Paavo Ritala

LUT University · School of Business and Management

Ecosystems-communities of interdependent, yet hierarchically independent heterogeneous participants who collectively generate an ecosystem value proposition-often emerge through collective action, where ecosystem participants interact with each other and the external environment. When such organizational forms are emerging, they require legitimacy...

This chapter develops a typology of B2B platform business models. B2B platforms can be divided into three types depending on the nature of the platform market structures they enable. (1) The product-service platformizer business model creates a platform-like interface on top of a product or service and helps bring in production-side complements to...

The persistence of grand societal and environmental challenges demands attention from innovation management scholars and practitioners to find effective resolutions. Grand challenges are complex, uncertain, and evaluative and cannot be resolved by individual actors or organizations. Therefore, conventional forms of organizing do not suffice in the...

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate how the new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT changes knowledge work for individuals and what are the implications of this change for companies. Design/methodology/approach Based on 22 interviews from informants across different industries, the authors conducted an inductive analysis on the...

We develop a framework of vertical and horizontal complementarities in platform ecosystems. Complementarity is a key theoretical construct for scholars investigating digital platforms and ecosystems , often mentioned in the context of complements, components , modularity, interdependence, and synergies. We shortly review the literature on complemen...

Highly regulated industries such as healthcare can reap significant benefits from new digital technologies. However, due to institutional constraints, adopting such technologies is a slow and difficult process. Technology providers need to legitimize their underlying technologies to the customers and other stakeholders in the field. Drawing on mult...

In recent years, sharing economy business models (BMs) have gained substantial research attention. This stream has led to several important insights, but due to its practical nature and diversity, it has provided limited conceptual integration. This introductory article conceptualizes the research field of sharing economy BMs and their implications...

Digital transformation necessitates firms to continuously innovate their product and service portfolios, which drives firms to develop their capabilities accordingly. While adapting to the evolving environment, incumbent firms develop new digital offerings that both seek novelty but also build on the existing brands and capabilities. Using a single...

In the contemporary business landscape, the imperative for innovative approaches to business model innovation (BMI) is more pronounced than ever, especially given the pressing grand challenges, technological disruptions, digital transformation, and pressing environmental and social concerns of our era. The prevailing discourse in business model and...

New, exponentially growing and adopted technologies are becoming key drivers of the economic and societal transition (Deloitte, 2017; Di Vaio et al., 2020; Loureiro et al., 2021). Common examples of such technologies include artificial intelligence and machine learning, additive manufacturing, augmented and virtual reality, digital biology and biot...

This study presents a metaverse flywheel model providing insights into how the emerging layered modular architecture of the metaverse can enable new types of value-creation opportunities for organizations. Based on interviews with early metaverse adopters and innovators, this article identifies three key metaverse affordances: prospection of future...

Platforms are a dominant model for coordinating complex economic interactions. Platforms are distinguished by growth through network effects: an increase in the number (N) of platform actors (or complements produced by them) on one side makes the platform more valuable for an actor on the same or other side (and vice versa). This paper unbundles th...

To achieve a transformation toward the circular economy, organizations need to take an ecosystem perspective and consider multiple complementary actors that are needed to deliver circularity as a collective outcome. However, practitioners and scholars lack an understanding of the initial phases of ecosystem creation, in terms of how to get started,...

The literature on individual differences constitutes a key area of research in organizational sciences, such as organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and behavioral strategy. In line with this, there is a vast and further growing body of knowledge within this literature. This volume aims to provide an accessible overview of the academ...

Generatiivinen tekoäly on viestintäalalle sekä siunaus että kirous tekoälyn mullistaessa sisällöntuotannon parissa työskentelevien ammatti-identiteettiä ja alan kilpailudynamiikkaa. ”Uusi normaali” koventaa kilpailua viestintäalan toimijoiden välillä ja muokkaa viestinnän ammattilaisten totuttuja rutiineja. Kilpailussa menestyvät sellaiset yritykse...

