Previous work on innovation performance has focused on either organization or individual-level analysis. The current study is the first that we are aware of in which multilevel theory and method were applied to innovation behavior and innovation performance. This multilevel study of 100 managers, 512 R&D teams of employees from 38 R&D companies demonstrated that both individual-and team-level factors were significantly associated with innovation behavior: Balanced psychological contract fulfillment explained within-team variance, and innovation climate explained between-team variance. Further, employee innovation behavior aggregated to the team level explained between-team variance in innovation performance. This paper also explores the impact of the RBV on the theoretical and empirical development of SHRM and innovation climate. This study is to introduce Intellectual capital as a mediating construct between knowledge human resource management (KHRM) systems and knowledge create. This study provides consistent support for the notion that KHRM systems are fundamental in the development of intellectual capital. This study also found intellectual capital to be associated with increased knowledge creation and innovation performance. With regard to intellectual capital¡¦s mediating role in the HR-performance linkage, this study provides both managers and academics with a more fine-grained analysis of how to target HR investments that build intellectual capital, which, in turn, drive team innovation performance. The results contribute to knowledge on the resource-based view of the firm and the importance of multilevel theory.

A inovação tornou-se um tema importante para as organizações empresariais no atual ambiente econômico, marcado pela intensa competição por mercados, tecnologias e recursos, e o cenário brasileiro não foge a regra. As empresas se esforçam para entender os fatores que influenciam a inovação e a sua complexa dinâmica a fim de desenvolverem ou ajustarem sua cultura, suas estruturas e seus processos organizacionais com o intuito de estimulá-la. O estudo da inovação não é algo totalmente novo, vários artigos e trabalhos acadêmicos foram desenvolvidos sobre o tema, não obstante, o assunto ainda é um amplo campo de pesquisa. A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo contribuir no esforço de um melhor entendimento da inovação nas empresas, mais especificamente em qual a influência das práticas do processo de desenvolvimento de produto no desempenho inovador das organizações e, a diferença de uso das práticas nas organizações com perfil mais e menos inovador. Cerca de 50 gerentes, envolvidos com a atividade de desenvolvimento de produto de empresas localizadas no Brasil de diferentes nacionalidades e tamanho, participaram da pesquisa. Técnicas de correlação e análise multivariada permitiram identificar quais práticas da atividade de desenvolvimento correlacionaram-se com os indicadores de desempenho inovador e, a diferença entre as empresas mais e menos inovadoras em relação ao uso destas. O estabelecimento de mecanismos de coleta de idéias de colaboradores, fornecedores e clientes e de um sistema para a avaliação e seleção das melhores idéias são extremamente importantes a fim de que, uma empresa identifique e selecione as melhores oportunidades tecnológicas e de mercado. Outros fatores também identificados foram: a existência de um método para a execução dos projetos na organização, a utilização de equipes multidisciplinares e a colaboração externa, com fornecedores e clientes. O envolvimento do nível executivo da empresa, apoiando a equipe de projeto, provendo diretrizes e desempenhando um importante papel nas decisões de continuar ou abortar projetos, também merece destaque. Outras práticas, no entanto, não foram passíveis de identificação na presente pesquisa como: a necessidade de alinhamento contínuo do projeto com as informações de mercado em todo o ciclo de desenvolvimento, a preocupação pela melhoria contínua e o desenvolvimento de um plano de lançamento, suportado por uma base de dados contendo informações sobre testes em protótipos, antes da introdução do produto no mercado. / The innovation has become an important subject for the corporations in the current economic environment, characterized by an intense competition for markets, technologies and resources, and the Brazilian scenario is not different. Companies struggle to understand the factors which could influence the innovation and its complex dynamic in order to create or align its culture, its organizational structure and processes with the objective to harvest it. The innovation research it is not something new, a variety of academic articles and researches have been developed about it however, the field still is a green field for research. The current work has the objective to contribute for the effort of a better understanding of corporation innovation, in special, what it is the influence of product development practices in the innovation performance and what it is the difference in the use of practices between corporations with a more or less innovator profile. Around 50 managers, involved in product development activity at companies located in Brazil of different nationality and size, joined the research. Correlation and multivariate techniques identified which product development practices correlated with innovation metrics and, the difference between companies more or less innovators regarding the use of these practices. The establishment of a mechanism for gathering employers, suppliers and customers? idea and one for assessing and selecting the best ones are extremely important in order to the company identify and select the best technologies and markets opportunities. Others factors also highlighted by the research were the existence of an established methodology for executing its projects inside the organization, the use of a multidisciplinary teams and the external collaboration, with its suppliers and customers. The executive level involvement, supporting project team, providing directives to it and playing a crucial role in the go-kill projects, also deserve some attention. Others practices however were not identified in the current research such as: the need of continuously keeping the project aligned with market information during the whole development cycle, process improvement mentality and the creation of a launching plan, supported by a database contained information about prototype tests, before the product introduction in a market.

