Impacts of government subsidies and environmental regulations on green process innovation: A nonlinear approach

With China's tremendous economic development following its reform and opening-up, the problem of environmental deterioration has become increasingly serious. To achieve a win-win situation between economic growth and environmental protection, enterprises are being encouraged to carry out green technology innovation, but due to the risks and uncertainties inherent in it, the government is providing research and development (R&D) subsidies while at the same time implementing environmental regulations. As the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) [5] divides green technology innovation into green product innovation and green process innovation, this study focuses on the latter in order to better study its relationship with environmental regulations and government subsidies. We select panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2009 to 2017 (excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, because of a lack of data) and use the system GMM and threshold-effect model for empirical analysis. The results show that environmental regulations have a U-shape non-linear effect on green process innovation, while government subsidies have a positive role in promoting green process innovation, or the so-called leverage effect. Based on government subsidies, the impact of environmental regulations on green process innovation has a threshold effect, and therefore regulations and subsidies should be increased. In addition, the level of economic development has a U-shape effect of inhibition and then promotion on green process innovation. Overall, the China government should continue to develop its economy, but must not neglect the impact of environmental regulations on technological innovation at the expense of environmental damage.     

What factors determine the survival of green innovative enterprises in China? -- A method based on fsQCA

Increasingly serious environmental problems have generated a large number of small and medium-sized green innovative enterprises. Against the background of rapid technological changes and increasingly fierce market competition, survival is the main problem faced by these enterprises. Exploring the mechanisms and core elements that determine the survival of green innovation enterprises is of great practical significance for improving the survival probability of green innovation enterprises and achieving environmental improvement through green innovation.In this paper, twenty-nine enterprises that have won the title of “Top 10 Green Innovative Enterprises” in China are considered the research objects, and the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method is used to examine the path combinations that affect the survival of enterprises from the perspectives of resource-based and dynamic capabilities. The findings are as follows. First, government support is key to the survival of green innovative enterprises; second, China's green innovative enterprises have a research and development dilemma, and only matching high R&D capacity with product competitiveness can enhance their survival capabilities; and third, the lack of resource base capacity is the key factor affecting the failure of green enterprises, and dynamic capacity is the key factor for the survival of green innovative enterprises. The main contribution of this paper to the field of management is that enterprises must always pay attention to the coordinated development of internal resource-based capability and external dynamic capability. Conversely, the Chinese government should provide high R&D support to enterprises with competitive products so that these enterprises can rapidly grow into leading enterprises through continuous innovation and drive the sustained and rapid development of China's green innovation industry.     

产品突破性创新概念设计过程模型研究

目的 产品突破性创新设计是提升产品价值、增强产业竞争力、实现中国创造的有效途径。为了实现产品突破性创新,构建符合突破性创新特点的模型至关重要。方法 聚焦产品概念设计阶段,根据突破性创新内涵与特征,通过对文献的分析与综合,将约束与创新围绕创造力建立联系,并借鉴创造力的“生成-探索”模型,探索产品突破性创新概念设计新路径。结论 提出了一种新的产品突破性创新概念设计过程模型。该模型以约束类型与来源为框架,通过提高创新资源约束水平来强化创造力,以跨领域知识和技术的运用为手段,形成了创意优先的产品突破性创新概念设计路径。模块化自重构机器人概念设计实践表明:该模型能够有效支持产品突破性创新概念设计的开展,具备一定的理论价值和实践意义。     

Effects of green supply chain integration and green innovation on environmental and cost performance

This paper argues that mechanisms such as information sharing and collaboration used in green supply chain integration (GSCI) to improve information processing capacity can reduce uncertain outcomes of green product and process innovation. Based on data from a survey of Chinese (Hong Kong) firms, the paper tests whether the three dimensions of GSCI (green internal, customer and supplier integration) improve environmental performance and cost reduction by facilitating green product and process innovation. The results show that green customer integration improves cost and environmental performance through green process innovation (not green product innovation). Both green product and process innovations are facilitated by green customer integration (not green supplier integration), while both green customer and supplier integration significantly depend on green internal integration. These suggest that the distinctive information processing capacity created by green internal and customer integration can facilitate the green process innovation required to improve environmental and cost efficiency, while green product innovation and green supplier integration cannot create such efficiencies.     

