PurposeDuring the last decade, a firm's ability to innovate has gained substantial attention in the literature devoted to innovation and strategic management. This study aims at discussing on what is the relationship of a firm's commitment to learn and its open-mindedness with its activity in introducing organizational innovations. The data collection was carried out in Russia. In order to make the research more specific, the organizational innovation is broken down into two subtypes, namely innovation in management practices and innovation in workplace organization.Design/methodology/approachThe study is grounded on the data obtained by the surveying of 123 Russian top managers working in manufacturing firms. The structural equation modeling was approached in order to investigate the impact of a firm's commitment to learn and open-mindedness on its organizational innovation.FindingsThe results indicate that the commitment to learn and the open-mindedness have considerable impact on organizational innovation activity in a firm. The findings also provide evidence that both the investigated subtypes of organizational innovation are positively influenced by commitment to learn and open-mindedness, though the degree of that influence differs.Originality/valueThe literature traditionally focuses mostly on the technological type of innovation leaving the organizational innovation covered by scarce research. In this respect the study contributes to the theory of organizational innovation by elaborating its relations with organizational learning dimensions. Apart from the investigation on the research question at a general level, the study explores the specific context related to the manifestation of phenomenon in a transition economy of Russia.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of cognitive diversity on strategic issue interpretation among the boards of directors making sense of sustainability management. The study also investigated the centrality of the corporate sustainability issues to identify common interpretative patterns in the shared cognitive maps among the companies. In addition, the aim was to advance quantitative methods for the analysis of decision-makers’ cognition. Design/methodology/approach The research was an exploratory study analyzing 43 individual cognitive maps collected through surveys from the boards of nine cleantech companies. For the elicitation of the cognitive maps, the study used the hybrid cognitive mapping technique. The diversity of the shared cognitive maps was analyzed using the distance ratio formula and the graph analysis method with eigenvector to measure the centrality of the strategic issue interpretation in the maps. Findings This study provides evidence through the analysis of distance ratios on the existence of cognitive diversity among companies within the same industry. Surprisingly, despite the cognitive diversity, the study identified strong common patterns on strategic issue interpretations among the companies. In addition, the study shows that the sustainability management issues have gained minor attention from the boards of directors. Research limitations/implications The initial industry sample provided relatively restricted perspectives on managerial cognition, and to confirm the findings regarding the effects of industry on the shared cognitive maps of top decision-makers, wider industry-level data are needed. Practical implications This study provides an approach to facilitate the process of strategic decision-making for top decision-makers by identifying the shared beliefs of the selected strategic theme and to concentrate on the most central strategic issues in the company and industry. It reveals asymmetry between the significance of sustainability issues in an open agenda and the real position of sustainability concepts in the shared cognitive maps in the green industry. Also, the study advances cognitive mapping techniques for application in the board’s decision-making. Originality/value This paper contributes to brightening the black box of corporate governance by shedding light on the interaction of the concepts of corporate sustainability and other key strategic issues within the shared cognitive maps of the boards. It also provides new empirical knowledge on top decision-making processes and the effects of cognitive diversity on the strategic issue interpretations within the corporate boards of the green industry, and it further develops the methodology for the quantification of cognitive diversity and the content of cognitive maps.

The innovation space has become more complex and knowledgeintensive. As a result, it is increasingly important to see innovations as knowledge that is embodied in learning and technical and organisational knowledge bases. However, in processes, such as innovation development, individuals make sense of it and utilise existing knowledge differently when making decisions about which design of new technology to adopt and develop. This paper highlights the importance of a certain group's cognition in the recognition of new innovations and business opportunities, and presents a method to explore the cognition of different groups. In this study based on a 2-year research project, two different working groups assessed the future innovation and business opportunities in the field of distributed energy generation. Through analysing the results and by presenting the potential method -the heuristic scenario method -to explore cognition in innovation processes, this paper helps to fill the lack of methodologies in cognition research.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bergman, J-P., Jantunen, A., Saksa, J-M. and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, P. (2007) 'Cognition of experts and top managers about the changes in innovation space', Int.

No abstract

This study proposes a framework for the empirical research of cross-border innovation networks dealing with network characteristics, resource and information flows, and decision-making concerning technological innovations. The authors develop a conceptual model that relates network properties, flows of knowledge, and tangible resources with the likelihood of a decision on open innovation, closed innovation, and business expansion without innovations. The model decomposes knowledge flows, considered as the most significant factor for innovation dynamics, into flows of information, trust, and technological competence. The likelihood of strategic decisions in a cross-border innovation network environment is supposed to be dependent on the peculiarities of these flows, network properties such as structural cohesion, autonomy, equivalence, as well as cognitive distance. The paper discusses some distinctive features of this type of network between the North-West of Russia and South-East of Finland.

Continuous change in the energy sector towards more sustainable solutions has raised the importance of managers' abilities to interpret changes in their environments and translate those perspectives into strategic choices. This study examines managerial interpretation on changing business environment opening the relationship of cognitive diversity, board composition, and performance differences across the cleantech firms. The authors' empirical study employs both indirect and direct cognitive measures for analysis of cognitive maps collected through surveys from the cleantech firms. The study utilizes the hybrid cognitive mapping technique with distance ratio to investigate cognitive diversity and bridges it with the firms' performance. The study also advances and operationalizes the distance ratio as a measure for the analysis of cognitive maps to utilize more information available in the maps. The results indicate that the managerial characteristics showing firm-level economic expertise creates high-level cognitive diversity and high financial volatility in performance among the cleantech firms.

This research explores the impact of the firm’s characteristics of size and age on organizational innovation. The study is based on data gathered from a sample of industrial companies from central region of Russia, and reveals that there is a relation between the size and age of a firm and its organizational innovation activity. To make the research more specific, the organizational innovation is broken down into a few organizational innovation subtypes that are analysed independently. Each organizational innovation subtype of a firm demonstrates a different level of dependence on its characteristics. The conclusion was made that each subtype of organizational innovation must be analysed based on the specified context being considered.

No abstract