Contenu du sommaire : Knowledge based innovation processes

This article investigates the birth phase of a platform-ecosystem's life cycle. Building on the case of a Near Field Communication platform-ecosystem, it explores how the development of architectural knowledge shapes the birth stage of the business ecosystem's organizational form. The results of the case study provide evidence that the birth of a business ecosystem relies on a collaborative process of exploration made up with four sequences: ideation, test and experimentation, value expansion and reflective inquiry. This sequential process shapes the development of the various tangible and intangible assets encapsulated in the architectural knowledge that enables the definition of the business ecosystem's organizational form.JEL Codes: M21, O32, O34

While past researchers have reported knowledge management (KM) as being a determinant of innovation, little has been done to empirically investigate the interrelationship between KM processes, the regional context and entrepreneurial opportunity formation. We assume that the regional context and the entrepreneur's individual factors interact with and influence the type of knowledge issued and mobilised by the entrepreneur. Through two opposite cases, one of entrepreneurial opportunity discovery and the other of entrepreneurial opportunity creation, we analyse how, in each case, entrepreneurs use inputs from the environment in their KM processes to create their company. In doing so, this study founds two patterns of entrepreneurial innovation and enriches the literature on Entrepreneurship by way of the literature on Knowledge Management.JEL Codes: L26, O30, O32

This article focuses on the multi-partner relationships between agrofood firms and external stakeholders to innovate, which some authors today call the Open Innovation model (Chesbrough, 2003). Based on various studies we have conducted on innovation and cooperation processes in agrofood companies, we show that innovation processes are not always “open”, as some companies prefer to develop their innovations internally. For various reasons (confidentiality, obstacles in protecting innovations, difficulties in establishing relationships in the absence of internal R&D, etc.) these firms can choose to innovate without recourse to external partners. Furthermore, we discuss the hypothesis that geographical proximity between companies and stakeholders would automatically result in a greater ability to absorb external knowledge and technologies. “Remote” cooperation is strong and organised proximity plays a key role in facilitating the cooperation. JEL Codes: D21, L20, L66, O32

We rely on a qualitative study of three industrial firms to investigate the role of knowledge recombination capabilities in the absorptive process. We compare two firms aiming at “new-to-the-world” innovation with a firm aiming at producing “new-to-the-firm” innovation. We find that the formers resort to formal, codified, controlled knowledge processing systems, while the latter rather makes use of informal, loosely defined processing systems. We interpret this rather counter intuitive result by the necessity for firms engaged in radical innovation to take risk into account. We advocate taking risk into account when dealing with absorptive capacity and invite to rethink the link between knowledge management and types of innovation.JEL Codes: O32, O32, O31, D81, O32

In the Knowledge era, innovation and knowledge are intertwined, being innovation a knowledge intensive process that firms must manage to become innovative. This study aims to analyze the relationships between the design elements required to build an innovative enterprise and the implementation of social media. It investigates how the practices of knowledge management are affected and continuously renewed under the pressure of internal/external forces like new technological tools/ habits and marketplace imperatives. The paper adopts a conceptual analysis approach, exploring different domains of the literature. A comparative analysis of short cases, based on a documentary research, illustrates theoretical hypothesis. In the effort to design an innovative enterprise, social media are useful as support to foster interpersonal interactions, restoring the human dimension to the core of organizational concerns. They do not create innovation but they may spur efficiency, agility and innovation if appropriate governance and strategic intent are at play. JEL Codes: D89

The article questions the effectiveness of strategies adopted by territorial cultures concerning the diffusion of environmental innovation. What would be the optimal decentralization for energy and transport? The collected data were compared with an analysis scheme proposed by Ulrich Beck, that of “emancipatory catastrophism”, a positive catalyst of sustainability culture. These show that the widespread introduction of different types of electric vehicles better characterize the appropriate forms of decentralized climate risk. The Centre and the Periphery play a positive role in sustainable strategies. Pioneer automobile markets have difficulty in converting environmental values, strongly expressed, into effective solutions for pollution abatement, while emerging markets are struggling to emerge from the Utopia of sustainable cultures theories. JEL Codes: R4, O33

The programs and policy research on innovation neglect certain types of innovations and innovators, particularly innovations made by women. The aim of this paper is to provide a new framework for research on gender and innovation. The literature on business, management and economics provides evidence that innovations introduced by women in female-controlled sectors have not yet been fully explored. We rethink innovation literature and show how gender is embedded in innovation processes. By taking into account gender, innovators become less invisible. The existing literature on innovation has a gender blind vision: only male-implemented innovations are considered. Adding gender perspective helps to better assess the innovator's profile. This will make the innovative literature more extensive and help to identify new ways of innovation in new and different areas. Policymakers are expected to set more appropriate and effective programs enhancing innovation by supporting all innovators in all sectors. JEL Codes: O30, O31

This paper is one of the first to discuss service sector productivity in Palestine. We have empirically addressed the main factors that responsible for growth in productivity in the Palestinian service sector, and discussed the impact of intra-sectoral heterogeneity on the growth of productivity using a panel data provided by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The results show that FDI has a positive and significant influence on the growth of labor productivity. Capital-intensive service sectors have a high influence on the growth of labor productivity sectors compared to other sectors. The political instability in Palestine negatively affects the growth of productivity in service sector. Meanwhile, public services and traditional services such as retail trade, the sale and repair of motor vehicles and land transport are the main areas responsible for weak growth in service productivity. We found that to increase productivity in traditional services, new policies should be adopted, based on the use of ICT by service firms or public institutions. Government should adopt an efficient plan aimed at absorbing the thousands of unskilled workers who lose their jobs inside Israel, and this should be based not on expansion of the public sector but on the rehabilitation of these workers, employing them in the various economic sectors. JEL Codes: L8, O3, C1