基于科学文献计量的概念设计知识图谱研究

目的 探究概念设计研究的知识结构关系及谱系特征。方法 在我国科学基金资助的文献基础上,借助Citespace软件可视化,构建概念设计研究的知识图谱。结论 首先,通过作者共被引分析法,剖析概念设计领域的代表性学者及概念设计过程模型、产品信息建模、概念设计推理技术、计算机辅助概念设计等研究主题;其次,运用共词分析和聚类分析法,阐释研究领域涵盖的设计结构矩阵、设计认知、产品配置、产品进化等知识聚类;最后,利用引文分析法,探测概念设计在不同发展阶段的图谱特征,从而为基于科学文献的研究提供新视角和新思路。     

Steering firm performance through innovative capabilities: A contingency approach to innovation management

Today's business environment is filled with fierce competition, rapid technological changes and market uncertainty. For survival, organizations have no option but to embrace innovation both in their processes and product. Performance of innovative capabilities depends on the speed and quality of new product and processes. Contingent resource-based view is used in this study to understand the effect of innovative capabilities on various functional performances. Data was gathered from 115 senior-level managers working in engineering or marketing department of manufacturing firms. PLS-SEM is used for outer and inner measurement model validation. Results of this study reveal that process innovation and product innovation complements each other for improving innovation speed and quality. Moreover, in the case innovative products, manufacturing performance is a key to enhance marketing performance and firm competitive capabilities. This research provides various new insights for the research and development concerns and marketer for developing a successful case of introducing a new product in the market.     

基于创新链要素的制造企业技术创新障碍与创新失败

将创新链从研发到市场的过程分为3个阶段,以结构创新、工艺创新、市场结构及其影响变量作为技术创新障碍关系因素,分析了创新过程障碍要素对创新失败的影响。研究表明,中国企业的技术创新障碍主要发生在技术化的创新中前期。在影响程度上,结构创新障碍的影响处于大效果范围,市场结构障碍和工艺创新障碍的影响分别处于中小效果范围,主导设计、工程化能力和产品市场差异性是当前影响中国企业技术创新失败的关键要素。     

India's National and Regional Innovation Systems: Challenges,Opportunities and Recommendations for Policy Makers

There is a need for continuous reforms in India's infrastructure, innovation culture and dynamic leadership to sustain the growth of innovation. The purpose of this empirical study is to gain a better understanding of India's innovation systems. A comprehensive analysis has been done on two levels: on both a national level and a regional level. First, the section about the national level explores and explains the challenges and opportunities of India's innovation capacity using a semi-structured questionnaire of the practitioners. Second, the section about the regional level discusses the clusters formed within India through a mapping of industrial firms, educational/research institutions and innovation parks. Both an empirical activity framework and a functional-based conceptual framework have been presented to highlight the themes of “building-upgrading-promoting” and “democracy-culture-infrastructure”. Finally, this paper makes a theoretical contribution by providing a conceptual framework for studying India's innovation system and giving recommendations to policy makers about sustaining the innovation.     

Performance-based contracting: a literature review and future research directions

This paper aims to provide a review and synthesis of the performance-based contracting (PBC) literature across academic disciplines. It also seeks to examine how the operations and supply management (OSM) discipline in particular relates to PBC studies in other study fields. The research is based on a systematic literature review of 241 peer-reviewed articles across disciplines, published between 1985 and 2014. A classification framework of PBC research is proposed, addressing key aspects of PBC design and management: performance specification and evaluation, the design of incentives and their impact on supplier behaviour and risks allocation depending also on the risk attitudes of buyers and suppliers. The comparative analysis of literature by discipline helps identify current empirical and theoretical limitations of relevant OSM studies. The paper concludes that future OSM research should expand its theoretical framework and empirical focus to better understand PBC design and management. Eight specific suggestions for future OSM research are offered, e.g. examining the potential of PBC as means for managing sustainability and innovation goals of supply chains. The paper helps advance OSM research in this area by providing a structured overview of definitions, theories, conceptual frames, methods and empirical studies from other disciplines.     

