Knowledge that Transforms

In this paper, we address the question of ‘Why do firms publish scientific papers?’. Research examining the competitive advantages that firms accrue from investment in R&D has provided evidence that such efforts can be associated with the voluntary disclosure of research findings in scientific publications. This form of scientific openness occurs despite potentially undermining the value-capturing process by generating knowledge spillovers and hindering the use of other instruments for protecting intellectual property (patents and secrecy). Our understanding of what leads firms to engage in scientific publishing remains relatively limited, however. We address this gap by presenting a systematic review of 164 studies examining firm publishing. We then develop a conceptual framework that outlines five incentives for firms to engage in publishing: (i) accessing external knowledge and resources; (ii) attracting and retaining researchers; (iii) supporting IP strategies; (iv) building the firm's reputation; and (v) supporting commercialization strategies. Mechanisms that relate incentives to publish to firms' major stakeholders – i.e. academia, industry, investors, users, and institutions – are also outlined in the framework. We conclude by setting out an agenda for future research.

This study systematically reviews 200 articles published over the past three decades to reveal how appropriability and appropriation have been explained and how those perspectives resonate with developments in the innovation environment. Our results show that despite the extensive stream of literature, little effort has been made to systematically advance theory on appropriability and appropriation. Based on and extending prior literature, we propose a conceptual framing that distinguishes appropriability and appropriation, and that explains how innovating organizations build their readiness to benefit from innovation and how they realize that potential. We outline appropriability as the potential to benefit from an innovation, which accrues through instruments of appropriability: isolating appropriability mechanisms and complementary assets; and appropriation as the realization of that potential, which manifests in private and social benefits when the instruments are employed in processes for exclusion, leverage, or disclosure. We highlight the strategic importance of aligning these elements and appropriability conditions in realizing appropriation outcomes. The paper closes with a discussion on the framework's applications and relevant future research avenues.

This study examines the barriers and enablers within the adoption process of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) and their relationship to different innovation types as outcomes of this process. Whilst the requirement to improve AMT adoption is widely acknowledged, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the main barriers and enablers within the adoption process. Furthermore, it does not reveal how these barriers and enablers are related to different innovation types. We provide a systematic literature review of the barriers and enablers to AMT adoption. The findings of this review are based on a total of eighty-seven peer-reviewed articles from the business and management literature from 1999-2019. Our findings provide several contributions to the literature. Firstly, by integrating evidence from empirical studies, we identify five main types of barriers and four main types of enablers to adoption. Secondly, we conceptualise three key stages of the AMT adoption process and classify the barriers and enablers on the basis of whether they apply to an individual stage, or whether their influence is pertinent across the whole process. Thirdly, we reveal the relationship between categories of barriers and enablers associated to innovation types outcomes: product, process, service or business model innovations. The results of our study provide important implications for both managers and policy makers based on the evidence of the key barriers and enablers. Further, we suggest several directions for future research, including the need to examine the post-installation stage.

Despite increasing concerns about the validity of published research, the issue of how the scientific community can maintain a high-quality body of research is not well understood. We consider the case of systematic reviews in health care, and explore whether risk of bias ratings communicated within these reviews may help shift scientists’ attention towards published research that is at a low risk of bias. We focus on publications deemed at risk of bias due to selective reporting; that is, scientific articles with high chances of systematic errors in the published research findings due to flaws in the reporting. Using a matched-sample control group we find that, after potential bias is signalled in systematic reviews, publications at high risk of bias attract less attention – as indicated by fewer follow-on citations – when compared to a control group of low risk of bias publications. We extend our analysis by considering those cases where risk of bias is unclear, and by examining how different features of the rating system may affect the magnitude of the main effect. The findings provide evidence about whether systematic reviews can play a role in signalling biases in the scientific literature, over and above their established role of synthesising prior research.

Recent literature has turned considerable attention to the role of policy mixes in shaping socio-technical systems towards sustainability. However, the identification of relevant policy intervention points has remained a relatively neglected topic. This is a potentially significant oversight given that such intervention points constitute a mid-step between means (particular policy instruments) and overall goals (change in the directionality of socio-technical systems). By complementing existing work on policy mixes with additional insights from transitions literature, this paper formulates a conceptual framework of six policy intervention points for transformative systems change. The coding scheme developed on the basis of this framework is used to review current literature on policy mixes in sustainability transitions. It is shown that the latter has so far primarily focused on niche-regime dynamics while largely neglecting the broader context of these interactions. We argue that adopting a wider perspective on intervention points can aid future work on policy mixes by enabling the identification of root causes and critical problems of ongoing transitions, and to spot gaps in existing policy activities. The case of the Estonian energy system is used to briefly illustrate these possibilities. Methodologically, we demonstrate the value of combining theory-based concept-formation with a systematic literature review, enabling not only a provision of a summary of existing literature but also highlighting systematic gaps in that literature.

Intermediary actors have been proposed as key catalysts that speed up change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. Research on this topic has gradually gained traction since 2009, but has been complicated by the inconsistency regarding what intermediaries are in the context of such transitions and which activities they focus on, or should focus on. We briefly elaborate on the conceptual foundations of the studies of intermediaries in transitions, and how intermediaries have been connected to different transition theories. This shows the divergence – and sometimes a lack – of conceptual foundations in this research. In terms of transitions theories, many studies connect to the multi-level perspective and strategic niche management, while intermediaries in technological innovation systems and transition management have been much less explored. We aim to bring more clarity to the topic of intermediaries in transitions by providing a definition of transition intermediaries and a typology of five intermediary types that is sensitive to the emergence, neutrality and goals of intermediary actors as well as their context and level of action. Some intermediaries are specifically set up to facilitate transitions, while others grow into the role during the process of socio-technical change. Based on the study, as an important consideration for future innovation governance, we argue that systemic and niche intermediaries are the most crucial forms of intermediary actors in transitions, but they need to be complemented by a full ecology of intermediaries, including regime-based transition intermediaries, process intermediaries and user intermediaries.