Industry and Innovation

03/06/2025

🔍 How do regional capabilities shape digital technology adoption and productivity in Europe?

📣 New study in Industry and Innovation:
"Digitalisation in European regions: unravelling the impact of relatedness and complexity on digital technology adoption and productivity growth"

👥 Authors:
Stefan Apostol & Eduardo Hernández-Rodríguez

🔑 Research Highlights:
🔹Regional adoption of digital web technologies follows a path-dependent process, influenced by existing digital capabilities.
🔹Empirical analysis covers 278 European regions using novel data from the BuiltWith API.
🔹Higher digital complexity in regions is positively associated with labour productivity gains.
🔹The study proposes a new framework based on relatedness and economic complexity to understand digitalisation dynamics.

💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
🔹Digitalisation strategies should focus not only on access but on use.
🔹Regions can benefit from increased productivity by building on existing digital strengths and progressively adopting more complex technologies.
🔹Direct implications for regional policy design, investment strategies, and the implementation of smart specialisation agendas.



📚 Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2423731

Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 860887)

27/05/2025

🔍 How does working in R&D-investing firms impact employee career outcomes?
📣 Excited to announce a new study in the journal Industry and Innovation:
"How are affected by working in R&D-investing firms"
👥 Author:
Yifei Wang
🔑 Research Highlights:
⭕ Employees from R&D-investing firms enjoy higher wage growth and career progression compared to peers from non-investing firms.
⭕These advantages are particularly strong for managers and technical workers.
⭕ R&D experience signals valuable human capital to future employers.
⭕Surprisingly, R&D employment does not correlate with greater interest in joining .
💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
Beyond boosting innovation at the firm level, corporate R&D investments enhance the human capital of skilled employees, justifying public R&D support as a tool for workforce development. This evidence highlights how R&D spillovers benefit not only firms, but individuals too.

📚 Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/dm9h8Q9U

26/05/2025

🔍 How does shape strategies for ?
📣 Excited to announce a new study in the journal Industry and Innovation:
"How does Confucianism influence green innovation? Evidence from China"
👥 Authors:
Yiyun Zhang, Longwei Wang, Min Zhang & Shihao Wei
🔑 Research Highlights:
⭕ Confucianism positively influences firms’ engagement in green innovation.
⭕This cultural effect is moderated by CEO overseas experience, female leadership, and regional institutional fragility.
⭕ Empirical evidence is drawn from a large panel of over 11,000 firm-year observations of Chinese listed firms (2014–2019).
💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
To effectively promote green innovation, it is essential to consider both cultural contexts and executive characteristics. Policymakers should complement formal incentives with support for cultural values that emphasize collective responsibility and environmental harmony. Firms can benefit by aligning leadership values with such cultural norms.

📚 Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2394215

16/05/2025

🔍 How do medical ethics scandals influence local scientific development in emerging economies?

📣 New study in Industry and Innovation:
"The price of mistrust: the impact of a medical ethics scandal on scientific capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa"

👥 Authors:
Caroline Fry
Shannon Tran

🔑 Research Highlights:
🔹Investigates the long-term impact of the 2000 Washington Post exposé on Pfizer's Trovan clinical trial in Nigeria.
🔹Reveals a significant decline in publication growth among medical researchers in Nigerian states affected by vaccine boycotts.
🔹Shows that eroded community trust led to decreased research participation and reduced foreign collaborations.
🔹Demonstrates that scandals can have persistent negative effects on local scientific ecosystems, beyond health-seeking behavior.
🔹Highlights the critical role of community engagement and trust in fostering scientific development in emerging economies.

💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
The study underscores the importance of maintaining a ‘social license to operate’ for scientific endeavors, especially those involving human subjects in developing regions. Policymakers, research institutions, and industry stakeholders must prioritize ethical conduct and community engagement to sustain scientific capacity and foster innovation ecosystems.

Hashtag

📚 Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2421933

15/05/2025

🔍 How do regional technological legacies and social capital influence the persistence of environmentally harmful inventions?

