Search mechanisms and innovation: An analysis across multiple perspectives

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Search mechanisms and innovation: An analysis across multiple perspectives A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Search mechanisms Innovation Multiple perspectives

In this paper, we introduce the themes addressed and the approaches used in this special issue to investigate the relationship between search mechanisms and innovation across multiple level of analysis. We start by briefly discussing the state of the art related to the complex relationship between search and innovation, revealing an important gap as the lack of attention about the great variety and diversity of search mechanisms agents may adopt when facing different degrees of innovativeness. Taking the lens of the multiple perspectives, we try to shed new light on this gap, and thus deploy a comprehensive understanding of this complex relationship. We briefly discuss how the articles in the collection each contribute to such an understanding across multiple perspectives. We conclude that, together, the various contributions specify that searching for innovation may require the enactment of complementary approaches. This special issue paves the way towards an important agenda for the future study of search mechanisms and innovation.

1. Introduction In a world of increased complexity and dynamism in the range of technologies that firms must absorb in their product/service and organizational processes, innovation originates from complex search processes, where knowledge is added, deleted, transformed, modified, recombined or simply reinterpreted in multiple ways. Traditionally, the innovation literature focused on the ‘where’ to search, entailing choices mainly dealing with spatial and temporal dimensions. Different spaces and times mean different challenges: organizational routines may be quickly readapted; organizational roles should be accustomed to recognize and value novelty and originality; finally, the maturity of specific technological and scientific trajectories along their life-cycles should be carefully considered. Specifically, searching across different spaces may call for searching at the intersection of distant technological and functional domains (e.g., Arts and Veugelers, 2014; Callaert et al., 2014; Capaldo et al., 2017; Corradini and De Propris, 2017; Wu and Wu, 2014), different industries (e.g., Köhler et al., 2012; Mina et al., 2014; Xu, 2014), or along the different phases of the innovation process (Aloini and Martini, 2013; Cantarello et al., 2012; Van Den Ende et al., 2015) such as the fuzzy front end, new product development, and commercialization. It may also mean involving heterogeneous partners along the value chains (Chiang and Hung, 2010; Ren et al., 2015) through co-creation practices (Greer and Lei, 2012) and tools including social media (Appio et al., 2016; Martini et al., 2013), or even leveraging on different geographical locations (Sidhu et al., 2007) through regional clusters. Searching for knowledge over time may also lead organizations to (re)discover old concepts or principles recombining and translating them into new contexts (e.g., Messeni Petruzzelli and Savino, 2014; Nerkar, 2003; Salge, 2012; Savino et al., 2015; Schulz, 2001). Differently, a second literature stream focused on the ‘how’ to search, hence investigating the internal integration and development practices needed to translate knowledge into innovative solutions. Indeed, external search remains ineffective without the ability of the firm to communicate and share internally what has been absorbed from the external environment (West and Bogers, 2014). To this end, the deployment of internal integration mechanisms may play a key role in supporting employees' effort in sharing and articulating external knowledge by strengthening their social ties. Then, internal integration and development practices may enable coordination (e.g., Cillo and Verona, 2008; Criscuolo et al., 2017; Foss et al., 2013; Laursen and Salter, 2014; Roper et al., 2017), absorption (Fabrizio, 2009; Ferrares-Méndez et al., 2015), complementarity (Cassiman and Veugelers, 2006; Grimpe and Sofka, 2016), decentralization and institutionalization (e.g., Fiet et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2013; McKelvey, 2016; Poetz and Prügl, 2010; Xie et al., 2016) of acquired knowledge. All these mechanisms can force organizations to pursue a variety of approaches simultaneously (backward vs forward looking, trial and error search, rational vs heuristic search), rather than relying upon a single one. In a different vein, the how to search may include the use of innovation or knowledge intermediaries (Zhang and Li, 2010) that may help firms like SMEs, who usually have limited technology scouting capabilities, in technological exploration. Yet, a third research stream has stressed the presence of different knowledge ‘loci’ of search dynamics, that may exist at networks/R & D alliances (Capaldo and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2015; Vanhaverbeke et al., 2014), communities including incubators and industrial parks (Afuah and Tucci, 2012;

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.04.008

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Christensen et al., 2016; Langer and Seidel, 2015), organizations from startups to incumbents (Han et al., 2012; Spender et al., 2017), group/team (Eriksson et al., 2016; Salge et al., 2013), and individual (Dahlander et al., 2016; Salter et al., 2014) levels. This stream adds to the ‘where’ and ‘how’ dimensions a characterization of the actor engaged in the process of knowledge search and innovation. Each locus requires a different ‘architecture of attention’ (Nielsen, 2011), since agents differently behave and interpret knowledge while searching across various and multiple dimensions.

2. Multiple lenses for a complex phenomenon Relying on a single perspective as outlined before would have several limitations. For instance, it would not allow for consistent comparisons, generalizations, or formulation of hypotheses testable through large-scale analyses, for example leveraging upon the emerging methods related to big data investigation (Gerard et al., 2016). On the contrary, a multiple level analysis may allow to better understanding how to escape local search behaviors. It can also shed new light on how organizations may leverage on distant knowledge in a more explorative way or with less commitment of resources. Finally, the interface between internal routines and external environment may be better characterized and investigated. In this vein, and despite the well-recognized relevance of search practices and mechanisms to innovate, few contributions exist where authors empirically analyze the simultaneous influence of search at multiple levels. Lopez-Vega et al. (2016) combine two knowledge search dimensions like search space and search heuristics in order to come up with four search paths: situated paths, analogical paths, sophisticated paths, and scientific paths; such an effort goes into the direction to join the ‘where’ and the ‘how’ perspectives. A similar effort has been undertaken by Martini et al. (2017) who argue that in order for external search practices to be effective, firms need to deploy internal integration mechanisms and idea management systems. Instead, Hohberger (2014), by looking at searching practices within collaborative contexts (i.e. alliances) characterized by geographical proximity s, undertakes a similar effort by contributing to the link between the ‘where’ and the ‘loci’ dimensions. Time has come to provide insights concerning from studies integrating the ‘where’ (spaces and times), ‘how’ (modes), and ‘loci’ (actors) perspectives of search. Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to bring together high quality research that furthers the understanding of search innovation dynamics following a multiple perspective. With this Special Issue scholars disentangle the peculiar relationships between search and innovation in order to unveil how knowledge is recombined following various rules and schemes in the attempt to originate different types of innovations. Therefore, the present Special Issue serves as a forum for researchers to discuss their works and recent advances, hence offering original and novel insights on the interplay between search mechanisms and innovation. The contributions in this Special Issue make use of rich conceptual backgrounds, and bring new value to bear on the study of relationships between search mechanisms and innovation. Together, the different contributions create empirically grounded theoretical insights into how investigating a number of search mechanisms from different perspective can pave the way to a new understanding. By means of text mining1 (Van Eck and Waltman, 2011), clustering, and visualization routines of the software VOSviewer v1.6.52 applied to the abstracts of the selected papers, we were able to identify four core themes in the background of the topic under question:

