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L’accompagnement de l’innovation par le numérique : quelles opportunités pour les PME ?
Abstract
Supporting innovation through digital technology: What opportunities for SMEs?
This article aims to better understand how SMEs support their innovation through digital technology. In particular, we explore whether this digital support depends on the firm’s general digital profile and its location. The empirical analysis relies on data collected in 2015 from 711 innovative SMEs located in areas of varying density within the Brittany region (France). It shows that digital support for innovation is far from systematic. Econometric models show that SMEs’ general digital profile positively affects the probability of them supporting their innovations through digital technology. This result indicates an accelerator effect for highly digitized SMEs, from which low-digitized SMEs do not benefit. The models also show a dropout effect for SMEs located in low-density areas, which invest less in digital technology to support their innovations than those located in large urban centers.
... Défi sociétal majeur actuel, la transition numérique (Dudézert, 2018) questionne la notion de responsabilité dans (et entre) les organisations (Dejoux et Léon, 2018), particulièrement s'agissant de l'innovation (Deltour et al., 2020). A l'aune de la digitalisation, il convient de réinterroger la RSE, voire de la réinventer (Berger-Douce, 2019 ; Cuénoud et al., 2019 ;Merlet et Pénard, 2019), et ce d'autant plus que son rôle politique revient sur le devant de la scène et s'affirme (Whelan, 2012 ;Wickert, 2016 ;Scherer et al., 2016). ...
Thématique 16: Repreneuriat, Innovation, diversité culturelle et genre....
PP. 73-75
Cet article étudie le rôle du numérique et du territoire dans la capacité d’innovation des entreprises. Plus précisément, nous nous interrogeons sur les déterminants de la capacité d’innovation des PME, en mettant un accent particulier sur la localisation des firmes et leur aptitude à mobiliser des outils numériques. L’étude empirique porte sur la capacité d’innovation d’un échantillon représentatif de 1 253 PME, complété par des données de localisation issues du zonage en aires urbaines. Nos données nous permettent de montrer que la capacité d’innovation de la PME dépend moins de sa localisation que de ses caractéristiques propres, notamment son caractère multisites et sa capacité à mobiliser les TIC. Nous testons ensuite l’hypothèse d’un effet différencié de l’utilisation des ressources numériques sur la capacité d’innovation en fonction de la localisation de la firme. Les résultats des modèles ne nous permettent pas de valider cette dernière hypothèse.
The open innovation paradigm has become central for understanding firm-level innovation, and is being refined and questioned as researchers explore its limits. However, it has been rather uncritically adopted by many economic geographers since it provides backing for a variety of theories and observations that point towards innovation occurring in geographically concentrated clusters and cities and towards the role that proximity plays. Evidence that innovation can and does occur outside of clusters and cities, whilst widespread, has not displaced the prevailing idea that innovation and geographic concentration are intimately linked. In this paper, I first go over these arguments, focussing on the reasons why innovation is thought to be associated with cities and clusters. I then propose a framework that accounts for the clustering of innovative firms, for the role of cities, and for the fact that empirical work consistently shows that firms introduce first-to-market innovations in a wide variety of geographic contexts, including isolated and peripheral ones. The framework (re)introduces time and place as key factors, which determine not the diffusion, but the value to innovators, of different types of information.
L’analyse des relations de proximité s’est souvent tournée vers les questions de relations industrielles et d’innovation, en introduisant des raffinements successifs, qui tournent autour des notions fondamentales de Proximité Géographique et de Proximité Organisée. L’objectif de ce papier est d’analyser et de caractériser la diversité des relations de proximité entretenues par les entreprises innovantes au sein d’un cluster, puis d’en donner une lecture à partir d’un exemple appliqué. Nous commençons par mettre en évidence les principales caractéristiques des relations de Proximité Organisée et de Proximité Géographique (dans ses composantes permanentes et temporaires) et dessiner ainsi le schéma des différentes catégories de relations proches et à distance entretenues par les entreprises d’un cluster, en particulier en termes de collaborations de recherche et de développement. Nous appliquons ensuite cette grille de lecture au cas des entreprises du cluster de l’optique en Région Ile de France, en appliquant la méthode d’analyse portérienne des groupes stratégiques. Les résultats révèlent l’existence de quatre groupes différents d’entreprises innovantes, qui entretiennent des relations spécifiques à l’espace et mobilisent de manière différente les relations locales, les échanges à distance via la mobilité ou les TICs. En particulier, les schémas de mobilisation des proximités s’avèrent différents en fonction de la taille des entreprises, de leur place dans la chaine de valeur, de leur degré de spécialisation et de la maturité de la technologie.
