Aus "Ausgangssituation und Herausforderungen": "Produktionsunternehmen und insbesondere die Automobilindustrie unterliegen einem permanent wachsenden Wettbewerbsdruck. Ursache hierfür sind anhaltende rasante gesellschaftliche, politische, gesetzliche und technologische Veränderungen in einem globalen Markt. Daraus resultieren steigende Anforderungen an die zu entwickelnden und herzustellenden Produkte sowie die hierfür geeigneten Technologien, Prozesse, Organisationen und Qualifikationen der Mitarbeiter. Die dafür notwendige Innovationskraft eines Unternehmens ist für den Erhalt und Ausbau der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit eine Grundvoraussetzung und spielt im globalen Markt eine entscheidende Rolle (Tri, 2003). Die „Digitale Transformation“ ist in diesem Kontext eine der ganz großen Herausforderungen, die die Produktionsunternehmen in den kommenden Jahren meistern müssen. ..."

The overall research objective is motivated by two simultaneous developments. On the one hand, due to globalization and fast changing markets, organizations face increasing pressure to stay competitive and to survive in these fast changing environments. To innovate, organizations rely on recruiting and developing their workforce. As the individual is the source of innovation, an ever increasing emphasis is placed upon individual innovativeness and in particular in the investigation of sources of individual innovativeness. Leaders are essential in the promotion of employees´ innovativeness and leadership is proposed as one of the most influential predictors of individual innovativeness. In the view of innovation pressure and demographic changes, it is important for organizations to shed light on their young professionals, especially on their young professionals’ innovativeness, as they are the future workforce. This is especially important for leaders who aim to support the innovativeness of their young professionals. Nevertheless, the importance of young professionals’ innovativeness in the retail industry is still underestimated. Hence, organizations and especially leaders may benefit greatly from being aware of their young professionals’ innovativeness as one possibility to face the challenges of innovation pressure.

Aus "Ausgangssituation und Herausforderungen": "Produktionsunternehmen und insbesondere die Automobilindustrie unterliegen einem permanent wachsenden Wettbewerbsdruck. Ursache hierfür sind anhaltende rasante gesellschaftliche, politische, gesetzliche und technologische Veränderungen in einem globalen Markt. Daraus resultieren steigende Anforderungen an die zu entwickelnden und herzustellenden Produkte sowie die hierfür geeigneten Technologien, Prozesse, Organisationen und Qualifikationen der Mitarbeiter. Die dafür notwendige Innovationskraft eines Unternehmens ist für den Erhalt und Ausbau der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit eine Grundvoraussetzung und spielt im globalen Markt eine entscheidende Rolle (Tri, 2003). Die „Digitale Transformation“ ist in diesem Kontext eine der ganz großen Herausforderungen, die die Produktionsunternehmen in den kommenden Jahren meistern müssen. ..."

The overall research objective is motivated by two simultaneous developments. On the one hand, due to globalization and fast changing markets, organizations face increasing pressure to stay competitive and to survive in these fast changing environments. To innovate, organizations rely on recruiting and developing their workforce. As the individual is the source of innovation, an ever increasing emphasis is placed upon individual innovativeness and in particular in the investigation of sources of individual innovativeness. Leaders are essential in the promotion of employees´ innovativeness and leadership is proposed as one of the most influential predictors of individual innovativeness. In the view of innovation pressure and demographic changes, it is important for organizations to shed light on their young professionals, especially on their young professionals’ innovativeness, as they are the future workforce. This is especially important for leaders who aim to support the innovativeness of their young professionals. Nevertheless, the importance of young professionals’ innovativeness in the retail industry is still underestimated. Hence, organizations and especially leaders may benefit greatly from being aware of their young professionals’ innovativeness as one possibility to face the challenges of innovation pressure.:I Part I: Introduction 1 Motivation and relevance 2 Overall resource-based perspective 3 Research gaps and questions 4 Overall structure of the dissertation II Part II: Foundations 1 Structure of part II 2 Individual innovativeness 3 Leadership supporting individual innovativeness 4 Summary of part II III Part III: Empirical studies 1 & 2 1 Structure of part III 2 Overall research context 3 Overall research design 4 Study 1: Individual innovativeness of yps 5 Study 2: Leadership supporting yps’ innovativeness IV Part IV: Discussion 1 Structure of part IV 2 Discussion of study 1: Individual innovativeness of yps 3 Discussion of study 2: Leadership supporting yps’ 4 Summary of overall empirical findings V Part V: Conclusion 1 Summary of parts 2 Implications for management 3 Limitations and avenues for further research 4 Conclusion References Annexes Annex A: Related to Part II: Individual innovativeness Annex B: Related to Part II: Leadership supporting individual innovativeness Annex C: Related to Part III: Empirical study 1&2

National innovative capacity, a central driver of countries’ long-term economic growth, has been one of the focal points in innovation research for roughly thirty years. Initially proposed as an index to measure technologic invention over time, this concept has become the widely accepted standard for measuring the performance of (sub) national and sectoral innovation systems toward being an analytic tool attributed to innovation systems theory. Country comparison, knowledge flows, and R&D forecasting are in the center of analysis feeding the concrete practical use of innovation policy optimization. In this regard, a rich body of studies has contributed indispensable knowledge about the determinants of innovative capacity. However, the multi-dimensional interconnections have not been covered in depth. Thus, to gain a holistic understanding of the “DNA” behind national innovative capacity a new “comparative” view of these determinants is necessary. To this end, this dissertation proposes revisiting the focus, unit and parameters of analysis that predominate within current national innovative capacity studies and sets forth three interlinked academic articles that focus on different layers of innovative capacity in countries. Besides furthering academic discourse on the determinants of innovational outcome, this conceptual revision leads to a new approach on national innovation capacity research. Its intention is to make policy makers aware of certain pathways leading to the same outcome. This knowledge will enable them to pursue a dynamic approach of supporting the innovative processes in countries by defining appropriate innovation strategies that consider both the countries’ specific preconditions and the sub-systems perspective.:1. Introduction 2. The purpose of revisiting the NIC concept for innovation policy 3. The scientific contribution of this doctoral thesis 3.1 Article 1: Increasing the national innovative capacity: Identifying the pathways to success using a comparative method 3.2 Article 2: National Health Innovation Systems: Clustering the OECD countries by innovative output in healthcare using a multi-indicator approach 3.3 Article 3: Increasing the innovative capacity of European cities: Making use of proven concepts from the national level 4. References