• Cluster 1: Exploration/Exploitation and Search (4 papers, see Fig. 1) • Cluster 2: Social Media and Search (2 papers, see Fig. 2) • Cluster 3: Open Innovation and Search (6 papers, see Fig. 3) • Cluster 4: Inter-organizational relationships and Search (7 papers, see Fig. 4) Putting them against the three main search mechanisms (where, how, and loci), we summarize the different perspectives on the where, how, and loci described into the papers (Table 1): All contributions take into account at least two Search mechanisms, whereas four entail all of them simultaneously. A number of reasons make each emerging cluster, in the background of the Special Issue main topic, relevant for the audience of Technological Forecasting & Social Change. The domains of knowledge search mechanisms covered in the Special Issue are multiple and include the technological domain, the market domain related to customer needs and preferences in B2B and B2C relationships or competitors' products, industries like aerospace, healthcare, biotechnology, and organizational contexts like the world of medical professions, sales departments, academic inventors, multinational enterprises, SMEs, startups and technology spinoffs or the one of emerging industrial nations (for which read China). The spaces where innovative knowledge is searched are also represented in terms of organizational, geographical and knowledge distance. The modalities of search discussed are explored at both the micro level of how individuals search new knowledge and at the level of organizations and involve tools like social media or inter-organizational relationships like the ones of firms with universities or with innovation intermediaries. The “how” new knowledge is searched also refers to the role played by attributes of inter-organizational relationships like trust or commitment or to firms' internal organizational mechanisms—like their IT infrastructure, their organizational practices like the decentralization and the employee involvement in innovation processes, and their strategies like the imitation from partners or industry leaders, the acquisitions of firms and the related knowledge integration processes. Concerning Cluster 1 (‘Exploration/Exploitation and Search’), it expands upon—and opens new paths alongside—existing research. Indeed, recent contributions (Heracleaous et al., 2016; Paliokaite and Pačesa, 2015) highlight the need to further focus on the challenges arising from the implementation of exploration, exploitation, or ambidextrous practices, especially when it comes to develop capabilities along the cognitive, behavioral, and organizational dimensions to get different types of innovations (e.g., radical vs incremental). Also, Fernández-Esquinas et al. (2015) calls for a better understanding of the latent dimensions underlying the use of exploitation and exploration mechanisms when university-industry interactions are deployed in order to search for innovations in specific innovation systems. Cluster 2 (‘Social Media and Search’) adds some interesting perspectives to what Raford (2015) argues about the developments of social media, 1 To create a term map based on a corpus of documents, VOSviewer distinguishes four different steps: identification of noun phrases (Van Eck et al., 2010a,b) by using different filters; selection of the most relevant noun phrases; mapping and clustering of the terms by using a unified framework ( Van Eck et al., 2010a,b; Waltman et al., 2010); visualization of the mapping and clustering results. 2 http://www.vosviewer.com/

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Fig. 1. Network views of abstracts identifying cluster 1.

Web 2.0, and crowdsourcing as tools enabling innovation through search with multiple internal and external stakeholders. The use of digital tools to stimulate organizational routines change at the level of new product development process (Bell et al., 2014) is also a stream being nurtured by our contributions. Another interesting perspective we tackle is consistent with the value creation modes Kim (2016) proposes by means of stylized models for social media platform ecosystem. An emergent research stream on Open Innovation in this journal may find interesting match with the contributions in Cluster 3 (‘Open Innovation and Search’). At least three facets can find fertile ground in the contributions of this cluster: first, assessing the role of social networks of users via swarm intelligence logics (Martinez-Torres and Olmedilla, 2016); second, empirically investigating the effects of inbound open innovation on innovation deployment and firm performance (Wang et al., 2015); third, disentangling the role and link of IT tools with open innovation practices in order to increase firms' competitive technology intelligence. Finally, Cluster 4 (‘Inter-organizational relationships and Search’) is consistent with the networked foresight approach advanced by Heger and Boman (2015) where partners play around some key parameters in order to enact inter-organizational endeavors; Schaper-Rinkel (2013) provides with empirical evidence of the role of future-oriented technology analysis in enacting inter-organizational collaborative efforts among several stakeholders with the aim to shape and define research and innovation agendas; Heger and Rohrbeck (2012) build up a novel framework by combining multiple foresight methods in order to allow managers to cope with the multiple challenges of searching for new business fields, including the decentralization of the decision making process and the involvement of multiple stakeholders. 3

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Fig. 2. Network views of abstracts identifying cluster 2.

It clearly emerges that this collection of articles not only presents original contributions, but also create multiple connections with existing scholars within the Technological Forecasting & Social Change scientific community, thus enriching their research in a range of domains.