Mapping the frugal innovation phenomenon

This study aims at mapping the frugal innovation phenomenon. The study reveals that scholars affiliated with Indian institutes and originated from India have played a key role in this research discipline. Country wise, the highest number of frugal innovation cases is from India. The articles on frugal innovation have published in a wide range of disciplines and journals. Scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers have understood frugal innovation concept in various ways. Studies are predominantly in sectors, such as healthcare, electric and electronics, transport, finance, ICT, and energy. On the contrary, despite high importance, agriculture and education sectors have received limited attention.     

The antecedents and consequences of product and process innovation strategy implementation in Australian manufacturing firms

Manufacturing firms employ different strategies to improve the performance of their products. In this study, we investigate the roles of environmental dynamism and competitive intensity as antecedents of product and process innovation strategy implementation. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of these initiatives on product innovation performance and product quality performance in manufacturing firms. Based on an analysis of a sample of 207 firms in Australia, the results reveal that environmental dynamism positively relates to both product and process innovation strategy implementation while competitive intensity positively relates to only process innovation strategy implementation. Moreover, product innovation strategy implementation positively relates to product innovation performance while process innovation strategy implementation positively affects product quality performance. Both product innovation performance and product quality performance are found to positively affect business performance. The theoretical and practical implications of the study in the context of Australian manufacturing are discussed.     

产品设计集成创新程序与方法研究

目的通过对一个具体产品集成创新设计流程的分析,就产品设计集成创新中的几个重要环节的核心与关系进行研究,从而试图阐明集成创新在产品设计中的作用与流程。方法通过对城市扬尘处理设备创新设计过程的分析,对产品设计集成创新的特点进行分析并探索创新设计的方法。结论厘清产品设计创新的特点,阐述提升产品设计创新能力的重点是提升其集成创新的能力,提出了产品设计集成创新主要围绕技术、方法、思维与程序4个环节形成迭代循环的产品设计集成创新技术程序,并指出技术集成水平的高低是制约产品设计创新能力提升的关键因素。     

The relationship between technological innovation and green transformation efficiency in China: An empirical analysis using spatial panel data

Challenged by climate change and severe damage of the ecological environment caused by carbon emissions, the process of green transformation in the world has to be urgently accelerated. This study adopted the super-efficiency DEA method to calculate the green transformation efficiency (GTE) of 30 provinces of China (except for Tibet) from 2009 to 2018. From the perspective of the technological innovation process, a spatial Durbin model is further proposed to investigate the impacts of technology research and development (TERD) and technology commercialization (TECO) on GTEs. The results showed that: (1) both TERD and TECO exerted significant positive effects on GTEs in local provinces, while the TERD coefficient was higher than that of TECO. (2) The spillover effect of TERD on GTEs in neighboring provinces was significantly negative, while the spillover effect of TERD was significantly positive. (3) Although the interaction between TERD and TECO positively affected GTEs, it also exerted a negative spillover effect on GTE. These findings indicate that the government should include the spatial spillover effects of TERD and TECO on GTEs when designing policies in support of technological innovation activities that contribute to green transformation.     

Generating Stylistic Innovation: A Process Perspective

In contrast to technological innovation, little is known about how innovation arises in the creative industries. This inductive study of product development practices in five fashion firms examines how organizations in the fashion industry develop a particular type of innovation: stylistic innovation. The resulting theoretical framework reveals that successful fashion firms develop stylistic innovations based on a unique combination of three sets of interrelated product development practices—creative sensing (inspiration-based), stylistic orchestrating (coherence-focused) and agile synchronization (timing-driven). This study's main contributions to the innovation literature are its crystallization of the key properties of stylistic product innovation, its development practices and extension of thinking about how these properties are different from prior development practices found in traditional technological industries.     

