Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management

 

Special Issue on: "Corporate Entrepreneurship and Front End Innovation"

Guest Editors: Prof. Dr Timo Pihkala and Prof. Dr. Vesa Harmaakorpi, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland

The aim of this special issue is to look into the intersection of intra-organisational entrepreneurship and front end innovation activities. Corporate entrepreneurship, i.e., intrapreneurship can be defined as, e.g., entrepreneurship within an existing organisation, referring to emergent behavioural intentions and behaviours of an organisation that are related to departures from the customary. (Antoncic & Hisrich, 2003). The understanding of corporate entrepreneurship is likely to evolve well through the introduction of new concepts such as the open innovation philosophy.

Open innovation philosophy is changing the innovation pattern in organisations radically. The value added in innovation takes often place outside the organisation, including the strong influence of customers. Therefore, innovation emerges often in very practical contexts, leading to rather “connect and develop” than “research and develop” innovation activities (see e.g. Huston & Sakkab, 2006). Promoting the front end innovation in these processes is suggested to be crucial for the success of an organisation. The innovating actors of an organisation meet totally new challenges in the new front end innovation environment. Managing these challenges seems to show the way to success in the process of modern “creative destruction”.

Exploiting the philosophy of open innovation, intrapreneurship is likely to play a key role in organisations. The current understanding of intrapreneurship, organisational citizenship behaviour and innovativeness suggests the importance of the weak links and personal initiatives in promoting intra-organisational innovations. Thus, practise-based innovation processes reflect the characteristics of self-organising systems. The relationship between front end innovations and organisational capabilities to carry out the innovative applications into practise is however largely unknown. It is the objective of this special issue to focus particularly on these intra-organisational processes of renewal and innovativeness.

The objectives of this issue are to shed light to the organisational demands of open innovation for the front end innovation management, and to seek new knowledge on the management of intra-organisational renewal processes.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:

• Conceptual development of the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and front-end innovation processes
• Supporting mechanisms for creativity and front end innovation
• New approaches towards shop floor innovation management
• Open innovation practices as examples of self-organising systems
• Practice-based innovation networks and the shop floor employees
• Management of new forms of customership and intrapreneurship
• Initiativeness and responsibility in intrapreneurial processes
• The role of corporate citizenship behaviour on the quality of practise-based innovative activities

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Paper Submission Deadline: 15 April 2008