3. Overview of contributions 3.1. Exploration-exploitation and search mechanisms The four contributions of Cluster 1 investigate the arena of exploration, exploitation, or combination thereof. Lee et al. (2017) investigate the interplay between organizational memory and organizational learning in stimulating the new product development (NPD) performance of Korean firms operating in technologically turbulent markets. They define organizational memory as the stored information and/or organizational knowledge (about facts, events, and processes) that can be brought to bear on present decisions role of organizational memory; instead, organizational learning is the continuous process that enhances the collective actions of individuals that create and transfer knowledge based on their understanding of organizational contexts. Using the survey method, they argue that in order for these firms to reach better NPD performance, they should escape organizational memory routines in that they tend to bring more exploitation-driven outcomes. Notwithstanding the importance of exploitation, firms should engage in asymmetric efforts by opting for more exploration-driven endeavors. The difficult balance between exploration and exploitation is further challenged by the technological turbulence of the markets: in such cases, firms should be able to switch to more exploration-oriented actions by searching for external knowledge sources and ideas. Cohen and Munshi (2017) play with the role of temporal exploration by looking at how search unfolds in domains where little to no former experience exists. By means of thematic analysis on information retrieved with semi-structured interviews, authors explore how first-time academic founders search for seed funding, an important and difficult stage in the commercialization of new technologies in the biotechnology sector. Whereas prior work focuses on inventive and entrepreneurial search, their study considers business aspects of commercialization, i.e. innovation search. It finds that, in the absence of problem-relevant search schemata, old (academic) knowledge domains are recombined in novel ways in new (entrepreneurial) domain search. Furthermore, it shows that the “how and where” of innovation search is associated with what they refer to as the ‘New Domain (ND) orientation’, or the founder's behavioral characteristics and motives for why they choose to engage with the entrepreneurial domain. Accordingly, this study brings to light four new domains orientations (society-, role-, technology-, or venture-focused), where knowledge coming from old institutional, intellectual, social, and spatial facets is adopted and adapted to be used to funding new ventures. Scaringella et al. (2017) intertwine three perspectives, namely the interplay between internal and external knowledge search, the recombinant mechanisms and absorptive capacity, and the influence of search dynamics on the development of radical and incremental innovations. In so doing, 4

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Fig. 3. Network views of abstracts identifying cluster 3.

their study investigates the distinction between potential and realized absorptive capacity by using a qualitative lens to better understand how firms may: i) benefit or suffer from external knowledge dynamics; ii) assimilate knowledge from their customers; iii) recombine new knowledge with existing knowledge; iv) successfully create value in radical innovation. By carrying out 36 interviews in three spin-offs over four years, they study these aspects by looking at the specific case of spin-offs from research centers. In their empirical qualitative study, authors studied how the absorptive capacity of scientific spin-offs determines the benefits and challenges of customer involvement in the pursuit of radical innovation. Through longitudinal case studies on new product development and co-creation, they show the importance of spin-offs developing both potential and realized absorptive capacities to internalize customer knowledge and technology emergence awareness and to simultaneously offset customers' lack of technical knowledge in formulating their needs. Both market and technical knowledge appeared to be important for spin-offs, and these were available from both customers and the parent research center. Jensen and Clausen (2017) focus on capabilities' initial emergence and manifestation in young organizations. They ground their research into two perspectives: entrepreneurship and strategic management. Insights from entrepreneurship provide understanding of the focal role of individuals' agency and knowledge during organizations' youth; insight from strategic management highlight instead consequences of this agency and knowledge for exploration and exploitation capability emergence and manifestation. By taking on these two perspectives simultaneously—while studying the firms' individual and organizational level—they provide evidence on the following issues: how the knowledge search capabilities of exploration and exploitation emerge and become manifest during the early stages of the firm's life-cycle; the importance of considering the individual level antecedents of capability emergence; the crucial role of routines for deliberate learning for capability emergence; how behaviors and routinizing during the early stages of the firms life-cycle lead to organizational inertia. Authors take on two distinct theoretical perspectives—across two levels of analysis—while elucidating how two distinct, yet related, search capabilities emerge and become manifest during organizations' youth.

3.2. Social media and search mechanisms The two papers contributing to the identification and characterization of Cluster 2 unveil how—and to what extent—firms adopt and adapt formal and informal social media tools in their searching routines. Bashir et al. (2017) carry out twenty-five interviews with senior NPD managers from multinational companies (MNCs) in the attempt to investigate the role of social media as an external source of new market knowledge. Whereas the literature focuses on the use of social media tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google analytics) for supporting collaboration in NPD internally, this work investigates how MNCs use social media to obtain knowledge and ideas about new products from external sources. Focusing on the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, a new framework is advanced. Even though MNCs managers find social media useful and perceive them having some advantages (e.g., broadening the 5

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Fig. 4. Network views of abstracts identifying cluster 4.

market view, understanding current trends, taking information about customers' needs, detecting competitors' products knowledge), results suggest that their use is limited and rather informal. Overall, the analysis suggests that a formal use of social media in developing new products can still help MNCs in generating more insights from various sources that exist both inside and outside the organization. A formal use of social media can indeed reduce the risk of potential information loss and produce an enormous amount and variety of data that MNCs can convert into relevant information for new product development (NPD) processes. Given the informality of knowledge search practice from social media shown by the authors, the paper provides interesting insights for future research of how knowledge creation and absorption from social media can be leveraged through realized absorptive capacity. Del Giudice et al. (2017) explore the role, challenges, and benefits in innovation dynamics triggered by Social Media Networks (SMNs) when small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the fashion industry use them for innovation search endeavors. By adopting a customer led innovation view, this paper provides a description of how SMEs can reduce the uncertainty on their profitability by relying on SMNs as external drivers for supporting internal innovation search processes. On the basis of the extant literature on information system and social network analysis, the authors cope with the challenge of estimating the ROI through SMNs by taking into account five drivers, as: structural dimension of SMEs; relational behavior between consumers and SMEs; cognitive dimension of costumers; legitimization; knowledge transfer. Via the Classification Regression Tree (CART), the research purpose was investigated on 2548 SMEs belonged the fashion industry and based either in Italy or the United Kingdom. Overall, authors find that the structural dimension, legitimization, and relational/behavioral dimension enhance the innovation process and in turn firm's ROI; they also find a positive relationship between knowledge inflows and outflows in SMNs and the ROI. This study is of importance to academics and practitioners due to the increasing significance of adopting SMNs in fashion industry to stimulate innovation search. Managerial recommendations are made to practitioners in social media and the fashion industry to plan and develop new products or services as well as the findings allow to enhance the current literature on consumers' and organizational prospective.

