Digital Transformation (DT) process poses novel technical and non-technical challenges for organisations located in both developed and emerging economies. This study analyses the challenges of large Brazilian and British manufacturers, from the automotive, electronics, and telecommunications sectors, in becoming digital factories. Theoretical propositions guided the case collection and analysis. Semi-structured interviews and non-participating observations were applied. Content analysis was used to assist the comparison between the perceptions of digital challenges in the cases. The DT challenges were identified, mapped, and organised in clusters: Technological (complexity of the technological infrastructure, strict data security policy); socio-managerial (mindset change and resistance, compartmentalised organisational structure, and measurement of financial gains); and macroeconomic challenges (business context and government support, lack of competence of solution providers and research centres, and lack of DT awareness by regulators). The study assists manufacturers to identify challenges that they have to critically assess before operationalising digital innovation projects. The study provides guidelines for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers for further exploration and applicability of DT in manufacturing. This is one of the first studies to identify the challenges for factory digitalisation based on the analysis of the differences and similarities between manufacturers located in an emerging economy and a developed country.
This study investigates the effects of middle managers’ ambidextrous leadership on employees’ ambidextrous behaviours in the context of demanding knowledge work and the mediating roles of employee well-being and knowledge sharing. Using survey data from 401 employees working in Tunisian knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs), Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling was employed for analysis. Findings indicate that ambidextrous leadership boosts employees’ ambidextrous behaviours. Employee well-being and knowledge sharing act as parallel mediators, while the sequential mediation is not supported. Additional analyses reveal differentiated effects of transformational and transactional leadership components in fostering well-being, knowledge sharing and ambidextrous behaviours. This research clarifies the distinct psychological and behavioural mechanisms through which ambidextrous leadership promotes employee ambidexterity. The findings offer actionable insights for middle managers in KIFs by emphasizing the importance of balancing inspirational and performance-based leadership practices to enhance well-being and knowledge sharing, thereby strengthening employees’ ambidextrous behaviours.
Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping creative work, while research remains fragmented across education, creative industries, and organisational innovation. This study conducts a topic-modelling-driven systematic mapping review of 61 peer-reviewed English-language publications (2023-June 2025). Latent Dirichlet Allocation applied to titles, abstracts, and keywords identifies 20 topics consolidated into five thematic clusters: (1) creative education and pedagogy, (2) human-AI collaboration and authorship, (3) tools, platforms, and intelligent creative systems, (4) industry and cultural applications, and (5) evolving techniques and experimental insights. Cross-cluster synthesis highlights recurring GenAI roles (ideation, co-creation, personalisation, guidance/feedback), key mediators (task constraints, user capabilities, governance/design, and policy conditions), and contingent outcomes spanning fluency, originality, diversity/voice, and agency/integrity. A streamlined GenAI-Creativity Interaction Framework connects domains, roles, mediators, and outcomes to support theory-based empirical testing and responsible system design.
Artificial intelligence technologies are today embedded in a range of U.S. industries and firms, including the health care, transportation, and manufacturing sectors, as well as such products and services as e-mail spam filtering, graphic imaging applications, and financial lending decision software. Public policy discussions are now focused on five public licensing proposals/models designed to regulate evolving AI technologies and best meet legal and ethical challenges: open source/no patent; fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND); evolving licensing system; public interest licensing; and compulsory licensing. After a careful analysis, the most promising public licensing policy model involves an evolving licensing system proposal. Given the rapid advances in recent AI technologies development, this licensing approach is adaptive to future commercial needs, technology advances, and public policy, safety, and ethical concerns. The paper also explores the nuances of needing to "thread-the-needle" correctly in the public-private regulatory policy approach and the economics of the "public interest".
Consumer perceptions about the use of intelligent packaging (IP) technology in the food sector are explored. The technology adds epistemic value to the consumer through the provision of additional information about the product. The empirical study adopts a case study approach with a survey and, more significantly, 20 in-depth qualitative interviews. Duplication across theoretical constructs in adoption and resistance theories exists, therefore the findings led to the development of an integrated conceptual framework combining these perspectives. This contextual case study provided a much-needed product driven context for IP, four specific technologies (QR Codes, AR, sensors and smart indicators) were investigated. In summary, the conceptual framework highlights the complementarities that exist between two theoretical perspectives, as well as presenting six new overarching integrated constructs. This holistic explanation of adoption and resistance factors to IP can be utilised to support effective implementation and application across the food supply chain.
