Innovation in the Indian automotive industry: the role of academic and public research institutions
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the nature of collaboration between industry and academia in the Indian automotive sector through detailed case studies of three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), two component manufacturers and three academic research groups, all actively involved in innovation.
Abstract: This study investigates the nature of collaboration between industry and academia in the Indian automotive sector through detailed case studies of three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), two component manufacturers and three academic research groups, all actively involved in innovation. The level and nature of collaboration between academic research and industry in the Indian automotive sector can be explained by the nature of the technology, the locus of technical decision making in this sector, the maturity level of Indian companies, and the maturity of academic research itself. The study finds that the most prevalent form of collaboration between companies and academia is competency development and training while the second most prevalent form is the provision of research services (testing and analytical services). Research partnerships between industry and academia are uncommon. In such a context, government support for research partnerships can bring industry and academia closer together, and ...
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17 Jun 2009
TL;DR: This article explored the influence of different mechanisms in lowering barriers related to the orientation of universities and to the transactions involved in working with university partners, and explored the effects of collaboration experience, breadth of interaction, and inter-organizational trust on lowering different types of barriers.
Abstract: Although the literature on university–industry links has begun to uncover the reasons for, and types of, collaboration between universities and businesses, it offers relatively little explanation of ways to reduce the barriers in these collaborations. This paper seeks to unpack the nature of the obstacles to collaborations between universities and industry, exploring influence of different mechanisms in lowering barriers related to the orientation of universities and to the transactions involved in working with university partners. Drawing on a large-scale survey and public records, this paper explores the effects of collaboration experience, breadth of interaction, and inter-organizational trust on lowering different types of barriers. The analysis shows that prior experience of collaborative research lowers orientation-related barriers and that greater levels of trust reduce both types of barriers studied. It also indicates that breadth of interaction diminishes the orientation-related, but increases transaction-related barriers. The paper explores the implications of these findings for policies aimed at facilitating university–industry collaboration.
858 citations
TL;DR: This paper combines two techniques—bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis—to visualize the network of publications that explicitly use the label ‘open innovation’ and to arrive at distinct clusters of thematically related publications.
Abstract: The concept of open innovation has attracted considerable attention since Henry Chesbrough first coined it to capture the increasing reliance of firms on external sources of innovation. Although open innovation has flourished as a topic within innovation management research, it has also triggered debates about the coherence of the research endeavors pursued under this umbrella, including its theoretical foundations. In this paper, we aim to contribute to these debates through a bibliometric review of the first decade of open innovation research. We combine two techniques--bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis--to (1) visualize the network of publications that explicitly use the label `open innovation' and (2) to arrive at distinct clusters of thematically related publications. Our findings illustrate that open innovation research builds principally on four related streams of prior research, whilst the bibliographic network of open innovation research reveals that seven thematic clusters have been pursued persistently. While such persistence is undoubtedly useful to arrive at in-depth and robust insights, the observed patterns also signal the absence of new, emerging, themes. As such, `open innovation' might benefit from applying its own ideas: sourcing concepts and models from a broader range of theoretical perspectives as well as pursuing a broader range of topics might introduce dynamics resulting in more impact and proliferation.
115 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Krishnan et al. as mentioned in this paper presented a detailed analysis of the market systemic weaknesses that are responsible for the lower ranking on various measures of innovation, despite India ranks number two in the world in terms of annual output of scientists and engineers in the country.
Abstract: FROM JUGAAD TO SYSTEMATIC INNOVATION: THE CHALLENGE FOR INDIA by Rishikesh T. Krishnan, The Utpreraka Foundation, Bangalore, 2010 The book presents a detailed analysis of the market systemic weaknesses that are responsible for the lower ranking on various measures of innovation, despite India ranks number two in the world in terms of annual output of scientists and engineers in the country. Transforming individual creativity into innovation is a social and collective process. Organizations (particularly in the Indian context) and social networks constitute the arena where this process happens. Though government policies can provide incentives to overcome some of the barriers to the social process, others that are embedded in the social, cultural and political fabric are more difficult to overcome. The reason why India remains an uneven inventor "is that it has many such barriers. They are sticky and threaten to persist for years to come." A distinction is made between modern jugaad (Creative Improvisation) and innovation. Jugaad is based on individual ingenuity being displayed across sectors and contexts. Indian talent for Jugaad is reflected in the ease with which we find our ways around the myriad rules and regulations posed by government regulations. Jugaad is not sustainable because it does not have a science or engineering base. It does not have an organizational base or support. It tends to be a one time activity with few subsequent improvements. It is not the result of an understanding of user needs spanning a wide spectrum of users. It is therefore likely to have only a restricted application. On the other hand the combination of invention and application is innovation. The translation of an invention or discovery into commercial application unlocks its value. It is not static or an one time process. Once adopted further improvements on it are often necessary for successful commercial exploitation of the innovation. The survival and growth of the industrial firms requires innovation and it will be a pre-requisite of competitive success in the long run. The World Bank's report on Unleashing India's Innovation (2007) argued that India can unleash existing / capabilities and build on its innovation potential which will lead to sustainable inclusive growth by taking a more strategic, explicit and multi pronged approach to innovation. The report emphasized international benchmarking, greater accountability and more focus on results. It attributed India's sketchy innovation output to inadequate competition, skills, information infrastructure and finance, a failure to diffuse and absorb technology and knowledge (global & local), a lack of exclusivity, over reliance on government (which is too slow) and a fragmented innovation system. The report made several recommendations namely on better acquisition of technology, promotion of industrial R&D on new firm creation, on education and tight public private oversight mechanism. Another study of interest is the Economist Intelligent Unit (E14--2007) report. It uses patents per million population as a National Innovation Index. The study considers the patents granted by the U.S, European and Japan patent offices and ranked India at 58 out of 82 countries based on patent for the period 2002-05. The report points out that India's rank is not expected to improve much in the period 2007-2012. The study argues that India's lower rank on the National Innovation (output) Index is because the environment is not conducive to innovation and is reducing the efficiency of conversion of inputs to outputs. Indian companies accounted for just 16 percent of all US patent granted to Indian inventors or Indian assignees between 1995 and 2008. …
44 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the innovation strategies of five local market leaders in India on dimensions related to exploration and exploitation, internal and external sources, technology push and market-pull and product and process innovation.