3.3. Open innovation and search mechanisms Six papers contribute to the identification and characterization of Cluster 2 and they investigate the different facets through which open innovation practices can be—and are—used in searching for new knowledge sources. Rangus and Slavec (2017) study the interrelatedness of three concepts that stand as relevant pillars in the open innovation literature, namely decentralization, employee involvement, and absorptive capacity. Authors move a step forward in assessing this interaction in the light of mediation effects among internal/external organizational capabilities variables and firm performance. They test the proposed model on a large sample of 421 manufacturing and service firms. Results show that employee involvement and absorptive capacity mediate the relationship between decentralization and innovation performance, whereas greater employee involvement and higher capability to identify and absorb external knowledge make the influence on a firm's innovation performance stronger. From a practical point of view, the research indicates the interplay of different dynamic capabilities on a firm's innovation performance and may help managers to ascertain the importance of internal mechanisms for business success. 6

7

Cluster 3 (Open Innovation and Search)

Cluster 2 (Social Media and Search)

Lee et al. (2017): “Organizational Memory and New Product Development Performance: Investigating the Role of Organizational Ambidexterity”

Cluster 1 (Exploration/ Exploitation and Search)

Cammarano et al. (2017): “Accumulated stock of knowledge and current search practices: the impact on patent quality”

Rangus and Slavec (2017): “The interplay of decentralization, employee involvement and absorptive capacity on firms' innovation and business performance”

Del Giudice et al. (2017): “The Performance Implications of Leveraging Internal Innovation through Social Media Networks: An Empirical Verification of the Smart Fashion Industry”

Bashir et al. (2017): “Use of Social Media Applications for Supporting New Product Development (NPD) processes in Multinational Corporations (MNCs)”

Jensen and Clausen (2017): “Origins and Emergence of Exploration and Exploitation Capabilities in New Technology-Based Firms”

Scaringella et al. (2017): “Customers Involvement and Firm Absorptive Capacity in Radical Innovation: The Case of Technological Spin-Offs”

Cohen and Munshi (2017): “Innovation Search Dynamics in New Domains: An Exploratory Study of Academic Founders' Search for Funding in the Biotechnology Industry”

Papers

Cluster

Table 1 Main perspectives on the search mechanisms.

Searching in scientific (via non-patent references) and technological (via patent references and/or third parties' patents) spaces.

Virtual spaces provided by social media tools (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google analytics) in which online discussion forums can contribute to search for new product development (NPD) practices. Small and medium-sized enterprises navigating virtual spaces (e.g., social media networks) to search for innovation.

Relying on prior relevant knowledge to stimulate new exploration/exploitation in new technology-based firms.

Temporal exploration by recombining four different facets of old domains knowledge in new domains search (intellectual, institutional, social, and spatial facets). Focus on the antecedents of new domain orientations.

Perspectives on Where

Increasing the quality and quantity of new ideas while reducing ROI uncertainty through five social media networks mechanisms: structural dimension, relational behavior, cognitive dimension, knowledge transfer, legitimization of new ideas. Searching for new innovation sources leveraging on the mediation mechanism of employee involvement and absorptive capacity in the relationships between decentralization and innovation performance. The importance of the external environment and dynamic capabilities is highlighted. Patent-based framework to critically assess the relationship among accumulated stock of knowledge, current technological strategies, knowledge search (KS) practices, and quality of the innovation output. Precisely, how much effort has been focalized on specific technical areas, who is engaged in the KS process, and how previous experience accumulated within the stock of knowledge affects the quality of the innovation outcome.

Acquisition and assimilation (potential absorptive capacity), transformation and exploitation (realized absorptive capacity) of knowledge from customers in the firms' pursuit of radical innovation. Blending capability as firms' capability to integrate and balance different types of knowledge, forces, and stakeholders. Routines for deliberate learning mediate the effect of exploitation/exploration behavior and foundermanagers' prior relevant knowledge on capability emergence. Mastering these capabilities is closely tied to firms' ability to search for innovations. Formal and informal uses of social media tools to acquire customer knowledge (e.g., trends, preferences, products performance, perceptions).

Searching for new knowledge by leveraging on organizational memory and organizational learning. Better new product development performance through asymmetrical balance of exploration and exploitation. Four distinctive recombinant patterns have been identified: venture focused, society focused, technology focused, role focused.

Perspectives on How

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R & D intense bio-pharmaceutical and technology hardware & equipment companies.

Top executives from Slovenian manufacturing and service firms from the Business Directory of the Republic of Slovenia. Companies operating in a wide range of industries.

Small and medium-sized enterprises located in Italy and UK and operating in the fashion industry.

Founders of firms created with the intention of commercializing new technology through in-house research and development. Information retrieved from Norwegian Research Council in cooperation with the Norwegian equivalent of the IRS—the Internal Revenue Service. Multi-National Companies in the Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry.

Three spinoffs from CEA–LETI (focus on micro- and nano-technologies and is designed to transfer technical knowledge to business for a fee and through agencycreated start-ups)

Academic founders looking for initial funding, in two biotech clusters: Switzerland and USA

Chief-level (C-level) executives (e.g., Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and other top executives) in Korean companies across several industries.

Perspectives on Loci

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Cluster 4 (InterOrganizational relationships and Search)

Cluster

Table 1 (continued)

8

Ritala et al. (2017): “Tensions in R & D networks: Implications for knowledge search and integration”

Gattringer et al. (2017): “The Challenge of Partner Selection in Collaborative Foresight Projects”

Rijnsoever et al. (2017), “Seduced into collaboration: A resource-based choice experiment to explain make, buy or ally strategies of SMEs”

Bi et al. (2017): “From imitation to innovation: The discursive processes of knowledge creation in the Chinese space industry” Barirani et al. (2017): “Can Universities Profit From General Purpose Inventions? The Case of Canadian Nanotechnology Patents”

Stefan and Bengtsson (2017): “Unravelling appropriability mechanisms and openness depth effects on firm performance across stages in the innovation process”

Radaelli et al. (2017): “Users' search mechanisms and risks of inappropriateness in healthcare innovations: The role of literacy and trust in professional contexts”

Searching for innovative solutions in different market and technological spaces.

Strategic organizations searching for solutions in complex economic ecosystems.

Searching for innovation in different stages of the innovation process.

Searching for new knowledge in different spaces with the support of ICT tools. Searching for vertical knowledge sources including suppliers and customers; or horizontal knowledge sources such as competitors; or finally societal knowledge sources entailing consultancies, universities and other research institutions. Searching and innovating in research-based online environments allowing innovative companies and experts to meet and collaborate.

