Majbritt Rostgaard Evald

• Ph.d.
• Professor and Vicehead of Research at University of Southern Denmark

Sustainable innovations that address complex societal and environmental challenges require interactions between organisations. Yet previous research demonstrates that these interactions are not easy, and interactions themselves pose challenges. In this paper, we explore how organisations interact across sectors to develop a sustainable innovation....

This chapter aims to show the transformation that occurs when a popular research method in collaborative business research—the personal interview—becomes a “paradigm-embedded” research method. Because a paradigm consists of some ultimate presumptions (philosophical hypotheses or normative theses), they influence how researchers understand problems...

The authors of this book have considered research in novel terms, focusing not only on methods but also on the relationship between the researcher and the researched. The traditional model is one where “good” research is objectively conducted, when there is distance between researcher and subject, where the researcher designs and determines the res...

This chapter provides both an overview of the book’s chapters, the ways in which they interrelate, and a foundation for their use. There are two main components to the foundation. First, the chapters are intended to guide collaborative research with business—although the methods articulated could be used in other kinds of research. Collaboration in...

A case is not just a case! It is a reflection of a series of choices (conscious or unconscious) made by researchers. These choices shape how a case study is approached, used, and integrated into broader scientific investigations. As such, cases are always based on an overall scientific paradigm in which a particular purpose is steering how the case...

This chapter gives scholars and practitioners insight into different approaches to literature reviews, specifically those conducted from a critical realist stance. Because of their paradigmatic stances, some researchers have predetermined ideas about conducting a literature review. This makes sense for researchers belonging to the positivist paradi...

This study addresses the scantly examined work done by individuals to develop reciprocal relationships and maintain momentum throughout public-private innovation partnerships. We combine insights from the public-private innovation partnership literature with the notion of relational work from economic-sociology to analyse cases of public procuremen...

Although the body of research on design thinking (DT) is growing, knowledge regarding DT facilitation in innovation projects is sparse. Through explorative case studies, we explore how facilitators understand and apply DT to innovation projects. Our findings reveal that different DT facilitators take markedly polar different approaches to DT facili...

Despite an increased use of open innovation (OI) in firms, it is still a question of how firms can work successfully with OI in a way that enables them to exploit their current capabilities and simultaneously explore fundamentally new competencies. Firms need to be able to practice different forms of OI activities—inbound, outbound, or coupled—whil...

At the same time as the productivity of academics have become more formalized and institutionalized with increasing emphasis on counting publications in high-ranking journals, citations, h-index, and so on, there is an increased demand on academics to contribute to what is referred to as societal value, societal relevance, public value, societal im...

The purpose of this chapter is to show the transformation that takes place when a ‘neutral’ research method is turned into a ‘paradigm-embedded’ research method. Because a paradigm consists of some ultimate presumptions (understood as philosophical hypothesis or normative theses), paradigms influence the way in which researchers understand problems...

The chapter gives scholars insight into how different types of literature reviews can be conducted if you do research from a critical realist stance. Some researchers, because of their paradigmatic stances, have predetermined ideas about conducting a literature review. This makes sense if the researcher belongs to the positivist paradigm, where a r...

Purpose Public-private innovation (PPI) is often claimed to contribute to societal welfare, to bring positive effects to the public sector and to open new markets to private firms. Engaging in public-private relationships for innovation is, however, also recognised as challenging and problematic. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the manager...

This study presents a new theoretical understanding of how growth and business success is perceived by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), by investigating how organic unintended growth is dealt with when growth is perceived as problematic. The study is based on a new structuring of current state-of-the-art growth literature as well as an ex...

The present study is rooted in Public Private Innovation (PPI) projects where public hospitals and private firms engage in cross-sector collaboration with a view to developing new welfare solutions targeting public sector needs. Research into PPI is mainly focused on public management of innovation processes. Consequently, PPI is rarely examined fr...

According to literature on teams and group learning it is important for heterogeneous teams to share knowledge, through the use of different forms of interaction. However, little is known about how different forms of interaction influence knowledge sharing and secure progress during innovation processes. In order to achieve an increased understandi...

This exploratory study investigates how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may engage in business development through internal corporate venturing (ICV). We show, based upon three case studies, how ICV in SMEs may be organised in a predominantly improvised manner wherein unforeseen new business opportunities are created in an emergent and i...

The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic overview of current and future research themes discussed in the literature of Public Private Innovation (PPI). The overview is much needed as different research areas currently investigating PPI seem unaware of each other’s findings and, as such, produce knowledge that is unconnected. Bridging these...

In this paper we investigate the extent to which gender equality disintegrates women's self-employment choice (compared to that for men) and whether this is contingent upon a country's development stage and industries. We rely on symbolic interactionism to argue that employment choices emerge from an interactive conversation between individual and...

By combining existing research on open innovation and corporate venturing, this article explores methods by which a firm can organise open innovation activities in a comprehensive innovation setup. This setup concurrently manages to create and sustain incremental and radical innovative efforts for developing its business. Discussions draw on findin...

Outsourcing continues to be an important strategic tool for firms. While outsourcing can take place without major problems, some firms experience problems. Unfulfilled expectations or new opportunities can make alterations to existing sourcing solutions necessary. Such reconsiderations may be due to internal or external changes. This article focuse...

By combining existing research on open innovation and corporate venturing, this article explores methods by which a firm can organise open innovation activities in a comprehensive innovation setup. This setup concurrently manages to create and sustain incremental and radical innovative efforts for developing its business. Discussions draw on findin...

This study investigates the influence of human capital, social capital, and cognition on nascent entrepreneurs' export intentions. The results indicate that while human capital and social capital influence the level of intended export, cognitive characteristics, such as self-efficacy and risk aversion, do not seem to influence entrepreneurs' intend...

This article focuses on the performance of corporate spin-offs. The existing literature agrees that corporate spin-offs perform better than independent start-ups. However, systematic evidence on the subject still seems elusive. We therefore review articles that specifically address the performance of corporate spin-offs. Furthermore, we argue there...

This article addresses venture team relationships in an advanced high tech incubator through an analysis of the personal relationships of venture team members. During the study period of almost 2years, the ventures were projected to grow and commercialise but, overall, they failed. Quantitative data collected in two rounds showed that commercial re...

In this paper we review selected papers on entrepreneurship dealing with Granovetter's concept of strong and weak ties in order to systematically organize the articles according to the researchers' estimate of what ties are most important. The aim is to find out what the existing research applying the entrepreneurship network approach says about th...

This study investigates how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) engage in business development through innovative corporate venturing (CV) activities on a sample of Danish SMEs. Traditionally, innovative business development through CV activities has been connected to firms’ purposeful and pre-planned attempts to leverage entrepreneurial oppo...

This article argues that corporate venturing (CV), i.e. activities where an existing firm actively invest in a new start-up, is a much more widespread phenomenon in Denmark than official sources claim. In addition to large CV oriented corporations such as NKT and B&O, many medium sized firms and even quite small firms are involved in CV activities,...