Technology and Innovation Commons^™

Entrepreneurs Share Their Formula For Success: Failure, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Entrepreneurship is so often associated with risk-taking that in safety-seeking Singapore, it would be quite natural to assume a rather weak spirit of enterprise. Such an assumption, of course, would only be partly true. After all, successful entrepreneurs need to possess more than just an appetite for risk; they need to be skilled at harvesting talent, tapping on their networks and navigating around business environments. Can such successes be taught? Panellists at a recent forum seem to think so – but only to a limited extent. They draw distinctions between formulaic prescriptions and advice, saying that while there are no …

Successful Technopreneurship 2.0: Beyond Buzzwords And Technology, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

If entrepreneurship requires true grit, then technopreneurship – a new-age term that describes entrepreneurship in technology sectors – is quite likely the ultimate test, given the highly dynamic nature of technological innovation and its dependency on a host of external factors. Would the iPhone have succeeded without the App store? Could the Blu-Ray have taken off without the backing of major Hollywood studios? Will people buy GPS systems without maps? Such are considerations that technopreneurs have little influence over, but must always bear in mind because technology, in and of itself, bears little meaning for end-consumers.

Open Innovation In Platform Competition, Mei Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We examine the competition between a proprietary platform and an open platform,where each platform holds a two-sided market consisted of app developers and users.The open platform cultivates an innovative environment by inviting public efforts todevelop the platform itself and permitting distribution of apps outside of its own appmarket; the proprietary platform restricts apps sales solely within its app market. Weuse a game theoretic model to capture this competitive phenomenon and analyze theimpact of growth of the open source community on the platform competition. We foundthat growth of the open community mitigates the platform rivalry, and balances the developernetwork sizes on …

Innovative Entrepreneurs Workbook, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The workbook provides a step by step approach to identifying innovation opportunities and the key aspects of Innovation development

Think Setting Up A Business Is Easy? Think Again!, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Entrepreneurship stories are like fairytales. The rags-to-riches stories of college dropouts turned successful multimillionaires provide many an overworked and underappreciated employee with idealism and inspiration: to ditch a life of conventions and to pursue one's passions. But don't be naïve, says Wong Hoong An, chief evangelist officer of the popular local food website, HungryGoWhere.com. There are too many questions to consider, such as 'Can you live with a pittance of a salary for years?' and 'Do you relish change, instability and volatility?'

From Post-Its To Face-Bras: How 3m Puts Innovation Into Practice, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Most people are familiar with the genesis of the Post-it, 3M's signature yellow sticky pad: an accidental outcome that followed the discovery of a non-permanent adhesive. While innovations as such might be viewed as a fluke – an invention that occurred by chance – it is helpful to note that certain environments and conditions can render an organisation more 'accident'-prone. Geoff Nicholson, the "father" of 3M's line of Post-it Note products and an advocate of "risky business" behaviours, shared his insights and observations at SMU recently.

What Do Egyptian Tomb Raiders And Martial-Arts-Loving Entrepreneurs Have In Common?, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Some ancient Egyptians make stuffed animals to accompany their dead in their after-life, others raid the tombs for these animals to sell for a profit. For Chatri Trisiripisal, a 38-year-old self made millionaire, besides making his money running hedge funds and property investments, he also does so holding martial arts classes. According to Trisiripisal, chasing such entrepreneurial dreams requires one to be “crazy” sometimes. What are the other attributes that a bidding entrepreneur should have?

Switching It Outsourcing Suppliers: Enhancing Transition Readiness, Siew Kien Sia, Wee-Kiat Lim, Kanapaty Pelly Periasamy

CCX Research

As IT outsourcing continues to gather momentum and mature, the decision to change suppliers at the end of a contract, or even earlier, has become an inevitable reality for many. This article sheds light on the management challenges associated with transitioning from one outsourcing supplier to another. Based on the “painful” experience of a large public-sector organization that chose not to renew its contract with a supplier that had operated its online portal and call center for five years, we provide insights into what makes a client organization “transition-ready.” We then describe the actions an organization can take before, during, …

The Idea Of Creativity, The Creativity Behind An Idea, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Many people believe that creativity is important to their line of work – from salespeople to accountants, lawyers to administrators – but few people seem to believe that they have what it takes to be creative. Even fewer people think that their employers are helping them to be creative. What lies behind the mystical creativity holy grail that makes it so elusive yet incredibly seductive? Creativity expert Fredrik Härén provides some insights into how we think about creativity and what makes companies like Google, Apple and Pixar tick.