Netten and Dong (2017): “Information Technology and External Search in the Open Innovation Age: New Findings from Germany”

Kokshagina et al. (2017): “Fast-connecting search practices: On the role of open innovation intermediaries to accelerate the absorptive capacity”

Perspectives on Where

Papers

Adopting and implementing open innovation practices without initial absorptive capacity. Open innovation intermediaries compensate for this weakness for organizations embarking in distant search for new knowledge sources. A new type of open innovation intermediary implementing a ‘novelty-search’ algorithm. Disentanglement of the different mechanisms to adopt with users (i.e. patients) in order to activate new knowledge generation routines while reducing the threats of inappropriateness. The use of both traditional and digital information is also assessed. Investigating the appropriability mechanisms and openness depth impact on firms' innovative performance (i.e. efficiency and novelty). Exploring the different impact of eight Intellectual property protection mechanism (IPPMs): formal (patents, trademarks, designs and copyrights), semi-formal (contracts and trade-secrets), informal (lead times and products complexity). Openness depth is assessed in terms of collaboration depth with eight types of partners. Discursive processes of knowledge creation helping space industry organizations to transitioning from imitators to global innovation competitors. In depth exploration around the knowledge search and technology transfer theme with a focus on university-industry interlinkage in an emerging science-based technology. Relevant question of whether – and how – universities can compete against firms within the markets for technology. Identification of nine attributes of an innovation project and assessment of their impact on collaboration options (i.e. choice of a make, buy, or ally). BY means of a discrete choice experiment, four different profiles of SMEs emerge, each one with a different attitude towards search: externally oriented SMEs, make SMEs, allying SMEs, flexible SMEs. Embarking in inter-organizational relationships to carry out effective collaborative foresight projects. This is done by identifying crucial criteria for partner selection. Discussion and empirical evidence of knowledge search and integration processes in R & D networks and the role of perceived dialectical and paradoxical tensions in these processes. How such

Using information and communication technology (ICT) tools to support open innovation initiatives, leveraging on the attention-based view of the firm. The impact of ICT tools for external search is assessed against breadth and depth along vertical, horizontal, and societal dimensions.

Perspectives on How

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Collaborative foresight approach was applied by the project initiators (Mechatronic Research Center and University) in cooperation with five companies (three in manufacturing and two in IT). R & D networks in Dutch aerospace industry.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the United Kingdom and Germany.

Canadian organizations or inventors operating in the Nanotechnology industry.

Space industry organizations in the Chinese market economy.

Manufacturing companies from the three countries (Finland, Italy, and Sweden).

Cases of professional service organizations in the healthcare industry.

IdexLab, an innovation intermediary to solve technical problems.

German firms operating in different industries.

Perspectives on Loci

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Cluster

Table 1 (continued) Perspectives on Where

Searching in virtual environments.

Searching for knowledge sources in new market and technological domains.

Papers

Jang and Nemeh (2017): “Salespeople knowledge search behavior and sales performance: An investigation of printing equipment industry”

Aghasi et al. (2017): “Acquisitions of small hightech firms as a mechanism for external knowledge sourcing: The integration-autonomy dilemma”

tensions are perceived and what kind of solutions and mechanisms are adopted to resolve them depends on the network role of the firm and the characteristics of the network. Identification and characterization of how salespeople search for new knowledge and what is their impact on sales performance. An interorganizational information systems is used with the purpose of search engine and knowledge filtering and sorting thousands of copiers and printers by brand, by range, by speed or by specification. Different searching and learning styles can be adopted. The role played by the integration-autonomy dilemma in the acquisitions of small high-tech firms is studied. Post-acquisition strategies are considered a mechanism to acquire new knowledge.

Perspectives on How

Acquisitions of small high-tech firms by large listed firms operating in different industries.

European salespeople belonging to leading global printing manufacturers.

