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The use of mobile devices by consumers and the accompanying response by retailers is rapidly revolutionizing the retail environment. In the past, retailers have focused primarily on the outcome (to purchase or not to purchase) of the consumer decision process, but now mobile technologies give retailers the opportunity to more actively influence the entire consumer decision-making processes. The increasing use of mobile devices by consumers makes shopping a continuous rather than discrete activity that requires retailers to engage with their customers at critical touch points of the decision process in order to provide a more customer-centric experience. This change in focus from the decision outcome to the decision process signifies an important paradigm shift for the retailing industry. After an extensive review of the literature, we identify four pillars that form the foundation for the mobile shopping revolution and represent the essential ways and means through which retailers can engage with consumers during the decision process. We also discuss the different areas in which the pillars can enable retailers to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the mobile shopping era.

The business environment for many firms is changing rapidly and is becoming increasingly uncertain due to the disruption caused by new digital technologies, deregulation, new business models, and the threat of new competitive entrants. This dynamic competitive environment increases the level of uncertainty for senior executives and strategic planning teams who bear responsibility for the strategic development of the firm, particularly in terms of the future direction, scope, and the strategy required to deliver on corporate objectives. This in turn, places increased scrutiny on the strategic planning tools that are used to undertake a rational and comprehensive analysis of the competitive dynamics that inform strategy formulation. This article presents empirical findings and reflections on a scenario-planning project that sought to develop a long-term corporate level strategy. While scenario planning is an established constituent of the strategist's toolbox, the increasing level of dynamism and uncertainty in many markets has meant that it has seen a resurgence. This article presents empirical findings on how the scenario-planning tool was selected and applied before reflecting on the individual and organizational outcomes of using scenario planning to develop an organizational strategy in uncertain market conditions.

Open innovation is now a widely used concept in academia, business, and policy making. This article describes the state of open innovation at the intersection of research, practice, and policy. It discusses some key trends (e.g., digital transformation), challenges (e.g., uncertainty), and potential solutions (e.g., EU funding programs) in the context of open innovation and innovation policy. With this background, the authors introduce select papers published in this Special Section of California Management Review that were originally presented at the second annual World Open Innovation Conference, held in Santa Clara, California, in December of 2015.

What happens when firms in an oligopolistic industry find themselves lagging behind in a potentially dominant technology? If R&D costs are significant and catch-up is key, technology laggards must turn to each other and open up their innovation processes in order to survive. This article uses a real options framework to explain the motives of bitter rivals to engage in collaborative relationships in order to catch up with industry leaders in specific technologies. It shows that ex ante, their interests converge and this lays the foundation of "catch-up alliances": competitors open up to catch up. However, they often bring vastly different resources to the alliance and, in the process of cooperation, what they learn may cause their interests to diverge. Furthermore, some participants may discount a technology trajectory on the basis of what they learn, and terminate efforts in that area. Therefore, the "road not taken" may be a valuable outcome of the open innovation alliance. This article uses the case of a global alliance in hybrid electric drivetrain automotive technology as the study context, and it analyzes the implications for managers facing similar decisions.

Collaborating with investor networks generated in the course of equity-based crowdfunding campaigns can contribute to the success of startup firms. Through a qualitative study of 60 European startups, this article identifies the type of inputs provided by equity investors, how these inputs are related to startups' and founders' characteristics, and startups' later performance. Startups exploiting crowd network are more likely to be successful two years later compared with startups that do not exploit the crowd, or acquire from the crowd product, strategy, or market knowledge. The findings extend existing research on the relationships between open innovation and startups by identifying the inputs provided by the crowd and how the use of crowd equity investors in open innovation platforms is related to later success.

The search for partners in open innovation settings often consumes substantial time and managerial attention. Yet, organizations tend to get trapped in local search, which typically leads to collaboration with partners already known to them. To improve the search for partners, this article develops a tool that exploits the power of state-of-the-art information technology. In a sample of 33 search queries conducted in six innovation intermediaries, it studies differences between search with and without the use of our tool. The tests confirm the tool's effectiveness and efficiency, and highlight the importance of searching with keywords that represent the core roles and activities of a firm, next to keywords referring to market and technology characteristics. Network visualization and semantic algorithms thus appear to facilitate the effort to identify distant partners. The article also finds that local partners are not that easy to find as commonly assumed.

Innovative companies are building their business upon the participation of crowds. These crowdsourcing business models are powerful because they are scalable. By encouraging external innovators to contribute to value creation, crowdsourcing innovation platforms have the capability to grow significantly in size and revenue without equally increasing its costs. However, quickly and sustainably scaling crowdsourcing platforms is a daunting challenge. This article considers more than 20 leading crowdsourcing ventures to identify scaling challenges and strategies. The resulting framework presents scaling paths for managers of crowdsourcing ventures as well as executives of traditional companies who seek to build scalable crowdsourcing platforms.

