Innovation Activities by Small and Medium‐sized Manufacturing Enterprises in Tanzania

The primary aim of this research is to explore innovation activities and ascertain the relationships between these activities and growth performance of SMEs in the Tanzanian manufacturing sector. The applied model has been derived from international studies of innovation. A survey of SMEs combined with in‐depth case studies was made to study innovation practices of SMEs in the Tanzanian manufacturing sector. The results of this survey are used to compare the situation with findings of previous research. An increased level of applied change is associated with innovating SMEs, and a positive relationship between innovativeness in the SMEs with growth performance could be established. Based on the comparison of the results, recommendations are made for stimulating innovation.     

Exploring ideation and implementation openness in open innovation projects: IT-enabled absorptive capacity perspective

Advancements in information technology (IT) have made organizational boundaries so porous, thereby resulting in a trend toward leveraging external knowledge for innovation. However, firms experience significant obstacles in drawing external knowledge. This study aims to disentangle the role of IT-enabled absorptive capacity in new product development performance. The research model was tested with survey data of open innovation projects from 152 firms. Our findings indicate that IT-enabled absorptive capability improves open innovation project performance in terms of new product innovativeness and product speed to market, but we do not detect a significant direct influence of openness on performance. Our findings also show that the interaction of IT-enabled absorptive capacity and ideation openness significantly amplifies new product innovativeness while the interaction of IT-enabled absorptive capacity and implementation openness accelerates the product speed to market. This study theoretically contributes by building an IT-enabled absorptive capacity theory in the open innovation context and uncovering the effects of two dimensions of openness. In practice, it offers managers strategies to successfully conduct open innovation projects in deploying effective ITs and leveraging various types of openness during the two phases.     

SMEs' Preference for Innovation Networks: A Choice Experimental Approach

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the importance of selected characteristics of innovation networks in affecting the decision of food SMEs when joining such networks. The paper develops and tests a series of hypotheses through a choice experiment exercise ran on a sample of 231 firms in six EU countries. The results showed that SMEs prefer networks that are composed of manufacturers and supply chain members, where information is shared confidentially among network partners, and when the network provides support to help the firm build its own networks of partners for innovation. In addition, SMEs' choice of the network is also affected by the interaction between specific network attributes and two firm characteristics, i.e. the firm's collaborative experience and innovation objectives. Based on the results, we conclude that the success of inter‐organizational networks depends on the fit between the network's design and the innovation and networking behaviour of the firms.     

The adoption of eCommerce communications and applications technologies in small businesses in New Zealand

This research investigates the impact of 10 factors, extended from the technological innovation literature, on the adoption of different eCommerce communications and applications technologies (EC) in small businesses (SMEs) in New Zealand (NZ). The research results showed that the CEO’s innovativeness was the only determinant of external-email adoption. CEO’s involvement was found to be the only determinant of Intranet adoption. Relative advantage and competition were found to influence Extranet/VPN adoption significantly and positively. However, support from technology vendors appeared to violate its hypothesised effect on Extranet/VPN adoption. Regression analysis found that pressure from suppliers was the only determinant of Internet-EDI adoption. The adoption of Web sites was influenced by the information intensity of products and the CEO’s innovativeness. The significant factors suggested the uniqueness of the adoption phenomenon in SMEs in NZ. However, the factors that appeared to be significant and the ones that appeared to be insignificant factors and the implications arising from these factors led to a conclusion which suggested the weakness of the EC adoption phenomenon in SMEs in NZ. The research discusses theoretical implications emerging from the research factors and portrays a path for future research.     

The adoption of eCommerce communications and applications technologies in small businesses in New Zealand

This research investigates the impact of 10 factors, extended from the technological innovation literature, on the adoption of different eCommerce communications and applications technologies (EC) in small businesses (SMEs) in New Zealand (NZ). The research results showed that the CEO’s innovativeness was the only determinant of external-email adoption. CEO’s involvement was found to be the only determinant of Intranet adoption. Relative advantage and competition were found to influence Extranet/VPN adoption significantly and positively. However, support from technology vendors appeared to violate its hypothesised effect on Extranet/VPN adoption. Regression analysis found that pressure from suppliers was the only determinant of Internet-EDI adoption. The adoption of Web sites was influenced by the information intensity of products and the CEO’s innovativeness. The significant factors suggested the uniqueness of the adoption phenomenon in SMEs in NZ. However, the factors that appeared to be significant and the ones that appeared to be insignificant factors and the implications arising from these factors led to a conclusion which suggested the weakness of the EC adoption phenomenon in SMEs in NZ. The research discusses theoretical implications emerging from the research factors and portrays a path for future research.     

