The state of innovation system research: What happens beneath the surface?

Sustainability innovations: a proposal for an analytical framework and its empirical application in the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve

Sustainability innovations influence societal transformations through the development of new products, processes, organizations, behaviors or values. Although various research approaches have tackled technological innovations in the last few decades, the specificities and enabling conditions of individual sustainability innovations remain rather unknown. We therefore propose an analytical framework, built on learning from the social-ecological systems and transitions literature. The sustainability innovation framework features four dimensions: context, actors, process and outcomes, which are detailed in 31 variables. We use the sustainability innovation framework to analyze two case studies selected in the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve, Germany. The first refers to technological and organizational innovation in mobility, while the second relates to social and organizational innovation in agriculture. As a result, we highlight commonalities and differences in enabling conditions and variables between the two cases, which underpin the influence of trust, commitment, resource availability, experimenting, learning, advocating, and cooperating for innovation development. The cases further demonstrate that sustainability innovations develop as bundles of interdependent, entangled novelties, due to their disruptive character. Their specificity thereby resides in positive outcomes in terms of social-ecological integrity and equity. This study therefore contributes to transitions studies via a detailed characterization of sustainability innovations and of their outcomes, as well as through a generic synthesis of variables into an analytical framework that is applicable to a large and diverse range of individual sustainability innovations. Further empirical studies should test these findings in other contexts, to pinpoint generic innovation development patterns and to develop a typology of sustainability innovation archetypes.

Crisis-driven innovation and fundamental human needs: A typological framework of rapid-response COVID-19 innovations

As a microcosm for future challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic exhibits increasingly transboundary dynamics, causing interconnected problems across multiple societal systems. To examine the role of innovations as a social mechanism to reconcile these arising challenges, we view the unfolding of the pandemic through the lens of a content analysis of 707 innovation projects that address the fundamental human needs of consumers and businesses. This study proposes a novel procedure to characterize large-scale innovative activities via text mining and employs a theoretical framework for identifying the pressing societal needs amidst crises. Our typology of rapid-response COVID-19 innovations exhibits a diverse set of domains ranging from technological innovations to what may be described as frugal and social innovations. We provide evidence for the growing prevalence of social needs beyond the basic notion of safety during the early months of the crisis. Our contributions show that a structural model of innovation activities and their latent drivers may help policy makers and innovators to move toward achieving a systemic reaction to such crises.

Crisis-driven innovation and fundamental human needs: A typological framework of rapid-response COVID-19 innovations

As a microcosm for future challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic exhibits increasingly transboundary dynamics, causing interconnected problems across multiple societal systems. To examine the role of innovations as a social mechanism to reconcile these arising challenges, we view the unfolding of the pandemic through the lens of a content analysis of 707 innovation projects that address the fundamental human needs of consumers and businesses. This study proposes a novel procedure to characterize large-scale innovative activities via text mining and employs a theoretical framework for identifying the pressing societal needs amidst crises. Our typology of rapid-response COVID-19 innovations exhibits a diverse set of domains ranging from technological innovations to what may be described as frugal and social innovations. We provide evidence for the growing prevalence of social needs beyond the basic notion of safety during the early months of the crisis. Our contributions show that a structural model of innovation activities and their latent drivers may help policy makers and innovators to move toward achieving a systemic reaction to such crises.

Systems entrepreneurship: a conceptual substantiation of a novel entrepreneurial “species”

In this paper, we explore the notion of systems entrepreneurship in the context of innovation systems (IS) dedicated to transformations towards sustainability. To this end, our paper draws primarily but not exclusively on the leverage points concept, which was originally proposed by Donella H. Meadows and recently refined by sustainability scientists. More precisely, we flesh out four general propositions about the systems entrepreneurial process that serve as a starting point for illuminating how systems entrepreneurs can intervene at deep leverage points to introduce a dedication to sustainability in IS. The paper touches the important issues of directionality, formal institutions, as well as information flows and network structure that have received insufficient attention from researchers, policymakers, and practitioners aiming at transformations towards sustainability (e.g., funders and other support organizations). Taken as a whole, the paper serves as a conceptual basis for further theoretical and empirical work on systems entrepreneurs and dedicated IS. It should be read as a reminder that the fundamentally uncertain processes of systemic change call for collaborative efforts that transcend mental and organizational boundaries.

Towards a strategic innovation framework to support supply chain performance

Purpose

This paper aims to determine how a strategic innovation framework that integrates the concepts of innovation function, dynamic performance management (DPM) and system-dynamics (SD) modelling can measure performance in a supply chain (SC).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a strategic innovation framework for an SC by considering three steps. First, a systemic intervention is presented based on the innovation functions that influence SC performance. Second, an analysis of the system's performance is proposed. Third, a model SD-based simulation is designed. The developed framework is explained by employing a case study of the Colombian pig sector SC.

Findings

The results reveal that identifying and synchronising the system's performance drivers associated with the innovation functions could improve the inventory in the SC.

Practical implications

On the one hand, managers can use the proposed framework to evaluate the innovation investments and understand their impact on operation performance (e.g. on inventories). On the other hand, policymakers may support decision-making to improve policy design (e.g. through investment in R&D).

Originality/value

Few studies discuss the impacts of innovation functions on SC performance. This paper aims to fill this theoretical gap and to contribute to the literature by suggesting a novel framework which includes innovation functions.

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.