Our era is one of increasingly pervasive digital technologies, which penetrate deeply into the very core of the products, services, and operations of many organizations and radically change the nature of product and service innovations. The fundamental properties of digital technology are reprogrammability and data homogenization. Together, they provide an environment of open and flexible affordances that are used in creating innovations characterized by convergence and generativity. An analysis of convergence and generativity observed in innovations with pervasive digital technologies reveals three traits: (1) the importance of digital technology platforms, (2) the emergence of distributed innovations, and (3) the prevalence of combinatorial innovation. Each of the six articles in this special issue relates to one or more of these three traits. In this essay, we explore the organizational research implications of these three digital innovation traits and identify research opportunities for organization science scholars. Examples from the articles in this special issue on organizing for innovation in the digitized world are used to demonstrate the kind of organizational scholarship that can faithfully reflect and inform innovation in a world of pervasive digital technologies.
Diffusion and combination of ICT networks, data management and integration by ERP
The diffusion of ICT in French firms in 2006 concerns three areas: networks, data management, and data integration. The highest levels of diffusion are found in the largest firms and their subsidiaries, which accumulate different tools. A phenomenon of catching up is witnessed for most of these network tools, which indicates the existence of a temporary digital divide. In the case of the most complex, data- or integration-management tools, essentially structural divides appear, linked mainly to the firms’ size. Differences between firms’ levels of information technology currently stem from their software rather than their hardware choices. The use of software and applications thus differentiates in new ways between firms. For example, as regards ERP, three distinct management strategies can be identified: financial, economic and project.
Researchers and practitioners have long believed that information technology (IT) is a key tool for fostering innovation. However, there is a certain inconsistency in the literature, which makes it challenging for researchers to figure out exactly how and why IT plays such a pivotal, strategic organizational role. The motivation for this research is the multiple contradictory results reported by studies investigating the influence of information technology (IT) on organizational innovation. This study utilizes a fit-based perspective in an attempt to disentangle these contradictions. Using Venkatraman’s (1989) seminal paper on fit, we conceive of two critical fit-based concepts: harmonious IT affordance in an organization (HITA) and a subsequent fit between HITA and organizational courage. HITA reflects a covariance fit (coalignment) between the three major IT affordances in an organization—collaborative affordance, organizational memory affordance, and process management affordance. Organizational courage reflects the boldness (risk-taking ability) of the organization. Finally, HITA and organizational courage represent a matching fit (reflected as actualized HITA) that influences two kinds of innovation: exploratory and exploitative. Two studies, conducted in the US and Chinese contexts, provide support for this theory. The main contribution of the paper is in showing that IT can lead to innovation if (a) organizational IT affordances harmoniously coalign (as HITA); (b) and, organizational courage acts as a powerful contingency that actualizes HITA, and this actualized HITA influences innovation.
Plusieurs entreprises mettent en place des entites dediees a favoriser l’innovation de rupture. En nous appuyant sur l’analyse de huit entites [1] , nous identifions quatre types d’activites qui y sont menees et montrons comment certains outils numeriques favorisent leur execution. Il y a trois types d’outils : ceux qui font le lien avec l’environnement de l’entreprise pour s’approvisionner en idees et connaissances, ceux qui permettent d’identifier et developper les comportements intrapreneurs et ceux favorisant l’experimentation. Tous concilient la divergence creative de l’exploration avec la maitrise des couts et des delais et favorisent la coexistence de differentes formes d’ambidextrie organisationnelles.
Analysis of proximity relations has often focused on the areas of industrial relations and innovation, introducing successive refinements centred on the seminal concepts of geographical and organised proximity. The aim of this article is to analyse and to assess for the diversity of proximity relations maintained by various types of innovative firms within a cluster, and to illustrate it with a case study analysis. We start with a presentation of the main characteristics of proximity relations: organised proximity and (permanent or temporary) geographical proximity, and define on that basis an analytical grid of the various relations maintained by the firms located in a cluster, be there local or distant ones. Then, we applied this analysis to an applied example, the one of the optics cluster in the greater Paris region. In order to identify groups of firms we apply the Porterian analysis method to strategic groups. The results reveal the existence of four different groups of innovative firms that maintain specific spatial relations and mobilize local relations and long-distance exchanges in different ways, via mobility or ICT. We show that the mobilization patterns of the different proximity types vary depending on the size of the firms, their place within the value chain, their degree of specialization and the maturity of the technology used.
