming the central role of attitude in consumer adoption studies and examining usage behaviour in contrast to most existing studies, which examine only behavioural intention.     

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.     

Exploring the sources of design innovations: Insights from the computer,communications and audio equipment industries

Whereas business research has focused on the impact of design innovations on market response and financial performance, the sources of design innovations, as opposed to those of technological innovations, have largely escaped investigation. In this research, we examine the organizational, financial, and environmental drivers of design innovations and how they contrast to technological innovations. Our study utilizes a unique dataset encompassing a 10-year window of innovation output drawn from the computer, communications, and audio and video equipment manufacturing industries. Our results suggest that design innovations are driven primarily by investments in research and development and slack organizational resources. Interestingly, we find that design innovations are more prevalent in smaller but fast-growing markets as opposed to technology innovations, which are prevalent in larger markets. Contrary to expectations, we find no association between marketing investments and design innovations. Our research contributes to the extant business literature by considering the sources of design innovations separately from the sources of technology innovations. We also contribute to the literature by distinguishing design and technology patents, developing a deeper understanding of design innovation, and illuminating a lesser understood source of competitive advantage for firms.     

网络外部性条件下系统创新的市场失灵和第三方的介入

系统创新条件下各利益主体从自身利益出发将会导致创新的失败而贻误技术推广的时机。在网络外部性特征明显的行业,创新的滞后和技术成果商业化的受阻实际就意味着已经输在了起跑线上。在发展中国家和发达国家的竞争中,如果依据市场无形之手进行调节,结果是不利于发展中国家的。为了避免我国长期处于既出让市场又购买技术这样的不利状况,必须有第三方介入避免网络外部性条件下系统创新的市场失灵。     

Human capital and innovation: the importance of the optimal organizational task structure

Management literature has identified high-skilled human capital as a crucial dimension of innovation processes at the firm level. In this study, we introduce an alternative view of human capital based on the tasks that firms’ workers perform. We propose a measure of cognitive analytical and interpersonal tasks: the degree of abstractism. We argue that the level of abstractism of a firm has an effect on a firm's propensity to innovate and on its product innovation performance. We hypothesize that while the degree of abstractism has a linear positive relationship with the propensity to innovate, the relationship between abstractism and product innovation performance follows an inverted u-shaped relationship. We find partial support to our hypotheses using data from more than six thousand Portuguese firms. We discuss how these results change our understanding of the relationship between human capital and innovation at the firm level.     

More is not always better: Effects of collaboration breadth and depth on radical and incremental innovation performance at the project level

This study investigates the effect of project-level collaboration breadth (i.e., the number of collaboration partner types) and collaboration depth (i.e., the intensity of the interactions with these partners) on the incremental and radical innovation performance of innovation projects. The econometric analyses, based on a Community Innovation Study sample of 218 innovation projects conducted in German manufacturing companies, reveal inverted U-shaped relationships between collaboration breadth and radical innovation performance and between collaboration depth and incremental innovation performance. These curvilinear effects speak to the high sensitivity of innovation projects to the extent of collaborative activity, which implies that practitioners should exert caution in managing collaborative innovation projects. This study contributes to the understanding of project-level open innovation and to the overall understanding of the performance effects of innovation collaboration, which, following recent assertions in the literature, could be flawed by analyses conducted at the organizational level.     

Technological collaboration in product innovation: The role of market competition and sectoral technological intensity

Drawing on the strategic alliances and innovation literature, this study proposes that the impact of technological collaboration on product innovation is contingent on market competition and sectoral technology characteristics. Specifically, it argues that the generally observed positive effect of technological collaboration on product innovation may be diluted in highly competitive markets, and the interactive effect of technological collaboration and market competition on product innovation will be further moderated by sectoral technological intensity. Data on the product innovation and technological collaboration of 944 Chinese firms across five manufacturing sectors provide robust support for the contingent effects of technological collaboration on product innovation.     

Functional centrality and innovation intensity: Employee-level analysis of the Telenor group

Recent research on employee-level innovation focuses on scientists’ ability to source advanced knowledge and use it to create new ideas and innovation within a firm. The present paper introduces a new dimension to this literature: functional departments. We argue that functional centrality, namely the extent to which a functional department is central in the intra-organizational network, affects employees’ innovation intensity. We make use of a rich novel dataset at the employee-level for the Telenor Group, based on a large-scale survey among nearly 16,000 employees in all business units and functions of the company. The empirical results point out that employees’ innovation intensity is higher in departments that are centrally positioned in the company’s internal network. Task characteristics such as quality orientation, entrepreneurial attitude and result pressure moderate the relationship between centrality and innovation.     

