Innovation in knowledge-intensive industries: The double-edged sword of coopetition
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors found that co-competition can trigger radical innovation, but at the same time can harm the extremely novel revolutionary innovation, and that the damaging effect on revolutionary innovation is even stronger when SMEs share knowledge with their partners.
About: This article is published in Journal of Business Research.The article was published on 2013-10-01. It has received 392 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Coopetition.
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TL;DR: The process of innovation must be viewed as a series of changes in a complete system not only of hardware, but also of market environment, production facilities and knowledge, and the social contexts of the innovation organization as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Models that depict innovation as a smooth, well-behaved linear process badly misspecify the nature and direction of the causal factors at work. Innovation is complex, uncertain, somewhat disorderly, and subject to changes of many sorts. Innovation is also difficult to measure and demands close coordination of adequate technical knowledge and excellent market judgment in order to satisfy economic, technological, and other types of constraints—all simultaneously. The process of innovation must be viewed as a series of changes in a complete system not only of hardware, but also of market environment, production facilities and knowledge, and the social contexts of the innovation organization.
2,154 citations
11 Nov 2014-World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Mechanical, Aerospace, Industrial, Mechatronic and Manufacturing Engineering
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the developments of Industry 4.0 within the literature and review the associated research streams. And they assess the practical implications, conducting face-to-face interviews with managers from the industry as well as from the consulting business.
Abstract: The German manufacturing industry has to withstand an increasing global competition on product quality and production costs. As labor costs are high, several industries have suffered severely under the relocation of production facilities towards aspiring countries, which have managed to close the productivity and quality gap substantially. Established manufacturing companies have recognized that customers are not willing to pay large price premiums for incremental quality improvements. As a consequence, many companies from the German manufacturing industry adjust their production focusing on customized products and fast time to market. Leveraging the advantages of novel production strategies such as Agile Manufacturing and Mass Customization, manufacturing companies transform into integrated networks, in which companies unite their core competencies. Hereby, virtualization of the processand supply-chain ensures smooth inter-company operations providing real-time access to relevant product and production information for all participating entities. Boundaries of companies deteriorate, as autonomous systems exchange data, gained by embedded systems throughout the entire value chain. By including Cyber-PhysicalSystems, advanced communication between machines is tantamount to their dialogue with humans. The increasing utilization of information and communication technology allows digital engineering of products and production processes alike. Modular simulation and modeling techniques allow decentralized units to flexibly alter products and thereby enable rapid product innovation. The present article describes the developments of Industry 4.0 within the literature and reviews the associated research streams. Hereby, we analyze eight scientific journals with regards to the following research fields: Individualized production, end-to-end engineering in a virtual process chain and production networks. We employ cluster analysis to assign sub-topics into the respective research field. To assess the practical implications, we conducted face-to-face interviews with managers from the industry as well as from the consulting business using a structured interview guideline. The results reveal reasons for the adaption and refusal of Industry 4.0 practices from a managerial point of view. Our findings contribute to the upcoming research stream of Industry 4.0 and support decisionmakers to assess their need for transformation towards Industry 4.0 practices. Keywords—Industry 4.0., Mass Customization, Production networks, Virtual Process-Chain. Malte Brettel, chairholder, is with the Aachen University (RWTH), Kackertstraße 7, 52072 Aachen (e-mail: brettel@win.rwth-aachen.de). Niklas Friederichsen is with the Aachen University (RWTH), Kackertstraße 7, 52072 Aachen, (corresponding author; phone: +49/(0)241 80 99397; e-mail: friederichsen@win.rwth-aachen.de). Michael Keller and Marius Rosenberg are with the Aachen University (RWTH), Kackertstraße 7, 52072 Aachen (e-mail: keller@win.rwthaachen.de, rosenberg@win.rwth-aachen.de).
1,184 citations
Cites background from "Innovation in knowledge-intensive i..."
...caused by opportunistic behavior also referred to as learning races [41], [42]....
