Dear Colleagues,
On behalf of Industry and Innovation, we are pleased to share the ninth issue of the journal for 2024.
This issue opens with an interview article showcasing the research process behind the insightful study that earned Soomi Kim the Best Paper Award at DRUID 2024. It also proposes new findings on the patterns and organization of learning across different firms and types of innovation, the role of credit supply constraints in R&D investment, and the relationship between public R&D support, external knowledge acquisition and performance feedback.
We hope you will enjoy the reading:
Interview
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13662716.2024.2420782
Click to follow link." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shortcuts to award winning research: analogies from 'shortcuts to innovation: the use of analogies in knowledge production'
https://www.tandfonline.com/author/Schmallenbach%2C+Leo
Click to follow link." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Leo Schmallenbach & Gianluca Biggi
Abstract
In this interview, we explore the innovative research that earned Soomi Kim the Best Paper Award at DRUID 2024. As a partner of DRUID, Industry and Innovation presents an exclusive view into the research journey behind Kim's celebrated work. Her study 'Shortcuts to Innovation: The Use of Analogies in Knowledge Production' examines how innovators venture into uncharted territories, using analogies to transfer knowledge from related domains. Using structural biology as the empirical setting, her findings highlight both the advantages and limitations of employing analogy-based technologies, such as machine learning, to speed up discovery. In this conversation, Kim reveals the inspiration, challenges, and breakthroughs that defined her research, providing a unique perspective on the paths leading to her pioneering work. Just as her paper examines how analogical reasoning and its technological automation serve as shortcuts in knowledge production, this conversation offers a unique lens on the pathways that shape groundbreaking research.
Research Articles
Searching wide or staying close: the relative use of distinct organisational learning types in high and low novelty innovations
Russell Seidle
Abstract
Despite the acknowledged importance of organisational learning for new product development, there is a dearth of research into the relative use of distinct learning types as the innovation process unfolds. Our paper more fully engages with this issue, contrasting innovations of high versus low technological novelty. A qualitative study of innovation projects in the biopharmaceutical and medical device industries reveals that learning patterns vary in significant ways throughout the innovation process based on the underlying technological novelty of the offering. High novelty projects begin with an emphasis on vicarious learning from distant referents and shift to more internal experiential learning over time. Meanwhile, low novelty projects begin with experiential learning, pursue vicarious learning from proximate (industry peer) referents, and finish by returning to internal experience. We theorise a more general sequence of learning types throughout the innovation process based on our findings.
R&D investments under financing constraints
Marek Giebel & Kornelius Kraft
Abstract
We analyse the effect of credit supply constraints on R&D conditional on the financial strength of firms and heterogeneity in the restrictions in the supply of external financing. The financial strength of firms and access to external financing are identified by an exogenously calculated rating index. Restrictions in the supply of external financing are determined by the specific time period (crisis vs. non-crisis) and the balance sheet strength of the firm's main bank in terms of bank capital. Our results support the theoretical prediction that financing constraints negatively affect R&D. We find that firms with a lower financial strength reduce R&D to a stronger extent in times of stress on financial markets and when the firm faces restrictions in external financing. Additionally, the effect does not persist over time.
Direct and moderating effects of public R&D support on external knowledge acquisition: the interaction with performance feedback
Andrea Martinez-Noya & Esteban Garcia-Canal
Abstract
We argue that public R&D support may not only lead firms to increase their technological cooperation breadth, enhancing knowledge acquisition, but also influence how firms frame and approach R&D alliance decisions in response to their innovation performance feedback. From a behavioural perspective it is firms performing above or below innovation aspirations the ones that are more willing to gain access to new sources of external knowledge. We argue that while public funding of a firm's R&D activities has a positive direct effect on cooperation breadth, it also exerts a negative moderating influence when firms deviate from their innovation aspirations, because managers' external knowledge acquisition strategies tend to align with the objectives of subsidised projects. Using a panel of technological-intensive Spanish firms, we find support for our hypotheses, showing the importance of incorporating performance feedback as a key factor when analysing the impact of public R&D instruments on firms' collaborative behaviour.
Old and new: a dynamic capabilities perspective of learning and unlearning
Arabella Nigg-Stock, Adrian Klammer & Leo Brecht
Abstract
In this study, we explore innovation processes of innovation-efficient and innovation-inefficient firms. In particular, we investigate how learning and unlearning unfold from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. We employ a case study research approach to analyse learning and unlearning patterns in 24 firms, divided into innovation-efficient and innovation-inefficient firms. We find two different sets of patterns that distinguish innovation-efficient from innovation-inefficient firms. Our results reveal that innovation-efficient companies can quickly shift between learning and unlearning to dynamically orchestrate resources to deal with changes in the environment. In this sense, learning and unlearning are sources of dynamic capabilities, while their interplay is what makes capabilities actually dynamic. Furthermore, we provide implications for practitioners on how to navigate through innovation projects and design innovation management concepts more efficiently.
Best regards
Alessandra Perri and Vera Rocha
Co-Editors-in-Chief, Industry and Innovation
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Vera Rocha
Copenhagen Business School
Kilevej
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