Doing More With Mobile Networks: More Users, More Uses?, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

With so many mobile devices entering the market, from hand phones to laptops and now, iPads and Kindles, it is no wonder that more and more people are jumping on board the mobile bandwagon. However, are today's mobile networks designed to serve and connect a fast expanding number of users? It makes sense that when too many users enter a network, that network will become congested and connectivity will be compromised – or will it? According to SMU information systems assistant professor Kyriakos Mouratidis, "spatial optimisation" of existing connection points within a network may break new grounds in enhancing the …

Is Firm-Specific Innovation Associated With Greater Value Appropriation? The Roles Of Environmental Dynamism And Technological Diversity, Heli Wang, Wei-Ru Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper extends the resource-based theory of the firm to examine the contingencies that either intensify or reduce the relationship between firm-specific innovation and value appropriation. Based on a large-scale analysis of a sample of US manufacturing firms, we found that greater innovation rents appropriation is associated with an increase in firm specificity of its innovative knowledge. But the positive relationship between firm-specific innovations and firm value appropriation tends to decrease when the product or technology market is highly dynamic. Further, under high environmental dynamism, firms should increase the diversity in their knowledge composition in order to mitigate the risk …

The Outsourcing Of Creative Work And The Limits Of Capability: The Case Of The Philippines Animation Industry, Feichin Ted Tschang, Andrea Goldstein

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The animation industry, like many information-technology-enabled services sectors, has been of interest to many developing countries interested in developing services outsourcing industries. We analyze the case of the Philippines' animation industry. This paper investigates the outsourcing process in animation and the nature of capabilities within that, with the goal of contributing to a more general understanding of services outsourcing. We examine the industry's history, interview data with industry participants, and secondary data. We find that strong labor force skills have been central to capabilities rather than organizational abilities. Outsourcing of production takes place only so far as the work is …

Random Thoughts On Innovation, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Institute Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship

Research Collection Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

We had to bring about an organizational innovation by reengineering the organization itself!!! The late 1990s saw us redefine the mission of the organization to be user and market centric aiming to produce solutions with a 10X difference. We had to create a program that will allow promising technologies and solutions created by engineers and scientists who were passionate to see their works utilized by the world. This required transforming a quasi-academic publicly funded lab into an engine that would generate new businesses. The transformation was not easy. This was also about the time when the dot com bubble was …

Corporate Social Innovation, Jared Tham

Social Space

CSR has long been perceived as an afterthought in the corporate world. However, perceptions are shifting, and CSR is becoming part of the innovation paradigm of a corporation, creating what is arguably a turning point in the history of the CSR movement.

Transitions Within The Ecosystem Of Change, Willie Cheng

Social Space

The ecosystem paradigm provides a framework to understand and influence the forces of change facing the nonprofit sector. In this extract from the forthcoming book, “The World That Changes The World: How philanthropy, entrepreneurship and innovation are transforming the social ecosystem,” Willie Cheng describes the social ecosystem framework, its change enablers and macro-trends.

Readings In Innovation, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Institute Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship

Research Collection Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

This is a collection of practice oriented papers that I had written from 2005 – 2010 and published in relevant conferences. The papers were written primarily to share my experiences as an innovator and an innovation manager over thirty five years of my professional life. They are a collection of frameworks, heuristic algorithms and processes that I have penned down from my experience. They are neither theories nor only options available to innovators and innovation managers. This is yet another offering in the world of “Innovation Buffet” that innovators could consume. The sole purpose in compiling these papers is to …

Service Innovation In The Non-Profit Sector, Gabriel Boon Siong Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Non-profit organisations are valued because they provide services that address unmet needs. Nonprofits who engage in social entrepreneurship augment their contributions through new services, programmes, enterprises and revenue generated. It is not surprising, therefore, for policy makers to encourage social entrepreneurship, service innovations and social enterprises. However, not all nonprofits seek to innovate by creating revenue-generating social enterprises. They may continue to devote themselves to specific fields and existing practices through other forms of service innovations instead. The intent of nonprofits in starting new services is investigated through a two-pronged quantitative and qualitative research approach.

In the quantitative section, a …

Knowledge Clusters And Knowledge Hubs: Designing Epistemic Landscapes For Development, Hans-Dieter Evers, Solvay Gerke, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose – With globalization and knowledge-based production, firms may cooperate on a global scale, outsource parts of their administrative or productive units and negate location altogether. The extremely low transaction costs of data, information and knowledge seem to invalidate the theory of agglomeration and the spatial clustering of firms, going back to the classical work by Alfred Weber and Alfred Marshall, who emphasized the microeconomic benefits of industrial collocation. This paper aims to argue against this view and show why the growth of knowledge societies will rather increase than decrease the relevance of location by creating knowledge clusters and knowledge …

Ownership Structure, Financial Structure And R&D Investment: Evidence From Korean Firms, Yanghua Chen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Understanding factors that can enhance a firm‟s innovativeness is of critical concern in management research. Prior studies in strategy and financial economics have advanced our understanding of how resource allocation into innovation is shaped in a firm, mainly from the perspectives of ownership and financial structures. However, the extant literature is incomplete, because it treats ownership and financial structures as separate determinants, even though theoretical arguments and empirical evidences suggest that they are interdependent. This study investigates the determinants of firm‟s R&D investments by bridging ownership and financial structures. Ownerships held by inside and external owners are considered for ownership …

Academic Entrepreneurs: The Role Of Star Scientists In Commercialization Of Radical Science, Reddi Kotha, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the effects of individual, team, and institutional capabilities on the governance of technology contracts. Star scientific teams may work on higher quality projects which may be of high or low risk, depending on the maturity of the technology. Arguments that assumed that both capabilities and risk are codetermined, and seldom diverge in their effects on incentive preferences, may be tenuous in these cases. We test our predictions using a two-stage model in a sample of 1,474 inventions that were licensed through performance or upfront contracts. We find that when individuals and teams have strong capabilities, they prefer performance …

The National Innovation System Of Singapore, Winston T. H. Koh, Phillip Phan

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.

