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Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2016) | Viewed by 95445

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. JinHyo Joseph Yun

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Guest Editor

1. DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology), 333, Techno jungang-daero, Hyeonpung-eup, Dalseong-gun, Daegu, Republic of Korea
2. Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwank-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
Interests: open innovation; business model; open innovation economy; social open innovation; Schumpeterian dynamics; complexity; game theory; political economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Tan Yigitcanlar

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Guest Editor

Department of Knowledge Engineering, School of Technology, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Campus Universitário, Trindade, CEP 88040-900, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil
Interests: smart and sustainable cities; urban innovation system; urban knowledge and innovation spaces; knowledge-based development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue includes selected studies that contribute to our understanding on how sustainability and open innovation capabilities in supply chain, such as network analysis, policy analysis, corporate sustainability, and so on, can lead to corporate survival and growth, and, hence, to the conditions of sustainability in its diverse aspects and dimensions. Corporate sustainability is usually accomplished with numerous factors. This Special Issue attempts to describe the conditions of sustainability in urban and firms’ environments—including the themes of open innovation, open business models, technology precincts, knowledge and innovation clusters, and so on. This Special Issue seeks to collect theoretical and empirical studies on complicated and dynamic investigations of the relation among open innovation, corporate survival, corporate growth, sustainability, and industrial clustering. By doing so, the Special Issue provides a better understanding of the role of sustainability and open innovation in firms—both start-ups and small and medium size enterprises.

Dr. JinHyo Joseph Yun
Dr. Tan Yigitcanlar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

open innovation;
natural environment;
sustainability;
autonomous;
conditions;
firms;
clusters

Published Papers (14 papers)

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Editorial

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618 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Open Innovation in Value Chain for Sustainability of Firms

by JinHyo Joseph Yun and Tan Yigitcanlar

Sustainability 2017, 9(5), 811; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9050811 - 12 May 2017

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 11116

Abstract

This piece serves as the guest editorial of the Special Issue on the ‘Open Innovation in Value Chain for Sustainability of Firms’. Firstly, this editorial piece asks whether it is possible for firms to sustain their performance forever. Then, it reviews the popular literature on the value chain. Afterwards, it develops a research framework for open innovation in the value chain, and proposes five ways of open innovation taking place within it. These include user open innovation, customer open innovation, common profit community, together growth community, and inner open innovation. Lastly, this editorial introduces articles from the Special Issue that concentrate on the various open innovation perspectives for firms to achieve sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Research

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1105 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Policy Analysis to Reduce Climate Change-Induced Risks in Urban and Rural Areas in Korea

by Tae Hoon Moon, Dong-Hwan Kim, Chang Sug Park and Dong-Sung Lee

Sustainability 2017, 9(4), 524; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9040524 - 30 Mar 2017

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7529

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to project changes in climate change-induced risks over time and to investigate policy alternatives to mitigate the risks from increases in sea level, heavy rains, and heat waves in urban and rural areas. System dynamics simulation was used to build a model and conduct policy analysis for a simulation period over the years 2000–2050. The model was built with a focus on the interaction among three factors: damage restoration costs from heavy rains, heat waves, and sea level rise; the total cost of food imports due to decreases in arable land and agricultural productivity; and changes in the government budget to respond to climate change problems. A policy experiment was conducted with the model under four scenarios mainly based on the government budget for climate change. The results indicated, firstly, that the climate budget needs to be increased to at least 13 trillion Korean Won (US $11.6 billion) per year. Secondly, an earlier budget increase would more effectively reduce the total disaster restoration cost than a delayed budget increase. Third, if an earlier budget increase is difficult, the next best alternative would be to allocate a greater fraction of the climate budget to urban rather than to rural areas. Lastly, an early response to climate change would more effectively reduce food import costs, maintain agricultural productivity, and improve infrastructure for climate change adaptation than a delayed response. In conclusion, an earlier increase in the climate change budget would be more effective than a delayed budget increase of the same amount, and allocating a larger fraction of the climate budget to urban areas could be more cost-effective than increasing the budget, if urban and rural parties could agree on the method of allocation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Public Debt, Corruption and Sustainable Economic Growth

by Eunji Kim, Yoonhee Ha and Sangheon Kim

Sustainability 2017, 9(3), 433; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030433 - 15 Mar 2017