Perspectives on Loci

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Cammarano et al. (2017) advance a multidimensional patent-based framework useful to investigate the relationships among accumulated stock of knowledge, current technological strategies, knowledge search practices and quality of innovation output. In the spirit of this Special Issue, they argue multiple perspectives are necessary in order to uncover the ‘where’ and ‘how’ dimensions to search for knowledge and information; how much effort has been focalized on specific technical areas; who is engaged in the knowledge search process and how previous experience accumulated within the stock of knowledge affects the patent quality. The methodology is applied to 25,583 patents filed by 68 R & D intense bio-pharmaceutical and technology hardware & equipment companies. Results confirm the existence of such relationships. Authors find that the use of patent references (PRs) and NPRs is positively related to the quality of innovation output. Moreover, when companies have largely employed open innovation to accumulate knowledge, they continue to adopt similar practices in current R & D efforts. Netten and Dong (2017) show the role and magnitude of information technology (IT) investments as a potential antecedent to spur open innovation initiatives. Precisely, authors look at how IT investment influences firms' external search from multiple perspectives: breadth and depth along vertical, horizontal, and societal dimensions. By carrying out analyses on a sample of German firms coming from a large-scale panel database (Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP) database), authors find out that firms' IT investment supports their open innovation initiatives through broadening the breadth and deepening the depth of external search. However, these relationships deserve a more nuanced view. Indeed, excessive IT investment may do more harm than good by causing attention problems, making the breadth and depth of external search decline. Then, an inverted U-shape relationship emerges. If it is true that IT investment enhances firms' ability to acquire more information from external knowledge sources, it also true that they can bring abundant information from external knowledge sources to firms, hence making it increasingly difficult to widely and deeply use these information from available sources. Therefore, beyond a certain threshold, excessive IT investment is likely to cause information overload, forcing firms with limited attention to narrow down and go less deeply into their external knowledge sources. Kokshagina et al. (2017) argue that firms engaging in distant search activities seek to leverage on external knowledge to innovate. In this open innovation process, absorptive capacity is often seen as an important precondition. However, if we imagined cases in which (different kinds of) absorptive capacities are internally absent but ‘outsourced’ to an open innovation intermediary, the story could provide interesting insights. This is the focus of the study. In fact, based on an exploratory case study of an intermediary platform that proposes novelty driven search practices—ideXlab—results show how this intermediary can accelerate the value recognition function of absorptive capacity and, therefore, can potentially facilitate further diffusion of knowledge. The intermediary, by relying on contemporary techniques of browsing big data based on “novelty-search” algorithm, increases the chances to speed up the knowledge acquisition process and allows for more efficient open innovation initiatives. Radaelli et al. (2017) investigate the engagement of users (i.e., patients) in knowledge search processes in the context of professional service organizations in the healthcare industry. Since user engagement enables superior innovations and competitive advantages, earlier research on knowledge search mechanisms and lead-user innovation provide relevant indications on how private firms can explore external knowledge, or elicit knowledge search mechanisms from external sources. The transferability of their findings to professional service organizations is dubious. Professional service organizations like those in healthcare face severe risks that user engagement reduces the appropriateness of innovations—a risk which the abovementioned research streams have mostly ignored. Studies that instead recognize such risk, have suggested that professional service organizations would inhibit user engagement, or tightly control it—at the expense of innovation radicalness. Hence, this study employed a mixedmethod approach to investigate how professional service organizations actually enabled user engagement with knowledge search processes, while protecting against the risks of innovation inappropriateness. Authors analyzed five innovation processes in healthcare organizations using rich data from qualitative research to develop a theoretical model explaining the relationship between professional service organizations and their service users. They then implemented a regression model with 110 patients, to validate the model from the perspective of service users. This study shows how users' search mechanisms on digital sources of information like the Internet when users lack absorptive capacity can jeopardize the effectiveness of their relationship with service providers. Stefan and Bengtsson (2017) set out to investigate how—and to what extent—appropriability mechanisms and openness depth impact innovative performance across different stages of the innovation process (idea generation, development, and commercialization). In assessing the linkage between openness and performance, authors look at the influence of risks of imitation and misappropriation. Addressing some recent calls for research on such a topic, they study the effects of three groups of intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) and openness (in terms of collaboration depth with eight types of partners) on two types of innovation performance (efficiency and novelty across innovation process phases). By combining two data sources (international online survey and patent data), a sample of 340 manufacturing firms from three European countries (Finland, Italy, Sweden) is exploited. When it comes to the appropriability mechanisms, results highlight nuances in their use and impact along the stages of the innovation process. In the early stages, semi-formal IPPMs (i.e. contracts, trade secrets) are the best choice; informal IPPMs (i.e. lead times, products complexity) contribute to reaching better performance both in terms of novelty and efficiency in later stages; formal IPPMs (i.e. patents, trademarks, designs, copyrights) have an overall negative impact on either innovation stages performance. When they consider the openness depth they find that collaboration with universities and other non-competing partners positively impacts novelty, especially in the early stages. For later stages, it is suggested to collaborate with customers in order to get better performance. Finally, competitor collaboration has a positive impact on in the commercialization stage. 3.4. Inter-organizational relationships and search mechanisms Cluster 4 is identified by seven contributions which, from different perspectives, dig into the link between inter-organizational relationships (i.e. networks, university-industry, clusters, and alliances) and search mechanisms. Barirani et al. (2017) ground their research on the university-industry interlinkage, trying to answer the under investigated question of whether universities can compete against firms within the markets for technology. Authors build upon the theoretical foundations of the markets for technology framework and institutional differences between the public and the private sector, and compare the ability of universities and firms to benefit from ‘general purpose’ inventions. General purpose inventions stand on technological solutions which, thanks to their high level of technological generality may find applications in different markets and knowledge domains. They can also enact search dynamics and new knowledge recombination mechanisms. In this vein, authors investigate whether general purpose inventions owned by universities have a longer life than their private sector counterparts. Their analysis is based on a sample of 789 nanotechnology patents assigned to Canadian organizations or inventors between 1990 and 1997. Their results indicate that university-owned patents survive for a shorter period than firm-owned patents. Furthermore, they find that this survival rate gap between universities and firms decreases as invention generality increases. However, survival rates 10

