Innovation ecosystems have increasingly been studied from various perspectives, including connecting innovation ecosystems to sustainable development. Extant studies have found that innovation is important for sustainable development, collaboration is important for innovation, and intermediaries create necessary links and opportunities for the development of relations and cooperation between different actors in an ecosystem. What has been missing, however, is an explicit analysis of the process of collaboration in innovation ecosystems to ensure sustainability and the role of intermediaries in the process. To fill this void, this paper studies six organizations that act as intermediaries, using a multiple-case design approach. It analyzes the process of collaboration in innovation ecosystems and elucidates the role of intermediaries in the development of sustainable ecosystems. The findings indicate that the process of collaboration between actors in innovation ecosystems is an iterative process facilitated by intermediaries. By connecting different actors, intermediaries support the diffusion of innovation that has important implications for building sustainable innovation ecosystems and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Scholars have increasingly been using ecosystem as a concept within and beyond social science, but less is known about how ecosystems emerge. In this study, we investigate the context of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem in Montreal to understand the mechanisms underlying the emergence of innovation ecosystems. Building on the work of Ostrom and the literature on innovation commons and conducting content analysis and network analyses, we find empirical evidence for a bottom-up approach in the emergence of the AI ecosystem in Montreal. We find that the main mechanism underlying the emergence of innovation ecosystems in Montreal is the articulation of a series of innovation commons by commoners. Our findings have implications for understanding the importance of emerging technologies and the digitalization of industries and for identifying regional innovation capabilities.

The possession of diverse knowledge is vital for countries to maintain competitive advantages as new technologies and other disruptive changes emerge. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has become an important instrument to access knowledge and innovation available in other countries with the increasing trend of globalization. However, little is known about how the knowledge base of a country can be enriched in the context of knowledge sourcing through FDI, drawing upon general contexts of knowledge and innovation in countries. By adopting the social network analysis methodology to model and analyze the global outward FDI network for the period 2009–2016 and conducting longitudinal regression analyses, this study reveals that the global outward FDI network has a core–periphery structure, the network centrality position of a country is positively and significantly associated with the knowledge base of the country, and the absorptive capacity of a country positively moderates the association. Equipped with empirical evidence to support our theory, we develop the K-NACK framework to understand the context of knowledge sourcing through FDI. This empirical research article offering novel analysis and a theoretical and conceptual framework will be useful for policymakers at firms and in individual countries to find advanced as well as complementary knowledge from host countries to improve the knowledge base in home countries.

This paper integrates research on smart cities, innovation ecosystems, and networks to examine how collaboration shapes the development of smart city technologies. It addresses a critical gap in the literature by investigating the roles of both local and global partnerships in driving innovation. Drawing on a negative binomial regression analysis of global patent data, the study evaluates the impact of domestic and international collaborations on smart city innovation. Next, to uncover the underlying mechanisms through which these partnerships influence innovation, the paper combines thematic analysis of interviews with network analysis. The findings identify three key pathways through which collaboration fosters innovation: knowledge transfer and adoption, co-development and experimentation, and standardization and scalability. The study underscores the complementary roles of local and global ties—while local collaborations provide the foundation for implementation, global linkages introduce new ideas and practices that enrich local innovation efforts. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for promoting effective multi-level collaboration in smart city development.

Researchers have studied foreign direct investment (FDI) from various perspectives, and noted the motives of FDI depend predominantly on disadvantages in home countries or advantages in host countries. However, little is known about how investors avail themselves of such advantages. The purpose of this chapter is to offer guidelines to investors to make effective FDI decisions and maintain sustainable international expansions in the post-pandemic era. Via a conceptual review of the extant literature, the authors elaborate on the motives of FDI from the perspective of the capacities of investors and provide a nuanced understanding of how they can make better investment decisions based on both the lacks and capacities. The authors develop a framework elucidating that the motives of FDI can be determined by a firm's level of technology and absorptive capacity. The framework will help investors to find cross-border partners to collaborate with, increase resilience, and deal with post-pandemic recovery.

Medical tourism has become one of the fastest-growing service industries in the 21st century. The purpose of this chapter is to advance the idea that the growth of medical tourism is influenced not only by the innovation in medical technology but also by the overall innovation environment in a country. Conducting a fixed effect regression analysis, the authors find empirical evidence in support of the argument. Because of the inter-sectoral nature of the medical tourism industry, the findings imply a plethora of opportunities for all related industries to realize the full potential of the resources available for innovation in a country. The most important implication of the findings is that strengthening the innovation environment in a country is momentous for sustainable medical tourism. The findings show a way to achieve sustainable medical tourism by integrating different stakeholders through collaboration and innovation.