Dynamic openness for network-enabled product and process innovation: a panel-data analysis

Purpose

Prior research on open innovation has not investigated changes in knowledge acquisition strategies of firms over time overlooking how learning from past knowledge acquisition can change subsequent search strategies. Also, prior research has focused principally on product innovation overlooking process innovation. The purpose of the paper is to introduce the concept of dynamic openness, which is defined as temporal changes in external knowledge search strategy. We explore four dynamic openness strategies – closing down, opening up, persistent open and persistent closed – and examine the impact of these strategies on both product and process innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a panel dataset of 16,021 firms based on five waves (2009–2017) of the UK Community Innovation Survey (UKIS). All models are estimated using firm and year fixed effects (FE) method to control for endogeneity that arises from unobserved heterogeneity. Endogeneity and robustness tests were carried out to ensure the validity of results.

Findings

The results show that firms do use dynamic openness strategies over time leveraging learning from past searches. Specifically, the study indicates that closing down is not an effective strategy for either type of innovation. For process innovation, firms should pursue opening up strategy rather than persistent open strategy, whereas for product innovation firms could pursue either strategy, highlighting important contextual differences.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the literature on knowledge acquisition in open innovation: (1) by theorizing the underlying reasons – learning from past collaborations, absorptive capacity and external knowledge heterogeneity – why firms pursue one dynamic openness strategy over another and (2) by extending literature by delineating the dynamic openness strategies that firms should pursue in process innovation vs product innovation.

How Meaningfulness and Professional Identity Interact in Emerging Professions: The Case of Corporate Social Responsibility Consultants

Although interest in meaningfulness is mounting in the growing stream of research dedicated to how professionals experience it, research has only just begun to investigate the complex relationships between the search for meaningfulness and the constitution of professional identity for emerging professional groups. This paper investigates how meaningfulness interacts with the formation and enactment of professional identity, focusing on the emerging professional group of corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultants. Relying on interviews with 39 CSR consultants, we induce two social mechanisms bridging meaningfulness and professional identity, namely ‘meaning-making through professional self-identification’ and ‘meaning-making through professional socialization’. Our results explain how these mechanisms produce distinct, and potentially contradictory, professional identities of CSR consultants, which themselves enable contrasted forms of professional identity enactment. The study advances meaningfulness research by clarifying how the self–other tension is played out through identity formation and revealing the gendered nature of meaningfulness. The research also contributes to studies on professional identity through the specification of meaning-focused mechanisms of identity formation, and ultimately to micro-CSR research by offering a nuanced approach to how CSR is involved in the production of work meaningfulness.

The impact of regulatory complexity upon self-regulation: Evidence from the adoption and certification of environmental management systems

This article focuses on environmental management systems (EMS) and aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between environmental state regulation and self-regulation. Unlike previous studies that treat state regulation as uni-dimensional and focus on externally certified forms of environmental self-regulation, this article takes a more nuanced approach. It looks at how direct and indirect state regulation and its stringency influence both non-certified in-house and externally certified adoption of EMS. Methodologically, the study differentiates from previous research by acknowledging the interconnected nature of in-house and external certification decisions, viewing these decisions as sequential. Based on a survey of 2076 UK firms, findings show that effective environmental protection entails collaboration between environmental state regulation and in-house adoption of EMS. Results also reveal that externally certified EMS substitute for state environmental regulation, filling the void that results from weakening state regulation in the context of neoliberalism.