📣 We are excited to announce a new study in Industry and Innovation:
"Pah dependency, social capital and the geography of dirty inventions"

👥 Authors:
Gianluca Biggi
Elisa Giuliani
Arianna Martinelli
Angela Parenti

🔑 Research Highlights:
🔹 Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) remain present in patents despite global efforts for a toxic-free world.
🔹 Regions with strong technological expertise in POP-related fields are more likely to continue patenting harmful inventions.
🔹 High levels of social capital reduce the likelihood of new dirty inventions in these regions, showing the moderating role of community engagement.
🔹 The study maps the global geography of POP patents, identifying the key inventing regions and assignee types.
🔹 Empirical findings stress the need for more proactive monitoring of new chemical patents, beyond current regulatory frameworks.

💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
Stronger local social capital can act as a counterbalance to technological path dependency, empowering communities to resist environmentally harmful innovations. Policymakers should integrate civic engagement into regional innovation strategies to better align technological progress with environmental sustainability.

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📚 Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2419591

This research was supported by the European Union’s NextGenerationEU program under the PRIN Project 2022 call.

03/05/2025

🔍 How do scientists support the transformation of regional innovation systems toward sustainability, particularly in advancing a biomass-based bioeconomy?

📣 We are excited to announce a new study in Industry and Innovation:

"The role of scientists in regional innovation system transformation: shaping the direction to a biomass-bioeconomy"

👥 Author:
Alessio Giustolisi

🔑 Research Highlights:
⭕️Scientists extend beyond knowledge production roles to actively shape industrial paths toward sustainability.
⭕️ Through asset modification and agency, they foster system-level changes in regional innovation systems.
⭕️ The case of Lower Austria shows how scientists catalyze collaborations, influence policy agendas, and facilitate green transitions.
⭕️ Scientists mobilize and reconfigure natural, industrial, and institutional assets, contributing to a biomass-bioeconomy.
⭕️Study demonstrates how academic actors can serve as policy consultants and innovation intermediaries.

💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
This study underscores the transformative role scientists can play in regional development strategies. By strategically mobilizing resources and engaging in governance, they help shape greener, innovation-driven futures—offering a replicable model for other regions aiming to foster sustainable transitions.



📚 Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2400978

Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme!

11/04/2025

🔍 How do regulatory against board chairs impact corporate innovation? This study dives deep into the consequences for firms.
📣 Excited to announce a new study in the journal Industry and Innovation .
"Penalties imposed on board chairs and corporate innovation: evidence from China"
👥 Authors:
Jianglong Yu, Hongmei Liu, Jian Zhou, and Ke Liu
🔑 Research Highlights:
✅ Penalties imposed on board chairs lead to a significant decline in corporate .
✅ This negative impact is more pronounced in firms with low redundant resources, high media attention, and high industry competition.
✅ Non-state-owned enterprises are particularly vulnerable to these effects.
✅ The study provides empirical support for the resource dependence hypothesis over the reputation repair hypothesis.
✅ Findings emphasize the dual role of governance and regulatory enforcement on innovation strategy.
💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
Regulators and policymakers should consider the unintended consequences of governance penalties on innovation. For managers, building resource redundancy and proactive media strategies may mitigate negative innovation impacts following governance scandals.
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📚 https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2412587

29/03/2025

📨 Industry and Innovation is welcoming submissions – on a rolling basis and until the end of September 2025 – for a Special Issue on "Repurposing for Innovation: Navigating Technology, Uncertainty, and Sustainability in the Modern Business Landscape."

📢 The guest editors - Isabel Bodas Freitas, Marvin Hanisch, Yansong Hu, Dorota Piaskowska, and Bastian Rake – invite quantitative and qualitative submissions studying this topic in a variety of contexts and from diverse theoretical perspectives (including organizational-, team-, individual-, and product-level analyses). Suggested angles include:

📌 Repurposing and Serendipity

📌 Repurposing with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

📌 Repurposing in High Uncertainty Contexts

📌 Repurposing for Sustainability

For more suggestions of specific research questions and guidelines, please consult the full call for papers available at: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/repurposing-for-innovation-knowledge-reuse-and-adaption-in-times-of-uncertainty-and-transformation/?_ga=2.259829897.2078053722.1743243350-1702048419.1743243350