To profit from crowdsourcing, organizations can engage in four different approaches: microtasking, information pooling, broadcast search, and open collaboration. This article presents 21 governance mechanisms that can help organizations manage their crowdsourcing platforms. It investigates the effectiveness of these governance mechanisms in 19 case studies and recommends specific configurations of these mechanisms for each of the four crowdsourcing approaches. Also, it offers guidance to organizations that host a crowdsourcing platform by providing recommendations for implementing governance mechanisms into their platforms and building up governance capabilities for crowdsourcing.

The Internet-based crowdinvesting market in Europe has developed significantly since its start in 2007 and has become an alternative source of finance for entrepreneurs to sell securities through the Internet to small investors. This market evidences a great variety in platform design and contract forms used by crowdinvesting platforms. By analyzing more detailed, hand-collected data on the complete set of successful and unsuccessful crowdinvesting campaigns run in Germany, this article tests whether different platform and contractual mechanisms affect crowd participation. The results show that crowd participation is largest when the minimum ticket size is small, the crowd is pooled in a financial vehicle, and the crowd is offered investments in the form of profit-participating loans. Moreover, the very same mechanisms increase the chances of achieving successful campaigns and raising a larger amount.

Product returns are both a challenge and an opportunity for most retailers, since more than US$640 billion in revenue is lost each year because of preventable product returns. A major impediment to unlocking the full potential of these returns is the firm's returns management program: the policies governing the customer-firm exchange process. Recent insights from research and practice have yielded the unprecedented opportunity to open the "black box" of developing effective programs. Yet, such development must address three main questions: What types of returns management programs exist? What misunderstandings impede returns management effectiveness? How can retailers develop effective programs? This article distinguishes among different types of returns management programs and discusses the managerial misunderstandings that reduce their effectiveness. It presents a framework for developing, implementing, and controlling effective programs that allow retailers to boost sales, reduce returns, and increase profitability.

With ultra-short sightlines to its patient-customers, healthcare should pursue lean in its own way rather than follow the often wayward lean practices of manufacturing, a sector in which few people ever see real customers. Because of the distance in manufacturing from end customers, this sector's lean practices usually focus inward on operational efficiency through waste elimination. The nature of healthcare-with customers up close and immediate-calls for elevating its lean efforts toward customer-focused lean effectiveness: flexibly quick response along the multiple flow paths leading to and involving patients. This article illustrates that approach to lean by drawing from a case study in which widely scattered heart attack patients were transported to a central treatment hospital in a system-wide, highly coordinated program of quick response. This article shows that the keys to success-including high rates of saving lives and lean healthcare in general-boil down to just five lean methodologies, each focused on quick response. Lean healthcare, when practiced in this way, becomes deserving of status as a fixture in strategic management of the enterprise.

Companies are increasingly encouraging employees to use Facebook and other social media to interact with coworkers in order to empower collaboration and knowledge sharing. Yet, there is a hidden problem that has been neglected by managers. The more employees interact with coworkers through social media to facilitate their work in the organization, the more likely they are to learn about and become interested in other companies via social media, form new work connections outside the organization, and engage in job search behaviors. The use of social media to facilitate work and benefit organizations could paradoxically risk fostering withdrawal intentions and turnover, which damage organizations. This article provides evidence of this paradox from an empirical study. After having identified the problem, the article proposes both the solutions to avoid and the solutions to adopt, illustrating best practices from successful companies, comparing their benefits and costs, and indicating the situations in which each solution is best implemented. To conclude, I offer 10 recommendations to turn the problem into an opportunity and use social media as an innovative recruitment tool.

Fintech brings about a new paradigm in which information technology is driving innovation in the financial industry. Fintech is touted as a game changing, disruptive innovation capable of shaking up traditional financial markets. This article introduces a historical view of fintech and discusses the ecosystem of the fintech sector. We then discuss various fintech business models and investment types. This article illustrates the use of real options for fintech investment decisions. Finally, technical and managerial challenges for both fintech startups and traditional financial institutions are discussed.

What's past is prologue. Or is it? The construction of the Empire State Building (ESB) was not only the fastest erection of a skyscraper ever, but the construction company that took on the job allegedly began with no equipment or supplies that would be adequate for the job. The project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget; instead of 1 year and 6 months as anticipated, it only took 1 year and 45 days. The costs totaled $24.7 million instead of the estimated $43 million. So, we ask, how was this possible and is there something we could learn? Based on a review of existing literature describing the history and construction of the ESB, we outline strategic, operational, and contextual explanations for what appears to be a truly successful megaproject. We illustrate how, for example, inspiration from Henry Ford's assembly line technique, the uniqueness of the logistics during the construction period, the economic decline of the Depression, and early ideas of concurrent engineering and fast-track construction enabled the success. Our conclusion is that there are lessons to be learned in going back to basics when tackling a megaproject.

