Search

Matrix is an organizational structure that utilizes functional and divisional lines of responsibility simultaneously. This structure assigns specialists from different functional departments to work on one or more projects being led by project managers.

PurposeWhile the benefits of open innovation (OI) and crowdsourcing (CS) for solutions to R&D problems have been widely promoted in the last ten years, their appropriateness for organisations specialising in providing R&D services has not been explicitly considered. This paper aims to examine an R&D organisation's response to increased adoption of OI and CS, highlight their drawbacks in this context, and analyse how and why the alternative of problem‐sourcing (PS) proved more effective.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides an in‐depth documentation and analysis of an initiative called: The “What's Your Problem New Zealand?” (WYPNZ) challenge. The use of a single case and qualitative approach allows the development of an illustrative, rich description and is suited to studying unique and novel events.FindingsIn the context of professional R&D organisations, a range of benefits of CS for R&D problems rather than solutions were identified, including generating a potential pipeline of projects and clients as well as avoiding the challenge to the professional status of the organisation's research capability. An unexpected side‐effect was that the reputation of the research organisation as open, accessible and helpful was greatly enhanced. The success of the PS approach to CS for R&D provides insight into how some of the pitfalls of OI/CS can be better understood and potentially managed.Originality/valueThe PS model provided by the “WYPNZ” initiative represents a new strategic possibility for R&D organisations that complements their traditional competencies by drawing on the openness that OI and CS seek to leverage. As such, it can provide insights for other organisations wishing to make use of the connectivity afforded by OI/CS in an alternative mode to that typically in use and reported in the literature.

Learning organization is a type of organization that focuses on creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge. Employees in such organizations are encouraged to generate new knowledge and actively exchange new learning across departments. Learning organizations are built around the notion of generative learning, which emphasizes continuous experimentation and feedback of the problem definition and solving processes.

This paper aims to lay the foundations to develop a dominant logic and a common thematic framework of strategic innovation, and to encourage consensus over the field’s core foundation of main themes. We explore the intersection between the constituent fields of strategic management and innovation management through a concept mapping process. We categorize the main themes and search for common ground in order to develop the core thematic framework of strategic innovation. We look at the sub themes of strategic innovation in published research and develop a more detailed framework. The conceptual categories derived from the process are then placed in a logical sequence according to how they occur in practice or in the order of how the concepts develop from one other. The results yield seven main themes that form the main taxonomy of strategic innovation: types of strategic innovation, environmental analysis of strategic innovation, strategic innovation planning, enabling strategic innovation, collaborative networks, managing knowledge, and strategic outcomes. The new thematic framework we are proposing for strategic innovation remains preliminary in nature and would need to be tried and tested by researchers and practitioners in order to gain acceptability. Academic rigor and methodological structure are not sufficient to determine whether our conceptual framework will become widely diffused in academia and industry. It would have to pass through an emergent, evolutionary process of selection, adoption and an inevitable degree of change and adaptation, just like any other innovation. The practical implications concern the production of instructive material and the application of strategic management initiatives in industry. The proposed themes and sub themes can serve as a logical framework to develop and update publications, which have been instrumental in their own right to shape the field. The paper also provides a checklist of potential research projects in strategic innovation, which will improve and strengthen the field. The new framework provides a comprehensive checklist of strategic management initiatives that will help industry to initiate, plan and execute effective innovation strategies.

PurposeGeographical location has been of noted importance for technology entrepreneurship, i.e. technology clusters. While social resources have been investigated as strategic in management literature, media reputation appears to be an overlooked reason why technological entrepreneurship has been less prevalent in some geographical locations, despite there being fertile economic parameters. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing methodology developed by Rindova et al. to explore how media (local and foreign) describes technological entrepreneurship (local and foreign), the paper compares Boston, MA and Kolkata, India in terms of positive or negative valenced recognition and explores their relation to technology entrepreneurship location.FindingsGeographical media reputation is contextualized and does not transfer readily. Unlike the absolute positives of economic reasoning, positive media reputation in the local context does not scale globally. Also, negative reputation is very hard to overturn at the global level. Social resources often have their own social dynamics that are localized in culture and environment.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is an exploratory, illustrative analysis of the relation between geographical reputation at local and global levels and the location choice of technology entrepreneurship. Other factors do exist that the paper does not examine specifically but tries to match through sample selection, realizing no two geographical locations can ever be exact matches and in this case are rough equivalents.Originality/valueGeographical location imputes social resources – namely media reputation – that can affect the location choice of technology entrepreneurship beyond economic considerations.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of firms in Peru in relation to open innovation.Design/methodology/approachData were acquired through a survey of Peruvian middle and senior managers.FindingsPeruvian firms engaged in open innovation did report higher sales growth. The study indicated that involvement in open innovation included activities to reduce operating costs and improve internal processes, as well as exploiting the process to assist the development of new or improved products.Practical implicationsThe practical implications of this paper, although restricted to Peruvian organizations, suggest that firms operating in an emerging economy may find involvement in open innovation which is an effective strategy for enhancing organizational performance.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper is the focus on open innovation in an emerging economy.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a framework for helping inventors and start‐ups identify and acquire the technical, market, financial, and human resources they need if they are to create and grow new ventures that can realise market opportunities.Design/methodology/approachThe method for this paper is a case study of a non‐profit company and four of its business clients.FindingsThe paper finds that a resource assessment framework has proven effective for assisting early stage ventures when it is combined with helping them to identify business opportunities and to improve their resource position in order to exploit these opportunities.Originality/valueThis research contributes to theory and practice by highlighting the value of creative coupling of resources and opportunities for entrepreneurs and by demonstrating a novel and effective framework customized for the needs of new emerging technology ventures.

How do managers visually interact with strategy tools during workshops to produce knowledge about strategic issues? Building on the strategy-as-practice perspective and visual organization studies, we conceptualize workshops as arenas where visual interaction with strategy tools takes place. Following this approach, we examine how a top management team creates a strategy tool during a workshop (using primarily video data). Our findings reveal three distinctive patterns of visual interactions: shift, inertia, and assembly. We also show how each of these patterns is enabled by the affordances of the tool used. Our study contributes to theoretical elaborations of how actors visually interact with strategy tools, which offers extensions to the strategy-as-practice and visual organization literatures. © 2015 British Academy of Management.