Hong Kong’S New Creative Industries: The Example Of The Video Games Sector, F. Ted Tschang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Hong Kong has considerable creative and entrepreneurial resources, and the opportunity to build a vibrant set of creative industries, including in the new sectors such as video games, animation, and computer graphics. However, as it stands, some of these industries, especially that of the games industry, are fledgling in nature. Strong supporting institutions already exist, but it is essential to discover how industry can be better supported with existing and new resources — financial and otherwise. The opportunities are immense, but so is the competition. The new entertainment media sectors are growing at a faster pace than most economic sectors …

Managing Innovation Successfully: The Value Of Contextual Fit (Doctoral Dissertation), Ronald Joachim Bledow

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Information Technology Diffusion With Influentials, Imitators, And Opponents: Model And Preliminary Evidence, Hasan Cavusoglu, Nan Hu, Yingjiu Li, Dan Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Information technology (IT) innovations follow a diverse set of diffusion patterns. Early diffusion models explaining technology diffusion patterns assumed that there is a single homogeneous segment of potential adopters. It was later shown that a two-segment model considering two groups of adopters explains variations in diffusion patterns better than the existing one-segment models. While the two-segment model considers a group of adopters promoting adoption by exerting a positive influence on prospective adopters, it does not consider the members of society who aim to inhibit the adoption process by exerting a negative influence on prospective adopters. In fact, most IT innovations …

Does Patent Strategy Shape The Long-Run Supply Of Public Knowledge? Evidence From Human Genetics, Kenneth G. Huang, Fiona Murray

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Knowledge-based firms seeking competitive advantage often draw on the public knowledge stream (ideas embedded in public commons institutions) as the foundation for private knowledge (ideas firms protect through private intellectual property [IP] institutions). However, understanding of the converse relationship—the impact of private knowledge strategies on public knowledge production—is limited. We examine this question in human genetics, where policy makers debate expanding IP ownership over the human genome. Our difference-in-differences estimates show that gene patents decrease public genetic knowledge, with broader patent scope, private sector ownership, patent thickets, fragmented patent ownership, and a gene's commercial relevance exacerbating their effect.

Big Blue’S Next Big Act: Smarter Technology For A Smarter Planet, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Everything seems to be going digital – our television sets, phones, the ways in which we communicate with each other, perform transactions or apply for permits – all in the name of pristine pictures, crystal clear sounds, paperless administration and fast, unencumbered access to data – all important features of the good life, for sure. But are we necessarily better off? We could be, given that "digitalisation" allows us to see and do things differently; to be more intelligent than we have ever been before, says IT giant IBM. And it is this belief that underscores the company's worldwide "Smarter …

In Support Of A Cashless Future, Researchers Recreate A Cash-Like Experience, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The mobile phone is piece of technology so loved, that some have referred to it as a “phantom limb”. To personalise and get the most out of this “limb”, people have been known to spend lots of time and money, decorating their precious phones with screen protectors, fancy ringtones, wallpapers, themes and ‘apps’. Many have even been caught fiddling with this device while driving! With a national mobile penetration rate of close to 140 percent (which suggests some people may have more “limbs” than others), it seems only natural to fantasise about incorporating the mobile phone into other favourite pastimes, …

Entering The Lion’S Den: Technology Entrepreneurs Need A Global View And Action Plan, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

How many technology companies are confident enough to venture outside the sheltered environment of their home country to compete against the market leaders in their own turf? Not many, especially for the new or young business ventures. Many avoid entering "the lion’s den", so to speak, for fear that they will be eaten alive. Yet, not many realise that if they cannot survive the “lion’s den”, they may not last very long within their own nest, shares seasoned venture capitalist Gideon Tolkowsky.

Wissen Und Entwicklung In Singapur: Trends Und Thesen / Knowledge And Development In Singapore: Trends And Propositions, Thomas Menkhoff, Solvay Gerke, Hans-Dieter Evers, Yue-Wah Chay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper addresses the question how knowledge is used to benefit the economic development of Singapore. The country has followed strict science policies to establish knowledge governance regimes for a knowledge-based economy. On the basis of empirical studies the authors show, how cultural diversity and social capital impact on the ability to develop an epistemic culture of knowledge sharing and ultimately an innovative knowledge-based economy.

Inventory Flexibility Through Adjustment Contracts, Rong Li, Jennifer Ryan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.