Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the paradox that arises when firms simultaneously share and protect their knowledge in an alliance with other organizations. The goal of this paper therefore is to explore this tension field in such a coupled open innovation process and to identify which strategies can be developed to cope with this tension.Design/methodology/approach – The study was initially guided by a literature review and exploratory interviews, and it ultimately develops an inductive framework based on a multiple case study approach. The paper presents eight cases of a focal firm involved in a particular R&D collaboration. The case studies are based on a variety of data sources, including a number of semi‐structured interviews.Findings – This paper unravels the tension field of knowledge sharing and protection in R&D collaborations, with the knowledge characteristics at the core and with the knowledge embodiment and relational dimension as mediating factors. These forces are in t...

The Open Innovation Paradox: Knowledge Sharing and Protection in R&D Collaborations

Anticipating seasonal and shorter time scale dynamics to farming practices is primordial for indigenous farmers’ resilience under extreme environmental conditions, where climate change is a menace to agro-hydro-ecological systems. This paper assesses the effectiveness of indigenous farmers’ knowledge and aptitude to read weather signs for informed decisions on their daily and seasonal activities. Such climate-proof development is anchored on indigenous people’s knowledge and perceptions in circumstances where the dearth of scientific evidence or information exists as in Cameroon. The study is based on eight focus group discussions and a survey of 597 farming households in seven agro-ecological basins on the Bui Plateau of the Bamenda Highlands. The results indicate that indigenous smallholder farmers value their ability to accurately observe and anticipate local conditions in various ways to serve their local realities more aptly than outside forecasts. Such local knowledge should thus exercise a complementary role weave in a local climate information understanding system that replicates ecological variability.

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Indigenous Knowledge and Farmer Perceptions of Climate and Ecological Changes in the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon: Insights from the Bui Plateau

Background: The major focus of studies related to health among tribes in India has been on malnutrition. The world is in the stage of epidemiological transition, and noncommunicable diseases are overtaking the communicable diseases not only in general but also among the tribal population. Objectives: A cross-sectional study was conducted to find out the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension among the tribal population. Methodology: A house-to-house survey using a semi-structured questionnaire was conducted in three randomly selected tribal villages. Participants aged 18 and above from both genders were included. Blood pressure was recorded and random blood sugar was estimated for all the participants. Chi-square test was used to study association for categorical variables and one-way ANOVA and Student's t-test were used to study association for continuous variables. A P

Changing Perspectives in Tribal Health: Rising Prevalence of Lifestyle Diseases among Tribal Population in India.

Adaptation has become crucial in developing economies due to climate change impact, especially on agriculture, which is the backbone of many economies and the main source of livelihoods and food security. Some adaptation strategies applied in the context of developing countries, however, produce maladaptive outcomes, which are usually ignored in the planning phase of adaptation policies and programmes. This mixed methods study therefore explores adaptation strategies and the associated maladaptation outcomes of smallholder farmers in rural Ghana. The study administered questionnaire survey to 378 farmers and 41 key informants were interviewed. The major adaptation strategies of farmers included crop and livelihood diversification, agrochemicals application, and reduction in the number and size of meals. However, farmers’ adaptation strategies result in maladaptation outcomes through the release of greenhouse gases, environmental degradation, and contamination of water bodies as well as resource conflicts and increasing pressure on lands, among others, which affect their capacity to respond to future climate change. Adaptation policy makers and development practitioners should prioritize the minimization of maladaptation outcomes through intensive review and modification of programmes prior to their implementation and extensive education on best practices among smallholder farmers.

Farmers’ maladaptation: Eroding sustainable development, rebounding and shifting vulnerability in smallholder agriculture system

To reveal inequity in health in India. The global paradigm of the knowledge economy propounds that growth and equity will occur if there is a free-market economy without state intervention and if patents are provided as incentives for innovation. In this paper, we explore the veracity of this thesis by investigating growth in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors in India, and by looking at equity issues through the lens of gender health and health costs for poor consumers. We used data from current publications to support this thesis. We found that growth has been characterized by multiple handicaps and oligopoly, with the nature of expansion not having relevance for the disease profiles in India. The scenario of gender health and health costs of the poor is grim due to state retrenchment and neglect of the provision of public good, such as in health matters. One can conclude that equity has not occurred under a growing pharmaceutical sector. This finding has huge implications for public policy in India and other emerging nations.

Pharmaceutical growth versus health equity in India: when markets fail

Climate change is one of the greatest social and economic challenges today. It is a global problem which needs a global solution and for this each country has to play its part in reaching that global solution through local actions.

