Innovation is a social and interactive process in which collaboration and exchange of knowledge and information play crucial roles. Two conflicting hypotheses have been raised in previous research: Burt's structural hole hypothesis and the density hypothesis. In brief, the former of these hypotheses builds upon arguments for open network structures in the acquisition of innovation; the latter one builds upon arguments for closed network structures for innovation. To shed some light on this state of confusion, this paper tests these two conflicting hypotheses on two separate measures of innovation in a service industry setting. One innovation measure is more incremental in nature and regards the implementation of employees' ideas. The other innovation measure is more radical in nature and regards new services. Findings suggest that social network measures are, indeed, powerful predictors of innovation and, further, that the impact of these are likely to be radically different depending upon the type and measure of innovation. Consequently, this paper recommends caution when studying the impact of social network measures upon innovation, and that more fine‐grained measurements in particular are needed rather than focusing upon inter‐relationships of an overly general and superficial nature.

This study addresses innovation development with a focus on risk‐taking, widely considered a relevant driver for the exploration and exploitation of new ideas. The study empirically examines the effects of risk‐taking propensity on innovation performance and its antecedents. We consider the role of several key antecedents related to the organizational structure and the activities of firms aimed at encouraging employees to take risks in innovation. We performed an empirical survey within a global and innovation‐oriented Swedish company to test our hypotheses. Correlation and linear regression analyses were used to analyze the collected data. The results highlight the significant effect of risk‐taking on innovation performance and show that the availability of organizational resources, innovation support activities, clear innovation goals, and collaboration have a significant positive effect on risk‐taking. However, contrary to the hypothesis, well‐established innovation processes have a significant but negative effect on risk‐taking and innovation performance. This study contributes to existing knowledge on the role of risk‐taking for innovation, providing insights into designing organizational contexts that encourage an appropriate risk appetite in employees.

Frugal innovation is the process of innovating to respond to severe resource constraints with products that have cost advantages compared with existing solutions. The philosophy behind frugal innovation can be applied to both products and services from different sectors, as shown by academia and managerial applications. In this article, the purpose is to examine the intellectual structure of the developing domain of frugal-innovation research in order to identify the most active and influential communities, as well as the most seminal works and the most active scholars. Therefore, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of the literature on frugal innovation. The outcomes of our analysis allow us to offer an objective and scientific mapping of the development of this field. Four distinct intellectual communities have been identified: strategic challenges, inclusive development, sustainability, and industrial application. We, herein, provide insights into the commonalities between these distinct communities and into the intellectual structure of the domain, as well as indications for future studies. The results dig into the evolution of the topic and instigate further research explorations toward the industrial applications of frugal innovation, addressing whether and how this approach could deliver benefits to companies in terms of product development, industrial systems, and logistics.

Purpose: Digital capabilities in operations and delivery through constant data acquisition and future predictions have accelerated digital servitization through reduced uncertainty. New flexibility in value-capture concepts like dynamic and value-based pricing is introduced, which was impossible before. This paper explores two things. Firstly, how embracing contractual flexibility of price-variance and contract lengths influences customer perceived value in artificial intelligence (AI) enabled digital offerings. Secondly, the role transparency plays in the perceived value of such offerings.Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses an experiment-based survey and quantitative assessment within a business-to-business setup with 137 respondents across a couple of industrial manufacturers in the Nordic region.Findings: The authors observations indicate that value-capture-related flexibilities introduced by digital offerings, namely price fluctuations and longer contract lengths, are perceived to deliver more value to customers than standard offerings with known conditions. The authors findings indicate that introduced flexibilities are perceived as opportunities rather than uncertainties leading to higher perceived value by customers. The increased value perception can be explained by the transparency of these offerings provided by data-driven digital technologies'.Originality/value: The paper is an original work to understand the value-capture implication of digital servitization. The authors discuss the possibilities of different value-capture strategies that companies can adopt within digital business models.