Abstract This paper is a contribution to the discussion on Innovation for Development. It is argued that innovation strategies in developing countries are the result of competing policy and contextual factors. In exploring this theme, it suggests that innovation strategies which are shaped by domestic market and policy realities are more robust and contribute towards improving the country-level performance of enterprises. The paper has seven sections which include a brief review of the literature related to innovation strategies in developing countries; a small discussion of success factors and policies of countries that offer good experiences and lessons in applying innovation strategies; a part on what policy implications to draw from the literature and the success stories for less developed countries; and a final section on the role of the donor countries in facilitating the implementation of the innovation strategies. The paper puts forward some tentative conclusions that summarise what has been learnt from the paper and affirms that the innovation-systems based strategies are indeed internationally replicable. The resulting policy and developmental frameworks will invariably exhibit high levels of variation. These differences emerge primarily from the systemic approach encouraged by the use of innovation policy. Secondly, the innovation-systems approaches ensure adaptability whilst maintaining methodological rigour. It also enables comparability and thereby also promotes appropriate and relevant benchmarking. Finally, the innovation-systems paradigm has a normative capacity to dynamically absorb and respond to the needs and demands of locally-specified domestic contexts.

Every single one of us have heard ones or know someone who have had a badexperience with a motorbike, maybe it was his or her fault, perhaps it was originateddue to the mistake of other vehicle or just was a simple distraction that caused as aresult that small fright or that horrible accident.All the people who ride motorcycles assume that when an impact comes, our body isthe chassis, our own body is in jeopardy to the unexpected just protected with a helmetand some protection clothes.The main goal of this project will be to try to reduce the possibilities of motorcycleusers of having a fatality accident or at least reduce the gravity of them.I will talk further on about why I decided to do this study and which kind of accidentsI am trying to prevent however I will like to say that my personal objective developingthis thesis has been to save lives, maybe sound quite hard to archive but I would bereally proud of myself if I could safe at least one life on the road the day of tomorrow.

While interest in the open innovation model is still growing, limitations in its scope and application are starting to become evident. The findings of the study present a nuanced and tempered view of open innovation at the project level. The study indicates that, at the project level, the benefits of an open innovation strategy can be maximised and its limitations can be overcome by focusing on the three dimensions of ‘openness’ (breadth, exploration and depth), and by implementing the strategy following the principles of contingency theory. The study’s main theoretical contribution rests on the development of a contingency theory of inbound open innovation at the project level. A first set of empirical results, based on a survey of 205 new product development (NPD) projects in the manufacturing sector in the UK, suggests that the type of innovation (incremental and radical innovation) and the strength of the appropriability regime are key contingencies, which influence an open innovation strategy at the project level. A second set of empirical results, obtained from a case study at Jaguar (UK), illustrates that further contingencies occur in the course of radical innovation projects. The decision to adopt an open or closed innovation strategy is influenced by the interaction between three key contingencies: the stages of the new product development process, the strength of the appropriability regime and the informal appropriation instrument (secrecy).

This Master Thesis hinges on the concept of Innovation and its association with regional development as a phenomenon that has attracted both researchers and policy makers’ attention.  The thesis presents two different innovation perspectives on regional development – Innovation Systems and Complex Systems of Innovation, and applies them into the case-study of the Life Sciences Cluster in Lund. In order to do so, the key aspects of each of the perspectives are highlighted within the part devoted to the Framework of this thesis. Within these, the networks between organizations in the Innovation Systems and the actors and their interrelations in the Complex Systems perspective have been analyzed. The analysis of these aspects brings up similar outcomes in both perspectives applied, i.e. the creation of various organizations within the Cluster. Both of the perspectives account for the importance of Lund University for the creation of these organizations and subsequent development of the Life Sciences cluster.

Abstract Title Cashews by SMS – an implementation in Mozambique Problem Innovation is described by Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt (2005) as the core process within organisations associated with renewal and as generic activity associated with survival and growth. Yet many organisations fail to realise the benefits of adopting an innovation. Which the theory will show this is most likely due to a problem with one certain phase in the innovation process: the implementation. Purpose The purpose with this academic paper is by a practical example illustrate the risks and problems one can come across in an implementation and the consequences of this. We also intend to give suggestion on how it is possible to restart an implementation process when the process once has failed. Research questions Why has marketAlerts failed to be implemented in Mozambique? How should IPEX resume the implementation of marketAlerts? Methodology Ethnographical approach. Conclusion Our conclusion is that the Institute for Export Promotion (IPEX) has managed to adopt marketAlerts but has failed to implement it in their daily work mainly due to the fact that they only completed the acquiring phase. The failure is due to a combination of hierarchy, lack of interest and absents of routines for sending marketAlerts. In order for IPEX to make the best use of marketAlerts we believe that they have to go back and start from the executing phase and implement the service once again.

The organization the authors have collaborated with is one of the largest information technology services company in the Nordics, Tieto. This study intends to examine Tieto’s social idea management software solution called Eureka to determine if it helps organizations to increase their innovative capabilities. Eureka helps organizations collect, manage, share, and evaluate their employee’s proposed ideas. Eureka also enables an organization’s resources to better interact with each other in association with idea development. Eureka works like an intranet where by company employees internally get the opportunity to suggest ideas that could improve, e.g., processes, products or services. This study examines whether Tieto’s software solution can help an organization increase its capacity for innovation. An additional aim is to describe the actual value an organization receives by working with Eureka. Empirical findings demonstrate that Eureka is a great tool for organizations to get their employees to interact with one another when it comes to innovation and idea development.

