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The financial services industry is key to the success of the Australian economy, however even established businesses need to continually push to innovate. At present, design is becoming widely accepted as means to innovate and many companies currently have design and innovation programmes. The goal of these programmes is to foster a design capability amongst staff members. However, little is known as to the impact of the innovation capabilities such design programmes claim to instil. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate how a financial services firm is currently attempting to build a design capability amongst staff members. Using a case study approach the research team audited four design capability programmes currently being deployed by the case firm. The study highlights the strengths and weaknesses of current efforts by the firm and current barriers to achieving design capability. The implications of this paper include key insights for both academics and industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to contribute towards the current gap in our understanding of open innovation in SMEs by answering the following research questions: a) how do the SMEs in focus, embrace their particular open network model and what are the advantages and disadvantages of these cross-level interactions? b) And how does this "openness" interplay with existing formal and embedded network management structures in explaining open innovation value creation?. This paper seeks to explore these issues through four case SMEs based in the growing media industry cluster in Vienna, Austria. From an open network perspective, the paper uncovers how these small firms have been able to use outflows and inflows of knowledge with the aid of successful intermediation. Findings show that the case companies are heavily involved in close partnerships within their cluster but are also aware of the dangers of becoming "over-embedded", particularly as they look to internationalise. A conceptual model is presented which presents this network process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing population of humans and animal livestock, rapid urbanization and reduction in available arable land coupled with the negative impacts of climate change constitute a major threat to global food security. Implications of this threat can be far-reaching for both developing and developed economies. There is an urgent need to enhance productivity, efficiency and effectiveness in the entire value chain of the food processing industry by employing modern technologies that support "affordable excellence". At the same time, many consumers, especially in the developed world, are voluntarily adopting simplicity and moderate lifestyles, opening new avenues for creating frugal offerings. In this paper, we employ an explorativequalitative research approach to examine the potential scope of frugal innovations in enhancing food security. The empirical research is set in the context of Australian food processing industry and investigates the current prevalence of frugal practices and their chances and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we evaluate national innovation ecosystems using a systems perspective. Drawing on the system concepts of holism, emergence and open systems features, we analyse national innovation ecosystems of Australia and Singapore. The extent of the systems concepts varies between the two countries although both countries' policies highlight aspects of holism, emergence, and being an open system, on a number of national policies: human capital investment, infrastructure, private-public collaboration, funding support, and innovation corporate culture. A systems perspective is essential to be considered as the theoretical foundation and evaluation of national innovation ecosystems for policy makers, businesses and scholars to learn from each other and progress forward together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst innovation training represents a significant investment for many organisations, most fail to undertake evaluations of how effective the learning has been or its impact on organisational performance. This paper seeks to explore the effectiveness of the first training program implemented by the Advanced Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (AMCRC) in Melbourne, Australia. We firstly examine the extant literature on innovation training and training evaluation, followed by the development of a conceptual framework utilising Kirkpatrick's Hierarchical Model of Training Evaluation. The final stage is an empirical analysis of the program. Limitations include the limited temporal frame utilised in evaluating the post-training impact on organisational performance. Further study and recommendations for future research include longitudinal and quantifiable measurement as a method for determining the impact and effectiveness of training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of the intrapreneur in successful innovation within large organizations. Offering a case of the creation of a successful new product within a large Australian organization, the paper explores the politics of championing creative ideas through to their realization in innovative new commercial offerings. Through the lens of one intrapreneur's experience, it highlights the practices required to innovate within environments rich in innovation rhetoric but governed by contradictory enterprise logic. Furthermore, it addresses the self-management practices required of those wanting 'to make a difference' in such organizations and warns of the fatal traps into which inexperienced intrapreneurs can fall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the magnitude and impact of external and internal innovation investments on the innovation performance of Australian businesses. Descriptive results estimate external innovation investment at $3.5 to $4 billion for all innovative Australian businesses in 2013-14, and suggest that external investments are greater than internal investments for the majority of firms. Ordered logit regression results show that disembodied external innovation