ABSTRACT By integrating stakeholders, digital platforms create ecosystems in which data and information are exchanged throughout the value chain. Although digital platform ecosystems based on transaction or innovation platforms have been the subject of research for a considerable time, ecosystems based on sustainability platforms are still in their infancy in theory and in practice. Sustainability platforms represent a new type of digital platform that focuses on the sustainability efforts of industrial companies. The implementation of sustainability platforms is driven by transparency regulations, changing customer demands, and internal motivation to make sustainability approaches visible. Such platforms extend the classic digital ecosystem approach beyond mere data exchange by including sustainability to achieve a common good. Because of the novelty of this topic and the lack of research on the sustainable impact of sustainability platforms in digital platform ecosystems, this study provides a qualitative analysis of 42 expert interviews to investigate the alterations to the digital platform ecosystem. An inductive coding approach was used to establish a theoretical framework based on our observations. The findings indicated that sustainability platforms enhance digital platform ecosystems within and without the platform infrastructure through External Requirements , Sustainability Data , Sustainable Value Creation , and Sustainable Value Chain Optimization . Such platforms innovate digital platform ecosystems through cyclical adaptation of these four impact factors. This study contributes to the recent research streams regarding digital platform ecosystems based on digital platforms and enhances such ecosystems in terms of sustainability.
ABSTRACT Although the concept of artists as creative entrepreneurs has been studied to enable artists to survive in uncertain environments, some studies have criticized this approach for focusing on individual artists, which may lead to isolation and jeopardize their careers. In light of this debate, this article explores how adopting a collective perspective on creative entrepreneurship can address these concerns by focusing on the relations between organizations and creative entrepreneurs. Using a qualitative methodology, this study analyzes the role of six French performing arts incubators in supporting artists' entrepreneurial journeys. These incubators act as “pivot organizations” that support artists' work across different stages of the creative process. Furthermore, by connecting innovative artists to mainstream actors in the industry, performing arts incubators play the role of “amphibious organizations” helping artists navigate the industry. These findings contribute to the literature on creative entrepreneurship.
ABSTRACT Although the value of design thinking (DT) in the innovation processes of large organisations is widely examined within the literature, its role and value for early‐stage start‐up innovation processes remains less well understood. This study investigates how start‐up founders implement DT practices in the early‐stage start‐up innovation processes in UK‐based MedTech/HealthTech start‐ups using 38 semi‐structured interviews with start‐up founders, DT experts and investors. The key findings shed light on the limited use of DT within the time‐pressured context of start‐up ecosystems and call for unique adaptations that can better support start‐up firms to benefit from DT. Furthermore, the study highlights the challenges in implementing DT in highly regulated contexts, like the MedTech/HealthTech sector, where stringent regulations limit user engagement of innovators during experimentation. The study contributes to the theoretical DT literature by extending insights on the barriers to the effective implementation of DT in different organisational and sectoral contexts. Additionally, it provides practitioner insights directed to entrepreneurship educators such as start‐up accelerators and incubators for better deployment of DT education for entrepreneurs.
ABSTRACT This paper investigates how data‐driven experimentation act as a key capability to sustain innovation, adaptability and organizational ambidexterity in disruptive environments, and how differences in data availability shape experimentation practices across firms. The study employs a multiple‐case study methodology, analyzing 14 interpretative cases through 32 in‐depth interviews. The data were systematically analyzed using a three‐level coding process, supplemented by triangulation with secondary data sources to ensure robustness and validity. Findings reveal that data‐driven firms characterized by advanced digital infrastructure deploy integrative ambidextrous approaches enabled by data‐driven experimentation embedded into their core processes and culture. This capability allows them to sense, seize and adapt rapidly in disruptive environments through contextual and integrative approaches to exploration and exploitation. In contrast, traditional firms rely more on differentiated approaches to exploration and exploitation, often constrained by limited data availability, rigid structures, and hierarchical cultures, which reduce their adaptability. The study also highlights the role of organizational culture—particularly failure tolerance, ethical experimentation and democratization—in shaping how experimentation practices translate into ambidexterity and innovation outcomes. While findings are context‐specific, they offer significant insights into how data‐driven experimentation supports organizational ambidexterity and adaptability under conditions of technological turbulence. Future research could explore longitudinal evolutions and sector‐specific variations. Firms seeking to enhance adaptive capacity should align experimentation practices with their data availability, invest in internal experimentation capabilities when feasible, and foster cultures that embrace failure and ethical experimentation, as well as more distributed and democratized decision‐making processes. This paper contributes to the literature on organizational ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities by conceptualizing data‐driven experimentation as a microfoundation of adaptive capabilities and by highlighting the role of data availability in shaping experimentation practices, and providing comparative insights into how different organizations leverage experimentation to sustain innovation and adaptability in disruptive environments.