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Moderator variables are typically introduced when there is an unexpectedly weak or inconsistent relationship between a predictor and a criterion variable (Baron and Kenny, 1986). Holak, Parry and Song (1991) and Zhang, Li, Hitt, and Cui (2007) found an inconsistent relationship between R&D spending (a measure of innovation) and firm performance and so concluded that this relationship should be studied under different contextual factors. One such factor is the Degree of Internationalization (DOI) of a firm. Therefore, this paper evaluates the innovation-performance link in the presence of a moderator - the Degree of Internationalization (DOI). It proposes that DOI moderates the innovation-performance relationship. In addition, this research tests the hypothesis that DOI can affect either the form or the strength of the innovation-performance relationship. Only one previous study has evaluated the moderating effect of DOI on innovation-performance relationship, but this paper did not investigate the influence on the form of the relationship. The findings of this study are based on time series cross-sectional data of 102 large U.S. manufacturing firms from seven different industries. Data for each firm was obtained for eight years (2000-2007) from the Compustat database. Hypotheses were tested using the TSCSREG procedure with Fuller-Battese method implemented in SAS. The identification and the differentiation of the moderation effect into form and strength were carried out by using the typology from the work of Sharma, Durand and Gur-Arie (1981). The results show that DOI moderates the innovation-performance relationship positively and significantly. In addition, DOI affects the form (direct) and is a quasi moderator of the innovation-performance relationship. In terms of theory, there are two implications. First, that DOI is an important contingency factor when examining the innovation-performance relationship. Predicting the innovation-performance relationship without including DOI may lead to misleading conclusions. Second, when evaluating the relationship between R&D and firm performance, identifying whether DOI moderates the form or the strength of the relationship is needed in order to use a proper analytical technique. In terms of practice, the results sensitize managers to the need to focus not only on innovation activities, but also on their internationalization in order to appropriate the full benefits of their innovations.

This dissertation examines the perceptual bias of investors and securities analysts (the “audience” in the stock market) in their valuation of public firms’ innovative activities. I suggest that such bias occurs because the audience views a firm’s innovation through the prism of the firm’s categorization in product markets – its industry category – which may only loosely conform to the technological interrelationship among firms in knowledge space. I explore theoretically the conditions under which evaluation bias is most likely to occur – notably, due to innovations that defy the existing categorical structure used by the audience. Based on this theoretical framework, I develop hypotheses for empirical tests. I first argue that both technological opportunities and technological threats residing outside a firm’s industry are more likely to be underestimated by the stock market than those residing within the industry. In a sample of large U.S. manufacturing firms covering the years 1980 through 2000, I collected patent data to reflect innovative activities of firms. I compare the effect of a firm’s innovative activities on its current market valuation and its future cash flows. Consistent with my predictions, I find that firms capitalizing on cross-industry opportunities are more likely to be undervalued, while firms facing cross-industry technological competition are more likely to be overvalued. I further argue that reliance on categorical identity for information cues may reduce the audience’s ability to adequately assess the value-relevance of innovations that deviate from the technological norm in an industry. By analyzing the absolute forecast errors in security analysts’ reports, I find confirming evidence that deviant innovations increase the forecast bias. I further argue and demonstrate that such bias is less prevalent for diversified firms and in industries with less stable categorical “norms,” two conditions in which the audience is less likely to rely on categorical information and more likely to employ firm-specific information. Finally, I discuss the contribution and implication of the findings to studies of categorization and value-relevance of technological innovations.

This dissertation examines the perceptual bias of investors and securities analysts (the “audience” in the stock market) in their valuation of public firms’ innovative activities. I suggest that such bias occurs because the audience views a firm’s innovation through the prism of the firm’s categorization in product markets – its industry category – which may only loosely conform to the technological interrelationship among firms in knowledge space. I explore theoretically the conditions under which evaluation bias is most likely to occur – notably, due to innovations that defy the existing categorical structure used by the audience. Based on this theoretical framework, I develop hypotheses for empirical tests. I first argue that both technological opportunities and technological threats residing outside a firm’s industry are more likely to be underestimated by the stock market than those residing within the industry. In a sample of large U.S. manufacturing firms covering the years 1980 through 2000, I collected patent data to reflect innovative activities of firms. I compare the effect of a firm’s innovative activities on its current market valuation and its future cash flows. Consistent with my predictions, I find that firms capitalizing on cross-industry opportunities are more likely to be undervalued, while firms facing cross-industry technological competition are more likely to be overvalued. I further argue that reliance on categorical identity for information cues may reduce the audience’s ability to adequately assess the value-relevance of innovations that deviate from the technological norm in an industry. By analyzing the absolute forecast errors in security analysts’ reports, I find confirming evidence that deviant innovations increase the forecast bias. I further argue and demonstrate that such bias is less prevalent for diversified firms and in industries with less stable categorical “norms,” two conditions in which the audience is less likely to rely on categorical information and more likely to employ firm-specific information. Finally, I discuss the contribution and implication of the findings to studies of categorization and value-relevance of technological innovations.