investments are positively and significantly correlated with a higher frequency of innovation in marketing methods and operational, organisational and managerial processes. Investment in internal development activities is positively correlated with both innovation frequency and sales from innovative products. This implies that despite the increasing importance of externally oriented open innovation (OI) strategies, parallel investments in internal capabilities remains essential for innovation success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To drive innovation takes ideas, funding, and action. The Industry Transformation Research Hub “Food Value Chain” is focused on transforming the Australian Food Industry. Ideas range from simple easy to use tools for industry to novel new capabilities and technologies. Funding is a unique partnership between Government (Australian Research Council), University (University of Melbourne) and Industry (Mondelez a food multinational company). Action is driven by education, projects and development of new businesses and new industries. Fundamentally, all the pieces are in place, however the ability of Australian food industry and its supply base to take up the value provided is limited by the environment. Australia has a population of 23MM, so innovation must hit the mainstream user base for it to be large enough to be profitable. Australia has only two primary retailers, who control much of the power of the retail relationship. Companies are risk adverse in this environment, so finding the lead users for transformation is quite a challenge. Enabling them to see beyond the domestic opportunity to the export one requires them to take a significant risk to shift from being a commodity trader to an export marketer. This case study provides an understanding of how to drive action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study highlights the role of performance management in facilitating innovative work behaviour in public sector services. Empirical data are drawn from respondents in a large public sector organisation in Australia. Innovation in the public sector services is constrained by financial and human resources support, and the implementation resulting from innovative work behaviour poses a challenge. The findings indicate that formal performance management systems are not necessarily effective in facilitating innovative work behaviour. Informal constructive feedback is viewed as being more critical in fostering innovative work behaviour in public sector services. Such informal feedback facilitates workplace learning and practice-based innovation as well as promotes innovative work behaviour. This study takes an important step into further research on human resource management practices for innovative work behaviour in order to facilitate public sector innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding student intentions with regard to entrepreneurship as a possible career pathway is important for the development of the formal economy. Presented here are the results from a longitudinal study conducted between 2010-2014 involving a sample of 1,513 undergraduate students, of which 54 agreed to be interviewed. The research is qualitative and has combined the Opportunity Structure with the Theory of Planned Behaviour to understand the reasons why students chose to start a business either just prior to, or within one year of entering university, and their intentions upon graduating. The results show that many of these businesses sit within the informal economy, and may be categorised as low growth businesses with few skill requirements. Importantly, the research has discovered that these students are also highly strategic with regard to educational pathways, and many of these businesses are focused towards delivering and/or sustaining a particular lifestyle while at university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Champions can emerge from different functional areas and hierarchical levels. Innovation champions typically reside at middle management levels and push innovation from the bottom-up. Conversely, champions of innovation are generally senior managers who support innovation from the top-down. Few studies have contrasted the behaviours of innovation champions and champions of innovation in different contexts. An interesting anomaly in the current literature is that seldom are both levels of championing discussed. Importantly here the focus is also on how innovation champions and champions of innovation behave at different hierarchical levels, and how their behaviours may differ in the context of the Australian Public Service (APS). Fourteen face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with innovation champions, champions of innovation and key informants within three medium and large APS agencies Case study findings were comparable to how champions are portrayed to behave in the literature. However, when the behaviours of innovation champions and champions of innovation were contrasted, important variances emerged including the addition of what has been termed a leader of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation with external partners regarding the introduction of new or modified products, processes, managerial practices or marketing methods that aim to avoid harming the environment, environmental innovation, has been a subject of debate around the world, and more recently in Australia. A review of the environmental management and innovation literature has revealed gaps, especially in the empirical testing of the influence of business cooperation on environmental innovation. A survey of 2732 businesses by the Australian Bureau of Statistics was analysed employing logistic regression. A positive linear relationship between environmental innovation and business cooperation for innovation was found. While both expenditure on research and development (R&D) and business size influence the likelihood of adopting and developing green innovations to a large extent, our findings do not show significant results for other control variables: export, financial assistance (subsidies and grants), and the industry sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]