Abstract: What role has innovation played in the leadership positions attained by local firms in emerging markets? What innovation strategies have these firms followed? This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment – the deregulation of the Indian economy – to investigate these questions. We compare the innovation strategies of five local market leaders in India on dimensions related to exploration and exploitation, internal and external sources, technologypush and market-pull and product and process innovation. This study establishes that innovation plays a key role in the leadership position attained by local leaders. These firms display a high degree of ambidexterity in both exploring and exploiting in parallel, an approach that is required to provide speed of response. External sources are tapped for knowledge and ideas, and this learning is integrated with internal innovation. Market exploration, particularly the development of products, services and business models that allow the companies to meet the affordability criteria of the mass market, plays an important role in the innovation strategy of these companies.
32 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the less-explored aspect of organisational response focusing on discontinuous innovation in the Indian auto component industry and confirm the positive roles of dynamic capability and research and development expenditure as antecedents to disruptive innovation.
Abstract: Innovation has gained momentum for the development; spread; and survival of auto industrial firms in India. In this paper; we study the less-explored aspect of organisational response focusing on discontinuous innovation. The Indian auto sector requires a tool for long-term market dominance; particularly owing to the rapid change in the business environment. This can be achieved through a special kind of discontinuous innovation known as disruptive innovation (DI). We further affirm how developing DI is facilitated by the firm's dynamic capability (DC); to substantiate our claims; we develop and utilise a survey instrument to test a hypothesised model with responses from various firms affiliated with the Indian auto component industry. Our findings confirm the positive roles of DC and research and development (R&D) expenditure as antecedents to DI. We further conduct exploratory analysis to study factors such as R&D and environmental turbulence as moderators of the DC-DI relationship. We offer the following contributions: the operationalisation of DC and DI for the Indian context, a sector specific study and critical results pertaining to moderating role of R&D and environmental turbulence on the positive DC-DI relationship.
10 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the relation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties in organizational learning and examine some complications in allocating resources between the two, particularly those introduced by the distribution of costs and benefits across time and space.
Abstract: This paper considers the relation between the exploration of new possibilities and the exploitation of old certainties in organizational learning. It examines some complications in allocating resources between the two, particularly those introduced by the distribution of costs and benefits across time and space, and the effects of ecological interaction. Two general situations involving the development and use of knowledge in organizations are modeled. The first is the case of mutual learning between members of an organization and an organizational code. The second is the case of learning and competitive advantage in competition for primacy. The paper develops an argument that adaptive processes, by refining exploitation more rapidly than exploration, are likely to become effective in the short run but self-destructive in the long run. The possibility that certain common organizational practices ameliorate that tendency is assessed.
16,377 citations
Book•
01 Mar 2003TL;DR: Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting From Technology as discussed by the authors is a book by Henry Chesbrough, which discusses the importance of open innovation for creating and profiting from technology.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting From Technology,” by Henry Chesbrough.
8,644 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts, and the authors suggest that university research may function increasingly as a locus in the "laboratory" of knowledge-intensive network transitions.
5,324 citations
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts, where the institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system.
Abstract: Abstract The Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts. Communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements. The institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system. For example, the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition. Reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states, however, are induced by new technologies (biotechnology, ICT). The consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of (neo-)evolutionary mechanisms. University research may function increasingly as a locus in the “laboratory” of such knowledge-intensive network transitions.
5,036 citations
TL;DR: This paper uses a productivity and an adoption approach, while including a search for contextual variables in the firms strategy that affects complementarity, to analyze complementarity between innovation activities: internal research and development (R&D) and external knowledge acquisition.
Abstract: Empirical research on complementarity between organizational design decisions has traditionally focused on the question of existence of complementarity. In this paper, we take a broader approach to the issue, combining a productivity and an adoption approach, while including a search for contextual variables in the firms strategy that affects complementarity. Analysis of contextual variables is not only interesting per se, but also improves the productivity test for the existence of complementarity. We use our empirical methodology to analyze complementarity between innovation activities: internal research and development (R&D) and external knowledge acquisition. Our results suggest that internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition are complementary innovation activities, but that the degree of complementarity is sensitive to other elements of the firms strategic environment. We identify reliance on basic R&Dthe importance of universities and research centers as an information source for the innovation processas an important contextual variable affecting complementarity between internal and external innovation activities.
2,385 citations
"Innovation in the Indian automotive..." refers background in this paper
...…sourcing knowledge from outside their organizational boundaries, driven by rapid technological changes, intensified competition and a realization that no firm can generate all the necessary knowledge within its boundaries (Calighirou, Kastelli, and Tsakanikas 2004; Cassiman and Veugelers 2006)....
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...There is a broad trend towards firms sourcing knowledge from outside their organizational boundaries, driven by rapid technological changes, intensified competition and a realization that no firm can generate all the necessary knowledge within its boundaries (Calighirou, Kastelli, and Tsakanikas 2004; Cassiman and Veugelers 2006)....
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