The topic of this thesis is to analyse the impact of Slovak innovation policy on trade balance. The aim of this thesis is to assess how Slovak Republic uses innovation policy instruments to support innovation and enhance competitiveness. I analyzed basic macroeconomic indicators, indicators of innovation performance comparison through the European Innovation Scoreboard and analysis of the trade balance. I evaluated Slovak innovation policy at the conclusion of the thesis.

Innovation är idag en välkänd framgångsfaktor för företag att skaffa sig konkurrensfördelar (Mansury & Love, 2008; Sicotte, Drouin & Delerue, 2014). En bra utgångspunkt för innovation är att samla kundinsikter genom en metod som kallas Voice of the Customer (VoC) där det har visat sig att användningen av metoden kan leda till en hel del förbättringar, både finansiella och icke-finansiella, t.ex. högre lönsamhet och kortare ledtider (Cooper, 2013). Trots dessa identifierade positiva effekter har ingen tidigare forskning undersökt sambandet mellan VOC och Return on Investment (ROI). Därför är syftet med denna studie att hitta relationen mellan VoC och ROI. Studien genomfördes som en fallstudie på ASSA ABLOY och inkluderade flera källor för insamling av data. En omfattande litteraturstudie utfördes följt av en empirisk datainsamling i form av intervjuer och enkäter. De viktigaste områdena som undersöktes var innovation, VoC, kunskapshantering samt mätetal kopplade till innovation. Den kvalitativa delen bestod av 16 intervjuer med chefer och den kvantitativa delen av 155 användbara enkätsvar från ASSA ABLOY globalt. Resultaten från intervjuerna transkriberades och analyserades genom ett kvalitativt analysverktyg. Resultaten från enkäterna analyserades både statistiskt med hjälp av linjär regression och T-test samt en kvalitativ beskrivande analys. Denna studie har hittat en relation mellan ROI och VOC, på projektnivå, genom en värdekedja där immateriella tillgångar och kunskapshantering har en central roll. Resultatet av studien visar att det är av stor betydelse hur värdet av att utföra en VOC tas tillvara på i ett antal nivåer. Detta inkluderar hela kedjan från insamling av kundinsikter till hur dessa driver innovationsprojekt och till slut ger resultat. Mer konkret så utformades en modell för att kunna se effekterna från VoC på ROI på projektnivå. Den utformades för att ge implikationer till ASSA ABLOY om hur man kan följa upp investeringar, processer samt resultat av de projekt som drivs av insikter från VoC. Detta gavs med ett förslag om hur en kunskapsdatabas för VoC skulle kunna utformas. / Innovation management is today a well-known success factor for companies to gain competitive advantage (Mansury & Love, 2008; Sicotte, Drouin, & Delerue, 2014). One useful starting point for innovation is to gather information about customers wants and needs through a method called Voice of the Customer (VoC). It has been shown that the use of VoC lead to several improvements, both in financial and non-financial terms, among them higher profitability and a shorter time to market can be gained (Cooper, 2013). Despite these positive effects, no previous research has investigated the link between VoC and Return of Investment (ROI). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to find the relationship between VoC and ROI. The study was conducted as a case study at ASSA ABLOY including multiple sources of data. An extensive literature review was performed followed by an empirical data collection through interviews and questionnaires. The main areas investigated were innovation, VoC, knowledge management and innovation measurements. The qualitative part consisted of 16 interviews with managers and the quantitative part of 155 useful questionnaire answers, at ASSA ABLOY globally. The results from the interviews were transcribed and analysed through qualitative data analysis software. Furthermore the results from the questionnaires were analysed statistically using linear regression and T-test. The analysis of the questionnaires was also carried out qualitatively. This study found a relationship between ROI and VoC, on a project level, through a value chain where intangible assets and knowledge management have a central role. It was found to be of great importance for the final outcome how the value of performing a VoC is captured in a number of levels, from the beginning where insights are gathered to how these drive innovation projects and give tangible results. More concrete, a model towards how to see the impact VoC has on ROI of projects. It was designed to give managerial implications to ASSA ABLOY on how to track investments, the process and outcome of projects driven by insights from VoC. This including a proposal of how a knowledge database regarding VoC could be designed.

