Digitization blurs the lines between technology and management, facilitating new business models built upon the concepts, methods and tools of the digital environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data in terms of how businesses manage their digital transformation. The paper argues that the outbreak of IoT and Big Data has resulted in

Accelerators are a fast-growing form of entrepreneurship support. Literature about them remains descriptive and disjointed. While some consider them new, others believe them to be a next-generation incubator model. Based on a qualitative inductive study in India, with inputs from both accelerator executives and founders of accelerated ventures, we shift the analysis from the form (accelerator) to its

While science parks represent one of the most important policy initiatives to stimulate firm development and growth, their contributions are still highly debated. This paper takes a novel customer-oriented approach to disentangle the contributions science parks provide to their tenants. Particularly, we qualitatively explore when and how science park tenants reach customer satisfaction and how tenants

The aim of this paper is to elucidate the innovation processes of technology development across the Valley of Death. Hitherto, studies of the innovation process for this difficult early phase in technology development have implied a linear progression or have privileged the contribution of intermediaries channelling government-funded support. By making use of process theories, and pursing a novel action

The study aims to clarify the behavioral patterns of technology transfer professionals (TTPs) required in university technology commercialization. In the past, TTPs simply transferred technology using functional skills and experience gained in specific science/business fields; however, now they are often required to be entrepreneurial in the process, as mentioned in the literature and manuals on the

The management literature defines modular innovation as a way to make technological changes in product modules that does not necessarily change the product architecture. However, engineering science shows that new product modules not only change the product architecture, but they can also be used for technologically radical next generation products. Therefore, there seems to be a misalignment in how

This paper addresses how a technology holding company (THC) affects university inventions crossing the Valley of Death (VoD). A THC, which is a new incubation model, is a specialised organisation for establishing spin-offs as subsidiaries and commercialising university inventions. This study verifies the effects of THCs on the incubation productivity of universities by conducting a propensity-score

Firms invest much of their capital into basic research in order to generate new ideas and technologies. However, converting new technology concepts into marketable products is difficult, and firms struggle with transitioning projects from a knowledge discovery to product development, a gap referred to as the Valley of Death (VoD). While the concept of VoD has been well documented, the literature provides

The essential cause of the ‘Valley of Death’ (VoD) is the reluctance of the private sector to invest in technologies which are perceived as immature. However, uncertainty about whether a new product or technology complies with regulatory frameworks may also have an important effect on private sector investments. We use the cases of the Critical Path Initiative, in the pharmaceutical industry, and the

We address the lack of studies focusing on internal organizational sponsorship mechanisms, while considering environmental influencers and focus on a specific type of organizational sponsorship to do so: Business incubators. We argue that to be able to offer a customized incubatee-strengthening service pack, incubator-incubatee interaction is key, requiring clear-cut and directive service co-development

This paper explores and explains how, why and with what consequences business angels' trust in the entrepreneur affects their decisions to invest, reinvest or withdraw funding in the Valley of Death (VoD). Drawing on the VoD literature and on business angel research, we retrospectively study two contrastive cases of success and failure of French start-ups operating in the IT sector over a period of

Fintech innovations are enabling access to financial services through mobile devices for many unbanked in the world. Though fintech innovations are touted as game changers in deepening financial inclusion, their wide acceptance and use still remain limited. In the extant literature, technological and behavioural antecedents that influence users’ behaviour toward financial technologies are not fully

This study provides a fine-grained analysis of the decision-making process and criteria underling the evaluation and selection of nascent corporate ventures. By integrating a small sample case-based analysis and the examination of a longitudinal dataset comprising 14 years of archival data, it explores the selection and funding process of early-stage entrepreneurial initiatives supported by the internal

Developing marketable products based on proprietary technologies is the key to success in many firms, but it is still a big challenge. Factors explaining when technologies are more likely to lead to a marketable product are not fully understood yet. This gap calls for further research on this important topic. The present paper addresses this issue by focusing on specific characteristics of technologies

The generation and adoption of technologies have been considered key factors in resolving inconsistencies in research on the innovative phenomenon, though few studies have taken this stance. In this paper, we empirically test the validity of this theoretical framework, using the data of 87,911 surveys of firms in 13 European countries from CIS-2012. This information has allowed us to find strong evidence

Technology opportunity analysis has been the subject of many prior studies, although most of them have focused on discovering new technology ideas in a single narrow domain. This study proposes a product landscape analysis to identify product areas (i.e., potential technology opportunities) across multiple domains that firms can enter based on the technological capabilities embodied in their existing

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have received a lot of attention over the last few years. Although the technological/pedagogical aspects of MOOCs have been well articulated in the literature, empirical evidence substantiating MOOCs' role in university outcomes is scarce. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring the relationships among (a) ordinary capabilities that are necessary to achieve

