The Field and the Forge offers a new approach to the pre-industrial past in Europe and the Mediterranean basin from the Roman Republic to the fall of Napoleon. Based on an original synthesis of ...'structural' economic and demographic history with traditionally 'event driven' political and military history, it takes as its starting point E. A. Wrigley's concept of 'organic economies' and their reliance on the land for energy and raw materials. The opening section considers the ensuing constraints on productivity, transportation, and the spatial organization of the economy. The second section analyses the constraints imposed by muscle-powered military technology and by the organic economy on the tactical, operational, and strategic use of armed force, and the consequences of the spread of firearms in recorded history's first energy revolution. This is followed by an analysis of the military and economic constraints on the political integration of space through the formation of geographically extensive political units, and the volume concludes with a section on the demographic and economic consequences of the investment of manpower and resources in war. Existing accounts of organic economies emphasize their restricted potential to support economic and political development, but this volume also considers why so much potential remained unrealized. Endemic mass poverty curtailed demand, limiting incentives for investment and innovation, and keeping output growth below what was technologically possible. Resource shortages prevented rulers from establishing a fiscal apparatus capable of appropriating such resources as were physically available. But economic inefficiency also created a pool of under-utilized resources that could potentially be mobilized in pursuit of political power. The volume gives an innovative account of this potential - and why it was realized in the ancient world rather than the medieval west - together with a new analysis of the gunpowder revolution and the inability of rulers to meet the consequential costs within the confines of an organic economy.
This paper discusses the possible applications of different types of experiment methods in innovation research. The paper argues that the experiment as a research method has been a largely missed ...opportunity in innovation research, in particular for creating applicable knowledge for businesses and organisations in the shape of new innovation tools and methods. The paper applies an analytically based limitation of the experiment method which includes an array of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The use of experiments for such purposes is illustrated through a comparative study of four experiments concerning open innovation in service businesses and organisations. The case studies show how different experiment methods provide new opportunities for innovation research and how they can create new and applicable knowledge about open innovation. Thus the paper argues for applying experiments as an addition to other research methods in innovation research.
In this article, we analyze the direct effects of the open innovation (OI) processes of acquisition and exploitation on innovation performance (IP), as well as the effects of two antecedents of OI: ...organizational emotional capability (EC) and rival´s absorptive capacity orientation (RACO). RACO implies processing external information in an analytical manner, whereas an intuitive approach is implicit in EC. The research model is tested in a sample of medium-low-technology Colombian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using structural equations by the consistent partial least squares method. Our results provide evidence on a significant effect of the OI acquisition process on IP, as well as the determining role of RACO for firm-level innovation, in that it functions not only as an informal mechanism for intellectual property rights protection, but also as a knowledge process nourishing the OI exploitation process. This article contributes to the incipient research field of OI in low- and medium-technology SMEs, offering new evidence on the results on the OI-IP relationship in contrast with previous studies conducted in other technological contexts. Furthermore, EC, which has traditionally proven its incidence on internal innovation activities, can have a more powerful and determining role in innovation processes that imply collaborative work with third parties.
Open innovation practices have been found to positively affect innovation and entrepreneurship due to the complementarities and uniqueness of resources and knowledge provided by each organization. ...Today, this approach may be even more important in the so called “smart cities”, where different private and public stakeholders cooperate to co-design and co-develop new cutting edge products and services aimed to create shared value through entrepreneurial behaviors. However, concrete examples of smart city projects revealed that public governments often do not have the necessary capabilities as well as innovative approaches to collaborate with companies and other stakeholders’ ecosystems. So, this paper aims at analyzing (open) innovation in public governments shedding lights on the barriers and challenges that public governments face in smart city development. The study uses primary data gathered through interviews from multiple smart city stakeholders to highlight how public governments should operate in the smart city context to overcome barriers and challenges, and to favor an entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem as well as public-private collaborations. These barriers are related to: lack of rules; as all the others tasks and responsibility; scarce integrated view of the city planning; lack of fit of administrative styles & interdepartmental coordination and communication; risk adversity; data availability; disincentives & non flexible public procurement rules; lack of resources; lack of technological capabilities. Moreover, the study provides contributions for different and interrelated streams of research, in particular developing several implications in the field of entrepreneurship and smart city.