Indigenous Communities and Climate Change Policy: An Inclusive Approach

PurposePatents as one of the important components of intellectual capital are emerging as a new source for mining insights on open innovation (OI) practice of the organizations. Their role in value creation through collaboration and the inter-firm differences is yet to be explored in depth.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the aim, survey data is analyzed to rank OI practices (collaboration) of the firms, while patent data are analyzed to carry out descriptive and bivariate analysis to study the inter-firm differences in collaboration.FindingsThe survey findings highlight mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and patent pooling as the top two preferred modes of OI, while from patent data M&A has emerged as a predominant OI practice for mainly nonresident firms. At the firm level characteristics, out of firm age, number of granted patents and firm size, firm age has been found to be somewhat significant in few cases of OI practices.Research limitations/implicationsIt provides an alternative source, in this case patent data to study open innovation capabilities of firms in India. There is contribution to the patent value theory from profit motive to deriving strategic decisions on collaboration.Practical implicationsThe managerial implications of this study lie in realizing granted patents as important business tools for seeking collaboration, tracing competitive intelligence and the geography of innovation of the firms' competitors.Originality/valueThe dataset of granted patents at the Indian Patent office (2005–2017), the sample of pharmaceutical firms drawn from this list of patents, patent data– based OI insights and the use of multiple imputation technique to missing data for meaningful insights are some of the unique aspects of this paper.

Modes of collaboration in open innovation practice of pharmaceutical firms in India: the analysis of survey and patent data

Novel mixed-encoding for forecasting patent grant duration

In the race for survival in an age of technological advancement and overspilling data, organizations are clamoring to use the easily available data for better decision making. The arrival of the next generation of innovative and disruptive technologies has also led to patenting race. Companies are reorienting their business goals and strategies to maintain their competitive edge in the market. Patent data has been an obvious choice for analysis, leading to strategic technology intelligence. The advancement of Machine Learning and access to large amounts of patent data has led to a paradigm shift from traditional patent data analysis, methodologies and approaches to novel procedures. This work aims to weigh the benefits & constraints of these approaches in patent analysis. In doing so, some of the important factors-the so called patent characteristics , cited in literature were identified as impacting the decision on grant duration of patent applications. A comprehensive comparative study of the prediction algorithms was also performed. Finally, a quantitative study of the results is presented. This research is exploratory in nature and to the best of our knowledge, first of its kind in terms of research design and the context i.e analysis of dataset from a developing country (India) and the techniques used (ML/DL) in patent grant duration prediction.

https://www.ijcaonline.org/archives/volume178/number51/dutt-2019-ijca-919398.pdf

Forecasting the Grant Duration of a Patent using Predictive Analytics

The paradigm shift in management from part to whole has led to a complete rethinking of the working system in the organizations today. Coupled with the globalization-led competitiveness, a pressing need for flexibility in management has become imperative. Open Innovation (OI) is one such practice which the organizations today are looking forward to cope with change, respond quickly to threats and opportunities and manage diverse and decentralized operations. OI which allows for the use of internal and external resources both, is being adopted across different organizations amidst diverse challenges to be met. The life sciences sector is catching up with the OI paradigm though the change is gradual due to the challenges in breaking free from the shackles of traditional vertically integrated model. The pharmaceutical firms are grappling to adjust in this environment with administrative, regulatory, legal and management of intellectual property (IP) challenges. With this background, the present chapter aims to explore the flexibility of organizations in adopting and using the open innovation practice with special reference to intellectual property management (IPM). The discussion is centered on the main theme “open innovation as a flexibility exercise in managing the intellectual property with special reference to patents in the pharmaceutical sector”. Based on the secondary data, i.e. varied sources of literature a conceptual discussion on the paradoxical nature and the synergistic effect of open innovation (OI) and intellectual property (IP) is attempted in this chapter. What different connotations/factors of flexibility are exercised in the pharmaceutical organizations to synergize the two processes and what challenges need to be handled in this context, are examined here. The findings of this study, though mainly contextual with partial empirical exercise may add to the conceptual understanding of open innovation and flexibility.

Vinita Krishna

Papers

Indigenous Communities and Climate Change Policy: An Inclusive Approach

Modes of collaboration in open innovation practice of pharmaceutical firms in India: the analysis of survey and patent data

Novel mixed-encoding for forecasting patent grant duration

Forecasting the Grant Duration of a Patent using Predictive Analytics

Open Innovation: A Flexible Practice for Intellectual Property Management in Pharmaceutical Sector