Innovation has become increasingly important for organizations to sustain their competitive advantage. Among the factors frequently put forward as drivers of innovation are for instance innovation strategies, -processes, -tools, and –methods. Alongside these traditional managerial means, there is also explicit focus on innovation climate and –culture. Organizational culture has been proposed as a key factor in explaining innovation in firms, in particular in the light of high-performing and innovative firms such as Google and Apple. There is growing evidence implying that cultures supporting new-product development processes can foster innovative behaviors (Jassawalla and Sashittal, 2002). This supportive organizational culture can be defined as an innovation culture. Nevertheless, despite its apparent importance there is limited research investigating the relationship between innovation performance and organizational culture (McLean, 2005). This study aims to describe an innovation culture and the potential inter-relations there are between innovation culture and innovation performance. The study based on an extensive literature study within the area of organizational culture from where an analytical framework was developed including the following cultural factors, which are proclaimed to stimulate innovation; challenging work, collaboration, competition, empowerment, encourage change, freedom, innovation support, open communication, organizational encouragement and risk-taking. Moreover, a framework for measuring innovation performance was developed where the innovation performance was divided into four dimensions in the innovation process; Ideation, Ideation Output, Implementation and Output. The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting data in terms of 38 interviews and 510 useful survey answers from 13 organizations. Results from the interviews were summarized and analyzed within-case and cross-case, while the survey results were analyzed with a regression analysis for uncovering potential relations between the cultural factors and innovation performance. Main findings from the study are the outcome from the regression analysis confirming five of the ten cultural factors to be significant for innovation performance; competition, encourage change , innovation support, organizational encouragement and risk-taking. Further the study confirms a few specific factors of the innovation culture that have higher impact on the innovation performance in specific dimensions than others. By clarifying inter-relationships between innovation performance in specific dimensions and different aspects of innovation culture, an identification of a deficient innovation performance dimension opens up for changes in the innovation culture, enabling to deploy supportive processes, procedures and roles to reach concrete output. Keywords: organizational culture, innovation culture, innovation performance / Innovation har blivit allt viktigare för att bibehålla företags konkurrenskraft. Bland de faktorer som ofta framförts som drivkraft för innovation återfinns till exempel innovationsstrategier, -processer, -verktyg och -metoder. Vid sidan av dessa traditionella metoder finns det också ett uttalat fokus på innovationsklimat och -kultur. Organisationskultur har fastslagits som en viktig faktor för att förklara innovation i företag, i synnerhet hos högpresterande och innovativa företag som Google och Apple. Det finns allt fler bevis som pekar på att företagskultur som stöder nya produktutvecklingsprocesser kan främja innovativa beteenden (Jassawalla och Sashittal, 2002). Denna stödjande organisationskultur kan definieras som en innovationskultur . Trots sin uppenbara betydelse finns det dock förhållandevis lite forskning som undersöker sambandet mellan innovation och organisationskultur (McLean, 2005). Denna studie syftar till att beskriva en innovationskultur, samt hitta de inbördes relationer finns mellan innovationskultur och innovation. Baserat på en omfattande litteraturstudie inom organisationskultur utvecklades ett analytiskt ramverk. Följande kulturella faktorer som påstås stimulera innovation inkluderades; utmanande arbete, samarbete, tävling, egenmakt, uppmuntran till förändring, frihet, innovationssupport, organisatorisk uppmuntran, öppen kommunikation, och risktagande. Dessutom