The context in which collaborative R&D and innovation activities take place is a critical driver of success and failure. However, innovation management research tends to often abstract the context away, leaving the crucial contingency factors unaddressed. This special issue explores multifaceted collaborative R&D and innovation contexts across phys...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the potential and the challenges for different firms in adopting an AI-first strategy. The study attempts to discern if any company can prioritize AI at the forefront of their strategic plans. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from illustrative examples from well-known AI-leaders like Netflix and...

ChatGPT, Dall-E, Steve AI, and Boomy are among many emerging generative artificial intelligence (AI) platforms that enable effortless, creative, and human-like content creation. These new-found capabilities of generative AI have significant potential to influence content marketing. Since generative AI represents a new paradigm for AI usage, new que...

Defined as a community of hierarchically independent, yet interdependent heterogeneous actors around a focal firm who facilitate innovation through cross-boundary knowledge flows, the open innovation ecosystem extends scholarly understanding of open innovation. In particular, the open innovation ecosystem broadens the scope of inquiry over knowledg...

Innovation ecosystems are collectives of diverse, yet complementary, actors collaborating to generate system-level outcomes. Despite growing research interest, the role of “innovation” within innovation ecosystems remains unclear. We first distinguish innovation ecosystems from other innovation-oriented collectives such as alliances and networks, d...

This research aims to explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Steve AI) for content marketing. Data were collected through a netnography study on YouTube. There were three videos with 999 comments altogether being analyzed. The results reveal that the advantages of generative AI for content marketin...

To achieve industry-wide circular economy (CE) outcomes, such as material reuse or recycling, competitors need to join forces and enter the paradoxical relationship of coopetition, whereby competitors collaborate. According to the literature, coopetition can benefit sustainability. However, little is known about coopetition for a CE and how competi...

In 2020, R&D Management celebrated 50 years of publication. The present study honors that milestone by conducting a retrospective examination of the research conducted in the journal over time and reflects on its rich history to look forward in the R&D management field. Using bibliometric techniques, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the journ...

Intra-industry alliance networks provide a firm with both collaborative opportunities and competitive challenges. When forming alliance networks within a particular industry, firms need to consider to which extent they compete in the same markets with their alliance network partners, who are also their industry peers. However, previous literature h...

Circular business models help businesses to create and capture value in ways that are in line with circular economy strategies, while at the same time making feasible business cases. Identifying circular business cases is not simple, however, and calls for major innovation efforts in different aspects of the firm's business model. In this chapter,...

Purpose Firms need to constantly renew themselves to keep up with the pace of competition and proactively establish innovations to the markets. This requires capabilities in learning and renewing of the firm’s knowledge base, conceptualized as renewal capital of the firm. On the other hand, firms that acquire high levels of competitiveness by renew...

Digital platform technology enables circular business models that facilitate the reduction, reuse, and recycling of resources and materials across large ecosystems of platform actors. However, little is currently known about the inner workings of such platforms and how they are organized. Framing these platforms as meta-organizations, this study ex...

Data-as a specific form of digital resource distinct from software-has become strategically important for individual firms and for supply chains, ecosystems, and platforms. Data is by nature nonrival; it does not lose value when shared, and in technical terms, data can be infinitely disseminated, combined, and used. Indeed, a particular data set of...

Digital transformation is among the most pervasive forces disrupting business models across every industrial sector. While prior research has explored the digital transformation of business models, the effect on the value proposition as a key element of the business model has received only limited attention. Drawing on an extensive single case stud...

Using a longitudinal multiple case study research design involving nine family firms (FFs) from eight countries, including both developed and emerging economies, this study unbundles the role played by values in family firm adaptation to crises such as the Covid 19 pandemic. FFs’ response to crises exhibit anomalies of mutable higher-order values,...

CFP for an SI on "Strategy in the digital transformation era"

In knowledge networks, such as best-practice networks, industry forums, and professional communities, members of different organizations exchange knowledge for mutual and individual benefit. When properly managed, knowledge networks enable time- and resource-constrained individuals to engage across organizational and industry boundaries. Such netwo...

For better or worse, digital technologies are reshaping everything, from customer behaviors and expectations to organizational and manufacturing systems, business models, markets, and ultimately society. To understand this overarching transformation, this paper extends the previous literature which has focused mostly on the organizational level by...