Creativity has become increasingly critical for decision-making, particularly at upper organisational levels where male-dominated teams remain prevalent. While a substantial body of research has examined the relationship between gender diversity and collective creativity, far less attention has been paid to numerical gender dominance in creative teams, and especially to the dynamics of male-dominated configurations. In this paper, we address this gap by examining how men's behaviour unfolds in male-dominated teams and how these patterns translate into team dynamics and creative outcomes. Using a framed field experiment involving 55 male (and 33 female) experienced managers, we investigate how male-dominated teams composition shapes men's contributions to collective creativity. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative analyses, we show that men in male-dominated teams contribute fewer ideas, resulting at the collective level in fewer ideas and across fewer categories. Grounded in social role theory, we further identify three underlying mechanisms. First, men in male-dominated teams are less likely to engage in idea bouncing, i.e., building on previously generated ideas. Second, they provide less positive feedback on peers' ideas. Third, they report higher confidence in their performance, fostering a satisficing tendency that reduces persistence in idea exploration. Taken together, our findings show that ideation is particularly constrained in male-dominated contexts and point to actionable managerial implications. Beyond simply promoting gender balance, they highlight the need for targeted interventions to mitigate these gendered dynamics and foster more effective collective creativity.
This lead paper introduces a special issue, with seven papers included, that investigates how game-based formats can enhance creativity and innovation funnels, with a focus on four cross-cutting themes: (1) the purpose of the applied use of games and the epistemological reasoning behind organisational change concerns, (2) a deeper focus on specific interactions, interpersonal relations and participant power dynamics as part of the games, (3) the connection to organisational culture and transferability to practice and (4) an expansion of the applied context and diversity of game formats. The lead paper also presents three trajectories by examining how and why researchers and practitioners in the past decade chose to apply game-based formats in creativity and innovation management. In the first trajectory, we focus on current definitions, suggesting a shift from an element-centric to a configurational ontology. The second trajectory illustrates, through selected frameworks, the dimensions that are vital to how researchers and practitioners choose to apply game-based formats, and we call for a higher degree of open-ended game formats. The last trajectory traces recent movements and suggests three avenues for the directions of future research.
Despite modularity's prominence in contemporary innovation strategies, empirical evidence on its effectiveness remains mixed. This study addresses the inconsistent evidence on modularity's performance impact by examining its moderation and mediation effects. We argue that modularity's impact on firm performance is indirect and shaped by organizational and environmental contingencies, highlighting a critical tension between its theoretical promise and its practical outcomes. Drawing on the mirroring hypothesis and the resource-based view, we examine how modularity affects firm performance via product innovation, speed to market, and cost efficiency and how these effects are moderated by technological turbulence, innovative culture, and market dependence. Using survey data from 249 Chinese firms in technology-intensive industries, we find that modularity enhances innovation, speed to market, and cost efficiency, each serving as a mediator in the model, but its ultimate contribution to sales depends on contextual fit. Technological turbulence dampens modularity's cost advantages, while innovative culture and market dependence amplify innovation benefits but may hinder speed to market. These findings position modularity not as a universal solution but as a strategic capability whose value depends on careful alignment with internal and external conditions. The study offers a framework for managers to optimize modularity's trade-offs in today's markets.
Recent studies highlight AI's potential to enhance individual performance and creativity, but few have explored the relationship between using AI-based systems (AIBS) and innovative work behavior (IWB). The present study fills this gap by examining the relationship between the use of AI-supported decision-making and employees' innovativeness. Building upon the literature on innovation and human-AI interaction, we explore the relationship between AIBS usage and IWB. We also propose Cognitive Absorption as a valid measure to capture AIBS usage for survey data analysis. Finally, we investigate the role of Paradox Mindset in moderating such relationships. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 283 private bankers. The results indicate that AIBS usage is positively associated with IWB and that this relationship remains consistent regardless of how individuals approach and manage paradoxes.