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for firm-owned patents are always higher than university owned patents, thus suggesting that universities might not be able to profit as much as firms even from their most general purpose inventions. Within this field, with a focus on the knowledge search and technology transfer, they shed new light on the question of whether universities can compete against firms within the markets for technology. Gattringer et al. (2017) investigate the topic of foresight through the lenses of inter-organizational collaborations. A fundamental aspect in collaborative foresight is the selection of suitable partners; how to select them and which criteria are used are the key issues addressed in this research. Authors adopt an action research approach applied by the project initiators (one university institute and a mechatronics research center) in cooperation with five companies (three in manufacturing and two in information technology). Searching for innovation in the domain of ‘HumanMachine-Interface and Machine-to-Machine-Communication as Enablers for New Business Options (time frame: 2030)’, the involved actors aim at making the objectives of their collaborative foresight (e.g. joint creation of future knowledge and “out-of-the-box-thinking”) concrete. Enablers of such an endeavor are special requirements concerning different types of proximities (i.e. technological, organizational, and geographical), trust, and commitment. To these aims, the authors found out that notwithstanding the value of technological similarity, relying on higher degrees of technological diversity is crucial. Instead, organizational proximity is less important, assuming that alignment mechanisms are put in place (i.e. developing common language and terminology). Geographical proximity seems helpful in bringing the organizations together and facilitating the exchange of tacit knowledge. Finally, since actors mainly cope with collaborative foresight with non-competing firms, criteria such as trust and commitment, often referred as key factors, turned out to be of little relevance. Ritala et al. (2017) argue that R & D networks are complex structures where a variety of different actors with different goals and motivations interact. Moving from the dominating structural perspective, and leveraging upon the fact that for R & D initiatives to be successful should rest on effective knowledge search and integration, it is important to investigate the role of emerging tensions in these structures. By focusing on the R & D networks in the Dutch aerospace sector, the authors find evidence of a multitude of dialectical and paradoxical tensions having implications for knowledge processes characterizing firms' internal activities and R & D networks. In particular, dialectical tensions are related to the competing choices that cannot be fully resolved long-term, while paradoxical tensions are related to the persisting variety of contradictory organizing elements within the same context. Three types of paradoxical tensions are identified: innovation goal alignment (balancing exploitation and exploration), coopetition (balancing collaboration and competition), and actor interdependence (balancing independent and collective coordination). Two main dialectical tensions emerge: openness of core knowledge exposure (choosing between open versus closed), and inclusiveness of knowledge sharing behavior (choosing between inclusive versus selective). Beyond illustrating how firms in R & D networks perform their knowledge search routines and deploy integration processes, the authors show which types of tension-resolving mechanisms are adopted in different types of networks. Bi et al. (2017) look at new product innovation potential in technologically complex industries. Within the Chinese space industry-specific context, they argue that knowledge is created, shared, and utilized through discursive processes. Drawing on theories of knowledge creation and discourse, the authors examine how the discursive practices of imitation, adaptation, and the reconfiguration of competitors' technologies have transformed China from a duplicative assembler to a dynamic innovator in the global space industry. For instance, discursive processes use licensing and on-the-job-training as the source of knowledge and help firms to imitate with creative thinking and in-house research. Then, firms redefine and transform specialized knowledge for generating collective knowledge. With this collective knowledge, the Chinese space industry seeks technical and management solutions associated with performance, capacity, and reliability. Its story is therefore a witness to the quantum jump from imitation to innovation through discursive search, considered as vital source of knowledge for integrating learning, strategic assets, and expertise to meet the evolving needs of sole end-users. Rijnsoever et al. (2017) attempt to predict the conditions under which firms that engage in an innovation project choose one of three knowledge acquisition strategies (KASs): internal R & D, buy, and collaborate. This is done by linking the KASs to a series of attributes of the innovation project derived from the Resource-based View (RBV) theory, and using a discrete choice experiment that is conducted on a sample of 427 SMEs operating in the United Kingdom and Germany. Four latent classes of firms having distinctive choice patterns have been identified, as: 1) externally oriented firms; 2) internally oriented firms; 3) collaborators; and 4) flexible firms. The authors demonstrate that the choices of a KAS are related to the past behavior of the firm and only externally oriented firms or flexible firms are likely to change their KAS. Jang and Nemeh (2017) empirically investigate whether and how salespeople's learning styles and knowledge structures affect performance. This study investigates whether and how higher performance outcomes in an inter-organizational information system are accomplished by salespeople’ searching behavior when they entail specific learning styles (i.e. deep versus surface) and knowledge structures (i.e. vertical versus horizontal). By focusing on the printing equipment industry, the authors use a unique longitudinal dataset composed of 21,256 online search logs created by 408 salespeople and quarterly sales performance across 21 European countries in the 2009–2013 time window. Results show that in order for salespeople to build rich product knowledge they should adopt deep search practices rather than surface search. Furthermore, instead of conducting a horizontal search across competing brands broadly, salespeople must focus on a vertical knowledge search for proximate competitors' products in addition to their own products. Finally, this study presents that inter-organizational information system as a sales force control system can facilitate the identification and acquisition of external product knowledge and enable a firm to achieve superior performance. Aghasi et al. (2017) explore another inter-organizational mechanism through which taking advantage of external knowledge and sources, i.e. the acquisitions of small high-tech firms by large incumbents. The success of such a strategic decision significantly rests upon the choice of a wise postacquisition implementation strategy. When large firms embark in searching endeavors through the acquisition of their small high-tech counterparts, they should wisely take into account the antecedents of the level of integration, addressing the integration-autonomy dilemma (i.e. high level of integration enables coordination and control, but reduces acquired firm's autonomy, thus likely causing organizational disruption and acquired personnel's demotivation). By relying on a sample of 458 deals in the 2001–2005 time period, this research identifies four post-acquisition strategies have been identified on the basis of two implementation dimensions: the organizational structure that the acquiring firm chooses for the acquired firm (separation versus absorption) and the status of the acquired CEO (retention versus replacement). One can rank these strategies basing on the level of integration, from separation and retention, which represents the minimum level of integration (and the maximum level of autonomy granted to the acquired firm) up to absorption and replacement, which represents the maximum level of integration (and the minimum level of autonomy). The authors hypothesize that the acquiring firm chooses an implementation strategy with high level of integration when the acquired firm produces a component technology or operates in a related market. Indeed, in both cases, the interdependency between the two firms is high and thus the benefits of integration likely exceed the costs of the loss of autonomy. However, this positive association is weaker when the acquiring and acquired firms have common ground, originating from technological relatedness or prior alliances, which act as a low-cost coordination mechanism.

