Innovation matters. Business success increasingly depends upon sustainable innovation. Observing recent innovation best practices, the emergence of a new paradigm is traceable. Creating an innovative ecosystem has a multilayer effect: It contributes to regional digitalization, technological start-up emergence, open innovation promotion, and new policy enhancement retro-feeding the system. Public policy must create open innovation environments accordingly with the quintuple helix harmonizing the ecosystem to internalize emerging spillovers. The public sector should enhance the process, providing accurate legal framework, procurement of innovation, and shared risks in R&D. Opening the locks that confine the trunks of community, academic, industry, and government innovation will harness each dimension exploiting collective and collaborative potential of individuals towards a brighter sustainable future. In this sense, the aim of this study is to present how open innovation can enhance sustainable innovation ecosystems and boost the digital transition. For that, firstly, a diachronic perspective of the sustainable innovation ecosystem is traced, its connection to open innovation, and identification of the university linkages. Secondly, database exploration and econometric estimations are performed. Then, we will ascertain how far open innovation frameworks and in particular the knowledge flows unveiled by the university promote smart and responsible innovation cycles. Lastly, we will propose a policy package towards green governance, empowering the university in governance distributed ecosystem, embedded in the community, self-sustained with shared gains, and a meaningful sense of identity.

The recent emergence of e-commerce has brought a shifting paradigm into global markets. This revolutionary framework relying upon technological progress has conveyed a new era of commerce. More than ever, businesses are using digital marketplaces to stay relevant and competitive. Suddenly, buying online has become part of their daily routines. Accessibility, flexibility, and convenience make the internet the ideal platform for modern age consumers. Small and medium enterprises predominate in almost every industry generating employment, income, and sustainability. Nonetheless, e-commerce adoption among these organizations is yet to be widely undertaken. This article has a twofold objective: first, it gathers data regarding the emergence of e-commerce adoption by SMEs through a systematic literature review encompassing 32 indexed articles (published between 2003 and 2021). Secondly, it provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis identifying strategic options and guidelines for a smooth digital transition among these players. Lastly, some recommendations to policy makers were clipped to work as facilitators, given SMEs specificities. The future is digital and the struggle for e-commerce adoption and exploitation among these organizations is at the top of the agenda. It is central in maintaining the vibrancy of the business ecosystem, and is therefore a turnkey for economic recovery.

Leadership styles and human capital are important drivers of innovation processes. The way the leader interacts with the organization members can pre-empt or leverage innovation processes as leaders influence, empower and motivate other individuals in the achievement of their goals. Human capital is an important driver of innovation and competitiveness, as it will shape the uniqueness of the company as well as the process to obtain skills, capabilities, knowledge and expertise. As such, the main objectives of the paper are to analyze the impact of leadership styles on the innovation process and also to address the moderation effect of the human capital on the previous relation. Four leadership styles—autocratic, transactional, democratic, and transformational—were considered to measure their impacts on the innovation process, considering the alternative types of innovations. The 2018 Community Innovation Survey (CIS) database was used, encompassing Portuguese data, covering the 2016–2018 period, with a sample of 13702 firms. In regard to the empirical part, first, an exploratory analysis was run to better understand the connection between the leadership styles and the innovative strategies followed by an econometric estimation encompassing 28 logit models to disentangle the specific impacts of each leader on each innovation type. Evidence proves that autocratic and transactional leadership styles have a negative impact on innovation and transformational and democratic leadership impact innovation positively. Furthermore, human capital was found to moderate the relationship between leadership styles and the innovation process; i.e., under the same leadership style, the presence of additional skills leverages innovative propensity. The paper brings relevant insights for both managers and policymakers, highlighting that innovation will be accelerated if firms implement more participatory (democratic and transformational) leadership styles and also if they invest in competences to promote knowledge internalization and share. All in all, participatory leadership combined with the internal skills is proved to be an efficient combination for innovation to take place; as such, policy instruments must promote the coexistence of these two factors.

Green growth has resulted from resource management, setting the speed for sustainable development. Eco-innovations are essential for the improvement of a firm’s performance with societal gains, demanding special attention from policy makers. This paper deals with the effect of policy actions on the enhancement of eco-innovation adoption. The Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2012–2014 is used to estimate the impact of ‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’ on innovations with ecological benefits. In addition, the impact of a firm’s structural characteristics in ecological strategies is investigated. Regulations and taxes enhance eco-innovation, but grants are only relevant in the case of eco-innovations with external benefits. The firm dimension and non-technological innovation also increase the eco-innovation propensity. Embedding policy actions with environmental concerns will enhance social responsibility and promote resource preservation, providing waste as an economic value. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to appraise the effectiveness of the different policy instruments applied in the adoption of innovation with ecological benefits with both internal and external benefits. Secondly, it aims to identify which firm characteristics determine these managerial strategies. Hopefully, light will be cast on the topic so that public and private decision-makers will be given recommendations for policy package design working towards smart and green growth.

Open innovation is proved to be determinant in the rationalization of sustainable innovation ecosystems. Firms, universities, governments, user communities and the overall environment are called to contribute to this dynamic process. This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of open innovation on firms’ performance and to empirically assess whether university-industry collaborations are complementary or substitutes for this activity. Primary data were collected from a survey encompassing 908 firms, and then combined with performance indicators from SABI (Spanish and Portuguese business information). Econometric estimations were run to evaluate the role of open innovation and university-industry collaboration in the firm innovative propensity and performance. Results highlight the importance of diversity in collaborations with the academia and inbound open innovation strategy as enhancers of firm performance. The two activities reinforce each other. By testing the impact of open innovation practices on company performance, the need for heterogeneity in terms of contact type and university is also demonstrated. Findings cast light on the need to reformulate existing policy packages, reinforcing the ties with academia as well as the promotion of open innovation strategies. The connection to the innovation ecosystem needs to be further encouraged as well as the promotion of persistent connections with the knowledge sources in an open and multilateral framework.

After the Cold War, the defense industries found themselves at a crossroads. However, it seems that they are gaining new momentum, as new technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence are enabling the development of autonomous, highly innovative and disruptive intelligent systems. Despite this new impetus, there are still doubts about where to invest limited financial resources to boost high-tech defense industries. In order to shed some light on the topic, we decided to conduct a systematic literature review by using the PRISMA protocol and content analysis. The results indicate that autonomous intelligent systems are being developed by the defense industry and categorized into three different modes—fully autonomous operations, partially autonomous operations, and smart autonomous decision-making. In addition, it is also important to note that, at a strategic level of war, there is limited room for automation given the need for human intervention. However, at the tactical level of war, there is a high probability of growth in industrial defense, since, at this level, structured decisions and complex analytical-cognitive tasks are carried out. In the light of carrying out those decisions and tasks, robotics and artificial intelligence can make a contribution far superior to that of human beings.