Cited by 46 | Viewed by 9890

Abstract

There are many studies that look into the relationship between public debt and economic growth. It is hard to find, however, research addressing the role of corruption between these two variables. Noticing this vacancy in current literature, we strive to investigate the effect of corruption on the relationship between public debt and economic growth. For this purpose, the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects models and the dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) models (Arellano-Bond, 1991) are estimated with data of 77 countries from 1990 to 2014. The empirical results show that the interaction term between public debt and corruption is statistically significant. This confirms the hypothesis that the effect of public debt on economic growth is a function of corruption. The sign of the marginal effect is negative in corrupt countries, but public debt enhances economic growth within countries that are not corrupt, i.e., highly transparent. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Empirical Relationships among Technological Characteristics, Global Orientation, and Internationalisation of South Korean New Ventures

by Junghyun Yoon and Dae-su Kim

Sustainability 2016, 8(12), 1254; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8121254 - 03 Dec 2016

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4306

Abstract

International new ventures (INVs) that pursue rapid internationalisation have received a growing amount of attention worldwide. This study, therefore, examined characteristics of INVs, and hence investigated empirically the relationships among the technological characteristics of INVs, the characteristics of their chief executive officers (CEOs) (i.e., global orientation), and their internationalisation such as the level of internationalisation. The findings of this study can be summarised as follows: all of the technological characteristics (e.g., technological capacity, imitation, innovation, and standardisation) have significant effects on the internationalisation of INVs. Furthermore, the CEO’s global orientation mediated the relationship between the technological characteristics and internationalisation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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11867 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Human-Needs-Based Dynamics to Simulate Technology Policy and Its Effects on Both Business Success and Human Happiness

by Jong-Yeon Lim, Sun Hi Yoo and DongKyu Won

Sustainability 2016, 8(12), 1225; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8121225 - 25 Nov 2016

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 6131

Abstract

This paper focuses on how human needs are reflected in the market and how several technological and political policies affect the market share of government-supported industries, as well as the satisfaction of human desires and consequent happiness. In this paper, we seek to understand the dynamics of consumer decision-making processes in relation to technology products in the market. In this study, we present a new marketing model based on human needs, wants, and demands, and focus on both holistic and social perspectives. We have shown that human-based policy dynamics and sustainable human happiness can be realized by stimulating national policies for consumer happiness in the human-needs-based sector, e.g., the healthcare industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Perception of Time, Creative Attitudes, and Adoption of Innovations: A Cross-Cultural Study from Chinese and US College Students

by Seung-Hee Lee, Jane Workman and Kwangho Jung

Sustainability 2016, 8(11), 1193; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111193 - 18 Nov 2016

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 7048

Abstract

This study explores how earlier (vs. later) adopters of innovation differ in time perception and creative attitudes, comparing Chinese and US college students. Research on the perception of time and creative attitudes is useful to understand how sustainability and creative collaboration might work together. Various relationships exist between different levels of innovation adoption groups and creative attitudes or perceptions of time. We found that earlier adopters scored higher on economic time and future time orientation. This may indicate that earlier adopters are sensitive about their planned schedule. Also, earlier adopters with a future time orientation are forward-thinking and anticipate the introduction of new styles, items, or events in the future. We also find that Chinese (vs. US) participants scored higher on creative capacity and creative collaboration but did not differ in general creative attitudes or creative risk-taking. For all participants from these two countries, earlier adopters (vs. later) scored higher on all aspects of creative attitudes. This study suggests academic and practical implications regarding sustainability issues. From an academic perspective, this study adds a new perspective to the literature about the relationships among time of adoption, time perception, creative attitudes, and cultural values, and is especially useful for how these four variables influence sustainability. From a practitioner perspective, this study provides information of how consumer values and attitudes in a developing economy (China) and a developed economy (US) might facilitate open innovation and induce sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

A Systematic Approach to Identify Promising New Items for Small to Medium Enterprises: A Case Study

by Sukjae Jeong, Jaehyun Han and Jihyun Kim

Sustainability 2016, 8(11), 1158; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111158 - 10 Nov 2016

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5567

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of identifying new business items for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), most previous studies focus on conglomerates. The paucity of empirical studies has also led to limited real-life applications. Hence, this study proposes a systematic approach to find new business items (NBIs) that help the prospective SMEs develop, evaluate, and select viable business items to survive the competitive environment. The proposed approach comprises two stages: (1) the classification of diversification of SMEs; and (2) the searching and screening of business items. In the first stage, SMEs are allocated to five groups, based on their internal technological competency and external market conditions. In the second stage, based on the types of SMEs identified in the first stage, a set of alternative business items is derived by combining the results of portfolio analysis and benchmarking analysis. After deriving new business items, a market and technology-driven matrix analysis is utilized to screen suitable business items, and the Bruce Merrifield-Ohe (BMO) method is used to categorize and identify prospective items based on market attractiveness and internal capability. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach, a case study is presented. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Does Technology Transfer Help Small and Medium Companies? Empirical Evidence from Korea

by Dae-Hwan Kim, Matarr O. Sambou and Moo-Sup Jung

Sustainability 2016, 8(11), 1119; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111119 - 01 Nov 2016