utvecklades ett ramverk för att mäta innovationsprestanda där den delades upp enligt fyra faser i innovationsprocessen; Ideation, Ideation output, Implementation och Output. Studien är en fallstudie och använder sig av både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder för insamling av data i form av 38 intervjuer och 620 enkätsvar från 13 olika företag. Resultaten från intervjuerna sammanfattades och analyserades within-case och cross-case. Resultat från enkäten analyserades med en regressionsanalys för att hitta eventuella relationer mellan de kulturella faktorerna och innovationsprestandan. Betydande resultat från studien är bland annat resultatet från regressionsanalysen som bekräftar fem av de tio kulturella faktorer signifikanta för innovationsarbetet; tävling, uppmuntran till förändring, innovationssupport, organisatorisk uppmuntran och risktagande. Vidare bekräftar studien att vissa faktorer inom innovationskultur har större påverkan på innovationsprestandan i specifika faser än andra. Genom att klargöra sambanden mellan innovationsprestanda i specifika faser och olika aspekter av innovationskulturen, kan en identifiering av en bristfällig innovationsprestanda i en av faserna öppna upp för förändringar i innovationskulturen. Detta möjliggör implementering av stödjande processer, rutiner och roller för att nå konkreta resultat. Nyckelord: företagskultur, innovationskultur, innovationsprestanda

Background:  The reallocation of resources is changing with the rapid growth of business and the changing products and technologies in most countries around the world. Information technology (IT) outsourcing is one way to access resources efficiently. Meanwhile, software and IT service providers, in particular, rely significantly on innovation to stay competitive and fulfill their clients' continuously changing expectations (Blumenberg et al., 2009). Knowledge transferring is a source of innovation, which helps employees actively acquire their explicit and tacit knowledge from their clients to realize ambidextrous innovative performances. Purpose:   The goal of our research is to investigate the association between the two different knowledge transfer mechanisms from the clients to the suppliers, ambidextrous innovation and innovation performance of suppliers’ employees in the software and IT services industry. The research also aims to identify whether ambidextrous innovation has mediating effects on the relationship. On the basis of a literature review of the topic, a total of 17 hypotheses are proposed.  Method:   As for the research methodology, this research adopts a realist ontology and a positivist epistemology. Through a web-based questionnaire survey of 250 employees from the software and IT industries, the research collected relevant data about knowledge transfer, employees’ ambidextrous innovation, and employees’ innovation performance and the approach is purposive and snowball sampling. In addition, we conducted a pretest to ensure the web-based survey’s questionnaire is reliable and valid. SPSS 28.0 was used as the tool for data analysis, and the methods of analysis mainly included descriptive statistics analysis, reliability analysis, validity analysis, and correlation analysis and linear regression. Conclusion:  Our research established a framework to show the association between two types of knowledge transfer mechanisms, employees’ ambidextrous innovation and employees' innovation performance. It has been found that the transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge from clients to suppliers' employees has a statistically significant positive association with the employees' innovation performance in the suppliers’ companies of software and IT services industry. Furthermore, explicit knowledge transfer has a stronger association with employees' ambidextrous innovation compared to tacit knowledge transfer. The analysis also pointed out that exploratory innovation, rather than exploitative innovation, is proven to have a higher association with employees’ innovation performance. In addition, a mediating role of ambidextrous innovation between knowledge transfer and innovation performance is also identified in our research. Our research also took gender into consideration to examine the consistency of the results across gender conditions.

