The role of temporal coordination for the fuzzy front-end of innovation in virtual teams

In this paper, we study the role of temporal coordination in managing the early stages of innovation (aka fuzzy front-end) in the context of virtual teams. Following a comparative case study approach, we detail the role of temporal coordination through the study of two contrasting virtual teams—one with a 24-h lifespan, and one with a five-month lifespan—from two Industry-Academia collaboration projects. Our approach was longitudinal capturing virtual team activities from start to end of each project, and involved multiple data collection methods, including observations and interviews. The findings reveal that the virtual team lifespan influences the type of temporal coordination that emerges. In virtual teams with short lifespans, tight coordination with frequent communication can help to reduce the uncertainty characterizing the fuzzy front-end. On the other hand, in virtual teams with longer lifespans, loose coordination allows dispersed members to work simultaneously on different, complementary aspects of the task at hand. These findings extend scholarly understanding around how innovation activities are coordinated in technology-mediated environments, such as virtual teams. Finally, we discuss theoretical and managerial implications.     

Organizational and human resource management and innovation: Which management practices are linked to product and/or process innovation?

We examine the determinants of firms’ innovation success, using the firm-level data from the Japanese National Innovation Survey. We focus on the relationship between organizational and human resource management practices for research and development (R&D) and product/process innovation. We find that interdivisional cooperation/teams and the creation/relocation/integration of R&D centers are positively associated with both product and process innovation. Having board members with an R&D background is positively associated with product innovation, implying that top-down R&D decision-making may be important for firms to introduce new products. Among the factors examined, personnel assessment reflecting R&D outcomes appears to have an especially strong relationship with product innovation. Moreover, the positive relationship between the creation/relocation/integration of R&D centers and innovation success suggests that drastic organizational changes can work as a clear signal of firms’ determination to pursue an innovation-oriented strategy and help to accelerate innovation success.     

基于DS证据合成理论的高水平创新团队创新能力实证研究——以江苏省欧阳平凯院士生物工程创新团队为例

高水平创新型团队是我国人才队伍建设的重点,而创新型团队创新能力的发挥又离不开有效的评价和激励。通过文献分析和国内外创新团队案例分析,从创新环境、创新投入、创新产出以及创新潜能四个维度构建高水平创新团队创新能力评价指标体系。利用DS证据合成理论,以江苏省欧阳平凯院士生物工程创新团队为例,对高水平创新团队的创新能力进行实证研究。研究发现,当前高水平创新型团队的创新能力总体处于“好”,但仍存在团队突出人才缺乏、科研资助力度较小、科研创新能力不足和人才搭配不当等问题。     

研发团队任务与情感自反性对产品创新绩效的影响——基于长三角地区的实证研究

整合团队任务、情感自反性与产品创新理论,探索团队任务自反性对产品创新绩效的影响,团队情感自反性对任务自反性与产品创新绩效之间关系的调节作用,以及贫缺、凝固、失谐和适配四种团队状态产品创新绩效的差异性。利用长三角地区76个研发团队的实证数据表明:团队任务自反性与产品创新绩效显著正相关;团队情感自反性对任务自反性与产品创新绩效之间的关系具有显著调节作用;适配状态产品创新绩效明显高于贫缺、凝固和失谐状态产品创新绩效,而贫缺、凝固和失谐状态产品创新绩效并无显著差异。     

The evolving relations between government agencies of innovation policymaking in emerging economies: A policy network approach and its application to the Chinese case

Literature on innovation policy reveals little of how relations between government agencies as policymakers evolve. Taking the policy network approach, this paper investigates three mechanisms underlining the evolution of inter-government agency relations in emerging economies – policy agenda, power concentration and heterogeneity dependence, and applies them to the analysis of the evolution of innovation policymaking in China. Operationally, the paper proposes a social network analysis (SNA)-based method to quantitatively study China’s innovation policy network, which consists of 463 innovation policy documents formulated by its central government ministries between 1980 and 2011. The findings show that the formal policy network for innovation has been not only sustained through the intervention of policy agendas but also self-organized because of policy network’s nature of power concentration and heterogeneity dependence. The presence of such mixed mechanisms in China’s innovation policy network’s evolution differs from the findings from industrialized countries where self-organization plays a central role. This work advances our theoretical understanding of the evolution of innovation policy network and has implications for innovation policymaking in emerging economies.     