With the rapid development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), digital technology changes how banks translate new customer demands into new products and services. To achieve this translation, banks should increase their intrapreneurship capability through Individual-level Innovative Behavior (IIB). However, research on how to manage and promote manager's IIB in the workplace is still

University spin-offs are important mechanisms for creating and capturing value from scientific inventions. Academic scientists are uniquely positioned to shape such opportunities long before the university spin-off is founded. To better understand how science-based university spin-offs can be endowed for success, the pre-formation stage of 30 ventures co-founded over a 40 year period by a star-scientist-entrepreneur

Evidence suggests the growing importance of interorganizational relationships in developing intrapreneurial capabilities. In this paper, we argue that exploitation- and exploration-oriented network ties strengthen intrapreneurial capabilities in dynamic environments. To do so, we integrate the underlying assumptions of asset positions in the dynamic capabilities perspective with the open innovation

This paper studies the extent to which higher education graduates with higher intrapreneurial skills – creative, brokering, and championing skills – are more involved in innovation. Crucially, we differentiate between graduates employed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations and those employed in business occupations. Using data on higher education graduates from 11

We examine business planning for new firms created in the digital age, knowledge-intensive organizations that may rely primarily on adapting to dynamic environments with little predictability. This study compares the prevalence of planning for entrepreneurial versus intrapreneurial ventures, as well as for those in highly dynamic environments versus those in more mature and less dynamic environments

Today, firms encounter scarce resources and rapid technology change which render formerly successful business models obsolete. Research shows that some firms perform better than others in continuously discovering, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities in volatile environments and that this is dependent on firm’s dynamic capabilities. Besides obtaining dynamic capabilities through internal R&D activities

The aim of this special issue was to investigate the mechanisms behind China’s innovation ecosystem by viewing the key participants at multi-level: firms, research institutes, universities, intermediaries, supply-chain systems, governments and so forth. There were interesting threads connecting research on innovation participants throughout the submitted papers. Briefly, the following topics were addressed:

Concurrent increase in the degree of competition and access to information makes it both a challenge and necessity for firms to develop their ability to sense, seize and exploit knowledge-based advantages. Since absorptive capacity reflects an organization's ability to extract innovative ideas from its environment, it plays a critical role in fostering intrapreneurship and innovative performance within

While the importance of absorptive capacities for the engagement in innovative activities has been addressed in numerous studies, the drivers remain an open question. As absorptive capacities are indispensably linked to an individual's human capital, the management of these capacities needs to consider the mobility of individuals. We focus on absorptive capacities as an operationalization and essential

The innovative output of nations is partly explained by the strengths of its innovation ecosystems. The Iranian Lalejin city has been home to a ceramics and pottery industry for at least 200 years. Despite showing resilience over the years and occasional success; e.g. the 2016 “World Pottery Capital” designation; the industry is facing plummeting demand for consumer artifacts and rivalry from competitors

This study investigates the approach required to achieve competitive advantages in the digital supply chain. Moreover, the study examines how digital transformation of companies can fuel smart technologies, leading to improved relationship performance. The results of the survey given to 280 Finnish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) show that digital transformation of the companies alone cannot

The Chinese high-tech industry has developed greatly since the beginning of China's “National High-tech R&D (863) Program” and “China Torch Program”. This paper introduces a conceptual model extended from the innovation value chain model to simultaneously estimate the R&D and commercialization efficiencies for the high-tech industries of 29 provincial-level regions in China. To match reality, a network

Although it has been suggested that institutional context influences a firm's innovation performance, the role of regulatory institutions has been underexplored. Extending previous research, this study investigates whether and how regulatory institutions (i.e. state ownership, region-specific marketization and industry-specific institutional policy) affect innovation performance of emerging market

Intermediaries are frequently used as external institutions to bridge knowledge gaps and enlarge innovation search. Although there is a consensus that ties with intermediaries have a significantly positive impact on firms’ innovation performance since external knowledge sources are important to firms’ innovative activities, far less is known about how these intermediaries become effective drivers of

Building on knowledge management and innovation capability theories, this paper aims to reveal the mechanisms of collaborative innovation processes by investigating the complex relationships among critical factors influencing firm's innovation performance in supply chain networks. Using hierarchical Multiple Regression (MR) and Moderated Multiple Regression (MMR) methods, results from a survey of 236

There is scarce empirical evidence on the impact of inter-organizational collaboration across research institutes, industries or/and universities on the scientific performance of research institutes. This paper fills this gap by examining how the research institutes’ bilateral/trilateral collaborations with industries or/and universities influence their research outputs from a network perspective.