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Exploring business ecosystem properties with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship activities
(2019)
With the rising importance of the external economic environment of organisations and open and collaborative innovation, the last two decades have seen an emergence of diverse literature streams and practitioner interpretations of business ecosystems. However, most of the scholars’ attention has been on ecosystems that function in the information and telecommunication technology industries and interactions between actors driven by economic interests. Moreover, business ecosystems analysis was embedded in the strategic management and organizational design literature, which primarily investigated the ecosystem leader using examples of powerful multinational corporations such as IBM, Microsoft, Google and Apple. These new powerful corporations significantly influenced the nature of the global competitive landscape (e.g. app economy), enabled the emergence of new business models (e.g. platform business) and even new forms of entrepreneurship (e.g. blogging and self-publishing). However, little remained known about the actors at the periphery of business ecosystems – that enable the functioning of such ecosystems - and the entrepreneurship processes that take place in the ecosystem environment.
With the goal of contributing to the extant literature and creating a better understanding of the central factors that foster evolution, and the functioning and growth of today’s business ecosystems, the first project of this doctoral dissertation provides an overview of the ecosystem concept evolution in literature and in practice. Based on the findings of this project, this dissertation takes two qualitative empirical directions. To expand on the scope of the ecosystem concept, in the second project it looks at open and collaborative innovation processes in the fashion industry, analyses the role of individuals in business ecosystems and highlights the emergence of new forms of entrepreneurship. Following a worldwide growing startup trend and increased corporate engagement in diverse corporate venturing activities, the third project empirically investigates inter-organisational knowledge flows and value creation and capture processes in the innovation ecosystem environment. This dissertation contributes to the open and user innovation and entrepreneurship literature and provides practical implications for managers and entrepreneurs interested in participating in an existing business ecosystem or considering starting one on their own.
Any innovation process naturally goes hand in hand with a strong potential for failure. Up to as many as 90% of all innovation projects fall to termination before their successful completion, with even higher termination rates in the pharmaceutical industry. Such terminations can have detrimental effects on the project members involved. Yet, surprisingly, as project members make up the most important reason for the success of innovations, research has hitherto scarcely noted the human side of innovation project terminations. Consequently, this study aims to analyze how to retain the innovative functioning of project members after such setbacks.
This dissertation develops a framework to study the processes involved and analyze the influence of termination characteristics on project members. Resilience, or positive adaptation despite adversity, serves as the dissertation’s underlying framework and is adapted to the innovation context. To measure the resilience of project members after termination and to analyze the influence of termination characteristics on resilience, this dissertation develops the resilience construct innovator resilience potential (IRP), embedded in the innovator resilience (IR) framework. Herein, IRP stands for the potential in individuals for future innovative functioning and coping with future setbacks. The IRP construct consists of six malleable facets: self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, hope, optimism, self-esteem, and risk propensity.
This dissertation theoretically develops and tests this definition and operationalization of IRP in a qualitative and a quantitative study. The qualitative study was conducted in a world-wide operating hospitality company that underwent a large-scale innovation project termination. The quantitative field study took place as an online questionnaire that 238 innovators completed entirely (180 innovators had experienced an innovation project termination). A total of 326 innovators completed the first part of the questionnaire regarding IRP. After developing IRP in the qualitative study, it became operationalized, tested, and validated in the quantitative study. Furthermore, the quantitative field study tested the relationship of IRP with future innovative functioning, which has great importance for the success of future innovation projects. A second step identifies factors influencing IRP.
The outcomes of the quantitative field study show that IRP strongly relates to project commitment, which represents future innovative functioning of project members, as project commitment is important for the success of innovation projects. The strong relationship hinges on having experienced a termination beforehand. Therefore, IRP is important in the ongoing work of innovators following an innovation project termination. It is thus important to strengthen IRP after a termination, as this has a strong relationship with project commitment and as such future innovative functioning. Furthermore, this dissertation identifies social support as an influencing factor on IRP. More precisely, emotional support of the leader and organizational support provided through a climate of psychological safety strongly relate to IRP. In contrast, the support from family and friends does not relate to IRP. The dissertation found only work-related social support to strongly influence IRP. These findings result in theoretical and practical implications on how best to support project members during and after an innovation project termination.
In addition, the general practical discussion of this dissertation presents five steps leading to IRP and guidelines for a post termination debriefing to provide leaders with practical advice. The theoretical findings suggest that IRP can be used to measure the influence of innovation project terminations on project members and that IRP is important for future innovative functioning and for future coping of project members. The findings build the basis for future research in this nascent research field.
Innovations have become essential drivers of success for companies in most industries. However, innovative efforts often fail due to a lack of internal support. Past research has shown that internal resistance arises when employees perceive innovations as threatening the core of the organization, its identity. How employees can be led to identify with much innovations has remained largely unsolved. Drawing on organizational psychology, this study proposes a new conceptual framework which includes an in-depth understanding of employee identification with innovations, its identity-related antecedents and its consequences. The framework is tested by means of large-scale empirical studies among more than 150 members of a leading healthcare organization. Results indicate that the proposed framework has high explanatory power for employee identification with innovations, employee behaviours and the innovations’ success in the market. Based on these results, an innovation-identity toolkit is derived which enables executives to systematically pursue identification management and integrate it into their innovation management practice. Accordingly, the present book is relevant for both academics and managers in the fields of organizational behaviour and innovation management.