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01 Jan 1998
TL;DR: Tushman and O'Reilly as discussed by the authors define ambidextrous organizations as those having internally consistent structures and an internal operating culture that provides for excelling today, while also planning for the future.
Abstract: Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal Tushman, Michael L. and O'Reilly, Charles A., 256 pp., Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Reviewed by Subodh P. Kulkarni, Assistant Professor in School of Business at Howard University, Washington, D.C. Professors Tushman and O'Reilly are well known for their research on innovation and organizational culture. In this book, the authors address a fundamental and interesting issue underlying organizational change and innovation: that of how firms can achieve a balance between stability and change. Businesses are not likely to prosper or survive in the long run without this balance. One of the book's key premises is that short-term success may constrain a firm's ability to change. Short term successes often occur in larger, older, more structured organizations, the source of structural and cultural inertia, which yields success in stable environments and failure when environments change. Therefore, a company's culture holds the key to success (or failure) in the long run. To create and sustain a competitive edge in the long run, companies must learn how to manage incremental and revolutionary change. The key, according to the authors, is to develop an "ambidextrous organization." Tushman and O'Reilly define ambidextrous organizations as those having internally consistent structures and an internal operating culture that provides for excelling today, while also planning for the future. The ambidextrous organizations are, thus, engaged in a balancing act between the management of incremental and revolutionary technologies. Further, these organizations have very different cultures within a company (or even a business unit, for that matter). Vision is vital to ambidextrous organizations, often displaying one vision that hosts multiple cultures in the unit. Of course, a firm can have multiple cultures under one roof by spinning off different business units and managing them independently. This is unacceptable to the authors. It is important to manage them as a whole, or as a system. The thing that holds the system components together is the overarching vision for the technology firm. That is why the book emphasizes strategic intent or competitive vision; because without a common, overarching purpose and set of values, the ambidextrous company just does not hold together. So it is not only different cultures, but different structures, systems, rewards, and competencies that need to be managed together. Drawing on their extensive research, consulting practice, as well as the experiences of managers from several "ambidextrous companies," the authors develop a model that can be used by executives to understand the dynamics of change necessary for long-term success. Toward this end, the book provides several tools for identifying and diagnosing the causes of performance gaps and for developing action plans to attain, and maintain, industry leadership. The book is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 is introductory, and it outlines the concepts underlying the authors' model. Chapter 2 highlights the significance of the concepts introduced earlier in the context of global change and innovation. Chapters 3 through 6 focus on the building of capabilities, competencies, and cultures that can generate a sustainable competitive advantage. Chapter 4 develops a model that highlights the congruence among an organization's strategies and four distinct factors: critical tasks, culture, structure, and people. A lack of congruence often results in performance gaps. Chapter 5 outlines how organizational culture-the selecting, socializing, and rewarding of workers consistent with the company's goals-promotes this congruence. It also illustrates how to assesses an organization's culture. Chapters 7 and 8 stand out in particular because in these chapters the authors introduce techniques for building an ambidextrous organization. …
886 citations
TL;DR: A systematic literature review and a synthesis of high-quality contributions in this field with a focus on a general overview of research on co-copetition, coopetition as a strategy, and the management of co-opetition is presented in this article.
Abstract: Coopetition describes an interorganizational relationship that combines “cooperation” and “competition”. During recent years, coopetition has become an important domain for industrial practice which has led to an increasing rate of publications in academic journals. Despite the growing interest, coopetition research is still fragmented, reflected by divergent uses of the coopetition concept, a lack of generalizability, and a limited contextual focus. This article presents a systematic literature review and a synthesis of high-quality contributions in this field with a focus on a general overview of research on coopetition, coopetition as a strategy, and the management of coopetition. By critically evaluating the current body of literature and definitions, and connecting it to other promising domains, we develop a new definition of coopetition and highlight several promising areas for future research, such as the elaboration of theoretical and empirical approaches, the consideration of contextual contingencies, and implications for innovation that involves interorganizational knowledge flow.
409 citations
Cites background from "Innovation in knowledge-intensive i..."
