Technovation最新文献

Digital technologies have brought about fundamental changes to innovation intermediaries’ business models, and the ways in which they facilitate innovation and the adoption of these technologies. Digital technologies have also stimulated the emergence of non-human intermediaries such as crowdsourcing platforms. Yet knowledge is lacking on how intermediaries and intermediation are changing under the influence of digital technologies. The special issue on Innovation intermediaries and emerging digital technologies was designed to contribute to filling this gap. In this editorial, we reflect on these major developments and introduce the articles published in this special issue, which advance knowledge on how intermediaries contribute to the adoption of digital technologies, how they respond to technological change, and how they support intermediation for innovation. Building on the insights from this special issue, we suggest several avenues for future research.

This research examines the evolving role of universities as agents of social and economic change, through academic social intrapreneurship implemented digitally. Utilizing an in-depth case study of an international virtual incubator that emerged from a large public research university's internal funding, we study a shift beyond economic motivations, highlighting the importance of universities' non-pecuniary contributions to society. We unveil a unique model of academic social intrapreneurship that integrates research, entrepreneurship, digitization, and social responsibility. The descriptive case study method examines the virtual incubator's emergence, processes and activities, exploring how digitally implemented academic social intrapreneurship can address global concerns. The findings highlight the significance of achieving legitimacy at multiple levels and adopting a decentralized approach to innovation, indicating effective means for engaging diverse stakeholders and addressing local and global issues. The findings suggest that academic social intrapreneurship is a potential avenue for universities to enhance societal contributions. We present theoretical insights and actionable advice for universities, academic intrapreneurs, and virtual incubators, emphasizing the importance of promoting academic social intrapreneurship for a positive societal impact. We conclude by advocating for universities' role in fostering transformative cross-disciplinary collaborations and expanding their societal engagement in the digital era.

Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship is a growing observable phenomenon, often referred to as tech4good, and highly valued in society due to the major benefits it provides in meeting the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. However, academic research specifically dedicated to socio-tech entrepreneurial ventures is still incipient. To address this research gap, the paper develops a systematic literature review of 238 peer-reviewed studies on social, technology and socio-tech entrepreneurship published from 1988 to 31 December 2023. Through descriptive and content analysis methods, the paper develops the first framework conceptualizing Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship as an autonomous topic within the entrepreneurship research domain. Drawing on the literature, the conceptual framework shows that Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship is distinct from Social Entrepreneurship or Technology Entrepreneurship, which legitimates it as a conceptually relevant group of organizations/practices and as an autonomous research topic within the business sciences field. The paper's comprehensive assessment of the literature and the proposed conceptual framework also unveil topics that are specific to Technology or Social Entrepreneurship but have not been addressed yet for Socio-Tech Entrepreneurship, offering potential future research opportunities and contributing to a research agenda. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

To what extent do STEM founders benefit from having founded an incorporated business upon returning to employment? Addressing this question would indicate the career value of engaging in entrepreneurship for STEM founders—but an answer remains elusive in the current literature. Drawing on human capital theory, we investigate the earnings consequences for STEM founders who return to employment post-founding a business and whether the earnings are contingent on their rank (managerial versus non-managerial) in the returning organization. Comparing founders to employees with similar characteristics in the STEM labor force in Sweden between 1990 and 2015, we find that founders, on average, earn marginally more (about 1.5%) on returning to employment. However, the earnings are likely to vary significantly depending on rank in the returning organization, as well as other factors such as founders’ age, previous earnings in wage employment, and the size of their employer on return. We discuss the implications for research and practice.

