Contenu du sommaire : International trends on innovation management

This paper, exploratory by nature, raises a fundamental question regarding the relevance of Schumpeter and Schumpeterian Thought in our contemporary economy. This is done by arguing that in reading Schumpeter, we distinguish between an ‘Early' and a ‘Later' Schumpeter. By analyzing contemporary developments in innovation at both the firm cluster and the systems level we demonstrate how Schumpeter's analysis is indeed still relevant. What is argued, however, is that we can observe a merging of the ‘two phases' of Schumpeterian thought with individual businesses seeking collaboration and partnership for the entrepreneurial spark and management of the innovation process.JEL codes: O33, L21, L26

Innovation and collaboration are strongly tied to the prevailing economic conditions. Accordingly, few enterprises can initiate innovative projects without drawing on complementary resources and skills provided by a number of external actors. Even multinational companies adopt this strategy by developing and producing new products and services through specialized subsidiaries. In most cases, these project actors are geographically distributed, exacting a toll on the collaborative spirit that should reign in teams. This article investigates the effect of key project team characteristics on team collaboration in terms of three dimensions: participation in decision making, quality of communication and quality of coordination. Data were gathered on 253 teams of specialists operating mainly in the telecommunication and electronics sectors. In addition to revealing strong explanatory relationships between certain team characteristics and collaboration, the results highlight the moderating effect of intersite rivalry.JEL codes: O31, O32

A well-managed Technology Transfer (TT) project is acknowledged as a means to transform research from universities into high added value products and enhance the innovative capabilities of collaborating companies to support regional clusters. Nevertheless, a TT project is a particular innovation process in which the technological dimension is predominant and multiple autonomous but interrelated stakeholders are involved during a limited period of time. For this reason, the conventional tools of project management are not always adapted to monitoring a TT project. As a consequence, there is a need for new tools and metrics to ensure optimal deployment and results. Based on a comprehensive literature analysis and a long-term field observation of five transfer projects, the contribution of the present paper is twofold. First, a conceptual model for a TT process between a Technology Transfer Centre (TTC) and Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) is proposed. Second, a definition is given for a set of indicators to monitor the TT projects after gathering observable facts throughout the collaborative projects. The level of knowledge materialization turns out to be the most important indicator of a TT project defined here, as the IOT (Intermediary Object of Transfer).JEL codes: O31, 032, L24

Open Innovation brings new opportunities as well as new constraints, new modes and new challenges that companies have to face. The literature indicates that there are many organizational models to support innovation activities in the current complex and changing environment. But these models do not fully account for the open nature (Outside-in and Inside-out) of these innovation activities. Moreover, a majority of these models are earlier than 2003, when the concept of Open Innovation was born. Thanks to a review of the literature and the study of an innovation team within a large group from the chemical sector, we will show that a new organizational model is essential to supporting innovation collaborative processes. We will also provide some evidence of the development of a new model based on influencing factors.JEL codes: 031, 032, L24

A general vision is presented on how Chile, as a developing country, approaches the management of innovation, and the role played by universities and networks in which they participate, in the advanced training of human resources for R&D and Innovation (R&D&I) activities. In order to understand the macroeconomic context in which innovation is developing in Chile, we first present a general vision of the institutional setting in which the innovation system takes place and the kinds of initiatives that the different actors of the system apply in order to promote innovation in companies. Then, we describe the technological services that have been developed as a result of cooperation for supporting innovation in small and medium-sized companies.JEL codes: 031, 032

Innovation is considered by many researchers to be the inevitable outcome for the very survival of the firm. Nonetheless, the focus of most research on innovation is on the ability of firms to deliver new technological items to the market and develop new technological process. However important this approach may be, it does not fully explain the reason why some firms sustain better competitive position even when not having a high technological output. We argue that the firm is better understood as a combination of various capabilities and innovation must be seen not only through the technological capabilities approach. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the firm's innovation through four capabilities that can be found in any firm: development, operations, management and transaction capabilities. We use 44 Brazilian companies to exemplify and demonstrate that the firm's innovative performance is affected by these capabilities rather than solely a technological one. The companies belong to representative industries in Brazil and encompass different technological intensities as in the OECD classification. The data was collected on visits, interviews and secondary data. The results show that, besides technological capability being an important component in the innovation performance, other capabilities explain why firms differ and perpetuate overtime.JEL codes: O31, O32

This article provides an overview of a professional graduate degree, the Master of Digital Media (MDM). The MDM is a unique joint venture of four institutions of higher learning in Vancouver, Canada (UBC, SFU, ECUAD, BCIT). Created with the support of the regional government, the program employs a collaborative project-based learning design model. The students learn innovation management by constructing digital media artifacts that attempt to solve real-world problems proposed by an industry partner. We describe the origins, academic structure and project-based course outlines, and emphasize the importance of remaining relevant to the changing landscape of the digital media industry while iteratively creating programs that provide our students with the opportunity to succeed upon graduation.JEL codes: O31, I23

At the outset of the 1990s Argentina, and other countries in Latin American implemented financial and tax reduction programs to promote innovation and technology management at all levels of the industrial sectors. Contrary to the expectations of Argentina's government, the result of innovation developed by the SMEs and Micros Enterprises sector was lower than the result obtained by other countries like Brazil, Colombia and Chile. In 1999, less than 15% of the funds and financial support programs were used by SMEs. Twenty years later, a specialization program entitled GTec was started with the aim of securing university graduates who will work in a “free-lance way” (not in the Enterprises). The purpose was to link SMEs with University and Science and Technology to develop regional economic systems. This work highlights some of the successful cases of entrepreneurial students from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Middle West Region of Argentina) who were employed between 2010 and 2012 and who reversed this trend. The relate shows how they moved from selected classical books cases and readings to concrete actions to build solid links between SMEs and the National Innovation System.JEL codes: O31, I21, I25

By using firm-level data provided by the 4th Community Innovation Survey (CIS4), this paper draws a comparison between service and manufacturing sectors with regard to innovation behavior and estimates also the relationship between innovation and economic performance in both sectors. The comparison shows that the service sector performs differently compared to the manufacturing sector for most of innovation behavior indicators. A significant positive relationship between innovation and economic performance is found in both manufacturing and service firms. In services, non-technological innovation has more a significant effect than technological innovation, whereas technological innovation has a more significant effect than non-technological innovation in manufacturing sectors. Also, the mix strategy of technological and non-technological innovation is the most efficient innovation strategy for economic growth in both manufacturing and service firms.JEL codes: O31, O14, L10, L25, C50, C54

This paper empirically examines the impact of labor resource composition on private research and development (R&D). A model is considered in which a sector of the economy, intensive in skilled labor, endogenously produces technological change through intentional R&D activities. Provided factor complementarity, the model predicts that a relative increase in the supply of unskilled labor culminates in a contraction of the private research sector, while a relative increase in the supply of skilled labor has the opposite effect. Those expectations are tested using a panel data set of OECD countries (1971-2003). New estimators are developed to assess the elasticity of R&D outlays with respect to factor supplies, distinguishing between relative endowment effects and scaling effects. Overall, the results are shown to be consistent with theoretical expectations, and stylized policy implications are discussed. This study brings forth an important qualification to the conclusions of recent papers emphasizing a positive relationship between population and innovation. The findings suggest that business R&D can thrive with a slow growing population, notably when the intensity of unskilled labor declines, as was the case during the past decades in OECD countries.JEL codes: O30, J11, J21