J. Open Innov. Technol. Mark. Complex., Volume 6, Issue 2 (June 2020) – 23 articles

The social appropriation of knowledge is an emerging descriptor in political agendas, since it drives social development and innovation. The relevance of this strategy lies mainly in the fact that scientific knowledge is made available to the population for its use and application. The purposes of this study were to identify the context and purpose presented by the experiences of social appropriation of knowledge, and to analyze the linkage of the experiences with the sectors that make up the pentahelix. To this end, a systematic review methodology was proposed in the Web of Science (WOS) and SCOPUS. Following the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 14 articles were analyzed. The results showed the emergence of this term, the geographical location of all experiences in Latin America, and the diversity of application of knowledge to favor local development. At the same time, it is shown that the institutions belonging to the government have developed experiences of social appropriation of knowledge in all other sectors of the pentahelix. Finally, we discuss the findings and implications of this study that showed the diverse experiences of social appropriation of knowledge and investigated this concept in connection to open science. Full article

As the fintech industry grows around the world, regulatory issues continue to be a hot topic within the industry. To overcome regulatory barriers of the fintech industry, regulatory sandboxes have been adopted. The regulatory sandboxes are beneficial to create a fintech ecosystem, but their effectiveness has not been empirically supported. This study aims to find the expected effects of regulatory sandboxes on fintech venture investments empirically. We conducted an analysis using a country-level comparative research method. To analyze it, we selected nine forerunning countries which have initially adopted regulatory sandboxes. For the purpose of validations, a comparative analysis and a regression analysis were conducted. In the results, we found that the adoption of regulatory sandboxes had very positive influences on the growth of the fintech venture investment. The results implied that regulatory sandboxes may play a vital role in increasing the influx of venture capital into the fintech venture ecosystem by removing regulatory uncertainty. The findings of this research contribute to providing the empirical evidences to policy makers in interpretations of the positive impact of regulatory sandboxes. Full article

In the Czech Republic, the medical device industry is an important sector with a strong tradition and has high added value and perspectives in demand under changing demographic and social structures. The aim of this article is to describe and analyze the complex issues of the new European Commission Medical Device Regulation (MDR) 2017/745 from the perspective of the strategic decisions of companies that have to comply with the requirements imposed on them by the new legislation and at the same time fulfill their own business needs and goals. The legislative changes significantly affect the standards, processes, and certifications in the medical device sector. The classification system of medical devices has been revised to more appropriately reflect the possible health risks associated with use of modern high-end technology in healthcare. The requirement is to categorize each device under the highest possible risk class, which means for the medical device manufacturers to carefully review the new rules and regulations and classify their devices accordingly. Full article

Cloud computing hastens technology driven innovation by taking advantage of the speed, the cost-effectiveness, the efficiency and the security that such applications offer. By using cloud computing, public organizations can exploit the economies of scale and innovate both efficiency and rapidly. The present study focuses on the factors influencing the adoption of a new technological application within the procedures of change management. It examines the willingness to adopt cloud computing for the case of administrative employees in a higher education institute working environment. A prediction model explores a Ubiquitous cloud computing adoption system (USAS), utilizing the theory of technology acceptance model (TAM) and resulting that end users are welcoming the adoption of the cloud computing. Policy makers should move towards empowering the stakeholders with e-skills to stimulate technology driven innovation, resulting in improvements in effectiveness and efficiency, in the creation of new jobs and in the promotion of sustainable development practices. Full article

Mobile banking is now an important and evolving medium for executing banking transactions. It has a huge potential in a developing country such as India. Our study explores the important antecedents of the mobile banking adoption intention of Indian customers and proposes a comprehensive framework by extending the traditional technology acceptance model (TAM). Along with the two constructs provided by TAM, four customer-oriented constructs have also been measured for this purpose. The conceptual model has been verified empirically, with the data mobilized with the help of a survey from 203 future mobile banking service users. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique has been undertaken to establish the effect of the antecedents on mobile banking adoption intention. The results demonstrate that, together with the constructs of TAM, viz. perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as well as all other relevant behavioral factors, namely subjective norms, personal innovativeness, trust, and self-efficacy have exerted a statistically significant positive effect on the mobile banking adoption intention of customers. The study provides an empirical foundation, which can be useful to banking and mobile services by helping companies to formulate their marketing strategies. Full article