PhD thesis / High-tech firms are no longer able to rely exclusively on their internal knowledge and technologies to respond effectively to current market dynamics. Instead, they frequently collaborate with external entities to access new technologies and share the costs and risks of the innovation process. However, the effectiveness of such collaborations is questioned by many executives. Yet, as these Product Development Collaborations (PDCs) become crucial for a firm’s growth and success in current times, executives and academics alike are paying growing attention to them. In marketing, PDC is an active research topic since 1999. However, the body of marketing knowledge on the PDC is scattered across several studies over an extended period of more than two decades. In addition, the extant marketing studies report results that are inconsistent on some PDC issues and have overlooked others. In particular, marketing strategy considerations, in terms of firm’s strategic capabilities and objectives, have received somewhat of a short shrift in the literature. My dissertation contributes to our marketing literature with (a) a systematic review study that synthesizes the current state of marketing knowledge on the topic, identifies the research lacunas, and sets a future research agenda; and (b) two theory-driven empirical studies that provide new insights and novel implications to enrich our understanding of PDCs, their relation to the firm’s marketing strategy, and provide clear guidance to practitioners on how to benefit most from their supplier collaborations. v Grounding on several theories, creating and using a unique dataset, and utilizing multiple research and econometric techniques, my dissertation empirically addresses the following two general research questions: RQ1. Can their functional (marketing, technological, and operations) capabilities lead firms into competency traps and hurt their innovation performance? How? Do international PDCs outperform domestic PDCs in combating the competency trap effect? When? RQ2. What is the appropriate PDC governance mechanism (joint ventures, agreements, or licenses) that would enhance innovation performance? How do governance and capabilities simultaneously impact innovation performance? How does the firm’s product positioning strategy (differentiation versus cost-leadership) interact with governance and capabilities to affect innovation outcomes? / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Many firms establish Product Development Collaborations (PDCs) with suppliers to innovate new products. Although PDCs have numerous advantages, they are ladened by various contractual hazards and risks. This raises concerns of many executives about their effectiveness. In this dissertation, I systematically review the existing marketing studies on the PDC topic. Then, building on my review, I empirically investigate several marketing strategy factors that impact a PDC's effectiveness in terms of enhancing the innovation performance of focal firms. Drawing on several theories, building and using a unique dataset, and utilizing multiple research and econometric techniques, I conduct two empirical studies to examine the impact of four strategic considerations (i.e., functional capabilities, international PDCs, PDC governance mechanisms, and positioning strategy) and their interactions on innovation performance of high-tech firms in PDCs. My results reveal various interesting and important relationships and interactions that advance our understating of PDCs, their relation to marketing strategy, and provide important managerial implications to practitioners.

Product innovation, a crucial source of competitive advantage, is a company’s lifeblood to thrive in global, dynamic markets. M&A enable firms to access new markets faster and acquire complementary technologies, knowledge, and resources to facilitate product innovation. Despite global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain shortages, and M&A failure rates of 70% to 90%, firms continue to invest in M&A. Scholars seek to shed light on the conditions that create and destroy value in M&A, specifically the post-acquisition integration phase. While the effects of acquisitions on customers are an underexplored field today, customer relationships are engines for insights into changing expectations that drive product innovation. Today’s economy enables customers to switch to the competition faster than ever, and on top of that, firms see changes in customer networks after acquisitions. Research discusses the antecedents and outcomes of customer orientation but overlooks the role of customers in M&A. The post-M&A integration stage is the M&A phase where the ultimate value is destroyed or created. This study focuses on customer orientation and organizational complexity and their moderating effect on the post-M&A integration and product innovation performance relationship, concentrating on 188 innovation-centered majority acquisitions. It addresses the research question: How and to what extent do (1) customer orientation and (2) organizational complexity impact the relationship between post-M&A integration and product innovation performance? With that, this research uniquely connects the well-defined constructs of product innovation performance, post-M&A integration, customer orientation, and organizational complexity, and uses a mixed-method approach to investigate the research questions and conceptual model.Quantitative study one provides evidence that post-M&A integration had a significant positive effect on product innovation performance, especially for firms with high customer orientation, which positively moderated the main effect. Organizational complexity negatively moderated the post-M&A integration-product innovation performance relationship. When organizational complexity was relatively high with mean customer orientation, the effect of post-M&A integration on product innovation performance flipped from positive to negative. Under