Global Innovation Networks – Organizations and People

The new framework of innovation biosphere for analysing innovation policies facing COVID-19 grand challenge

BACKGROUND

Facing global grand challenges such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) require the participation of various actors in different sectors and systematically directing their innovative efforts. Considering the complexity, non-linear dynamics, and global extent of the COVID-19 challenge, developing and applying a multi-level, resilient, and systematic innovative framework is vital. Therefore, this study aims to apply the "innovation biosphere" framework inspired by ecological studies for examining and analysing the management dimensions of COVID-19.

METHODS

In this research, based on a deductive-inductive approach, the case study methodology is used. In accordance with this strategy, the innovation biosphere metaphor is considered as the basic framework (deductive approach) and subsequently the grand challenge of COVID-19 (inductive approach) is analysed at three levels: micro, meso and macro.

RESULTS

The research findings verify the correspondence between what happened in the management of COVID-19 and the proposed framework of innovation biosphere. In other words, the findings of the research show that the effect of global cooperation, role-playing and co-evolution of different actors and subsystems in facing the grand challenge of COVID-19 under an ecosystemic and eco-innovation approach has been evident. These events subsequently led to the cessation of the pandemic after about four years.

CONCLUSIONS

The main policy implications include the role of self-organization, the capability of global value networks, mission orientation, and co-evolution between actors as the contributions of innovation biosphere framework for managing grand health challenges, and global cohesion, oligopoly market, supporting local innovations, the critical role of basic research, and deregulation as the contributions of the COVID-19 case study for enhancing the innovation biosphere metaphor.

Global city data analysis using SciMAT: a bibliometric review

Global cities play a significant role in world economy as they serve as key hubs of economic activity and trade. These cities are centers of innovation, finance, culture, and commerce, attracting businesses and entrepreneurs from all over the world. They are characterized by their openness, diversity, and their ability to attract and retain talent. This paper includes a bibliometric analysis of the structure of global cities through examining the literature on global cities, including the document type, country/territory distribution, institution distribution, geographical distribution of authors, specially most active authors and their interests or research areas, relationships between principal authors and more relevant journals, and the research hot spots. The input data consists of journal articles archived by the Web of Science from 1991 to 2023, and the analysis is performed using SciMAT and VOS Viewer. The result of this paper would provide valuable insights into the state of research on this topic, including who is conducting research, where it is being conducted, what types of publications are being produced, and which themes are having the most impact on the field. Such an analysis would be useful for researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders interested in understanding the role of global cities in the world economy.

Graphical abstract

The impact of international technical cooperation in new energy industry on carbon emissions: evidence from the top 30 countries in the global innovation index

International cooperation has become a global consensus to solve environmental problems. This paper selects the top 30 countries in the global innovation index as the research sample, based on Patent Cooperation Treaties (PCT) data jointly applied in the field of new energy, constructs the international technical cooperation network, and uses the fixed effect panel regression model to verify the influence of international technical cooperation of new energy industry on carbon emission intensity. The results show that the USA, Germany, the UK, France, and the Netherlands are at the center of the network. International technological cooperation in new energy industry has a significant negative impact on carbon emission intensity. The convening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has accelerated global industrial upgrading, and the effect of international technical cooperation in new energy on carbon emission reduction has been strengthened. In addition, the level of economic development, international trade, and research and development (R&D) are also important factors affecting carbon emission intensity. Countries with high network centrality should give full play to their network influence to promote global cooperation in the field of new energy and achieve carbon mitigation targets by signing more environmental agreements.

Knowledge Sharing Enablers in Small Business Networks

In an increasingly knowledge-based global economy, social capital and knowledge sharing, particularly amongst small business, have become critical sources of competitive advantage, but how can such knowledge sharing be enabled? The objective of this research was to explore the effect of knowledge sharing enablers on knowledge sharing in female small business networks. This research addresses the call for research into the antecedents of social capital. Specifically, Trust, Social Identity, Social Media Usage and Shared Goals were included in the conceptual model for the study. Together these social capital enablers were found to be significant predictors of knowledge sharing behaviour although unique contributions varied. The research contributes to the growing body of literature on the dimensions of social capital and how they affect knowledge management, and is of use to practitioners involved in supporting female entrepreneurial networks.

Strategic Innovation as a Factor of Adaptation of National Economies to the Development of Global Value Chains

In age of sustainable development, strategic innovations have become the most important factor in the adaptation of national economies to dynamic global changes, encompassing trade and economic relations between the leading and developing countries of the World. At the same time, the task of this study was to reveal the complex and contradictory role of strategic innovations in the development of national economies against the background of the transformation of global value chains (GVCs). Main methods for solving the problem were empirical methods of comparative and structural analysis, as well as econometrics. The study analyzed 44 countries classified by the World Bank in the group of countries with per capita incomes below and above the average, as well as with high income. Results of the calculations made it possible to establish a highly differentiated relationship between the share of products manufactured by foreign companies operating in the host countries, on the one hand, and indicators of the dynamics of foreign direct investment (the number of researchers engaged in R&D, the number of technical specialists involved in research and development (R&D), the cost of research and development in the territory of the host countries), on the other hand. This made it possible to determine the role of strategic innovation in the adaptation of national economies. The established dependencies expand the understanding of the role of strategic innovations in the formation and further development of global value chains and their significance in evolution: from process and product innovations of individual companies to the formation of global innovation ecosystems.

