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Transformative societal change can both be triggered and influenced by both macro-level political means and the emergence of technologies. Key enabling technologies and therein biotechnology hold the power to drive those changes forward, evolving from breakthrough academic discoveries into business activities. Due to its increasing empirical relevance, we picked genome editing as an example for an emerging technology and extracted publication, patent, and company data from the years 2000 to 2020. By drawing upon social network analysis, we identify major networks and clusters that are dominating the respective time and layer. Based on these networks, we draw vertical connections between scientific knowledge, patented technologies, and business activities to visualize the interlevel relationships between actors through technological development. Thereby, we identify network dynamics of the emergence of genome editing, the most important actors and clusters evolving, and its spread into different areas.

Innovation is a clear target of the Europe 2020 growth strategy. It has been widely postulated that cooperation is especially important for innovation in the food industry because it has traditionally been regarded as a "low tech" sector. This paper analyses how different forms of cooperation affect innovation activities in the EU's food industry. In particular, the study addresses the question of how cooperation between companies and key chain agents influences innovative activity. To do so, we analysed data at the country level drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The aggregated data allowed us to investigate national system-level processes that must be considered the outcomes of micro-level decisions and policies. A random effect linear model is formulated and estimated to analyse the panel data obtained from five CIS waves. The model indicates that cooperation with universities positively affects innovative activity and, surprisingly, that government financial support has not been an effective instrument to foster innovation by food companies.

AbstractGreat importance is attributed to a transition towards a bioeconomy regime. The bioeconomy can foster more sustainable production and consumption systems and therefore contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This transition is facing several inhibitors, such as dysfunctional communication between different actors and insufficient innovative activity. Scholars and practitioners consider coupling technological developments between the bioeconomy and the digital economy as a driving‐force to accelerate the transition towards a bioeconomy and bring solutions to major inhibitors. In this paper, we therefore seek to better understand how and if the bioeconomy and the digital economy converge to create the needed momentum and capture the full potential. Whereas the increasing number of scientific papers highlight benefits of digital technologies for the bioeconomy, our analyses of merger and acquisitions reveal tendencies of an initial blurring of boundaries between both, bioeconomy and digital economy market boundaries. Still, bioeconomy companies acquire digital companies to a greater extend indicating high benefit of implementing digital technologies within the bioeconomy. Our results contribute to the extant body of convergence research by implementing convergence indicators in a new case study as well as coupling transition theory and convergence literature. Both literature bodies support the better understanding of the transition towards a knowledge‐based digital economy as transition theory describes the path to a new digital bioeconomy regime created by cross‐sectoral convergence.

AbstractObjectivesThe business ecosystem approach has been widely used in research to analyze the role of different actors such as companies and their interdependencies within a specific business environment. However, research dealing with an emerging business ecosystem, where single actors, industry, and market structures are not clearly specified and only gradually evolve, is limited so far. Especially in emerging interindustry business ecosystems, the timely identification of potentially new cooperating sectors is highly relevant, as hitherto separate industry structures might converge. Accordingly, this article adopts an industry perspective allowing for the identification of relevant industry sectors, their respective industry affiliation as well as the development of an emerging business ecosystem.MethodsIn doing so, we propose a conceptual framework for visualizing emerging business ecosystems by drawing upon Merger and Acquisition (M&A) data. While using the case of the highly interdisciplinary emerging Bioeconomy, first, the delineation of relevant Standard Industrial Classification codes, and second, the industry network analysis of M&A data contributes to the visualization of an emerging business ecosystem.ResultsIn line with the definition of the Bioeconomy, keystone players as well as most important bridges between other sectors are the chemical and food industry.ConclusionsThe proposed framework can provide insight in the relevance of central industry sectors in forming an emerging interindustry business ecosystem, and it supports the anticipation of converging industries. Finally, it will help policy makers and managers in evaluating resource and knowledge flows across sectors involved within the business ecosystem and in depicting the status‐quo of an emerging business ecosystem.

AbstractThis article foregrounds the challenges and necessity of promoting user involvement in traditional sectors, especially those that constitute strong pillars for sustainable development. As a case in point, the emergence of precision agriculture technologies requires novel methods to integrate users in innovation processes. Accordingly, this article discusses three applications of journey maps developed in collaboration with users and other stakeholders in the context of agriculture. We illustrate how design‐thinking tools such as journey maps offer the means to explore user experiences, spotting previously unknown needs or problems, generate value propositions with meaning and relevance, and foresee implementation issues not directly related to the technology in focus. This research, thus, contributes by first describing applications of journey maps which are relevant for traditional sectors that are undergoing disruption, and second, by highlighting the broader usefulness of such tools for facilitating coordination among the diverse actors who are ultimately central to innovation adoption and success.