In technology-intensive industries, alliance portfolio diversity (APD) offers firms access to heterogeneous knowledge for innovation, yet its effects remain inconsistent in prior research. Drawing on organisational learning theory, this study addresses this inconsistency by uncovering a fundamental asymmetry in the APD–innovation relationship. The results of this longitudinal analysis of a panel data set of 43 U.S. biopharmaceutical firms indicate that APD is positively associated with exploratory innovation but negatively related to exploitative innovation. Building on this core asymmetry, the study further investigates how absorptive capacity dimensions, exploratory and transformative learning, moderate the relationship between APD and innovation outcomes. Furthermore, while exploration intensity does not moderate this relationship, higher knowledge diversity and R&D intensity strengthen the positive effect of APD on exploratory innovation, and knowledge diversity also enhances exploitative output. The study contributes to the collaborative innovation literature by clarifying that the value of APD depends on both the type of innovation pursued and the firm’s internal capacity to absorb and transform external knowledge.
Firm ownership and management are essential drivers of firm innovation. Yet micro-firms, where ownership and control are closely related, are often overlooked in empirical studies. Using an innovation production function approach and survey data from 2,658 UK and Irish micro-firms, we investigate the influence of firm ownership and management on innovation success, i.e., converting new innovations into sales. Drawing on agency theory, we differentiate micro-firms by ownership (family-owned vs. nonfamily-owned) and family firms by management (family-managed vs. nonfamily-managed). Our Tobit regression analysis reveals that ownership of micro-firms matters for innovation, with family-owned innovator firms experiencing less innovation success than nonfamily firms. When family firms hire a manager from outside the family, they achieve innovation success similar to that of nonfamily firms. However, outcome equivalence does not imply mechanism equivalence, as our moderation analysis reveals that nonfamily managers do not derive the same incremental benefits from internal R&D.
This paper reviews research to develop a typology of the roles that external parties play across different sustainability-oriented approaches. The review covers 6,662 articles and applies a method of prepositioning to critically assess how different bodies of literature orient external parties in relation to sustainability efforts. The analysis identifies four approaches: (1) a reactive, compliance-driven approach shaped by external pressures; (2) a reactive, industry-standard approach centred on legitimacy; (3) a proactive, firm-centric market-positioning approach; and (4) a proactive, idealistic approach that prioritises sustainability over profit. The review shows that existing research predominantly focuses on adaptation to legal or institutional pressure. By contrast, perspectives emphasising co-creation remain marginal. These findings highlight opportunities for innovation management research to explore more creative and forward-looking approaches to sustainability. They also point to the need for greater integration across research fields to advance a more comprehensive and proactive sustainability research agenda.
The largest and fastest-developing nations join to form the BRICS Group, whose trade and economic exchanges have the potential to significantly impact global and regional growth. With a few of the strongest economies in the world, the BRICS nations are working constantly to maintain the stability of their labour marketplaces, expand job prospects for the populace, and advance inclusive, human-centred strategies built on the principle of decent work. The purpose of this study is to compare and analyse India’s labour market with that of the other BRICS countries. This study will delve into various aspects of the BRICS labour market, such as unemployment, employment, and labour force participation rates. Also, this paper offers a quantitative assessment of the labour market’s condition using the statistical data that is currently available. The study’s data were sourced from national statistics and the World Bank database maintained by international organisations. The study concludes that India’s labour market differs from other BRICS countries due to its demographic profile, high informal employment, skill development challenges, regulatory environment, and distinct policy approach. Understanding these differences is crucial for crafting targeted policies that address India’s specific labour market dynamics and contribute to sustainable commercial growth and expansion. According to discussions on labour market conditions, BRICS member countries adjust their labour regulations and procedures accordingly.
While extensive research has examined external and contextual factors influencing the accumulation of innovation capabilities in emerging market firms (EMFs), the role of firm-specific variables — particularly strategic leadership — remains underexplored. This study explores this gap by developing a conceptual framework to guide empirical research on the links among strategic leadership initiatives, dual absorptive capacity (AC) development, and the accumulation of innovation capability in EMFs. The framework identifies seven learning-driven strategic leadership initiatives and three related evaluation criteria — incidence, consistency, and effectiveness — to assess how leadership initiatives affect firms’ learning intensity, continuity, and innovation outcomes over time. By integrating the literature on leadership, organisational learning, and innovation capability building, the study advances a contextually grounded understanding of how visionary and persistent leadership transforms organisational learning into cumulative innovation capability. We provide structured methodological suggestions for future empirical application of the framework. Given the increasing importance of EMFs in the global economy, our framework provides valuable insights for researchers, managers, and policymakers. It helps them better understand how firm-level strategic leadership can offset the macroeconomic and institutional constraints inherent to emerging economies. This shift may transform EMFs from modest imitators into significant innovators through learning-focused actions, thereby contributing to the economic growth and development of their economies.