双元创新跃迁与企业失败：社会关系网络的调节作用

   序贯地专注于探索与利用式创新是企业创新发展的基本路径,二者的跃迁作为一项重要的企业变革如何影响企业失败值得深入研究。文章基于2006—2018年A股上市公司数据,采用面板Logistic回归模型,研究了探索与利用式创新之间的跃迁对企业失败的影响,以及社会关系网络在其中的调节效应。研究结果表明：（1）与已有研究结果不同,利用向探索式创新跃迁负向影响企业失败,而探索向利用式创新跃迁对企业失败无显著影响;（2）当社会关系网络低于一定阈值时,负向调节利用向探索式创新跃迁对企业失败的影响;当社会关系网络高于阈值时,利用向探索式创新跃迁对企业失败的影响不显著,社会关系网络的调节效应也不复存在;（3）社会关系网络在探索向利用式创新跃迁与企业失败的关系中无调节作用。     

失败学习与商业模式创新关系：知识管理与环境动态性的影响

   近年来,商业模式创新成为创业失败企业再发展的战略工具之一,商业模式创新路径研究广受关注,但鲜有研究涉及失败学习对商业模式创新的路径研究。基于经验学习理论和资源依赖理论,本文从知识管理和环境动态性视角,探讨了失败学习对商业模式创新的影响及其内在作用机制。基于215份企业调查数据,采用分层回归、Bootstrap等方法开展实证研究,结果表明：失败学习对商业模式创新有显著正向影响;知识管理3个维度都中介了失败学习与商业模式创新间的关系;环境动态性在知识获取与商业模式创新以及知识创造与商业模式创新的关系中均未起到调节作用;环境动态性不仅正向调节知识整合与商业模式创新间的关系,而且对知识整合在失败学习与商业模式创新关系间的中介作用具有显著的调节作用。研究结论进一步丰富了商业模式创新路径的研究成果,为企业商业模式创新实践提供了参考。     

Demystifying blockchain: A critical analysis of challenges,applications and opportunities

The blockchain is considered to be the potential driver of the digital economy. The Blockchain technology outweighs the challenges associated with the traditional transaction business governed and regulated by the third trusted party. There is a growth in the interest among the researchers, the industry, and the academia to study and leverage the potential of Blockchain. Blockchain provides a decentralized and distributed public ledger for all the participating parties. Though it seems that blockchain is a viable choice and solution for all the centralized governed and regulated transactions (in digital online space), it has potential challenges that need to be resolved; opportunities to be explored, and applications to be studied. This paper utilizes a systematic literature review to study several research endeavors made in the domain of blockchain. To further research on blockchain adoption, the paper theoretically constructs an integrated framework of the blockchain innovation adoption process in an organization considering organizational and user acceptance perspectives. This would facilitate its widespread adoption, thereby achieving sustained leadership solutions. The paper offers 23 propositions to information systems (IS)/information management (IM) scholars with respect to innovation characteristics, organizational characteristics, environmental characteristics, and user acceptance characteristics. Further, the paper explores several areas of future research and directions that can provide deep insights for overcoming challenges and for the adoption of blockchain technology.     

The technological system of production and innovation: The case of photovoltaic technology in China

This research paper studies the Chinese technological system of production and innovation in the field of photovoltaics (PV). It contributes to a better understanding of the emergence and development of the system by utilizing three levels of analysis: the institutional framework of the system, the market dynamics of production and deployment, and the composition of innovation-related activities. The analysis demonstrates the interrelated roles of transnational factors, local government policies, and research and development (R&D) activities undertaken by the main actors in shaping the system dynamics. Tracking the relative position of China in the global PV manufacturing, installation and technological development, the analysis shows a gap between the growth of China’s market share and its modest share of transnational patent applications. This suggests a puzzle, which the paper attempts to answer by inspecting the individual companies in the system against four aspects. First, the dynamic development of their size and performance. Second, the nature of their international involvement through foreign direct investment and mergers and acquisition deals. Third, their technological specialization within the PV value chain over time. Fourth, the spatial scope of their patenting protection endeavours. The analysis recognises four periods of system development driven jointly by market dynamics and government plans. Behind the continuous growth of the system, there were different driving and moderating factors in each period.