Projet ACIC
| Nom : | Absortive Capacity for Innovation in Companies |
| Contact SIGMA : | Agnès Front |
| Début : | 01/01/2015 |
| Fin : | 31/12/2018 |
Description
Innovation is widely acknowledged to be the catalyst to economic growth and SMEs the growth engine. Both have been the focus of European policy makers as a means of improving international competitiveness and consolidating industrial renewal. To counter the problem of increased global competition, for SMEs with limited resources, innovation projects within collaborative networks (CNs) have been identified as a source of growth for SMEs. The literature has shown that collaborative interactions that take place upstream and downstream in CNs, can improve SME innovativeness and competitiveness. But not much is understood of how SMEs should concretely utilise the resources embedded in CNs and how they should interact with other SMEs to pursue successful innovation projects.
A growing body of empirical evidence further suggests that a firm’s ability to identify, assimilate, transform and apply knowledge known as absorptive capacity (ACAP) (Cohen, Levinthal, 1990), plays a critical role in innovation. But there is a dearth of knowledge in terms of ACAP best practices of SMEs embedded in CNs to develop successful innovation projects.
The major aims of this project are to provide SMEs operating within CNs in industrial clusters, with a cost-effective approach and associated tools to enhance innovation within their organisations. This will be achieved by focusing on the following objectives:
- (i) developing an improved understanding of the knowledge-base, contexts (clusters and types of CNs), and capacities that generate the mechanisms of ACAP of SMEs embedded in CNs
- (ii) operationalizing the concept of ACAP by developing a maturity-assessment tool to enable SMEs to measure their absorptive capacity and gauge their performance
- (iii) and by providing SMEs with associated tools based on novel serious gaming and socialisation techniques that model ACAP practices in innovation projects.
The project will adopt a novel multi-disciplinary (management; engineering and informatics) and multi-methodological approach (qualitative and quantitative to build in-depth case studies, and group experimentation to develop applied tools) in close collaboration between industry practitioners and academics. The tools (a maturity grid and organizing tool) can be applied in real-life contexts with the objective of impacting SMEs innovation projects embedded in CNs. These deliverables will also be directly useful for Masters and Professional teaching.
The diversity of contexts and originality of comparisons, underpins the novelty of this project. First, this research will focus on innovation projects within horizontal CNs contexts as having the potential to generate more innovation. Second, the research will consider cases in both traditional and creative industries. The Rhône-Alpes region is characterized by a high number of SMEs embedded in networks. Many retain a historical link with the regional traditional manufacturing industries such as textiles and mechanical engineering. Developing competencies in the emerging knowledge intensive “creative” industries (including design, media, and software development), is a further means of promoting regional regeneration and economic growth. Consequently three industrial sectors (textile, mechanical, software and gamification) and their clusters will provide the context for this study. Third, we will systematically compare SMEs based in French and UK clusters. In France, government funding has targeted the development of “pôle de compétitivité” or clusters to help regenerate economic growth in these post-industrial regions. These tend to have top-down structures with formal governance approaches. By contrast, the UK has considerably fewer clusters that are largely market driven with an ad-hoc governance structure. This will enable us to better understand the role that clusters play in the process of SME innovation and growth driven by ACAP in CNs.
Partners
Project partners:
- CERAG (coord.) – Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Appliquées à la Gestion
- LIG (coord.) – Laboratoire d’Informatique de Grenoble
- G-SCOP – Laboratoire des Sciences pour la Conception, l’Optimisation et la Production
- INNOVACS – SFR Innovation Connaissances et Société
- University of Bradford
- University of Liverpool
Service operators:
- IXIADE
- THESAME