中国绿色创新与经济发展耦合协调性测度与评价

基于城市和城市群的视角，以2013—2020年我国284个城市为研究样本，利用耦合协调度模型研究绿色创新与经济发展协调性的空间特征。研究发现，首先绿色创新与经济发展的耦合协调性在持续提升，绿色创新是改善绿色创新与经济发展协调水平的关键；其次在城市和城市群视角下，绿色创新与经济发展的耦合协调性呈现空间差异的特征。     

Governance for system optimization and system change: The case of urban waste

This paper analyses urban waste systems to explore how local authorities can resolve challenges related to climate change, urbanization and resource depletion. The paper investigates how different public governance regimes affect local authorities’ ability to move upwards in the waste hierarchy. It identifies three different governance regimes – traditional bureaucracy, new public management and networked governance – and uses the insights from innovation in urban waste in three Norwegian city regions – Oslo, Drammen and Bergen – to illuminate how these regimes possess both strengths and weaknesses in how they affect system optimization and system change. The observed working practices signal that the issue of urban waste systems is perceived as a challenge of system optimization rather than system change. Viewing this as a challenge requiring system change would probably have ensured a stronger directionality and a broader anchoring of actors. Such an approach is likely to have arrived at a waste prevention mode earlier than the step-by-step-solutions implemented so far. The paper concludes that there is not one best governance regime, but a need to acknowledge their co-existence and carefully consider the characteristics of the respective regimes in order to arrange urban waste systems for long-term dynamic and sustainable city regions.     

Do teams need both hands? An analysis of team process ambidexterity and the enabling role of information technology

As a core organizational resource, business processes are vital for organizational teams. To deal with today’s volatile business environment, organizations need to be ambidextrous in terms of process capabilities. However, little is known about how process ambidexterity, process standardization, and process agility, are enabled by information technology (IT) and related to team-level activities. To fill this gap in the literature, we conducted a field study based on 160 teams of 1081 individuals from seven companies in South Korea. Our results show that IT enables both process standardization and agility, and that a team’s process ambidexterity has a positive effect on inter-team coordination and team innovation, which in turn have a direct impact on team performance. Our findings highlight the importance of process ambidexterity by investigating the enabling role of IT and its outcomes in a team. Our results offer theoretical and practical implications from the perspective of team process ambidexterity.     

How top management team diversity affects innovativeness and performance via the strategic choice to focus on innovation fields

Past innovation research has largely neglected potential effects of corporate governance issues on strategic choices, and thereby on innovation management outcomes. The theory of upper echelon implies that strategic choices result from idiosyncrasies of top management teams (TMT). Building on this theory, we hypothesize that TMT diversity enhances firm performance by facilitating an innovation strategy that increases the firm's new product portfolio innovativeness. Our findings support the relevance of considering a corporate governance view for explaining innovation outcomes. Empirically, we can show that TMT diversity has a strong impact on the strategic choice of firms to focus on innovation fields. Such focus then drives new product portfolio innovativeness and firm performance. As corporate governance arrangements thus seem relevant in the context of innovation management, we can derive implications for both policy makers and innovation researchers.     

长江师范学院大学生创新性实验计划的实践与思考

“大学生创新性实验计划”作为本科教学质量与教学改革工程的重要组成部分,注重创新性、实践性和协作性等方面的训练,是培养创新人才的平台。文章以长江师范学院为研究对象,对大学生创新性实验计划的实践进行了总结与思考。     

Innovation policy for system-wide transformation: The case of strategic innovation programmes (SIPs) in Sweden

The orientation towards grand societal challenges can be seen as a new wave or paradigm for innovation policy. Such policy aims at system-wide transformation and is often referred to as system innovation policy. While insights from transition studies have provided novel and useful rationales for innovation policy targeting system-wide transformation, it remains unclear how to design, implement and evaluate such policies. The contribution of this paper is to translate and concretize the challenges of system innovation policy towards scope for policy action and analysis. Building on insights from transition studies we group the challenges into four domains: directionality, experimentation, demand articulation, and policy coordination and learning. We relate challenges within the four domains to three generic features of innovation systems: interests and capabilities of actors, networks, and institutions. The derived framework is applied in a case study on the strategic innovation programmes, a recent policy initiative by Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency, targeting system innovation.     

创新生态系统视角下企业创新能力的提升研究

分析创新生态系统的特性及其演化过程,认为在创新系统演化发展过程中所形成的资源整合机制、商业模式创新机制、技术创新机制、能力集成机制、耦合机制、竞合机制等六种机制是企业生存与进化的根基。深入探究在创新生态系统下企业创新能力提升的内在逻辑,资源整合机制和商业模式创新机制推动基础组织能力的提升,技术创新机制和能力集成机制推动协调控制能力的提升,耦合机制和竞合机制推动协同进化能力的提升。最后以阿里巴巴建立的创新生态系统作为实证分析,验证企业创新能力提升的内在逻辑。     

