Performance Measurement in Innovation Processes

This chapter introduces a new approach for performance measurement in product development and innovation processes. It shows that there is a great need in practice to increase the efficiency of product development processes because existing approaches are not sufficient to give enough information about a running project. These approaches both from science and industry are analysed and a new attempt is introduced that aims at the integration of concrete project data with information about the product by using Semantic Web technologies. Furthermore, the authors want to show that there is an emerging gap between productivity increase and the complexity of product development processes. This will be a challenge in the future and has high potential for research that has to be done in close cooperation with industry.

Finding and Growing Innovators

Innovation is seen by many organizations as the next frontier to be managed in order to gain a competitive advantage and remain sustainable. Innovation management shares much in common with knowledge management, both being recognized as involving a resource, which resides in individuals, can be valueadded and transferred via (teams of) people, is difficult to capture, is highly contextual, and continually evolving. We believe that innovation is even harder to define, represent, and transfer due to its intrinsic relationship with creativity and novelty generation. Nevertheless, we seek to determine if patterns of behavior do exist which can be used to predict likely future innovative behavior. Current psychometric tests used to test for innovation or creativity often do little more than identify various personality traits or characteristics which can be used to suggest an individual who might be suitable to fill a recognized gap in the organization. We offer an approach, building on our work along psychological lines with tacit knowledge measurement in the ICT domain that seeks to capture responses to real scenarios experienced by recognized innovators and entrepreneurs. These scenarios and responses are used to evaluate the degree to which the respondent can be considered an innovator so that areas of personal or professional development may be identified.

Supporting Innovation Through Knowledge Management in the Extended Enterprise

Managing of knowledge for innovation in an extended enterprise (EE) environment is a key issue. This in turn requires effective utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT). This chapter addresses the application of ICT for knowledge management (KM) needed for innovation in industry. An ICT-based KM system to support innovation process in EE environment (i.e., to support mastering of the innovation process) is presented. The main objective of the new AIM system is to provide the means of stimulating the creation of innovative ideas in general, and specifically on potential product/process improvements and on problem solving. The AIM system supports collection of such ideas throughout EE from people involved with the products and processes, as well as a development of the collected ideas into innovations.

E-Entrepreneurship

The fundamental advantages of information technology in regard to efficiency and effectiveness assure that its diffusion in society and in most industries will continue. The constant and rapid development of Internet-related technologies in the accompanying net economy has inevitably had a significant influence on various possibilities for developing innovative online business concepts and realizing these by establishing entrepreneurial ventures. The term “e-entrepreneurship” respectively describes the act of founding new companies that generate revenue and profits independent from a physical value chain. With this in mind, this article focuses on the process of creating electronic customer value within the net economy as well as the success factors and development phases of electronic ventures. Elaborating on these points should help to clearly define the area of e-entrepreneurship and provide evidence that the establishment of electronic ventures is worthy of special consideration in the context of research on information technology entrepreneurship.

Ambient Intelligent (AmI) Systems Development

This chapter introduces the concept of ambient intelligence (AmI), a new concept in the area of information and communication technology (ICT), from a systems development perspective in the manufacturing environment. To create an AmI environment, requires the use of a combination of technologies. The AmI environment can be enabled through the use of computers that are embedded into everyday objects and through the use of wireless communication. The interaction between these embedded devices and the human user is improving through advancements in the area of natural interaction. The aim of the chapter is to provide a better understanding of AmI. To this end the following tools are presented, an AmI definition, typology, and taxonomy. The typology solidifies the understanding of AmI by highlighting the elements that need to be considered when developing an AmI system. The taxonomy shows the evolution of technologies towards development of AmI.

Integrating E-Supply Networks

The Internet has reached a stage of maturity where its innovative adoption and implementation can be a source of competitive advantage. Supply chains are one of the areas that has reportedly benefited greatly, achieving optimisation through low cost, high efficiency use of the Internet, almost seamlessly linking global supply chains into e-supply networks. This field is still in its academic and practical infancy, and there is a need for more empirical research to build a robust theoretical foundation, which advances our knowledge and understanding. Here, the main aims and objectives are to highlight the importance of information flows in e-supply chains/networks, and the need for their standardisation to facilitate integration, legality, security, and efficiency of operations. This chapter contributes to the field by recommending a three-stage framework enabling this process through the development of standardised Internet technology platforms (e-platforms), integration requirements and classification of information flows.

The Relationship Between Internet Entrepreneurs, Idea Generation, and Porter's Generic Strategies

The chapter discusses the use of business strategies for pure Internet firms. It separates the strategic choices and directions used for idea generation, during start-up, and beyond business or brand establishment. Corroborating much of the literature, it argues that traditional notions of strategy might be inappropriate for some dotcom firms due to the high level of complexity, speed of change and competitiveness characteristic of the Internet environment. As has been observed by research, idea generation on the Internet can involve prospecting and reacting quickly to markets to a greater extent than amongst traditional businesses. Likewise, start-up strategies often appear to involve flexibility and an openness to strategic change in response to the fast dynamic nature of the online market. The chapter suggests alternative strategy models that might be useful in our understanding of Internet business creation and development.

The Role of Web Sites and E-Commerce in the Development of Global Start-Ups

This chapter introduces the role of Web sites and e-commerce in the development and growth of global higher education start-ups. The extant concepts, research, and experiences the chapter builds on is the literature concerning e-commerce and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) together with published research on global start-ups. It argues that the key results, evidence, and experience, from the empirical case study research, highlight clear and precise reasons for the development of Web sites and e-commerce by the global start-ups. The limitations of the results are that they report early stage development of Web sites and e-commerce by global start-ups. The authors plan to undertake “follow-up” interviews in future years to develop a longitudinal study. Furthermore, there are important implications of the study for entrepreneurs, policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and educators for the specific field of e-commerce developments for global start-ups.

International Dimensions of Innovation in Technology

This chapter develops a set of seven dimensions, which may be applied to each sovereign nation as a guide to allow for systematic consideration and comparison of opportunities and challenges across borders. Under the assumption that innovation itself requires a unique set of skills or opportunistic settings, the chapter then explores each dimension’s applicability to situations particularly associated with innovation in technology. Using current research and examples from world business, the chapter moves to a brief discussion of projected future developments in the field and related research needs.

Rhizomic Network Analysis

There is a general consensus that networks and community interaction provide a critical mechanism for innovation. Of recent years, we have seen a growth of interest in the role of social networks, partly fuelled by the fact that the contemporary business world has become more dynamic, complex, and global. Today an increasing number of people work in geographically dispersed networks and across organisational boundaries. With this comes the need to re-think the ways in which innovation emerges across locations, enterprises, and geographies and consequentially, how this can be analysed. However, methods for the analysis of social networks have yet to better understand knowledge dynamics of innovation. It is argued for the need to (1) switch the unit of analysis from individuals’ ideas to social construction of knowledge and (2) use the Deleuzo-Guattarian rhizomic view on networks to reveal not only the dynamics of meaning creation, but also those of meaning disruption, both essential conditions for the emergence of new concepts. A new approach, rhizomic network analysis (RNA) is explored, which aims to move analysis beyond mere description of relationship structures towards enabling the differentiation of the type of knowledge dynamics emergent. An example of an entrepreneurial business network is used to illustrate this approach.