According to the WHO Global Digital Health Strategy 2020–2024, we should advocate people-centred health systems, promote global collaboration and strengthen the governance of global digital health practices. All this requires a new open innovation approach, which means that stakeholders from regional administrations, hospitals, companies and intermediate organisations openly work together towards commonly identified global and regional digital health goals. Although both practice and theory have proven that the open innovation approach is beneficial for companies and end-users, there is still a need for increased understanding of what leads to the success of digital health related to regional competitiveness through the implementation of policies based on people-centred open innovation. This study is a longitudinal case study in which open innovation ecosystem partners (including challengers (healthcare organisation representatives), solvers (companies), funders (policy organisations) and supporters (intermediate organisations) were monitored and analysed in three countries. The focus of the paper is to explore a digital health open innovation ecosystem over the years. The results show that the created demand-driven open innovation model can be used to strengthen the governance of digital health, and to improve communication density and knowledge transfer between the ecosystem actors. The new model is a useful way to make funding structures clearer and to improve the people centricity of digital health solutions. The findings help policy-makers to use open innovation as a policy instrument supporting hospital and company managers to increase understanding of the opportunities of demand-driven open innovation. Full article

Human resource management (HRM) practices for promoting innovation tend to vary from one context to another. This leads us to investigate the configurations of internal HRM practices and supply chain collaborations that help firms to achieve high levels of product innovation or cause firms to achieve low levels of product innovation in formal R&D firms—firms which have actively engaged in systematic innovation, have established an R&D department, and/or have allocated budgets for R&D intention—and non-formal R&D firms. The data were collected during the period December 2016–February 2017 from manufacturing firms located in the Bangkok metropolitan area, Thailand. In total, 87 respondents were included for an empirical fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results indicate that, first, formal and non-formal R&D firms achieve high levels of product innovation by adopting internal HRM practices or collaborating with customers/suppliers. They also can achieve high levels of product innovation if they adopt both simultaneously. Second, formal R&D firms achieve high levels of product innovation if they adopt R&D personnel development; otherwise, they need to collaborate with customers and suppliers to achieve high levels of product innovation. Finally, miss-adopting R&D personnel development causes formal and non-formal firms to achieve lows levels of product innovation. Full article

The paper, using a three-wave unbalanced panel of 3252 observations of young small and medium-sized firms in 2011–2013, examines the effect of direct linkages between firms with foreign direct investment and young small and medium-sized firms on technology adoption strategies and the further influence of technology transfers from such linkages on technology adoption strategies. Moreover, the paper analyzes the extent that economic obstacles may cause young small and medium-sized firms to choose different adoptions. Our analysis shows that exporting firms do not tend to conduct embodied backward/forward adoptions, but more likely adopt the embodied backward purchasing. In addition, the impact of competitiveness follows an inverse U-shaped pattern for the embodied backward adoption, but a U-shaped pattern for the disembodied adoption. In terms of market power, there exists an inversed U-shaped pattern for the embodied backward adoption. Under the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) linkages and vertical spillovers, it is found that technology transfer through backward/forward linkages is associated with the embodied ones, whereas a linkage with FDI domestic customers/suppliers is less likely associated with the embodied ones. In addition, under technology transfer, firms facing economic constraints may overcome these by looking for other financial sources and embodied technology transfer. The paper suggests the path for FDI firms, young small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and technology adoption strategies in the future. Full article

Recently many enterprises have been in need of design outsourcing services through which they can form creative ideas and innovations. In this respect, the innovation competency of design consulting firms is unprecedentedly regarded as a deciding competitive edge. This study examines the effects of design innovation competencies as personal innovation competency, organizational innovation competency, and technological innovation competency on the competitiveness of the design outsourcing service in meditating design innovativeness. Data were collected through a survey conducted among 392 design consulting enterprises by way of random sampling over seven regions in Korea. As a result of hypothesis verification, it turned out that the personal innovation competency of designers at design consulting enterprises and technological innovation competency, which represents their design methods and skills, had significant effects on design innovativeness. In contrast, organizational innovation competency showed no significant effects on design innovativeness. For a design consulting enterprise to become an innovative one with better outsourcing service competitiveness, it needs to pursue a strategic direction of strengthening designers’ personal innovation and technological design innovation. Full article