This study examines how established firms can overcome internal barriers to innovation by introducing collective engagement as an alternative to ambidexterity, which may be difficult to enact and insufficient under conditions of radical change. Drawing on 52 interviews and 32 months of observations in a Scandinavian renewable energy utility, supplemented by eight Nordic leader interviews, we adapt Barrick et al.'s (2015) collective engagement model to provide the first empirically grounded account of how management can facilitate employees' choice to engage in innovation. We conceptualise collective engagement as a multilevel dynamic capability that emerges when management orchestrates three levers: leveraging organisational resources, involving employees in strategic processes and monitoring engagement conditions. We extend Kahn's (1990) framework by introducing empowerment as a fourth condition for engagement. To better equip managers to translate innovation ambitions into tangible outcomes, we offer an actionable three-step pathway that mobilises the firm's full resource base and aligns employees with strategic priorities, something ambidextrous strategies alone has struggled to achieve. The study reframes innovation as a strategically enabled collective endeavour, advancing engagement, innovation and ambidexterity research and opening new avenues at their intersections.
By focusing on interorganizational collaboration networks, this study investigates the relationship between second-order network churn and organizations' technological innovation output. Drawing on a longitudinal dataset of biotechnology patents from China (1985-2023), we construct yearly interorganizational collaboration networks and derive the corresponding variables for empirical analysis. Empirical results from panel negative binomial regression models support the inverted U-shaped relationship between second-order network churn within interorganizational collaboration networks and organizations' technological innovation output. Moreover, structural positions-captured by structural holes and coreness within interorganizational collaboration networks-strengthen this inverted U-shaped relationship. Specifically, the inverted U-shaped relationship is more pronounced when the focal organization is embedded in structural positions with more structural holes or higher coreness. These findings highlight the importance of strategically managing both the dynamics and embeddedness of interorganizational collaboration networks to improve organizations' technological innovation output.
Engaged scholarship involves harnessing the competencies of academics and practitioners. It requires knowledge translation between them and identifying how each group understands key concepts such as creativity. Creativity involves novelty and usefulness, yet there is still diversity in how these elements are understood and operationalized. Our study draws from Harvey and Berry's meta-theory of three forms of creativity-maximization, integration and balance-and their premise that the distal relationship between novelty and usefulness, the distance from the target domain in which creative products or acts are evaluated, and the distance between the creative process stages can determine the creativity form pursued. Based on interviews with academics and practitioners in creative firms, we sought to explore how their different conceptualizations of creativity can influence their collaboration and foster engaged scholarship. We identified that academics embrace the maximization form and practitioners the integration form, indicating differences in their understanding. Yet we also discovered that both groups embrace the balance form. Using a paradox lens, we view novelty and usefulness, abstract and concrete thinking, and distant and real time idea generation and implementation as tensions. We argue that embracing the balance form leads to healthy tensions between novelty and usefulness, between abstract and concrete thinking, and close cycles of iteration between idea generation and implementation due to moderate levels of novelty and usefulness, and of contextual and processual distances. This can generate shared understanding and dialogical relationships between academics and practitioners to foster effective engaged scholarship.
The ability to pursue exploration and exploitation simultaneously has been extensively examined within the ambidexterity framework in creativity and innovation research. However, whether and how firm portfolio management meetings enable ambidexterity has not yet been identified by analyzing managers' conversations during such sessions. Therefore, this study analyzed 84 conversational episodes from project portfolio management meetings (PPMMs) at a global chemical corporation. The findings indicate that firm ambiguity is generated through an exploratory, knowledge-generating approach in the conversations. Rather than attempting to diminish or eliminate ambiguity, managers participated in both exploratory and exploitative dialogues, thereby transforming ambiguity into a constructive element for new knowledge creation. Approximately a quarter of the episodes facilitated mutual exploration of challenges, potential, and opportunities, thereby establishing a strong foundation for collaborative meaning exploration and coordinated joint actions. The remaining dialogues centered on exploitative discussions aimed at refining and optimizing ongoing projects and activities within predefined frameworks and rules. The findings indicate that in situ observations of meeting practices serve as an effective method for acquiring a more profound understanding of PPMMs. Moreover, they offer valuable insights into how management meetings enhance a firm's capacity to operate ambidextrously by transitioning between various conversational modes. Therefore, it is imperative to recognize and cultivate these distinct conversational styles, as they are vital for managing an organization's innovation initiatives through an ambidextrous approach that encompasses both exploration and exploitation.