Firms’ innovativeness and their ICT resources are seen as two factors of firms’ competitiveness. Our research tests these sources of performance in the context of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and examines possible synergies with ICTs supporting innovation. Our research is based on a double empirical investigation : a survey is conducted among firms in the region of Brittany (France), complemented with an online investigation of their financial performance. With a final sample of 1086 firms, we perform an econometric assessment of SMEs performance, explained by their innovativeness, their ICT resources (skills and assets) and the combined effect of their innovativeness supported by ICTs. The interaction variable capturing the combined effect constitutes the major methodological originality of our research. Our investigation shows that ICTs contribute to performance improvement when supporting innovations : SMEs’ innovativeness positively influences performance when it is accompanied by specific investments in ICTs or by more intensive use of existing ICTs in the firm. However, innovativeness and the level of ICT resources have a direct negative effect on SMEs’ financial performance. We discuss these results in the specific SMEs organizational context.
This study uses data from two waves of the Encuesta Longitudinal de Empresas (ELE) to examine the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) use and product innovation in Chilean firms. Our findings sustain the hypothesis that ICT act as enablers of innovation. However, the impacts of ICT on product innovation depend on the type of application considered. In particular, we find positive and significant association between production-integrating ICT, i.e. administrative and industry-specific software, and product innovation, while this is not the case for market-oriented ICT such as e-commerce or client relationship manager software. Finally, the results show that not every ICT combination is beneficial for innovation: firms that show a basic use of ICT are not associated with a better likelihood of introducing innovation, while firms with an advanced use of ICT are those with the more likelihood of innovating.
There is a continuous commitment of policymakers in the UK to support innovation in small and medium-sized firms. For these policy initiatives to be successful, an understanding of the factors driving innovation activities is required. In this study, the focus is upon the role that information and communication technologies (ICT) play in the innovation performance of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using data drawn from the 2004 Annual Small Business Survey (ASBS) database, it is shown that ICT operate primarily as efficiency-enhancing technologies, although specific market-oriented applications (that is, website development) exhibit the potential to create competitive advantage through product innovation.
We gather detailed data on organizational practices and information technology (IT) use at 253 firms to examine the hypothesis that external focus—the ability of a firm to detect and therefore respond to changes in its external operating environment—increases returns to IT, especially when combined with decentralized decision making. First, using survey-based measures, we find that external focus is correlated with both organizational decentralization, and IT investment. Second, we find that a cluster of practices including external focus, decentralization, and IT is associated with improved product innovation capabilities. Third, we develop and test a three-way complementarities model that indicates that the combination of external focus, decentralization, and IT is associated with significantly higher productivity in our sample. We also introduce a new set of instrumental variables representing barriers to IT-related organizational change and find that our results are robust when we account for the potential endogeneity of organizational investments. Our results may help explain why firms that operate in information-rich environments such as high-technology clusters or areas with high worker mobility have experienced especially high returns to IT investment and suggest a set of practices that some managers may be able to use to increase their returns from IT investments.
This paper was accepted by Sandra Slaughter, information systems.
Despite evidence of a positive relationship between information technology (IT) investments and firm performance, results still vary across firms and performance measures. We explore two organizational explanations for this variation: differences in firms' IT investment allocations and their IT capabilities. We develop a theoretical model of IT resources, defined as the combination of specific IT assets and organizational IT capabilities. We argue that investments into different IT assets are guided by firms' strategies (e.g., cost leadership or innovation) and deliver value along performance dimensions consistent with their strategic purpose. We hypothesize that firms derive additional value per IT dollar through a mutually reinforcing system of organizational IT capabilities built on complementary practices and competencies. Empirically, we test the impact of IT assets, IT capabilities, and their combination on four dimensions of firm performance: market valuation, profitability, cost, and innovation. Our results---based on data on IT investment allocations and IT capabilities in 147 U.S. firms from 1999 to 2002---demonstrate that IT investment allocations and organizational IT capabilities drive differences in firm performance. Firms' total IT investment is not associated with performance, but investments in specific IT assets explain performance differences along dimensions consistent with their strategic purpose. In addition, a system of organizational IT capabilities strengthens the performance effects of IT assets and broadens their impact beyond their intended purpose. The results help explain variance in returns to IT capital across firms and expand our understanding of alignment between IT and organizations. We illustrate our findings with examples from a case study of 7-Eleven Japan.