Green Innovation (GI) encompasses the development and implementation of eco-friendly products and processes aimed at reducing environmental impact and enhancing firm performance. This research examines the direct impacts of green process innovation and green product innovation on the green firm performance, along with the moderating influence of Green Environmental Commitment in these interactions. The research targeted 223 small and medium-sized enterprises in Uttar Pradesh, India, each generating over 25% of their earnings from environmentally focused operations. Data from 662 top, middle, and lower-level managers were analysed for reliability and validity. Smart partial least squares in structural equation modelling were used to evaluate the hypotheses. The findings showed that green company performance is considerably and favourably impacted by both green process and green product innovation. Furthermore, Green Environmental Commitment, specifically in the form of top management’s proactive commitment to environmental goals and resource allocation, strengthens the positive impact of green process innovation and green product innovation on green firm performance. These findings provide valuable insights for managers and policymakers, emphasising the importance of refining strong environmental commitment within organisations to maximise the benefits of GI strategies and drive both environmental sustainability and firm performance.
Innovation management encompasses a broad and complex organisational process that involves identifying and selecting new opportunities, implementing ideas, and capturing value from resulting innovations. The initial phase of this process, the Front End of Innovation (FEI), requires structured procedures to mitigate potential negative impacts across the innovation management chain. Research indicates that effective FEI activities correlate with improved innovation outcomes and a higher likelihood of successful innovation development. Despite its critical importance and the substantial technological demands of the military sector, the application of the FEI approach in defence contexts remains underexplored in academic literature, particularly within the unique circumstances of developing countries. This study employs the iterative design science research methodology to develop the InovaDefesa Ontology, a formal knowledge representation of the FEI phase, specifically tailored to address the challenges of the defence sector in developing economies. The artefact was evaluated through expert interviews, focus groups, and attribute agreement analysis. The proposed domain ontology offers a significant theoretical contribution by adapting and contextualising innovation management models within the military domain, thereby enhancing communication and coordination among stakeholders. On a practical level, it provides actionable insights and recommendations for public policies aimed at strengthening national innovation systems, building technological capacity, and fostering technological independence. These efforts are critical to achieving national sovereignty and advancing sustainable development in developing countries.
In this study, we examine how team leaders' ambidextrous behaviour and a supportive organisational culture influence team innovation in a humanitarian context, focussing on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). We analyse an ambidextrous leadership approach alongside organisational culture, and we consider how various diversity dimensions, such as the team's functional mix, age range, gender balance, educational background, and ethnic makeup, affect innovation within teams. A quantitative approach was employed: 156 ICRC employees across five regions (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Near and Middle East) were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. The results show that ambidextrous leadership by team leaders and a culture that supports innovation each have a direct positive impact on team innovation. Among the diversity factors, age and gender emerged as the strongest moderators: greater diversity in team members' ages and genders amplified the positive effect of ambidextrous leadership on innovation. In addition, age, gender, and ethnic diversity interacted with organisational culture to further improve innovation outcomes under a supportive culture. Based on these findings, we recommend that humanitarian organisations cultivate a culture that encourages innovation, adopt ambidextrous leadership practices, and actively promote team diversity, especially in terms of age and gender, to boost innovative performance.
Research on artificial intelligence (AI) has escalated in recent years driven by, first, the dramatic advances of AI in the wider technical field (e.g., information technology, operations research, analytics), and second, the diverse applications of AI in the wider management field. A comprehensive understanding of AI requires that scholars provide insights that bridge the technical and management (non-technical) fields, thus benefiting the further evolution of AI. However, such a task is challenging given the amount and complexity of the literature across these two different disciplines. We address this challenge by conducting an interdisciplinary systematic literature review (SLR) of a total of 1,472 studies from leading technical and non-technical/management scholarly journals from 2006 to 2022. We employ an integrated approach: two advanced analytical algorithms - bibliometric and topic modelling analyses - complemented by our own reading of identified topic articles. Our study's contributions are threefold: empirical, theoretical, and methodological.