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4461

Abstract

We challenge the view that technology transfer from big companies to small and medium (SM) size companies helps SM companies to prosper. With a large dataset of SM companies in Korea, we utilize the stochastic production frontier (SPF) model to examine the productivity of inputs and the generalized linear model (GLM) to compare business performance between two groups of SM companies: SM companies that receive technology transfer and those that do not receive technology transfer from big companies. The empirical results demonstrate that the transfer of technology from big companies to SM companies help SM companies to enjoy productivity of capital. Nonetheless, SM companies receiving technology transfer were found to underperform in terms of labor productivity and profit margin compared to their counterparts. We further investigate the reasons why SM companies receiving technology transfer from big companies underperform relative to their counterparts, and our findings shows that the former do not export much of their product and face more difficulties such as lower price for their products imposed by big companies than the latter. By identifying the negative rather than the conventionally assumed positive effect of technology transfer, this paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between technology transfer and SM companies’ prosperity in the case of Korea. Our findings have important implications for how SM companies should strategize and rethink about the clauses embedded in the transfer of technology that they receive from big companies because technology transfer plays as a barrier to their prosperity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Diffusion Patterns in Convergence among High-Technology Industries: A Co-Occurrence-Based Analysis of Newspaper Article Data

by Hyeokseong Lee, Namil Kim, Kiho Kwak, Wonjoon Kim, Hyungjoon Soh and Kyungbae Park

Sustainability 2016, 8(10), 1029; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8101029 - 14 Oct 2016

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 5927

Abstract

Firms in high-technology industries have faced great technological and market uncertainty and volatility in the past few decades. In order to be competitive and sustainable in this environment, firms have been pursuing technological innovation, product differentiation, vertical integration, and alliances, which eventually drive industry convergence, defined as the process of blurring boundaries between previously distinct industries. Although industry convergence has greatly affected industrial structure and the economy, little research has investigated this phenomenon, especially its diffusion patterns; thus, it is still unclear which industries are converging more rapidly or have a higher potential for convergence. This paper explores these issues by investigating industry convergence in U.S. high-technology industries, using a large set of newspaper articles from 1987 to 2012. We perform a co-occurrence-based analysis to obtain information on industry convergence and estimate its diffusion patterns using an internal-influence logistic model. We find heterogeneous diffusion patterns, depending on convergent-industry pairs and their wide dispersion. In addition, we find that the potential degree of industry convergence is significantly negatively associated with its growth rate, which indicates that a great deal of time will be required for industry convergence between high-technology industries with this high potential to achieve a high degree of convergence. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Technology for Production Scheduling of Jobs for Open Innovation and Sustainability with Fixed Processing Property on Parallel Machines

by Sang-Oh Shim and KyungBae Park

Sustainability 2016, 8(9), 904; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8090904 - 07 Sep 2016

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4238

Abstract

In this paper, a technology for production scheduling is addressed for the sustainability and open innovation in a manufacturing business. Methodologies for scheduling jobs on parallel machines with the fixed processing property are devised. The fixed processing property, in which a group of specific jobs can be processed on the predetermined machine, can be found in most manufacturing systems due to the quality issues. Usually, even though parallel machines can process various types of jobs, the fixed processing is preferred as to not deteriorate products’ quality in real manufacturing systems. To minimize makespan of jobs, which is defined as the final completion time of all jobs, technology for production scheduling is developed. Several heuristic algorithms are devised for solving the problem and to evaluate performance of the suggested algorithms, a series of computational experiments is performed. Results show that better solutions are obtained by the suggested algorithms in a reasonable amount of computation time. That is, if the proposed technology is applied to the production scheduling system of a real manufacturing business, it can be expected that quantity and quality of the product will be enhanced since they are influenced by the production scheduling. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

522 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Patent-Enhancing Strategies by Industry in Korea Using a Data Envelopment Analysis

by BangRae Lee, DongKyu Won, Jun-Hwan Park, LeeNam Kwon, Young-Ho Moon and Han-Joon Kim

Sustainability 2016, 8(9), 901; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8090901 - 06 Sep 2016