The shared bicycle sector is a new type of rental business that combines the sharing economy with technology platforms. With its convenience, efficiency and low cost, the business has become popular in China. However, alongside the development of the shared bicycle industry, the increasing number of products, lack of governance, distrust between companies and users cause problems due to irresponsibility. This paper focuses on the governance of the shared bicycle sector, with the aim of achieving responsible innovation through a collaboration among stakeholders. Through case studies on two cities in China, the paper identifies government policies in the traditional context of hard-law regulation, and in the new context of multi-collaborative governance. The roles of government, industry and society are specified in the innovation ecosystem and are linked with the key dimensions of responsible innovation, anticipation, reflectiveness, inclusiveness and responsiveness. Based on the findings, a model is proposed, suggesting the new government roles of alliance facilitator and platform coordinator. Finally, our recommendations for the improvement of the shared bicycle sector are made and areas for future research are discussed. Full article

This study reports on the cross-country heterogeneity in youth awareness and expectations about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and nuclear power technology (NPT) within the North American free trade area (NAFTA). Models are estimated with data on youth respondents from the USA, Canada and Mexico, using seemingly unrelated bivariate weighted ordered probit regression, with maximum simulated likelihood estimation. Our findings show that the diffusion of technology and information within the trade bloc, for the 20 years prior to the 2015 data collection period, did not significantly contribute to cross-country convergence in youth awareness and expectations about GMOs and NPTs. Indeed, with regard to awareness, compared to youth from the USA, those from Canada show 15% (GMOs) and 7.1% (NPT) more awareness, respectively; while youth from Mexico show 34.4% and 19.5% less awareness about GMOs and NPT, respectively. With respect to expectations about future developments of the two technological artifacts, compared to youth from the USA, those from Canada and Mexico are 34.4% and 39.9% more optimistic about GMOs, respectively, while 15% and 49.7% are more optimistic about NPT. Overall, our findings show that the youth population within NAFTA is 2.5% and 6.7% more optimistic about GMOs and NPT for each level of increase in their awareness about the two technologies, respectively. Theoretically, our results seem to reject the hypothesis of NAFTA being a technology convergence country club in the Schumpeterian view, while seemingly supporting the existence of heterogeneous growth regimes within NAFTA. Full article

This paper examines the sensitivity of firms’ R&D expenditures to being externally financial constrained to undertake innovation projects, considering that being constrained is endogenous. It focuses on devising a model that enable us to explore the combined impact of liquidity constraints, demand shocks, and credit cycle on the cyclically of R&D, controlling by the firms characteristics. The methodology proposed consists of jointly estimating three interrelated equations with mixed distributions of dependent variables. The results obtained complete and improve those of the previous research. It is found that the effect of the business cycle on the perception of external financial constraints is subject to the availability of internal funds in each firm. On the other hand, constrained firms expend in R&D halve of the unconstrained ones, and the sensitivity of firms’ R&D expending to GDP is countercyclical in firms with low cash flows and procyclical in firms with high cash flows. The R&D expending of firms is negatively associated with the aggregate leverage ratio of the non-financial sector. These results mean that business decisions, in particular R&D expending decisions, and macroeconomic variables are strongly related. A better understanding of these interrelations should help in designing macroeconomic policies aimed at stabilizing the economy and reduce growth volatility. Full article

The main aim of this research was to search for relevant indicators and effective instruments for modeling the impact and institutional management of the regional innovation system for its balanced development. The objective of the study was to justify approaches for institutional management elaboration for balanced sustainable development of regional innovation systems regarding related factors and the needs of the region. The methodology of cognitive modeling and scenario impulse modeling are used for the analysis of the interconnection between the regional innovation system and higher education institutions and developing an instrument to diagnose the problems of no-congruence and improving the institutional management elaboration in the regional innovation policy. The analysis of system indicators of the cognitive map allowed to define the basic patterns in the regional system, determine the most significant factors and relationships for the economic system of the region and visualize them in the form of a cognitive map, identify the influence of the innovation environment elements on the target indicators, quantify its positive and negative impact, forecast and determine the directions of its improvement and enhancing the interaction of regional actors. The results of the study have practical value for use in improving institutional management in planning reforms and transformations of regional innovation systems. Full article

Business operations are undergoing drastic changes due to the disruptive effects of technology innovations; however, there is insufficient knowledge regarding the acceptability and consequences of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) in the education sector. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this study explores the readiness of the education sector for 4IR. We adopted face-to-face semi-structured interviews to explore the views of 33 key stakeholders in the education sector, to understand the readiness and acceptability of 4IR in the sector. Findings show that the education sector, especially in Africa, is unprepared for 4IR, although there are indications for opportunities to harness the potential of the much-anticipated 4IR. Moreover, our study demonstrates a mutual symbiotic relationship between the education sector and technology innovations. The findings show that 4IR can facilitate students’ learning experience and transforms the workplace, although there is a need to assess the learning environment, to understand the facilitators and barriers to 4IR diffusion. The findings indicate the opportunity for the education sector to harness the innovations associated with 4IR through research and teaching to enhance learners’ experience; however, this may require a significant improvement in education curricula, as well as investments. The findings contribute to the theory and practice of technology in education and the limited literature on 4IR in the education sector, particularly in Africa. Full article