Drawing on motivational perspectives, we develop a framework that explains the psychological mechanisms linking idea generation to implementation. We propose that intrinsically and extrinsically driven idea generation give rise to distinct patterns of team members' commitment to their ideas, which function as key motivational pathways linking idea generation to implementation and, ultimately, to the realization of intended benefits. To validate our propositions, we collected multi-source field data from 190 members and 60 leaders comprising 60 work teams and conducted an experimental vignette study with 154 participants. Our analyses reveal three key patterns: (a) intrinsic idea generation is positively associated with normative commitment to implementation; (b) extrinsic idea generation is positively related to affective commitment to implementation; and (c) extrinsic, but not intrinsic, idea generation exerts significant indirect effects on positive implementation outcomes via affective idea commitment. Taken together, these findings indicate that extrinsic idea generation demonstrates stronger and more consistent downstream effects on implementation outcomes than intrinsic idea generation. These findings highlight the importance of managing extrinsic motivation to enhance affective commitment to ensure the effective implementation of new ideas in teams.
While prior research has explored artistic creation through intuition, expression, and aesthetic value, little is known about how artists cognitively navigate paradoxical tensions-such as artistic authenticity versus marketability-throughout the creative process. This study addresses that gap by delineating how manga artists engage in recursive shifts between divergent and convergent thinking to manage these tensions. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 25 professional manga creators and industry experts, we adopt a qualitative approach to identify five key stages of creation, each marked by distinct cognitive patterns and paradoxical dilemmas. Building on dual-process theory, we propose the creative double helix model, which reveals how paradoxical tensions act as stage-specific inflection points that trigger and reshape divergent-convergent thinking. Our findings suggest that dual-process thinking both alleviates and is shaped by tension, gradually transforming self-driven creativity into market-responsive expression. This study contributes to the literature on creativity and paradox by uncovering the co-evolutionary interplay between cognitive processes and paradox resolution, offering a dynamic lens for understanding artistic production in hybrid creative-commercial domains.
Employees' innovative work behaviour (IWB) is recognised as a valuable personal resource for organisations due to its positive impact on job performance, but it may also place significant demands on employees. The implications of IWB for employee well-being (i.e., work engagement and work exhaustion) remain unclear, which impedes a comprehensive understanding of both its positive and negative effects. This study addresses that gap by analysing the relationship between IWB, job performance and employee well-being, while also examining the role of the climate for innovation as an organisational resource that can modify the effects of IWB on job performance and employee well-being. Matched data on 476 workers across 146 R&D departments from technology-based companies were analysed to examine the proposed relationships using multilevel structural equation modelling. The findings contribute to the ongoing debate about the double-edged nature of IWB, highlighting its benefits, namely, enhanced job performance and increased work engagement, alongside potential drawbacks, particularly a heightened risk of work exhaustion. While a climate for innovation can enhance the positive effects of IWB, especially engagement, it only marginally mitigates its adverse impact on well-being. These results underscore the importance of balancing demands for innovation with adequate organisational support, offering valuable insights for organisations seeking to foster performance without compromising employee well-being.
Creativity and innovation research has long employed variance-based methodologies, which seek to identify the factors that, on average, engender these phenomena. However, these methodologies systematically overlook the minimum levels of antecedents below which creativity and innovation outcomes are empirically impossible. This methodological blind spot is of consequence because creativity and innovation processes frequently depend on threshold dynamics rather than additive effects. Our study introduces necessary condition analysis (NCA) as a methodological complement that captures bottleneck conditions invisible to traditional approaches. We present the methodological rationale underlying NCA, demonstrate its application through an empirical illustration of innovative employee behavior in a Canadian SME, and outline research opportunities for advancing necessity logic across innovation domains. Our findings reveal that NCA uncovers a distinct necessity structure in which some conditions function as prerequisites rather than net predictors. The empirical illustration further shows systematic divergences between sufficiency- and necessity-based results. Some antecedents display significant net effects in regression without constituting necessary conditions, whereas others impose binding thresholds despite weak or nonsignificant regression effects. This methodological contribution enables researchers to analytically distinguish between sufficiency (what increases innovation on average) and necessity (what enables innovation to occur at all). For practitioners, it offers an actionable framework that prioritizes the removal of innovation bottlenecks rather than merely strengthening facilitating factors.