the conditions of relatively high customer orientation with mean organizational complexity, the effect of post-M&A integration on product innovation performance flipped from negative to positive. The results indicate that post-M&A integration was positively related to product innovation performance only for organizations with low organizational complexity. To a certain extent, customer orientation helped alleviate this negative impact of organizational complexity. Overall, study one has shown that a balanced approach of customer orientation and organizational complexity would be recommended. Study one also suggests combining the, in the literature separately considered, efficiency (synergy) and stakeholder theories. The inductive, qualitative study two, conducted with 25 semi-structured interviews, provides insights into how complexity resulting from acquisitions and the relationship with customers should be effectively managed during acquisition integrations to enable product innovation. The findings suggest that acquisitions are inflection points for customers, and customer trust is a crucial influencer of customer decisions. The themes drawn from this study reveal several areas acquirers can proactively manage to impact customer trust: the acquirer’s brand, and reputation, early customer involvement, communication, familiarity with and proximity to the customer, and the responsiveness and reliability to customer inquiries. The confidence in the business partner, that their interactions are based on integrity and reliability is critical and affects the customer-acquirer relationship; even more so when the acquirer is not known to the customer of the acquired firm. While customers should have a seat at the table, the timing of their involvement is critical. Leading innovation-driven acquisition integrations with a customer-centric mindset entails change initiatives that target employees, customers, and partners of the involved firms. The effective interplay of people, agile business processes, and connected, compatible technology between organizations is the foundation for achieving the anticipated value and synergies from integrating the acquired firm into the acquirer’s business. All of that cannot be done without evaluating the impact on the external business environment. Unfavorable decisions taken earlier in the acquisition cycle contribute to challenges later, requiring mitigation plans to be able to achieve the anticipated acquisition goals. The developed management framework guides practitioners to drive product innovation with a well-orchestrated post-acquisition integration process that balances customer orientation and organizational complexity. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Yes / As the economy becomes more reliant on innovative, knowledge-intensive firms, understanding the interaction between knowledge and improving innovation performance is increasingly important. Despite the majority of UK businesses being micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (micro/SMEs), knowledge management research has tended to focus on large companies, and the findings may not be applicable to micro/SMEs, especially in the creative sector. Moreover, the important role played by knowledge sharing in innovation can be critical to successful performance for smaller players in the creative sector where resources are limited. Our study presents an insight from micro/SMEs operating in a highly knowledge-intensive and innovative creative industry - games/entertainment software development. Using a mixed method approach, we investigate knowledge sharing and its contribution to firm innovation performance improvements. Our findings suggest that micro/SMEs are at the forefront in the creative sector precisely because of their smaller size. Our study reveals evidence of knowledge donation but limited evidence of knowledge collection in the knowledge sharing process in micro/SMEs. We develop a knowledge sharing model for innovation performance improvement in micro/SMEs. This highlights the importance of industry context, individual knowledge and organisational size in the role of knowledge sharing in innovation performance.

This study explores empirically the link between open innovation and dynamic capabilities. The aim is to understand the relevant capabilities required by firms to effectively engage in open innovation practices and how these practices affect innovation performance. The analysis is based on five selected service sub-sectors with a sample size of 3910 firms drawn from a dataset containing information on innovation activities in the UK. The findings show that knowledge creation capability is positively related to inbound and coupled open innovation practices. Contrary to expectation, partial support is found for the positive relationship between knowledge acquisition capability and inbound open innovation, and no support for coupled open innovation. The findings also show that operational reconfiguration strengthens the positive effects of coupled open innovation practices and incremental innovation performance. On the other hand, strategic reconfiguration strengthens the positive effects of coupled open innovation practices and radical innovation performance. This study contributes to theory by revealing the link between open innovation and dynamic capabilities. The study provides empirical evidence on the capabilities through which effective open innovation can be achieved in a dynamic environment. It also contributes to knowledge to show the effect of open innovation practices on innovation performance in the service context and the differential moderating effects of reconfiguration capabilities. Firms can use insights from this study to identify the relevant capabilities to develop in order to enhance their level of involvement in open innovation practices. The study also offer insights on the open innovation practices that service firms can pursue in order to achieve the desired innovation outcomes.