Team member proximity and teamwork in innovative projects

Innovation teams vary in terms of team members’ proximity, i.e., the degree to which all team members are in direct vicinity over the duration of the project. The proximity of team members, however, has potentially important implications for the collaborative working of teams. In this paper, we develop and test hypotheses relating team members’ proximity to the performance-relevant team collaborative processes included in Hoegl and Gemuenden's [Organization Science 12 (4) (2001) 435] teamwork quality framework, i.e., communication, coordination, balance of member contributions, mutual support, effort, and cohesion. Using data from 430 team members and team leaders of 145 software development teams, the results of the regression models show that team members’ proximity is significantly related to teamwork quality. However, the magnitude of the relationship between proximity and teamwork quality varies among the six facets of teamwork quality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

邻近性促进城市群创新了吗？

城市层级体系是技术等级系统的空间映射,创新网络的形成过程也是创新核心发挥辐射作用、构建城际创新空间关联的相互作用过程,显著影响城市群系统创新能力的提升。选取长三角城市群2005-2016年面板数据,从空间、技术、经济三个维度,探寻邻近性作用于城市群创新系统的路径,及不同等级创新核心作用的异质性。结果显示：邻近性对城市群创新能力提升具有显著影响,空间邻近、技术邻近、经济邻近发挥不同作用,形成对创新溢出效应强度与方向的差异化影响。因此,应从完善基础设施网络、提升城市群创新政策协调性等方面拓展邻近效应作用空间,促进城市群协同发展。     

企业家创新研究的文献述评

企业家创新是当前学术界开始日益关注的一个重要领域。本文采用文献述评的方法,分别从企业家创新意识、企业家创新人格、企业家创新决策能力三个方面对有关企业家创新的研究进行了系统的梳理,并简要评述了当前研究中存在的不足与对未来研究的启示。     

创新实现路径的中外比较

创新实现路径是指创新中的技术来源、创新模式、创新的提升模式、支撑体系、创新者发展五者之间相互协调的演化过程。本文分别从这五个方面概括了美国、德国、日本、韩国以及我国的创新实现路径,并对各国的创新实现路径进行了初步比较。     

科技创新团队基于冲突机理的创新最佳状态研究

针对科技创新团队成员个性、价值观差异、沟通不良和竞争等冲突表现形式,基于因组织结构功能缺陷,团队价值观差异,沟通不畅,个人目标与团队目标、个人与团队文化、个人利益与团队利益等差异引起的冲突以及建设性冲突,围绕团队成员、团队构造和团队的内外部环境三方面改进创新最佳状态,从而促进科技创新团队创新,构建基于冲突机理的创新最佳状态,为科技创新团队的创新发展提供可行性对策。     

中国-东盟跨境区域创新网络的格局演化及影响机制

为促进中国-东盟增强区域整体创新实力和实现高质量合作发展,以Web of Science核心合集数据库为数据源,选取2000-2019年中国-东盟国家合著论文,结合中国和东盟国家相关经济地理数据,运用社会网络分析和负二项回归模型探究中国-东盟跨境区域创新网络格局演化及影响机制.研究发现:中国-东盟各国创新联系日益密切,但创新协同规模较不平衡、创新协同质量差距较大,其中中国和新加坡为核心节点;创新网络格局由"双核+多节点"向多核演变,日趋完善;各国间经济发展水平、对外开放水平、技术水平和语言差异与创新合作的可能性和规模水平呈显著反向关系,且技术临近性表现为节点国家间"强弱结合"状态,而地理距离并未成为阻碍国家间创新联系的显著因素.根据研究结论,为推动中国-东盟跨境区域创新网络持续完善,提出健全中国-东盟跨境区域创新合作机制、扩展跨境区域创新合作渠道、完善跨境区域创新配套体系等对策建议.     

基于破坏性创新的比亚迪创新战略研究

破坏性创新理论作为一种非连续的技术或商业模式创新,通过低端破坏和新兴市场等独特价值进入非主流市场,建立起新的客户价值结构,改变了行业既有的竞争规则,破坏了在位企业的竞争优势基础。本文首先对破坏性创新理论进行梳理和归纳,从技术和商业层面分析了比亚迪破坏性创新的形成机理,提出了比亚迪所存在的突出优势和弱点问题,并给予一定的建议。     

融通创新中更好发挥政府作用的内在要求探析

融通创新中更好发挥政府作用的内在要求在于充分认识融通创新的本质内涵和运行规律,更好地为融通创新提供政府服务.运用问题导向方法研究创新模式的演进,发现融通创新与更好发挥政府作用有着紧密的逻辑关联.在尊重市场规律的前提下,更好发挥政府作用,需要把握促进企业优势互补、制定融合规则和补偿机制、发挥市场配置资源决定性作用三要素,...