The purpose of this study was to analyze how service quality, relationship benefit, and experience value affect the customers’ intention to maintain a long-term relationship with auto repair centers through service quality and trust. To this end, a statistical analysis was performed, based on a total of 319 survey data from customers who possess experience in using auto repair services. It was found that all factors of service quality, relationship benefits, and experience values directly influence service satisfaction and affect long-term relationship through service satisfaction. In the case of relationship benefits and experience values, however, it did not affect service trust, and the relationship benefit factor did not affect the maintenance of a long-term relationship through service trust. Consequently, it was found that in the auto repair service sector, customers consider service satisfaction more important than service trust in maintaining the long-term use relationship with a service center or sales branch. This result confirms that auto repair service has a significant influence on customers through the quality of auto repair and customer satisfaction regarding the repair results through troubleshooting, unlike general services that are affected by psychological properties such as a products’ brand and attractiveness. Full article

The peak power of the manufacturing systems can increase electricity costs and reduce the use of renewable energy suppliers. The power of the machining processes depends on the processing time of the operations. Then, the allocation of the power to the machines of a manufacturing system controls the processing time of the manufacturing operations. An efficient allocation model can reduce the peak power, keeping the throughput performance level. This paper proposes a game theory to allocate the power to the machines including the dependence of the processing time from the power allocated. The game model uses the Gale-Shapley algorithm that forms couples of under and overloaded machines. Then, each couple exchanges the power from the underloaded to overloaded machines. The model considers the global workload and the jobs in queue for each machine. A simulation model tests the proposed method compared to a benchmark where each machine works with fixed power. The simulation results show how the model can improve the performance of the manufacturing system in several conditions tested. In particular, the main benefits can be obtained when the manufacturing system has high or medium utilization or the uncertainty affects the processing time. Full article

Successfully developing a new product, service, or production process for commercial purposes involves complex and dynamic changes, and therefore requires an organizational climate that fosters innovation. In this sense, the means by which knowledge is created and exploited in the firm constitute its key competence and the source of its innovation capabilities. The research objective was to establish the relationship between organizational climate and innovation capability. The sample consisted of 102 Colombian new technology-based firms. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and PLSpredict were used for the statistical analysis. The results indicate that the organizational climate positively and directly influences the innovation capability (organizational ambidexterity, exploration, and exploitation). The findings obtained will help firms, especially those that require a lot of knowledge and carry out their activities in dynamic environments, to understand how organizational climate influences innovation capability, which is understood through the dimensions of exploration, exploitation, and organizational ambidexterity. This will provide new technology-based firms with a higher capacity to adapt to the conditions of uncertainty and complexity of the environment. Full article

This study investigates the effectiveness of six of the key international indices in estimating Saudi financial market (TADAWUL) index (TASI) movement. To investigate the relationship between TASI and other variables, six equations were built using two independent variables of time and international index, while TASI was the dependent variable. Linear, logarithmic, quadratic, cubic, power, and exponential equations were separately used to achieve the targeted results. The results reveal that power equation is the best equation for forecasting the TASI index with a low error rate and high determination coefficient. Additionally, findings of the AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model represent the most important variables to use in order to build a prediction model that can estimate the TASI index. The ARIMA model (with Expert Modeler) coefficients are described as ARIMA (0,1,14). The results show that the SP500, NIKKEI, CAC40, and HSI indices are the most suitable variables for estimating TASI with an R² and RMSE equal to 0.993 and 113, respectively. This relationship can be used on the previous day to estimate the opening price of TASI based on the closing prices of international indices. Full article

Project schedule delay has been recognized as a significant cause to the failure of a project. A large number of studies on this particular issue have been documented. Mainly, identifying and ranking significant factors that lead to the delay of a project. These studies have relied on generic professionals’ viewpoints. Rare studies have been dedicated to the empirical analysis of the influencing factors from the perspective of management and their functions. Using the logistic regression model and 195 completed construction projects’ data, this study reveals that construction planning, construction schedule controlling, construction schedule directing, and project finance organizing have significantly positive effects on project schedule. The findings of this study will provide a beneficial approach for construction management to deliver projects on time, improving construction project productivity. Full article