Innovation is crucial to ensure firms’ competitiveness in constantly changing environments. Innovation processes help organize and systematize innovation in firms, thus facilitating the adaptation of new technologies and input sources. However, firms encounter many challenges during different phases of the innovation process, which can prevent them from implementing innovations successfully. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper aims to analyze the ability of gamification to serve as an effective and efficient tool for overcoming the various challenges encountered during different phases of the innovation process. First, we synthesize the intrinsic, extrinsic, cognitive and emotional mechanisms that are activated by gamification interventions as well as the business outcomes achieved during each of the innovation phases into a framework based on context-intervention-mechanism-outcome (CIMO) logic. Then, we critically evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of current gamification interventions with respect to innovation to provide recommendations for improving the integration of these methods in the future. Following our analysis, we explore avenues for future research, and we suggest future implementation opportunities for organizations.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is one of the popular AI technologies which can produce multiple kinds of contents including music, text, image, as well as synthetic data. As GenAI technology can produce various forms of contents, organizations must face ethical dilemmas as to where this technology is likely to be used. Organizations do not want to compromise their ethical standards and compliance policies. Against this backdrop, the aim of this study is to examine if GenAI technology could improve the future performance of the organizations. This study deployed ethical dilemmas and environmental dynamism as two moderators acting on different linkages between adoption of GenAI and organizational future performance. With the help of literature review and theories, a theoretical model has been developed conceptually which was validated using PLS-SEM technique with the feedback of 326 responses from different types of organizations. This study found that the adoption of GenAI could improve exploratory and exploitative innovation under the moderating effects of environmental dynamism and ethical dilemmas. Moreover, it highlighted that the application of GenAI could improve organizational performance.

The literature on connectivity-enabled innovative business models (from here on ‘digital business models’, DBM) is rapidly growing, and the literature explores the connection of digitalization with business models, for instance, the way businesses create, deliver, and capture value by using digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). This study contributes to the field of Digital Business Models (DBM) by structuring the literature based on 101 studies drawn from top-tier academic journals (AJG3 and AJG4 journal quality levels). Based on our bibliometric analysis of the emerging literature, we identify four clusters of digital business model research: 1) digital business model innovation, 2) Internet of Things business models (IOT business models), 3) digital platform business models, and 4) digital servitization business models. Moreover, we position the 8 special issue articles in this landscape of digital business models. Finally, we propose some novel avenues for future research.

Digital transformation is revolutionizing many industries and increasingly more organizations are adopting digital technologies in their processes. The adoption and integration of digital technologies are boosting the production of data that can be collected, analyzed, and exploited for decision-making through big data analytics. Data can play a significant role in healthcare since it is a complex system where every decision is affected by risk and uncertainty. This study investigates how big data analytics (BDA) enables the use of risk management (RM) practices, resulting in improving the quality of healthcare services (QoHS). It also analyses the indirect effect of BDA on the QoHS through the use of RM practices. To this aim, 204 responses from Italian healthcare professionals were collected and investigated via the lens of Organizational Information Processing Theory using PLS-SEM methodology. The results revealed that BDA contributed positively and significantly to the use of RM practices, while only the use of risk identification and monitoring practices impact healthcare service quality significantly and mediate the relationship between BDA and QoHS. The results provide managerial insights about the use of data to support the decision-making process in healthcare showing that decision-makers should focus their effort on integrating data-driven tools and capabilities with RM practices to reduce the uncertainty surrounding this environment and ensure a higher quality of healthcare services.

This editorial provides insights for academics considering the role of a guest editor for a special issue in Technovation, an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to technological innovation and entrepreneurship. As a guest editor, you have the opportunity to thoroughly explore exciting themes, introduce innovative approaches, and catalyze new research avenues. The editorial also offers guidance on what defines a ‘special’ issue, the balancing act in its scope, and the importance of a well-defined theme to attract quality submissions. Additionally, it examines the roles, management, and responsibilities of guest editors, emphasizing the need for diverse and international guest editor teams. Practical advice on writing the editorial and insights from the author's experience as a special issue editor contribute to the understanding and successful execution of the guest editor role.

Consumer-centered innovation with a far-future time frame is challenging because of the ineffectiveness of traditional market research tools in that context. Drawing on scholarly research that has identified creative action as a means of capturing the visionary knowledge of non-experts in scenario development, we propose consumer flash fiction as a methodology that allows firms to access consumer visions about the far future. Flash fiction stories are very short science fiction stories of 150-300 words and flow-written by non-experts in workshops designed specifically for that purpose. However, we find that the involvement of non-experts such as consumers in scenario development is rare. This limits our understanding about the type(s) of insights that farfuture flash fiction-based consumer scenarios can provide to strategists during the early opportunity sensing phase of innovation. To address this gap, we present and analyze the outcomes of three studies that collected about 859 consumer flash fiction stories on different far-future topics. In addition, we contribute to the conceptualization of the so-far lacking understanding of the complementarity between the traditional expert opinion-based science fiction scenario development approaches and consumer flash fiction.