Successful Patterns of Internal SME Characteristics Leading to High Overall Innovation Performance

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle with the paradox of developing new products and technologies on the one hand and minimizing costs on the other. These SMEs must be innovative to survive and grow. However, compared to large firms, SMEs have several problems in their innovation process, which negatively influence their overall innovation performance. This research explores successful patterns of internal SME characteristics that lead to high overall innovation performance. Cluster analyses were conducted to find patterns in the internal characteristics of SMEs with high overall innovation performance. We find that companies that focus on incremental innovation and that achieve high overall innovation performance indeed share a pattern in their internal organization, when controlling for innovation type. The paper adds to the current body of knowledge by comparing high‐ and low‐performing companies based on competence differences. Because real‐life organizations consist of multiple organizational characteristics, we also contribute to management practice by simultaneously addressing multiple organizational characteristics for the successful organization of innovation.     

User Innovation in Techniques: A Case Study Analysis in the Field of Medical Devices

Users are the primary source of new techniques, i.e. systematic activities by which a complex task is accomplished. Even though user‐generated techniques are a pervasive phenomenon which can be observed in many different contexts, existing research on user innovation has focused on product and service innovations. We focus on this important area of user innovation by studying four cases in the field of medical devices to analyse the processes by which users generate and diffuse new techniques as well as the interdependencies between user‐generated techniques and subsequent changes to product use and product innovation. Our findings suggest that user innovation in techniques triggers product innovation by users and manufacturers. Therefore, users' contributions to total innovation output are much higher than previously considered. Additionally, the diffusion of techniques differs significantly from the diffusion of new products. It can only be achieved with the involvement of diffusion agents and their interpersonal interaction and joint performance of the technique with possible adopters. As the diffusion of a technique is often a prerequisite for the diffusion of any related product, companies are forced to re‐think their marketing strategies.     

The impact of AMT practices on firm performance in manufacturing SMEs

This research deals with the use of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main purpose of this study is to find out the types of AMT to adopt to improve the manufacturing parameters that have significant impact on firm performance. In the research firstly, the current situation in AMT use in SMEs is examined. Secondly, the relationship between manufacturing parameters and firm performance is investigated. Finally, the relationship between the types of AMT and manufacturing parameters is investigated. The sampling pool includes 102 manufacturing SMEs that introduced AMTs. Our findings show that local area network, computer-aided design, and computer-aided manufacturing technologies are the most commonly used and automated storage, robotics, and wide area network technologies are the least commonly used AMTs in SMEs. In addition, the statistical association between manufacturing parameters and firm performance indicate that product design performance, fixture utilization, setup and production planning performance have positive impact, while capacity utilization and finished product inventory need have negative impact on firm performance.     

Role Models for Radical Innovations in Times of Open Innovation

In this paper, we study the influence of innovator roles in highly innovative ventures. In order to obtain a differentiated picture we take into account the degree of innovativeness as a moderating variable. To test our hypotheses we use a sample of 146 highly innovative new product development projects. We choose a rigorous sampling design and apply state‐of‐the‐art measures for the degree of innovativeness. Furthermore, we apply multi‐trait‐multi‐method methodology (MTMM) to enhance the validity of our study. The results show that innovator roles have a strong influence on innovation success but these influences are positively and negatively moderated by innovativeness. The moderating influences depend on the type of innovativeness. Remarkably, with increasing technological innovativeness innovator roles which create inter‐organizational links with the outside world appear to be more important than intra‐organizational linker roles, and support from high‐ranked organizational members turns out to have a significant negative effect on project success with higher degrees of technological innovativeness. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed and consequences for innovation research and innovation management are shown.     

Factors affecting the adoption of information and communication technology in small and medium enterprises: a perspective from rural Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can play an important role in the national economy of developing countries. The adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) has enabled local SMEs to participate in the international market. However, little research has addressed issues related to SMEs adopting ICTs, especially in rural areas of Middle Eastern developing countries such as Saudi Arabia. Using the extended technology-organization-environment framework with personal innovativeness, this study examined the factors that influence the adoption of ICTs among SMEs in rural areas of Saudi Arabia. The study found that relative advantages, top management support, culture, regulatory environment, owner/manager innovativeness and ICT knowledge had a significant relationship with ICT adoption among SMEs in Saudi Arabia, whereas compatibility, complexity and a competitive environment had no significant relationship with ICT adoption. The findings of this study will potentially help SME managers/owners and the Saudi government in the successful adoption and diffusion of ICT in SMEs located in rural areas in Saudi Arabia.     