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4. Conclusions and observations This Special Issue extends our knowledge about searching for innovation putting under scrutiny the different lenses through which both academics and practitioners may look at this phenomenon. Bringing to bear insights from 19 contributions this special issue expands the boundaries of searching for innovation research stream into four main directions: exploration and exploitation, social media, open innovation, and interorganizational relationships. The articles in this collection illuminate the range of themes, questions, and challenges that are relevant for studying searching for innovation from multiple perspectives. Yet, they pave the way to new streams of research. We want to highlight such emerging lines that we deem important for future inquiry. Contributions in Cluster 1 (‘Exploration/Exploitation and Search’) point out the need to dig further into the searching through exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity for new product development. In so doing, future researchers should take into account the longitudinal unfolding of such relationship by including aspects like the firms' strategic pursuit, and the interplay of context factors like market and technological turbulence. Furthermore, in the light of the new and multidimensional concept introduced (‘New Domain Orientation’) a systematic validation of the construct and typology is needed. Scholars may try to investigate their antecedents or even test out to disentangle whether specific New Domain Orientations are more predisposed to specific entrepreneurial traits. Importantly, the validation should entail causal analysis between the reliance on specific search and recombination mechanisms and the outcomes of search. If the outcome is radical innovation, then another interesting research avenue concerns the role of customers in pursuing it. Exploiting or exploring knowledge coming from customers, and allowing for their involvement along the different stages of the innovation process, may require firms to develop different absorptive capabilities. Looking at the role toolkits may have in generating radical innovations through experimentations processes, and accounting for highly heterogeneous customer preferences are two other interesting aspects worth of further analysis. Finally, in the context of new technology-based firms, in depth accounts of the deployment of exploration and exploitation capabilities would help to expand the understanding on the role of founder behavior, routines for deliberate learning and capability emerge. How these mechanisms evolve in the transition from new technology-based to incumbent firms is still under investigated. Insights from Cluster 2 (‘Social Media and Search’) may help future researchers to widen the analysis of the use of social media for search in SMEs, trying to detect whether there are substantial differences depending on the firms' size. Not only a call to experiment the use of social media in new contexts is launched, but it also emerges the need to assess their adoption and adaptation to the specific phases of the NPD process. Finally, more in depth analyses considering individuals psychological and cognitive traits, and environmental characteristics are needed. Contributions in Cluster 3 (‘Open Innovation and Search’) highlight the need to deal with the multifaceted characteristics and values of organizational culture and assess their impact on open innovation principles. Potential moderating and mediating effects when examining the relationships between organizational culture in form of decentralization and performance should be considered. To this end, the leadership style and team composition may well represent two of these effects emphasizing the mindset openness of the participants in the searching process. Other factors pertaining to fast-connecting practices between open innovation intermediaries and firms underline the importance to explore the deployment of different approaches to accelerate absorptive capacity and a more differentiated use of IT-based sources like MOOCs and e-commerce platforms. Still in line with the latter, more granular IT measures for specific technologies relevant to external search is necessary (e.g., online user innovation communities). The challenges IT-based tools may pose deal with the fact that they rapidly evolve, then it would be worth to keep track of the role of the digitalization and its impacts on search practices in particular, and more in general on the innovation landscape. One further challenge is posed when it comes to consider the appropriability-openness configurations; accordingly, future research on appropriability, openness and performance might fist, include a more comprehensive measure for appropriability mechanisms which should move beyond the existing categorization (formal vs informal IPPMs); second, it might consider their application along the stages of the innovation process. Cluster 4 (‘Inter-organizational relationships and Search’) emphasizes the need to investigate the different nuances of inter-organizational relationships at different levels. At national level, future researchers may go in depth with case studies focusing on strategic national programs, in economies where important transitions are occurring. For instance, India's space agency recently launched record 104 satellites from one rocket reinforcing India's emerging reputation as a reliable and cost-effective (if compared to Europe and USA) option for these initiatives. In such contexts, analyzing the discursive search process where multiple stakeholders interact and compete on a global scale, and all the industrial adjustments that this approach requires, is worthwhile. At network level, it would be important to analyze the linkages between actors, either interacting them in dyads or in more complex networks; this would allow to unveil how knowledge search practices and flows evolve, and the tensions these dynamics may bring. In this vein, the recent attention that policy-making actions at the European Union level put on supporting SMEs in embracing the technological shift of digital manufacturing through the exploration of new technologies in the laboratories of universities and technology vendors pose some research avenues of how SMEs' search practices should be structured to allow the absorption of multiple and complementary product or process technologies (Internet of Things, Additive Manufacturing, Big Data). In a similar way, the rising attention of innovation literature on the concept and the role of “ecosystems” in fostering innovation indicates that the effectiveness of search practices should be investigated in relationship to the characteristics of the innovation ecosystem in which firms search for new knowledge. At organization level, inter-organizational dynamics pose serious challenges when it comes e.g. to partner selection, where partners may have different objectives and contextual factors or serve as means to settle different knowledge acquisition strategies; or, when other dimensions in post-acquisition initiatives have to be considered pertaining for instance to the creation of ad-hoc project teams, to the transfer or sharing of resources, rather than to the assessment of the level of actors interdependency; or finally, in cases where universities compete with firms in the markets for technology for specific or more general purpose technologies. At individual level, it can be interesting looking at the plethora of sources different key individuals at different hierarchical levels use to search for both external (e.g., search engines, salesforce automation) and internal (e.g., customer relationship management systems, knowledge management systems) knowledge. We hope that the studies in this collection inspire readers of Technological Forecasting & Social Change to explore further all the possible ways in which the ‘where’, ‘how’, and ‘loci’ search perspectives can be blended together. References Afuah, A., Tucci, C.L., 2012. Crowdsourcing as a solution to distant search. Acad. Manag. J. 37 (3), 355–375. Aghasi, K., Colombo, M.G., Rossi-Lamastra, C., 2017. Acquisitions of small high-tech firms as a mechanism for external knowledge sourcing: the integration-autonomy dilemma. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang.

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Prod. Innov. Manag. 32 (4), 610–621. Zhang, Y., Li, Z., 2010. Innovation search of new ventures in a technology cluster: the role of ties with service intermediaries. Strateg. Manag. J. 31 (1), 88–109. Francesco Paolo Appio, PhD, is Associate Professor (Innovation Management) at the Business Group of the Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci in Paris. He is Visiting Scholar at MIT Sloan School of Management and K.U. Leuven. He completed his Ph.D. in “Management” at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa. His main research interests deal with the antecedents (novelty and originality) and consequences (impact) of radical innovations, intellectual property, and co-creation practices. Antonella Martini, PhD, is Associate Professor at the University of Pisa, where she teaches Managerial Engineering and Organization Design. Her main research interests involve innovation management, strategic intelligence, social software and organizational ambidexterity. She is an international board member of the Continuous Innovation Network (CINet), and responsible for the Italian Innovation Lab. Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli, PhD, is Assistant Professor and co-founder of the Innovation-Management Group at the Politecnico di Bari. His studies on the value of temporal search have recently been awarded the Nokia Siemens Network Award in Technology Management for Innovation into the Future. Paolo Neirotti, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Politecnico di Torino (Italy), where he teaches Strategic Management. His research interests include the field of the strategic value of Information Technology (IT) and the transformations IT produces on industry structure and business models. Bart Van Looy, PhD, is Professor at K.U. Leuven (Innovation and Organization) at the department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation (MSI), Faculty of Business and Economics and has a (part-time) research affiliation at the University of Twente (Institute of Governance Studies). In addition, he teaches at the MBA program of Flanders Business School (Antwerp) where he also acts as scientific coordinator. Bart Van Looy is co-promotor of ECOOM (responsible for the service and research activities pertaining to Technometrics/Patent Analysis) and responsible for the research activities of INCENTIM (Research division KU Leuven R & D) which conducts applied and basic research in the field of innovation, technology and knowledge intensive entrepreneurship (in close collaboration with a.o. Eurostat and DG Research (EC)). His current research focuses on innovation processes (firm level) and regional innovation systems (Entrepreneurial Universities and Science-Technology interactions).

Francesco Paolo Appio,, Antonella Martini, Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli, Paolo Neirotti, Bart Van Looy Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci, Research Center, Business Group, France Università di Pisa, DESTEC Department, Italy Politecnico di Bari, DMMM Department, Italy Politecnico di Torino, DIGEP Department, Italy Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, MSI Department, Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]

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Corresponding author.

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