This paper examines the evolution in the conceptualization of Social Innovation (SI) with a view to elucidating the multiplication of uses of the term over the last half century. We performed a ...comprehensive and systematic literature review extracting 252 definitions of SI through a search of 2,339 documents comprising academic papers, books and book chapters, together research and policy reports. To guide the inductive analysis of pluri-vocal discourses we assume innovation to be a learning-based process involving actors’ interactions and social practices. We apply mixed qualitative methodologies, combining content analysis based on an interpretivist ontology with cognitive mapping techniques. Our findings show that SI was introduced as an analytical concept by incipient academic communities and has spread in the last decades as a normative concept fuelled by development and innovation policies. SI is defined by a set of common core elements underpinning three different and interrelated discursive ‘areas’: processes of social change, sustainable development and the services sector. We point to some policy implications and a number of promising avenues for research towards the advancement of a broader socio-technical theory of innovation.
•Conceptualization of Social Innovation (SI) over the last half century is provided•SI evolved as a normative concept fueled by development and innovation policies•Social innovation involves a set of core elements underpinning three interrelated areas•SI areas are processes of social change, sustainable development and services sector•SI differs according to sectors and interaction with technological developments
•Different drivers stimulate eco-innovation in developed and developing countries.•Embedded technology is crucial for eco-innovations in a developing country.•Collaboration, Alliances and Networks ...promote eco-innovation in Chile.•R&D intensity and training does not exert any influence on eco-innovations.•Market factors drives eco-innovation in Chile.
Despite the growing literature on the drivers of eco-innovation, few studies analyze it in developing countries. Therefore, to fill this gap, this paper aims to analyze the influence of different groups of drivers of eco-innovation (technology push, market pull and regulatory push-pull) on two types of eco-innovations: Resources Efficiency and Sustainable Sensitiveness, differentiating between varieties of innovation -product and process- and between the novelty degree- incremental and radical-. The empirical analysis is built using multivariate probit models and considering a sample of Chilean firms in the period 2009-2016. Results show a displacement of open innovation drivers when a developing country is analyzed; Collaboration with Partners, Alliances and Networks, along with the Non R&D Embedded are predominant technological push strategies in this analysis. Furthermore, Market factors would have a driving effect on eco-innovations, while the Public Support is weakly significant.
Although the implementation of innovative organizational concepts is considered to be highly important for a company's competitiveness, so far there has been little research on possible approaches to ...measure and monitor organizational innovations in large-scale surveys. Based on an item-oriented typology of organizational innovations which serves as the precondition for a common understanding, we describe and compare how organizational innovations have been measured through existing surveys in Europe. Using a large-scale survey comprising data of 1450 German manufacturing companies, we show how these different approaches lead to significantly different results regarding the organizational innovativeness of companies within one and the same sample. We derive four implications for the future measurement and monitoring of organizational innovations. Our findings contribute to the further development of an adequate methodology for an organizational innovation monitoring system.
How do markets evolve? Why are some innovations picked up straightaway whilst others take years to be commercialized? Are there first-mover advantages? Why do we behave with 'irrational exuberance' ...in the early evolution of markets as was the case with the dot.com boom? Paul Geroski is a leading economist who has taught economics to business school students, managers, and executives at the London Business School. In this book he explains in a refreshingly clear style how markets develop. In particular he stresses how the early evolution of markets can significantly shape their later development and structure. His purpose is to show how a good grasp of economics can improve managers' business and investment decisions. Whilst using the development of the Internet as a case in point, Geroski also refers to other sectors and products, for example cars, television, mobile phones, and personal computers. This short book is an ideal introduction for managers, MBA students, and the general reader wanting to understand how markets evolve. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0199248893/toc.html
According to the perspective of entrepreneurial orientation-as-experimentation, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) increases variability in innovation outcomes. Although increased variability in the ...innovation portfolio could increase performance, it could also lead to a decline in performance. We propose that absorptive capacity plays a role in both increasing and managing variations in innovation outcomes. Potential absorptive capacity enhances the effects of EO on variability in innovation outcomes, whereas realized absorptive capacity helps transform and exploit variability in innovation outcomes to enhance firm performance.
A firm's innovativeness is driven by its ability to recombine existing technologies. Elaborating on this argument, we contend that there exist two distinct types of recombinant capabilities. First, ...firms may innovate through recombinant creation, i.e., by creating technological combinations new to the firm. Second, they may innovate through recombinant reuse; i.e., by reconfiguring combinations already known to the firm. We study what drives each type of capability by examining two factors: the degree of integration of a firm's intraorganizational network and the diversity of its knowledge base. We test our theoretical predictions using data on 126 semiconductor firms between 1984 and 2003. Our analyses indicate that factors that favor recombinant creation generally hinder recombinant reuse and vice versa; however, combining an integrated collaboration network and a diverse knowledge base may concurrently enhance both recombinant capabilities.
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