Customs and culture should create women’s independence to actualize themselves in an era of emerging social progress in order to lead to the domination of women in the development of creative businesses. This research examines the role of social capital and whether it becomes a supporting or hindering factor in developing the creative industry of women entrepreneurs by examining the role of information sharing and innovations. Employing purposive sampling, questionnaires were distributed to 200 women entrepreneurs, and data were analyzed by using Structural Equation Modeling(PLS–SEM)software with SmartPLS Version 3.0. Social capital has a positive influence on the business performance of women entrepreneurs in Bali, Indonesia. Thus, the beliefs and norms that exist in the social capital of the Balinese Hindu concept can filter the information obtained from various information in business, which will ultimately be utilized by women entrepreneurs to create various innovations to meet the market demand. However, opportunities for women entrepreneurs are very limited to capital due to lack of guarantees to get capital, and a lack of entrepreneurship skills in the technological era, market access, bureaucracy, and legalization. Further, managerial skills, access to information technology, as well as the perspective that the men must be superior in Balinese culture and customs, make business for women entrepreneurs limited. Full article

In her study of ‘Surveillance Capitalism’, Shoshana Zuboff cites Google’s parent firm Alphabet’s legal customer-purchase agreement for the parent firm’s Nest thermostats. These impose ‘oppressive privacy and security consequences’ requiring sensitive information to be shared through ‘Internet-of-Things’ (IoT) networks with other domestic and external devices, unnamed functionaries and various third parties. This is for data harvesting, analytics, processing, manipulation and transformation through digital re-sale to the same and other consumers in the form of unwanted, targeted advertising. The point of this identity ‘rendition’ is to massively augment corporate profits. It is but a short step from trapping the unwitting consumer in a ‘smart home’ to planning a similarly mediated ‘smart city’ aimed at further massively augmenting corporate profits. This is happening, as founders of digital media from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Tesla either commission or become beneficiaries of ‘smart city’ planning. However, there is evidence that such imperiousness is increasingly countered by emerging democratic critique of these new ‘model villages’ or ‘company towns’. Full article

This piece of research is focused on providing a review of the software solutions that exist when it comes to mechanisms that govern the management of intellectual property. It takes a deeper look at requirements within the university transfer office domain. Universities are a genuine source of knowledge. They have been identified not just as knowledge hubs but also as the spaces where innovations are born. These innovations then make their way into the market through the different industries they serve, becoming products that gain the attention of actual consumers. Given the magnitude of the innovations being developed in different universities around the world, it is imperative that mechanisms for the safety of this knowledge also be put into place. The world has evolved into a knowledge economy, where knowledge is an asset and something that can create profitability. This means that not protecting the knowledge that is being created can only lead to a loss in the future. Managing intellectual property, therefore, is not only a matter of procedure but one of great importance. Solutions that are easily accessible, cost-effective, and time-effective are essential. Thus, the goal of this article is to provide an overview of existing software (SW) solutions suitable for managing technology and knowledge transfer at universities based on requirements from the technology transfer office at university and specified using the model of the whole process from inventor until patent office. University Technology Transfer (TT) is a bit different in comparison to TT at companies. This gap is shown in the article using modelling of process, states, and class diagrams of a university Technology Transfer Office (TTO). Based on process definition and TTO responsibilities, a review of available SW solutions is done for 10 selected examples, as well as a related literature analysis. Findings and implications are summarized at the end of article in the context of specific needs of a university TTO, while major implications are shown as a problem of priority definition of every university TTO, namely, in the sense of value of SW solutions for intellectual property (IP) management, reporting possibilities, and representing IP and know-how. Full article

This study is based on the concept of Kondratiev’s technological waves as an analytical instrument for examining the processes of technological evolution. It aims at setting feasible indicators for this evolutionary development in order to provide a regulatory instrument for policy makers. In order to do so, the authors analyze approaches used for resource efficiency improvement in several European countries (i.e., implementation of Best Available Techniques, BAT). They emphasize that in Russia, the BAT concept is seen primarily as an industrial policy instrument. While BAT-based legislation is enforced by the environmental authorities, technological innovations making it possible to achieve performance better than that required by BAT are supported by the industrial development authorities. In the conclusions, the authors state that BAT-based solutions could be used as drivers for developing and implementing new technological solutions (innovations) and should become the basis for working out state industrial and environmental policies. The results of policies currently being developed will be assessed by the end of 2024. Full article