Digital platforms have disrupted traditional news organizations, with new platform-based models gaining ground. However, the incumbents can defend their positions and reap the benefits of multi-sided market structures by establishing a platform business model themselves. We examine a case study of the Austrian News Agency (APA), which gradually for...

Network effects have been theorized as the defining growth mechanism in platform markets. The increase in the number of platform participants (N) fuels a virtuous cycle of growth?a network effect. However, beyond the N, what are the distinct qualitative attributes that drive the increasing value for a particular side of a platform as the number (qu...

In management literature, “ecosystems” are increasingly invoked for improvement of environmental sustainability and the circular economy (CE), but there is conceptual as well as empirical ambiguity regarding their role, composition, and nature. This chapter reviews existing ecosystem conceptualizations, distinguishes the main applications and impli...

In transformational strategy contexts such as digitalization, the entrepreneurial behavior of the firm’s employees is crucial. This study examines the role of employees’ individual-level entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) in terms of proactiveness, risk-taking, and innovativeness, and their relational capital within the organization, on their perfor...

Purpose- Service ecosystems are becoming an important domain of joint value creation and resource integration, and the literature in the field is burgeoning. The recent growth in the literature warrants consolidating the findings of the existing literature, summarizing the recent development, and identifying avenues for more impactful future resear...

Purpose The importance of integrating both internal and external knowledge into the product/service innovation process has been widely recognized in the knowledge management and innovation literature. Likewise, the role of the marketing and sales function as a driver of innovation has been stressed because of its market-facing role. However, limite...

In this research note, we examine Finnboat, a traditional Finnish family firm, from the interrelated perspectives of crisis behavior and innovation. The firm under study has endured three major crises: the economic recession of the 1990s, the 2008–2009 financial crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic. Our study shows that Finnboat has undertaken only...

Purpose This paper aims to adopt a contextual approach to the knowledge-performance linkage by deepening into the role of marketing and sales employees’ knowledge resources in the generation and delivery of superior customer experiences (CEs) and into the motivational antecedents of knowledge acquisition and development. Design/methodology/approac...

Disruptive innovation has attracted significant scholarly and managerial interest. In the existing research, there is ongoing debate about the nature of disruptive innovation and who initiates it. The related question of how incumbents can deal with disruption, let alone initiate it, has not been extensively addressed. To bridge these gaps, we conc...

Business model change is typically seen as an adaptation to market contextual changes or as experimentation to find the optimal model for a given context. We highlight an alternative rationale for business model change by showing formally that switching from a subscription-based to an ad-sponsored business model over time can generate more life cyc...

Purpose Circular business models can improve resource use in a financially and environmentally feasible way. However, companies struggle to choose among the vast variety of ways to achieve circularity within a business model. The purpose of this paper is to offer a pragmatic guide for making strategic decisions on circular business models. Design/...

Firms’ innovative capabilities and performance increasingly rely on successful search and integration of internal and external knowledge. To this end, firms engage in various open innovation relationships, aiming to create and capture value in multi-actor contexts. This can give rise to a “paradox of openness” due to the contradictory role of knowl...

Value creation and appropriation are much-studied processes in business and management fields. However, both academia and business practice have traditionally focused on how value is created and appropriated in the economic context and by economic actors. This overemphasis on economic logic has created institutionalized asymmetries in managing the...

Research on inter‐organizational relationships has largely focused on the interdependence between formal organizations. In recent years, firms have encountered a new logic in which interdependent parties are not formal organizations but platform‐based ‘customer‐entrepreneurs’ that create value through illegal means. Drawing on a 5‐year‐long qualita...

Coopetition (i.e., collaboration between competitors) takes place across alliance networks within an industry. Such ‘coopetition networks’ provide the embedded firms with both opportunities and challenges. However, it is not well known what drives a firm to increase the level of competitive intensity among its overall alliance network. This study e...

Research on open innovation and sustainability suggests that alliances with external stakeholders help to improve innovation outcomes. This paper taps into the intersection of these literatures and investigates how alliance proactiveness and alliance portfolio coordination affect firms' sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) outcomes. Data were c...