Enhancing Innovation Capacity in SMEs through Early Network Relationships

Networks can offer SMEs a number of advantages, especially in terms of providing greater opportunities for knowledge activities that support innovation, but there is little in the literature to suggest how firms develop their innovation capacity through network participation. In this paper, we present an in‐depth longitudinal case study of a small entrepreneurial firm within the mobile‐commerce industry. A principal finding from the study is that network relationships formed during the earliest stages of the firm's life cycle played a critical role in developing the SME's capacity for sustained innovation. Further, the study contributes to network theory by calling into question the weak and strong tie dichotomy, as relationships critical to the SME's innovation capacity possessed characteristics of both types of ties. The paper also contributes to managerial practice by emphasizing the importance of establishing strong relationships in the earliest stages of network formation.     

A QFD-based method to support SMEs in benchmarking co-design tools

Efficient collaborative product design is crucial for extended enterprises willing to develop complex products pursuing a short time to market. However, successful collaborative product design depends on the ability to effectively manage and share engineering knowledge and data throughout the entire product development process. Co-design software platforms aim to facilitate cooperation in distributed teams. In the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) the advanced co-design software implementation to support the supply chain is not a trivial task. SMEs have peculiar characteristics such as flexibility, ICT skills and financial resources, which are difficult to be integrated within a structured design network. This paper presents a method to define and evaluate a co-design platform dedicated to SMEs in the mechanical product field. System architecture is defined by applying suitable metrics based on collaborative process characteristics in order to assess functionality performance of the available tools. Benchmarking is based on different levels of collaboration recognized in the typical product development process in SMEs. Correlation between process metrics, software functionalities and specific collaboration requirements is managed by adopting Quality Function Deployment (QFD) techniques. A practical case study allows the robustness of the proposed method to be verified and the main advantages and future developments to be discussed.     

Determinants of users’ intention to adopt m-commerce: an empirical analysis

The fast-growing penetration of mobile devices and recent advances in mobile technologies have led to the development of increasingly sophisticated services such as m-shopping for goods or services and m-payment. However, although the number of mobile subscribers is increasing, levels of actual m-commerce activities in many cases remain low. Determining what influences users’ intention to use m-commerce is therefore of growing importance. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible factors. To this aim, we developed a conceptual user adoption model based on technology acceptance model variables and on specific factors such as social influence, personal innovativeness, customization, and individual mobility. The empirical results show that social influence and customization significantly affect perceived usefulness; mobility, customization, and personal innovativeness significantly affect perceived ease of use; and perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have a direct positive effect on behavioral intention.     

Mediated and Moderated Effects of Business and Project Planning on Innovation Projects in Hospitals

Based on multi‐respondent data of 130 innovation projects in hospitals, our study analyses the role of planning intensity for project success. Besides showing that also in complex service systems innovation projects are supported through planning, we contribute to innovation management research, first, by clearly differentiating between the effects of business and project planning; second, by integrating intra‐team co‐ordination as a possible mediator of the planning success relationship; and, third, by taking into account the degree of innovativeness as a relevant contingency. We apply a multi‐level regression analysis, include several control variables, and limit common source biases by a multi‐respondent empirical design. The results demonstrate that both planning types show complementary effects. Project planning increases intra‐team co‐ordination, which mediates the planning effect on project success. Business planning has a direct effect on project success. However, the moderating effects of project innovativeness are oppositional. While business planning becomes more important for higher degrees of innovativeness, the efficacy of project planning is limited to incremental innovations. We conclude with a discussion of implications for hospital and innovation management as well as future research.     

The dynamic predictive power of company comparative networks for stock sector performance

As economic integration and business connections increase, companies actively interact with each other in the market in cooperative or competitive relationships. To understand the market network structure with company relationships and to investigate the impacts of market network structure on stock sector performance, we propose the construct of a company comparative network based on public media data and sector interaction metrics based on the company network. All the market network structure metrics are integrated into a vector autoregression model with stock sector return and risk. Several findings demonstrate the dynamic relationships that exist between sector interactions and sector performance. First, sector interaction metrics constructed based on company networks are significant leading indicators of sector performance. Interestingly, the interactions between sectors have greater predictive power than those within sectors. Second, compared with the company closeness network, the company comparative network, which labels the cooperative or competitive relationships between companies, is a better construct to understand and predict sector interactions and performance. Third, competitive company interactions between sectors impact sector performance in a slower manner than cooperative company interactions. The findings enrich financial studies regarding asset pricing by providing additional explanations of company/sector interactions and insights into company management using industry-level strategies.     