27/03/2025

🔍 How does impact new product development (hashtag ) performance, and under what conditions do its effects shift from beneficial to detrimental?
📣 Excited to announce a new study in the journal Industry and Innovation:
"The double-edged sword of customer participation on new product development performance: the contingent roles of relational and environmental factors"
👥 Authors:
Jiaxin Lin, Jason Lu Jin, Liwen Wang, and Xueqing Wang
🔑 Research Highlights:
- Customer participation in B2B NPD processes enhances performance through but can also lead to conflicts that diminish outcomes.
- Prior experience between firms reduces both the positive and negative effects of customer participation.
- Technological turbulence amplifies the positive impact of customer participation on knowledge sharing.
- The study integrates boundary spanning theory to offer a balanced perspective on the benefits and risks of involving customers in innovation.
💡 Policy and Managerial Implications: For managers in high-tech B2B industries, the findings highlight the importance of carefully managing and environmental factors when engaging customers in NPD. Building trust through previous cooperation and understanding market turbulence can help firms maximize the benefits of customer involvement while mitigating conflicts.
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Although customer participation plays an increasingly important role in firm innovation, both its effects on new product development (NPD) performance in the B2B context and the underlying mechanis...

24/03/2025

❓ How to navigate the tension between greener and more competitive industries?

This coming fall, at Industry and Innovation, we will be considering submissions to a Special Issue on this very topic. The guest editors Francesco Zirpoli, Fiona Tregenna, Lorenza Monaco and Bruno Perez Almansi invite innovative approaches to address the tensions between greener and more competitive industries, including:

✔️ Industrial Policy and Regulation

✔️ Global Value Chains and Networks

✔️ Firm Innovation Strategies and Labour

📆 We will be considering submissions during the period of October 1 to October 31, 2025.

🔎 For more information on the Special Issue and suggested research questions, please consult the following link:https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/the-tension-between-greener-and-more-competitive-industries-industrial-policy-global-value-chains-and-firm-strategies/?_ga=2.102968457.884502779.1742847360-995142397.1742847360

24/03/2025

🔍 How does China's Total Carbon Emission Control Policy (TCP) affect low-carbon productivity across cities?

📣 We are excited to announce a new study in Industry and Innovation
"The impact of China’s total carbon emission control policy on low carbon total factor productivity"

👥 Authors:
Lingqian Kong, Xinyi Jin, Yihua Xu, and Kai Xu

🔑 Research Highlights:
⭕️TCP significantly enhances Low-Carbon Total Factor Productivity (LCTFP) in policy implementation regions.
⭕️Stronger policy effects are observed in eastern, resource-based, and higher-tier cities.
⭕️Mechanisms driving improvements include green technological innovation and industrial structure optimization.
⭕️Notably, TCP shows negative spatial spillover effects on neighboring cities' LCTFP.
⭕️Empirical approach uses DID models and satellite night-light data to measure energy input across 282 cities from 2010–2021.

💡 Policy and Managerial Implications:
⭕️Policymakers should consider broader regional coordination when implementing carbon control measures to minimize spatial spillovers.
⭕️Focused support in key cities can accelerate green innovation, while integrated mechanisms can help uplift neighboring areas.



📚 Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2024.2388648

19/03/2025

At Industry and Innovation, we received the news of Stan Metcalfe’s very recent and unexpected passing with sadness. Stan Metcalfe was for decades a prominent voice elucidating the processes of economic development. His work helped establish and refine the understanding of innovation as a phenomenon of key scholarly interest.

His command of language in both the written and spoken form was widely cherished. I&I Associate Editor Anders Broström shares a memory from Stan’s 2022 Swedish Schumpeter Lecture:

🗨️ "Hearing Stan lecture on innovation and evolution was a very uplifting experience. Following the discussion between Stan and his discussant Andrea Mina, who wrote his PhD thesis under Stan’s supervision, I felt as if I were attending Socrates’ discussion with his Athenian disciples."

We are happy to have had the chance to publish an edited version of that discussion in a recent issue of Industry and Innovation: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13662716.2024.2376318. Stan’s intellectual legacy will remain enduringly important for the community of scholars that shares his fascination with innovation, evolution, and industrial dynamics.