Ecological constraints and changing societal values require businesses to reconsider innovation opportunities. Sufficiency constitutes an emerging sustainability strategy for businesses that focuses on the absolute reduction of inputs and consumption levels to restrict resource use. This particularly challenges aspects of value generation, strategic orientation, and consumer focus in the context of innovation management. Although sufficiency strategies and business models have been explored, the link to innovation is missing. We review the literature on sufficiency and innovation to create an Innovation for Sufficiency framework that contributes twofold. First, we propose sufficiency-oriented innovation varieties that guide businesses in engaging in sufficiency practices along themes of circularity, product lifecycles, service provision, consumer engagement, and communication. Second, the framework indicates how these innovations direct consumers' consumption behavior toward sufficiency. We identify sufficiency as a driver for innovation, leading to innovative services and innovations that prioritize communication with, participation of, and education of consumers. Specifically, the Innovation for Sufficiency framework positions businesses in close interaction with the demand side by introducing varieties for innovations leading to disruptive consumption strategies for long-term changes toward sufficiency. Our study stimulates the creativity of practitioners to engage in sufficiency through innovation and encourages researchers to focus on understanding the sufficiency concept from the perspectives of specific innovation drivers, strategies, or capabilities.
This study investigates the external sources of creativity that firms in the digital cultural sectors can utilize to develop innovative products to compete internationally. Drawing on organizational creativity and institutional theories, we aim to explore whether creativity can be nurtured outside firms' boundaries within the network of industry professionals and influenced by institutional factors. Adopting an inductive theory-building approach, we conduct a qualitative case study of Finnish digital firms in the digital cultural sectors to achieve the objective of the study. Our findings reveal that socio-cultural and regulatory forces such as startup funding, promotion of interaction within the industry ecosystem, and support for international expansion of Finnish firms nurture collective and collaborative creativity and country-of-origin perceptions among industry professionals by enabling their interaction, open knowledge sharing, and free flow of ideas. These processes enhance the creative capabilities of individuals in the industry, which drives them to develop innovative products within their own firms for international markets. This study advances the literature by demonstrating how socio-cultural and regulatory institutions that are external to organizations jointly contribute to local firms' creative capacity, supporting their national and international competitiveness.
Innovation ecosystems (IEs) are interconnected networks of organizations that co-create and capture value by fostering innovation within a particular sector. Recently, IEs have been shaped by digital transformation, which influences the way ecosystem members can interact, collaborate, and conduct their businesses. The result is the establishment of digital IEs (DIEs) where the shared creation and capture of value revolve around digital technologies. This paper is aimed at investigating how digital technologies allow for the transition of IEs in DIEs by introducing new value co-creation and capture mechanisms. To this aim, a multiple case study has been performed in the agri-food sector, where multifold digital technologies characterize new DIEs. The manuscript defines three main configurations of DIEs: resource-based DIEs, connection-based DIEs, and the hybrid form of resource-connection DIEs. Each DIE configuration is characterized by specific value co-creation and capture mechanisms. The study contributes to both academic literature and practical understanding of IEs by shedding light on the pivotal role of digital technologies in transforming traditional IEs into DIEs.
The literature lacks a comprehensive model examining the performance impact of certifying and maintaining standardised innovation management systems (SIMS) or clarifying the advantages of standardisation. This study addresses that gap by analysing the key determinants of the benefits associated with SIMS certification and maintenance. Drawing on the literature and data collected from 103 Portuguese organisations holding certified SIMS, a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) is developed that encompasses two critical stages of the certification life cycle: initial certification and maintenance. The results reveal that SIMS maintenance significantly influences maintenance benefits, underscoring its pivotal role in sustaining organisational performance. Certification motivations strongly affect certification benefits but do not directly enhance maintenance benefits, exerting only a moderate indirect impact mediated by maintenance motivations. Maintenance motivations, critical success factors (CSFs), and certification benefits emerge as the principal predictors of maintenance benefits. Although certification barriers do not directly influence performance, they exert a persistent indirect negative effect, highlighting the importance of effectively managing maintenance CSFs. In addition, two subsets of organisations display contrasting relationships between barriers and benefits (one negative and the other positive) reflecting differences in strategic alignment with SIMS and in the perceived importance of resource availability. This study is the first to examine the antecedents of SIMS maintenance benefits and to propose an empirical model explaining their determinants; it is also the first to integrate two main stages of the SIMS certification life cycle within a single framework. The findings contribute to the SIMS, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 literature, where such frameworks are currently lacking, and offer valuable theoretical and practical insights for optimising the certification and maintenance of management systems so as to enhance organisational performance. Notably, the study demonstrates that the impact of barriers on performance is nuanced and reveals the importance of nurturing maintenance motivations, given that initial certification motivations lose their direct effect over time. Overall, the study clarifies not only that standardisation is beneficial but also how these benefits can be effectively realised and sustained.