...Such a strategic move helps to keep pace with the constantly changing environment; companies can share important expertise and are better prepared for the risks associated with an uncertain future (Bouncken & Kraus, 2013)....
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...…to act in a way which is only to the best interest of the stronger firm, they can use jointly developed expertise for their own advantage at the expense of the other (Bouncken & Kraus, 2013; Pellegrin-Boucher et al., 2013), or they can become less committed to the coopetitive agreement over time....
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...The most prominent level of coopetition analysis is the inter-firm/organization level (e.g. Dowling et al., 1996; Bengtsson & Kock, 2000; Quintana-Garcia & Benavides-Velasco, 2004; Bouncken & Kraus, 2013), when coopetition between two competing firms or organizations is explored....
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...…and complex industries (e.g. Carayannis & Alexander, 1999) such as biotechnology (e.g. Quintana-Garcia & Benavides-Velasco, 2004; Lai et al., 2007), the IT domain (e.g. Ritala et al., 2009; Bouncken & Kraus, 2013), and high-tech industries in general (e.g. Gnyawali & Park, 2009; Pun, 2013)....
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined 905 new product innovations introduced since September 1988 to determine the influences on product innovativeness, with a specific interest in strategic alliances, or cooperative strategies.
389 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define a leadership event as a perceived segment of action whose meaning is created by the interactions of actors involved in producing it, and present a set of innovative methods for capturing and analyzing these contextually driven processes.
Abstract: �Traditional, hierarchical views of leadership are less and less useful given the complexities of our modern world. Leadership theory must transition to new perspectives that account for the complex adaptive needs of organizations. In this paper, we propose that leadership (as opposed to leaders) can be seen as a complex dynamic process that emerges in the interactive “spaces between” people and ideas. That is, leadership is a dynamic that transcends the capabilities of individuals alone; it is the product of interaction, tension, and exchange rules governing changes in perceptions and understanding. We label this a dynamic of adaptive leadership, and we show how this dynamic provides important insights about the nature of leadership and its outcomes in organizational fields. We define a leadership event as a perceived segment of action whose meaning is created by the interactions of actors involved in producing it, and we present a set of innovative methods for capturing and analyzing these contextually driven processes. We provide theoretical and practical implications of these ideas for organizational behavior and organization and management theory.
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TL;DR: The primary contribution of the paper is in exploring the coordination mechanisms through which firms integrate the specialist knowledge of their members, which has implications for the basis of organizational capability, the principles of organization design, and the determinants of the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the firm.
Abstract: Given assumptions about the characteristics of knowledge and the knowledge requirements of production, the firm is conceptualized as an institution for integrating knowledge. The primary contribution of the paper is in exploring the coordination mechanisms through which firms integrate the specialist knowledge of their members. In contrast to earlier literature, knowledge is viewed as residing within the individual, and the primary role of the organization is knowledge application rather than knowledge creation. The resulting theory has implications for the basis of organizational capability, the principles of organization design (in particular, the analysis of hierarchy and the distribution of decision-making authority), and the determinants of the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the firm. More generally, the knowledge-based approach sheds new light upon current organizational innovations and trends and has far-reaching implications for management practice.
12,839 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the coordination mechanisms through which firms integrate the specialist knowledge of their members, which has implications for the basis of organizational capability, the principles of organization design, and the determinants of the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the firm.
Abstract: Given assumptions about the characteristics of knowledge and the knowledge requirements of production, the firm is conceptualized as an institution for integrating knowledge. The primary contribution of the paper is in exploring the coordination mechanisms through which firms integrate the specialist knowledge of their members. In contrast to earlier literature, knowledge is viewed as residing within the individual, and the primary role of the organization is knowledge application rather than knowledge creation. The resulting theory has implications for the basis of organizational capability, the principles of organization design (in particular, the analysis of hierarchy and the distribution of decision-making authority), and the determinants of the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the firm. More generally, the knowledge-based approach sheds new light upon current organizational innovations and trends and has far-reaching implications for management practice.
11,779 citations