用户认知视角下的产品体验设计创新路径探析

目的从用户认知视角出发,进一步探究和完善产品体验设计相关理论,以指导产品体验设计创新实践。方法从认知视角出发,进一步厘清产品体验设计的相关概念;基于用户认知过程模型,分析和提出产品用户体验的分类;通过文献研究、案例分析等方法,结合产品用户体验的分类,分析和提出产品体验设计创新路径。结论从用户认知过程视角出发,将产品体验要素细分为信息感知体验、信息加工体验、信息输出体验、信息记忆体验,并将产品体验设计创新细分为10个路径,进一步明确了产品体验设计的创新思路。     

LRV: A Tool for Academic Text Visualization to Support the Literature Review Process

Text visualization is concerned with the representation of text in a graphical form to facilitate comprehension of large textual data. Its aim is to improve the ability to understand and utilize the wealth of text-based information available. An essential task in any scientific research is the study and review of previous works in the specified domain, a process that is referred to as the literature survey process. This process involves the identification of prior work and evaluating its relevance to the research question. With the enormous number of published studies available online in digital form, this becomes a cumbersome task for the researcher. This paper presents the design and implementation of a tool that aims to facilitate this process by identifying relevant work and suggesting clusters of articles by conceptual modeling, thus providing different options that enable the researcher to visualize a large number of articles in a graphical easy-to-analyze form. The tool helps the researcher in analyzing and synthesizing the literature and building a conceptual understanding of the designated research area. The evaluation of the tool shows that researchers have found it useful and that it supported the process of relevant work analysis given a specific research question, and 70% of the evaluators of the tool found it very useful.     

创造性产品设计的要素及创新路径

目的基于创新的产品设计是现代产品设计领域的研究热点,也是全球企业竞争的核心。以如何实现创造性产品设计为核心问题,基于创造力的4P模型,探讨创造性产品设计的理念、要素及可能的创新路径。方法传统的产品设计更多关注设计和技术本身,本研究以产品设计—创新要素—创新路径为主线,从创造性认知的视角,结合心理学、设计学和管理学等多学科知识,梳理和论证产品设计的创新本质。结论产品设计的本质在于创造,人是实现创造性产品设计的核心。从创造性个体培养、创造性过程生成、创造性产品研发和创造性环境创设四个维度出发,才是实现产品设计创新的有效路径。     

基于秸秆材料的产品创新设计探析

总结了秸秆产品制造成型的主要技术方法,分析了秸秆在设计领域的应用现状及存在的问题,并对秸秆材料的感性设计属性进行了语义差分法研究。在此基础上提出了拓展秸秆在产品设计中的应用领域,提升秸秆产品绿色内涵,基于材料设计属性与工艺属性进行形态和材质创新设计的思路与方法,为秸秆产品创新设计实践的开展提供了一定的理论参考。     

What hampers green product innovation: the effect of experience

ABSTRACT

Based on representative firm-level survey data for Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, this study systematically analyses the relevance and drivers of barriers to green product innovation using the example of green energy technologies. ‘Low willingness to pay’, ‘high development costs’, ‘high commercial uncertainty’, and ‘lack of favourable political framework’ are identified as the most important barriers. Moreover, we find that the firms’ innovation experience is an important driver of the level of green innovation barriers. Green innovation barriers are more accentuated for firms with green innovation activity than for firms with no green innovation activity. However, experience from different fields of green innovation and experience from non-green innovation activities help to limit these barriers.     

基于AHP/QFD/FBS模型的果园管理机创新设计研究

目的 改善本土农机装备现行设计流程在方案创新中的不足,实现果园管理机要素的优化和设计的创新。方法 面向农业4.0场景应用,引入工业设计创新思维到农机装备设计,构建层次分析法(AHP)、质量功能展开(QFD)和FBS(Function-Behavior-Structure)模型相结合的创新设计流程。首先,通过AHP和QFD的分析过程,将用户需求转化为关键产品特性。然后,结合相关特性指标,优化、更新、重组产品功能的内在属性,逐步建立概念性功能系统。最后,通过FBS模型的“功能-行为-结构”映射,求解功能实现的结构载体,以满足产品功能创新和结构要素为设计条件。最终完成果园管理机创新设计。结果 集成AHP/QFD/FBS的创新设计流程包含完整的需求分析、特性发掘、功能创新和结构求解过程。通过设计实践,果园管理机在用户体验、功能配置、适应性和智能化方面得到了提升。结论 该流程在农机装备方案创新中呈现出的有效性,能够为农业4.0中相关产品设计提供新思路和参考。