Purpose - Human resource (HR) practices serve as blueprints to organisational cultures. Prior research demonstrates that creative-innovative organisations are better able to adapt to environmental pressures and outlive their competitors. However, the innovation orientation construct has received little attention. The paper aims to explore how individual perceptions of innovation orientation mediate the high-commitment HR practices-performance relationship. We draw upon social exchange theory to explain how employees perceive organisational practices and respond with innovative work behaviours.Design/methodology/approach - We examine how individual perceptions of innovation orientation and creativity climate mediate the HR practices-performance relationship. 379 "management level" employees working for publicly listed firms are surveyed on their perceptions of creativity climate, innovation orientation, subjective performance and four high-commitment HR practices.Findings - Across both mediated pathways, all high-commitment HR practices are significant predictors of performance except for compensation practices. Our findings align with prior research suggesting that extrinsic motivators may be detrimental to intrinsic motivation.Research limitations/implications - We acknowledge the limitations of cross-sectional data, publicly listed firms, and single-respondent data collected within our study.Practical implications - HR managers should pay careful consideration to how employees perceive high commitment practices when encouraging innovative work behaviours. Extrinsic motivators may be detrimental to intrinsic motivation when seeking to optimise innovative work behaviours.Originality/value - This paper explores individual perceptions of innovative orientation and its mediating role in the high-commitment HR practices-performance relationship. It is the first to do so simultaneously with a creative climate.
Living labs (LLs) have become a widespread approach to promote innovation. In front of this growing popularity, scholars are attempting diverse approaches to understand and evaluate their benefits for their stakeholders and society. This paper aims to complement our understanding of the benefits for an SME or start-up to integrate an LL by adopting a business model innovation (BMI) perspective. Thanks to multiple case studies, we identify patterns linking organisational context, LL activities and outcomes related to the design and implementation phase of the BMI process. From our analysis, we derive a processual model that highlights key mechanisms enabled by LLs, such as experimentation, learning and legitimation, that contribute together to the successful design and implementation of BMI. For SMEs, our results suggest LLs can reduce uncertainty situated between the development and implementation of an innovation.
This study aims to investigate how institutional quality influences firms' innovation performance, both directly and indirectly, through open innovation. Addressing a gap in the literature, it proposes a novel theoretical framework that integrates transaction cost theory and resource dependence theory to explain how firms adapt their innovation strategies in varying institutional environments. Using survey data from 306 firms in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam, and employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), this study finds some interesting results. First, high institutional quality has a direct positive impact on innovation performance. Second, strong institutional quality promotes open innovation by facilitating collaboration with research organisations, leveraging external knowledge, and minimising transaction costs and risks associated with information asymmetry. However, in weak institutional contexts, firms can still adopt open innovation as an adaptive strategy to seek resources and reduce uncertainties. This finding is particularly evident in the case of open innovation in the market channel, where firms can access information and strategies to adapt to institutional limitations through partnerships with market-related actors such as customers, suppliers, competitors, consultants, and research laboratories.
Challenge-driven innovation (CDI) has attracted increasing attention due to pressing societal, climate, and energy challenges. Addressing these requires multidisciplinary efforts and collaboration across sectors. This paper explores the potential and limitations of CDI as an emerging approach to organising innovation. Drawing on a systematic review of the period 2000-2024 across four major scientific databases, we identify twelve enabling conditions that appear central for organisations seeking to engage with CDI, including flexible resource allocation, independence in decision-making, a positive failure culture, networking, and open innovation practices. Leadership emerges as a critical enabler, shaping organisational culture and structural conditions. At the same time, the analysis reveals barriers such as context-dependence, governance complexity, and resource intensity, which may constrain the broader applicability of CDI. These findings have led us to define CDI and outline several conditions for its organisational development. The paper contributes to ongoing debates on mission-oriented and collaborative innovation by clarifying success factors, highlighting limitations, and outlining avenues for future research and organisational practice.
This study unravels the effects of multi-level organisational factors on inclusive innovation (II) and further explores the mediating effect of psychological safety (PS) in the process. Empirical data were collected using a completely structured questionnaire survey including 404 managerial-level personnel from different manufacturing, service, and technology-oriented firms in Bangladesh. Subsequently, the data were analysed utilising SPSS and AMOS software packages. The empirical findings indicate that inclusive personality (IP) and inclusive leadership (IL) have favourable effects on the employees' PS. Furthermore, IP, inclusive behaviour (IB), IL, and inclusive top management (ITM) in conjunction with PS directly affect II. Moreover, PS has a vital mediating function in connecting IP and IL with II. The existing framework offers learning organisations and their managers a collection of policy guidelines and a learning repository for establishing and executing II practices inside their environments.
