Outside-in thinking, value chain collaboration and business model innovation in manufacturing firms

Purpose This paper aims to explore how manufacturing firms pursue business model innovation (BMI) through their use of outside-in thinking. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected on 175 Chinese manufacturing firms. A regression model was used to verify the research results. Findings Manufacturing firms rely on outside-in thinking to develop BMI under different market and institutional environments. From a whole-value-chain perspective, interacting with customers and sharing information with suppliers are two key ways to develop BMI. Research limitations/implications Firms focus on customer needs, sense the dynamics of external markets and technology and seize market opportunities to measure outside-in thinking. Empirical results suggest using other measures of outside-in thinking. BMI itself can be multidimensional, so scholars could consider BMI’s diverse dimensions and measurements, which may demand different kinds of outside-in thinking. Practical implications Manufacturing firms can use outside-in thinking to overcome inertia and rigidity and increase their knowledge, information and technology. Managers should develop outside-in thinking to respond quickly to emerging economies. Managers should use value chain collaboration and improve the firm’s capacity to interact with customers and suppliers to apply the benefits of outside-in thinking to their BMI. Originality/value The study explores how outside-in thinking is a key driver of BMI. Applying the whole-value-chain view, it finds that interacting with customers and suppliers connects outside-in thinking with BMI. It also highlights the effects of intense market competition and volatile government regulation on BMI.

University patenting and licensing practices in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic - implications for global equitable access to COVID-19 health technologies

Universities play a vital role in developing health technologies to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the measures the top 35 UK universities receiving most Medical Research Council funding have taken to ensure global equitable access to health technologies in technology transfer. In October 2020 we sent Freedom Of Information requests and analysed universities' websites, to (i.) assess institutional strategies on the patenting and licensing of COVID-19-related health technologies, (ii.) identify all COVID-19-related health technologies licensed or patented, and (iii.) record whether universities engaged with the Open-COVID pledge, COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), or Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) COVID-19 licensing guidelines. Except for the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, UK universities have not updated their institutional strategies during the pandemic. Nine universities licensed 22 COVID-19 health technologies. Imperial College London disclosed 10 patents relevant to COVID-19. No UK universities participate in the Open-COVID Pledge or C-TAP, but discussions are ongoing. The University of Bristol signed up to the AUTM guidelines. Despite several COVID-19 health technologies being developed by UK universities, our findings suggest minimal engagement with measures that may promote equitable access. We suggest that universities review their technology transfer policies and implement global equitable access strategies for COVID-19 health technologies.

Commercialization Of Academic Research In Canadian Universities: Optimizing Technology Transfer

In recent years, in addition to the basic tenets of teaching and research, commercialization and innovation have become core priorities in higher education (Friedman & Silberman, 2003; Etzkowitz, 2003; Rasmussen et al., 2006). Universities have the right ingredients to be natural technology transfer incubators with a high influx of innovators and the capability to create new ventures and have high potential to generate a high level of economic development. Commercialization allows the results of innovative research to be utilized through transformation into marketable products or ‘technology transfer’. Since the 1980s, Canadian universities have begun dedicating resources and effort to discover how to best harness the innovation arising out of university-based research for knowledge transfer and revenue generation through commercialization. This thesis focuses on specific university inputs that influence the volume of technology transferred to industry through various commercialization channels and the impact each factor may have considering the institution size. Through data verified primarily from the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM) annual surveys of Canadian and American universities from 2011 to 2015, this study analyzes the effect of administrative characteristics on technology transfer at a university. While the results of the study do not provide much conclusive guidance on the reasons behind growth in university-industry technology transfer, they do suggest that there is some greater effect in large universities that leads to more technology transfer activity than in smaller universities.

Commercialization Of Academic Research In Canadian Universities: Optimizing Technology Transfer

In recent years, in addition to the basic tenets of teaching and research, commercialization and innovation have become core priorities in higher education (Friedman & Silberman, 2003; Etzkowitz, 2003; Rasmussen et al., 2006). Universities have the right ingredients to be natural technology transfer incubators with a high influx of innovators and the capability to create new ventures and have high potential to generate a high level of economic development. Commercialization allows the results of innovative research to be utilized through transformation into marketable products or ‘technology transfer’. Since the 1980s, Canadian universities have begun dedicating resources and effort to discover how to best harness the innovation arising out of university-based research for knowledge transfer and revenue generation through commercialization. This thesis focuses on specific university inputs that influence the volume of technology transferred to industry through various commercialization channels and the impact each factor may have considering the institution size. Through data verified primarily from the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM) annual surveys of Canadian and American universities from 2011 to 2015, this study analyzes the effect of administrative characteristics on technology transfer at a university. While the results of the study do not provide much conclusive guidance on the reasons behind growth in university-industry technology transfer, they do suggest that there is some greater effect in large universities that leads to more technology transfer activity than in smaller universities.

Cybersecurity Impacts for Artificial Intelligence use within Industry 4.0

In today’s modern digitizing manufacturing landscape, new and emerging technologies can shape how an organization can compete, while others will view this as a necessity to survive as manufacturing has been identified as a critical infrastructure. Universities struggle to hire university professors that are adequately trained or willing to enter academia due to competitive salary offers in the industry. Meanwhile, the demand for fields such as Artificial Intelligence, data science, and cybersecurity continuously rises with no foreseeable drop in demand in the next several years. This results in organizations deploying technologies with an inadequate staff that understands what new cybersecurity risks they are introducing into the company. Examined are how organizations can potentially mitigate some of the risk associated with integrating these new technologies and developing their workforce to be better prepared for looming changes in technological skill need. With the over a 10 % growth in organizations deploying Artificial Intelligence, the current cybersecurity workforce needs are over half a million. A struggle to find a viable workforce this research paper aims to serve as a guide for Information Technology managers and senior management to foresee the cybersecurity risks that will result from the incorporation of these new technological advances into the organization.

Finding frugal patent candidates: testing a thesaurus-based process model in the field of small household appliances

Purpose Identifying ideas for frugal innovations could substantially support engineers and managers in their work. Patents may be a promising source of ideas for frugal innovations. The purpose of this paper is to show how patents of this kind can be identified. Design/methodology/approach Prior work has developed a generic process model to identify frugal patent candidates. They use semantic analysis and a frugal thesaurus for searching and characterizing frugal patent candidates. The question is, whether and how this process model can be applied to a different industry successfully? The field of small household appliances is selected as a testbed because it is known for including frugal innovations while having a different business model than the industrial field in which the thesaurus was developed. Findings Applying the process model leads to a number of 22 strongly frugal patent candidates, which are manually evaluated based on three frugal characteristics. Due to this analysis, a high fraction of the candidates could be identified as frugal patents, which validates the process model. In addition, this paper outlines several options for enhancing the process model, e.g. by separating between a frugal search and a frugal evaluation thesaurus. Originality/value The process model to identify frugal patent candidates can be used by engineers and technology managers to find ideas for frugal innovations. This paper not only shows its applicability in the industry of small household appliances but gives the basis for its successful transfer to other industries.