Emerging trends in digital transformation: a bibliometric analysis

Purpose

Ubiquitous digital technologies are driving organisations to embrace non-traditional digitally transformed business models incessantly. Heterogeneous literature contributions have resulted in a spur in the research related to business transformation driven by digital technologies in recent years; consequently, the research under the digital transformation (DT), even though becoming a hotspot, remains very fragmented. The authors endeavour to holistically present the literature's intellectual structure under DT as a concept, its evolving journey and the emerging research streams in the business and management domains using the techniques of bibliometric analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

By performing bibliometric analysis on 234 research articles published over the last 20 years in the DT domain, retrieved from Thompson Reuters Web of Science TM, this study culls out thorough insights from the citation, co-citation and keyword analysis. Further emerging research streams were evaluated using VOSviewer software.

Findings

The study depicts an overall incremental trend of year-on-year publications, authors' performance, publication journals, associated institutions and research driving countries, along with key insights from co-citation network analysis. Furthermore, the study evaluates four research areas – organisational impacts, applied applications and insights, operational processes and social aspects, comprising eighteen research streams that comprehensively cover-up research under the DT domain.

Research limitations/implications

The study contributes to the literature of DT by amalgamating the status of the present research, but more importantly, by deriving the research areas and research streams, which can be further expanded by researchers as future research streams.

Practical implications

For the practitioners, the study aims to act as a ready reckoner repository with practice-oriented literature references to facilitate them building knowledge and taking effective strategic decisions to harness the benefits of DT more proficiently.

Originality/value

This study illustrates the bibliometric structure of the DT literature and presents insights from the growth of the literature year-on-year.

Past, ongoing, and future debate on the interplay between internationalization and digitalization

The interplay between internationalization and digitalization (IDI) is a relatively young research domain that is finding its way into numerous academic journals, which motivates us to systematically portray the proceedings and evolutions of this interplay over time, analyze its methodological and theoretical background and, more importantly, provide insights to guide future research on these phenomena. Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, we analyze 68 peer-reviewed international business and management papers to explore the structure of knowledge production and identify the emerging trends. Our research reveals four key stages of the debate: (a) how IDI influences interorganizational aspects (1996–2004), (b) how digitalization influences the balance between perceived risk and returns in internationalization (2005–2009), (c) how digital advances and available internationalization channel alternatives influence IDI (2010–2014), and (d) how IDI influences intraorganizational aspects (2015–2019). Moreover, our analysis reveals heterogeneity across theoretical perspectives, methods, and research themes over the years. Finally, we identify theoretical and methodological challenges related to IDI research.

Expanding the international trade and investment policy agenda: The role of cities and services

We explore the public policy implications of two new, significant, and inter-related global phenomena. First, the rising share of services, particularly innovation-driven digital and knowledge-based services, in foreign trade and multinational enterprise activity; and second, the increasingly important role of global cities as home and hosts to these activities. Our framework distinguishes between national economic policies to promote trade and FDI, referred to as economic diplomacy, and comparable policies originating in cities, referred to as city diplomacy. National economic diplomacy has traditionally promoted trade and investment in goods, often through trade agreements and promotion agencies, and we explore the limitations of these tools as trade in services becomes more important. However, we also note that trade in services, particularly innovation-driven services, is concentrated in global cities, and traded between them, often within MNEs. We conclude that national policies on trade and investment cannot be divorced from innovation and knowledge strategies, and that these strategies cannot be divorced from cities. We emphasize that national economic diplomacy should be better aligned with city diplomacy. We also discuss how the transition to stronger city diplomacy may have consequences for firms and their strategies for corporate diplomacy.

Small and medium technology enterprises in Zhongguancun and Silicon Valley

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of similarities and differences between small and medium technology enterprises of Zhongguancun in China and Silicon Valley in the USA in the following aspects of their activities: scale, diversity and the strength of entrepreneurial networks; quality of collaboration network; reputation in the sense of stakeholders’ perception at the local market; and foreign networks.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses a survey method. The analysis of variance statistical technique was applied to each aspect.

Findings

The investigation reveals that Chinese companies have more stakeholders among relatives and friends, government, universities, accounting/law, as well as collaborate more with competitors and suppliers, while the US companies have more and collaborate diverse relations with its clients. In America, companies tend to trust their partners more than they do in China. For Chinese companies, the local government appraises business more than the USA. Employees from the US companies also take more pride in telling others that they are members of the business. Domestic customers positively rate business products. Chinese companies actually have better access to foreign resources than the USA and collaborate more with their foreign stakeholders.

Practical implications

Understanding the distinctive features of each regional system is crucial for the success of small and medium technology enterprises for both Chinese and US entrepreneurs.

Originality/value

This paper is a pioneer in the comparison and analysis of the two regions.