Past research has identified that innovation portfolio management is about efficiently managing the right innovation portfolio projects. However, the relevant literature has fairly unobserved decision processes which help to maximize the value of the entire innovation portfolio. This work analyzed decision procedures within the context of innovation portfolio management; especially, the project go/stop-decision processes. Founded on a theoretical basis two decision making experiments were developed and a distinct set of hypotheses by two large-scale experimental studies were tested.
The present work is aimed at making a valuable contribution to conceptual research about decision making in the context of innovation portfolio management, and the experimental based research field. The results of these studies help to get a detailed understanding of the decision making processes and may lead to a better understanding of project management within an innovation portfolio by firms and by decision makers in general.
Dass Teamarbeit für das Hervorbringen von Innovationen wichtig ist, konnte bereits hinreichend empirisch bestätigt werden. Dabei hat sich für den Erfolg von Innovationsprojekten (z.B. in der Produktentwicklung) vor allem die Qualität der Zusammenarbeit im Team als entscheidend herausgestellt. Welche Kompetenzen Teams dafür benötigen und wie diese Kompetenzen z.B. durch Training und Teamentwicklung gefordert werden können verbleibt jedoch noch weitestgehend offen.
Diesen beiden Fragen widmet sich diese Arbeit, indem sie zunächst auf dem Stand der bisherigen Team- und Innovationsforschung für erfolgreiche Innovationsprojekte relevante Teamkompetenzen definiert und mögliche Personalinterventionen ableitet. Dazu konnten 11 relevante Teamkompetenzen identifiziert und den 4 Kompetenzbereichen der fachlichen, methodischen, sozialen und selbststeuernden Teamkompetenz zugeordnet werden. In Anlehnung an das Modell der Verhaltensdeterminanten und an gruppenpsychologischen Erkenntnissen sowie auf der Basis einer Expertenbefragung konnten dazu verschiedene Maßnahmen in den Bereichen Mitarbeitertraining, Teamtraining und Teamentwicklung identifiziert werden.
Die theoretisch fundierten Erkenntnisse werden schließlich im Modell der Teaminnovationskompetenz, kurz TIK-Modell, zusammengefasst, das im Wesentlichen einem in der Teamforschung üblichen Input-Prozess-Output-Modell entspricht. In diesem Modell werden Zusammenhange
der verschiedenen Trainings- und Teamentwicklungsinterventionen mit den einzelnen Teamkompetenzen einerseits sowie zwischen den Teamkompetenzen und dem Erfolg von Innovationsprojekten andererseits postuliert.
Zur empirischen Überprüfung des TIK-Modells wurde im Jahr 2007 die Studie ‚Training for Innovation’ durchgeführt, an der sich 34 in Deutschland ansässige Unternehmen beteiligten. Befragt wurden dabei mittels einer Online-Befragung Manager, Projektleiter und Teammitglieder zu ihrer Zusammenarbeit, Teilnahme an spezifischen Trainings- und Teamentwicklungsmaßnahmen sowie zu projektspezifischen Rahmenbedingungen und dem Erfolg abgeschlossener
Innovationsprojekte.
Die Angaben konnten dabei auf Projektebene verdichtet werden, wobei 95 vollständige Teams bzw. Innovationsprojekte letztendlich ausgewertet werden konnten.
Die postulierten Zusammenhänge wurden auf der so gewonnenen Datenbasis mit Hilfe der multiplen Regressionsanalyse überprüft, wobei einige neue Erkenntnisse gewonnen werden konnten. Zunächst weisen nicht alle der 11 definierten Teamkompetenzen einen direkten positiven Zusammenhang mit dem Projekterfolg auf. Als bedeutsam zeigen sich vor allem die interne Kooperationskompetenz neben einer Anpassungs- und Improvisationskompetenz im Team, wohingegen fachliche Kompetenzen als Wissens- und Erfahrungsressource keine signifikanten Zusammenhänge zeigen.
Vor allem teambezogene Trainings- und Entwicklungsmaßnahmen wie Teamtraining, Teamcoaching, Teammoderation oder auch Zielvereinbarungen und Feedback stehen in einem positiven Zusammenhang mit einzelnen oder mehreren Teamkompetenzen. Damit kann von möglichen positiven Effekten solcher Interventionen in Bezug auf die innovative Teamarbeit ausgegangen werden.
Individuelle Weiterbildung einzelner Teammitglieder unmittelbar vor oder während der untersuchten Projekte zeigt in dieser Arbeit keine Zusammenhänge mit den Kompetenzen von Innovationsteams.
Hierzu müssen weitere Untersuchungen folgen, die die Trainingsmaßnahmen differenzierter nach ihrem Einsatz, ihrem Inhalt und ihrer Qualität betrachten und dabei auch die Kompetenzen der einzelnen Teammitglieder berücksichtigen, welche nicht Gegenstand dieser Arbeit waren. Eine Ausnahme stellt jedoch die Teilnahme einzelner Teammitglieder an Konferenzen oder ähnlichen Veranstaltungen wie Tagungen und Messen dar. Diese weist einen
signifikant positiven Zusammenhang mit dem Wissen und der externen Kooperation der untersuchten Teams auf.
Die Ergebnisse zum TIK-Modell werden zum Schluss dieser Arbeit noch einmal zusammengefasst dargestellt sowie in ihrer Bedeutung für die Forschung und Unternehmenspraxis diskutiert.