Optimization of the Dynamic Measure of Spillover Effect Based on Knowledge Graph

This paper improves the dynamic Feder model based on the characteristics of knowledge production and separates the direct effect and spillover effect of R&D in order to determine the relationship between spillover effect of R&D and economic growth, and accurately measure it by examining Chinese provincial panel data from 2008–2016. The theoretical analysis shows that the spillover effect of R&D promotes economic growth. Empirical analysis using a combination of OLS, sysGMM, 2SLS and GLS shows that basic research and application research have significant spillover effects; the marginal revenue of the basic research is lower than that of the production sector, while the marginal revenue of the application research is higher than that of the production sector; and knowledge stock does not significantly promote innovation in China. However, any study on the influence of knowledge stock on innovation entails more than basic research.     

Entrepreneurial Orientation,Social Networks,and Creative Performance: Middle Managers as Corporate Entrepreneurs

Though previous research has highlighted how important it is for middle managers to contribute to corporate entrepreneurship, little work has been done to explore how they produce creative performance by examining the direct, curvilinear and moderating effects of their entrepreneurial orientation and social networks. A total of 337 middle managers conducting marketing, R&D and project management in Taiwan are studied. The results suggest that middle managers' disposition towards proactiveness and innovativeness is positively related to their creative performance, and their internal bonding networks and upper management networks are found to strengthen the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on creative performance. However, middle managers' external bridging networks are found to have an inverted U‐shaped curvilinear relationship with their creative performance, and to weaken the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on creative performance. These findings echo the interactionist perspective of creativity, implying that middle managers should manage their social networks more carefully, as social interaction with network actors may either facilitate or inhibit their creativity at work.     

IT capabilities for product innovation in SMEs: a configurational approach

With the advent of globalization and the knowledge-based economy, industrial SMEs must constantly innovate to remain competitive. Now, an important research issue in this regard concerns the role played by IT capabilities in enabling innovation processes such as new product development, and in determining the product innovation performance of these organizations. Using a configurational approach grounded in the resource-based view, contingency theory, and the notions of “fit” and equifinality, we argue that IT capabilities can be leveraged for innovation purposes to the extent that they are coaligned and thus constitute IT capability configurations. This paper presents the results of a survey of 588 Canadian industrial SMEs designed to further analyze this issue. Three IT capability configurations were thus empirically identified, that is, IT Defenders (n = 234), IT Analyzers (n = 91) and IT Prospectors (n = 263), the last two being associated to greater product innovation performance.     

Idea generation and open innovation in SMEs: When does market‐based collaboration pay off most?

Small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) largely depend on proficient idea generation activities to improve their front‐end innovation performance, yet the liabilities of newness and smallness often hamper SMEs' ability to benefit from systematic idea generation. To compensate for these liabilities, many SMEs adopt an open innovation approach by collaborating with market‐based partners such as customers and suppliers. This study investigates the relationship between SMEs' systematic idea generation and front‐end performance and investigates the moderating role of market‐based partnership for SMEs. Drawing on a survey of 146 Swedish manufacturing SMEs, this study provides two key contributions. First, the systematic idea generation and front‐end performance relationship in SMEs is non‐linear. Accordingly, higher levels of front‐end performance are achieved when idea generation activities are highly systematic. Second, the returns from higher levels of systematic idea generation are positively moderated by market‐based partnerships. Thus, external cooperation with customers and suppliers pays off most toward front‐end performance when SMEs have highly systematic idea generation processes. These results indicate a contingency perspective on the role of external partnerships. They also have implications for research into the front‐end of innovation and open innovation in the context of SMEs.     

Do learners’ characteristics matter? An exploration of mobile-learning adoption in self-directed learning

This paper aims to identify individual characteristics that motivate learners to use mobile-learning. It sheds light on our current knowledge by a) examining an m-learning adoption model which accounts for learners’ characteristics (learning style and personal innovativeness) in addition to previously studied mobile platform characteristics and b) considering the context in which learning occurs (formal and informal). A framework has been introduced and empirically tested. Results suggest that individuals’ learning style and perceived playfulness influence m-learning usage in both learning situations; while performance expectancy and personal innovativeness are only influential in specific learning contexts. This study highlights the role of learners’ characteristics in m-learning adoption and emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between various types of m-learning. This multi-disciplinary research enriches m-learning literature and offers practical implications for educators using mobile technologies as well as developers of virtual learning platforms.