This article introduces an eco-systemic framework to foster innovation for business sustainability. We emphasize the idea of systemic thinking in which the business operates as a system similar to a living organism. In this framework, businesses impact the environment in which they operate in a fluid, dynamic, and interdependent way. This approach contrasts with the linear approach commonly used in business and other disciplines, which tries to explain what might cause an action or reaction but ignores any feedback effect between the subsequent action and its cause. This article offers practical solutions and guidance for business leaders to incorporate complexity science into creating sustainable businesses.

While some organizations swear by the benefits of transparency and are eager to learn and implement transparency practices, many managers are still reluctant or even afraid to use them. Our research reveals that only a few innovative companies have taken steps to leverage a potentially useful form of transparency: the provision of accessible and objective information to customers (e.g., sharing unbiased benchmark data, publishing unfiltered customer comments, or providing candid product reviews that may praise but also criticize the company's products). Our study also shows that many companies remain wary and view greater calls for transparency as a challenge to be managed rather than an opportunity to be traded upon. This is partly due to limited research into the performance benefits of giving customers access to objective information, and lack of practical guidelines on how to actually implement it. This article addresses these shortcomings. First, we investigate whether performance transparency leads to customer outcomes that can be profitable for an organization and, second, we analyze the characteristics of successful transparency initiatives in a wide range of industries. Our research shows that customers exhibit more trust and are willing to pay a premium to deal with transparent businesses. Also, it uncovers seven effective strategies to leverage transparency. This article provides convincing empirical evidence for the benefits of performance transparency and the ways in which management may implement it successfully.

The convergence of communications, information, entertainment, commerce, and computing-combined with a rising number of new services-has caused changes in the way people access and consume media. In recent months, the phenomenon of viewing audiences shifting wholly or partially from cable TV providers to over-the-top (OTT) media, also known as cord cutting or cord shaving respectively, has gained much attention. Despite anecdotal evidence of cord cutting and cord shaving presented in the trade press and industry conferences, there has been little rigorous examination of the true effect that cord cutting or cord shaving may have on TV networks and the media industry at large. In this article, we use behavioral data from a leading cable operator in the U.S. to identify and describe the key viewer segments. We also conduct simulations to examine the effects and implications of cord cutting and cord shaving from a CLV perspective for content providers, content distributors, and advertisers.

Innovation sourcing has become more critical across many industries. As global value chains have become more fragmented, change and opportunity comes from all sides. As a result, companies need to excel at capturing innovation opportunities with existing and potential supply chain members. This article describes a simple framework with three essential innovation sourcing capabilities needed to excel in purchasing: (1) Purchasing needs to explore unmet needs and anticipate future competitive advantages by working closely with other functions and clients; (2) it needs to explore external opportunities beyond first-tier suppliers; and (3) it needs to involve suppliers in innovation projects that consistently deliver results over time. Our framework has been developed based on a combined qualitative and quantitative research methodology that took into account practices and results at the purchasing and company levels. The framework will help C-level managers and purchasing teams benchmark their progress in innovation sourcing and understand what steps need to be taken to achieve excellence.

The article suggests that when reward strategies fail, it is because they are frequently subsumed to a meaningless search for a best practice that delivers shareholder value that could be applied uniformly across countries, sectors, or workplace contexts. For instance, executive compensation schemes incorporating stock options are focused too much on delivering value for shareholders, and ignore other important stakeholders such as employees. Flexible benefits schemes tend to be designed and implemented top-down, without employee involvement or customizing them to meet their needs. I argue that reward practices should move away from shareholder-value reward to stakeholder reward, making full use of employee voice mechanisms as a key ingredient of workplace innovation. I consider the case of shared capitalism practices and outline the benefits of broad-based employee ownership schemes. The article concludes by offering prescriptive advice for the application of such schemes to enhance productivity and boost employee satisfaction.

Regulation imposes compliance demands on business, but these controls by no means ensure that corporations will act ethically. Externally imposed controls by government or industry are prompts intended to move organizations to engage in a moral minimum. Such efforts are typically reactionary corrective measures, often crafted and applied after an ethical scandal occurs, and thereby offer limited effectiveness in providing systemic change. To provide insight on internally driven controls, this article examines how a newer form of monetized self-regulation, referred to as inverted moral markets, might be leveraged to motivate corporate ethical behavior. Inverted moral market (IMM) operations target firms suspected of unethical action, providing a type of market whistleblowing. Such activities are monetized through the sale of information to investors and by short selling. Rather than a desire to build moral strength, IMM firms are motivated by self-interest and profit. They can potentially 'do good' by imposing self-correction within the market, but without virtuous intent. We explore IMMs and the varied impacts their activities may have on the functioning of the overall market. We argue that a more balanced approach between internal and external regulation may enhance the environment for moral balance in a capitalist market system.