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5863

Abstract

Global competition has increased the importance of patents as a means to protect and strengthen technology and competitiveness. The purposes of our study were to identify what industries in South Korea are strong or weak in terms of patent applications and to identify some strategies to enable weak industries to become strong. For this, we gathered statistics on seven variables as follows: number of businesses, number of employees, research and development investment, number of full-time equivalent researchers, number of research institutions, domestic market size, and number of patent applications. Especially, to compare the ratio of patent applications and the ratio of domestic market size across industries, the industries were classified into the following three categories: strong-, weak-, and no-patent. Furthermore, data envelopment analysis (DEA) suggested some strategies to strengthen patent applications for each industry. In the DEA analysis, the number of patent applications was used as the output variable and the other six variables were used as input variables. Our study will particularly assist industries where protection by patents is an important aspect of their businesses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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1252 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Early Adoption of Innovative Analytical Approach and Its Impact on Organizational Analytics Maturity and Sustainability: A Longitudinal Study from a U.S. Pharmaceutical Company

by John C. Yi and Sungho Kim

Sustainability 2016, 8(8), 808; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080808 - 17 Aug 2016

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5746

Abstract

We investigate the impact of early adoption of an innovative analytics approach on organizational analytics maturity and sustainability. With the sales operation planning involving the accurate determination of physician detailing frequency, multiple product sequencing, nonlinear promotional response functions and achievement of the right level of share of voice (SOV), an analytical approach was developed by integrating domain knowledge, neural network (NN)’s pattern-recognition capability and nonlinear mathematical programming to address these challenges. A pharmaceutical company headquartered in the U.S. championed this initial research in 2005 and became the first major firm to implement the recommendations. The company improved its profitability by 12% when piloted to a sales district with 481 physicians; then it launched this approach nationally. In 2014, the firm again gave us its data, performance of the analytical approach and access to key stakeholders to better understand the changes in the pharmaceutical sales operations landscape, the firm’s analytics maturity and sustainability of analytics. Results suggest that being the early adopter of innovation doubled the firm’s technology utilization from 2005 to 2014, as well as doubling the firm’s ability to continuously improve the sales operations process; it outperformed the standard industry practice by 23%. Moreover, the infusion of analytics from the corporate office to sales, improvement in management commitment to analytics, increased communications for continuous process improvement and the successes from this approach has created the environment for sustainable organizational growth in analytics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Not Deep Learning but Autonomous Learning of Open Innovation for Sustainable Artificial Intelligence

by JinHyo Joseph Yun, Dooseok Lee, Heungju Ahn, Kyungbae Park and Tan Yigitcanlar

Sustainability 2016, 8(8), 797; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080797 - 13 Aug 2016

Cited by 48 | Viewed by 8383

Abstract

What do we need for sustainable artificial intelligence that is not harmful but beneficial human life? This paper builds up the interaction model between direct and autonomous learning from the human’s cognitive learning process and firms’ open innovation process. It conceptually establishes a direct and autonomous learning interaction model. The key factor of this model is that the process to respond to entries from external environments through interactions between autonomous learning and direct learning as well as to rearrange internal knowledge is incessant. When autonomous learning happens, the units of knowledge determinations that arise from indirect learning are separated. They induce not only broad autonomous learning made through the horizontal combinations that surpass the combinations that occurred in direct learning but also in-depth autonomous learning made through vertical combinations that appear so that new knowledge is added. The core of the interaction model between direct and autonomous learning is the variability of the boundary between proven knowledge and hypothetical knowledge, limitations in knowledge accumulation, as well as complementarity and conflict between direct and autonomous learning. Therefore, these should be considered when introducing the interaction model between direct and autonomous learning into navigations, cleaning robots, search engines, etc. In addition, we should consider the relationship between direct learning and autonomous learning when building up open innovation strategies and policies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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Open AccessArticle

Network Analysis of Open Innovation

by JinHyo Joseph Yun, EuiSeob Jeong and JinSeu Park

Sustainability 2016, 8(8), 729; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080729 - 30 Jul 2016

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 7862

Abstract

The way people innovate and create new ideas and bring them to the market is undergoing a fundamental change from closed innovation to open innovation. Why and how do firms perform open innovation? Firms’ open innovation is measured through the levels of firms’ joint patent applications. Next, we analyze network structures and characters of firms’ joint patent applications such as betweenness and degree centrality, structure hole, and closure. From this research, we drew conclusions as follows. First, the structure of collaboration networks has both direct and indirect effects on firms’ innovative performance. Second, in the process of joint patent applications, there is a long tail phenomenon in networks of joint patent applications. Third, the number of patents and International Patent Classification (IPC) subclasses together constitute a meaningful measure of the innovation performance of firms. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Open Innovation Capabilities of Firms for Value Chain Development)

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