The management literature defines modular innovation as a way to make technological changes in product modules that does not necessarily change the product architecture. However, engineering science shows that new product modules not only change the product architecture, but they can also be used for technologically radical next generation products...

Purpose The aims of this paper are to identify and classify the knowledge resources that shape intellectual capital (IC) within the marketing function, to develop and validate a related scale and to demonstrate the scale's applicability in an empirical context. Design/methodology/approach A literature-based approach was adopted to identify and cla...

Industrial co-creation projects are often complex and ambiguous, involving high levels of interpretive uncertainty over processes and outcomes. To boost the effectiveness of such projects, firms have increasingly adopted virtual reality (VR) technology and have experienced unique benefits by utilizing digital artifacts—interactive objects in digita...

In making decisions about strategic and operational actions, managers commonly need to consider dualities such as long-term versus short-term, innovation versus tradition, and stability versus change. As these dualities often entail contradictory objectives, paradoxical tensions may arise in their pursuit. Despite growing interest in this topic, th...

Exploration and exploitation are two generic strategies of firms' adaptation to their environments. However, the effectiveness and reliability of these approaches are not fully understood when the business environment is undergoing a major crisis. Building on organizational adaptation, strategic fit, and organizational decline streams of literature...

In hotel services, the provider and customer are expected to behave according to a specific cognitive script that has been developed based on previous experiences of different actors' input and behavior. However, if either party deviates from their script, value co-destruction – rather than value co-creation – might emerge. While the existing touri...

Alliances are often thought to be longer lasting and lead to better results when they are perceived as equal and fair in terms of how efforts and rewards are distributed. This study conceptualizes the value-creation-capture-equilibrium (VCCE) as the relative inputs and efforts made by alliance partners to create and capture innovation-related value...

The beneficial consequences that intellectual capital exerts on various aspects of organizational performance have become well established facts demonstrated in a wide range of empirical studies. However, little knowledge exists on what drives the development of intellectual capital itself. To bridge this gap in the current understanding, this chap...

The growth of digital platforms relies on the generative nature of digital resources and platforms' openness to complementary innovation. These features generate strong network effects and winner-take-all dynamics that protect incumbents from competition. However, under certain conditions, these same features render incumbent platforms vulnerable t...

Social enterprises aim to create both social and financial value, requiring the creation of business models that allow both objectives to be pursued simultaneously. However, the tensions between these objectives can make this a challenging task in terms of issues such as mission drift and commercial failure. Our multiple case study of seven social...

Organisational innovativeness is known to be affected by employee incentives and motivation, but the evidence is inconclusive regarding the organisational contexts and contingencies where this phenomenon takes place. To examine this issue, we adopt the Competing Value Framework of four types of organisational cultures, and hypothesise differences i...

Ecosystems have recently emerged as a visible stream in organization and management research. The ecosystem concept promises a broader, systems view of organizational and technological phenomena beyond traditional firm, value chain or network boundaries. However, adopting an ecosystem approach presents a range of methodological challenges for resea...

When created and captured value is unbalanced in innovation alliances, instabilities may emerge. Competitive tensions between the partners may further destabilize the value creation process. How these dynamics affect the outcomes of innovation alliances is still far from clear. This study focuses on expert power, relative private and common benefit...

Even in today’s turbulent business environment, there are companies in many industries that have enjoyed decades of relatively undisturbed success. However, eventually, after such prolonged periods of calm, existing market positions are challenged. We describe such companies as ‘Sleeping Beauties’ and discuss how they can reinvent themselves throug...

The aim of this edited book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and challenges related to innovation for sustainability. Combining work from both emerging and established scholars in different academic fields, this book provides an integrated understanding of the topic from four perspectives. First, the big picture: framewor...

Business-originated innovation activities are increasingly seen as a driver for resolving global challenges in environmental and social issues. At best, innovation for sustainability—or sustainability-oriented innovation—is a way for firms to improve their competitiveness while also facilitating the greater good. Research and practice have shown th...

This chapter introduces the background, aims, contents, and implications of the edited collection “Innovation for Sustainability: Business Transformations Towards a Better World”.