Article review of “Challenges ahead E-Innovation” by Ping Lan & Howard H. Du.
...ery limited. When searching Academic Search Elite, only two articles were found among over 1530 journals covering social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, etc. No articles were found when searching Elsevier Science Server. The articles found suggests that the academic community is more occupied with the distributive nature of e-innovation, i.e., the process of using Internet to plan, initiate, conduct, run and facilitate and/or promote innovation. One of the more famous examples of this is the development of the Linux operating system. The system has been developed as a collaborative effort of a large number contributors. Research suggests that such open innovations processes often is recognized by being unstable and susceptible to chaos, and a system for managing membership, and property rights is demanded. Although such innovation processes have potential to producing far more innovative features than a closed innovated process, most companies do not appreciate this model because their motivation for innovation is to gain a competitive advantage, is not compatible with an open innovation process. Combining the two usages of e-innovation the authors defines e-innovation as the process of introducing new solutions by using the internet. The authors define supply side and demand side barriers why e-innovation has not gained the widespread use as other areas of the networked economy. The supply side is hindered by three different problems. 1) The lack of clear definition of what e-innovation really is, as illustrated by the lack of relationship between the industrial and academic usage. Furthermore, there does not exist a platform for integrating e-innovation into business activities and functions like knowledge management, e-learning, and so on. 2) The small number of organizations using a distributed innovation process offers limited encouragement for the development of e-innovation tools. 3) The lack of software tools to support the development of e-innovation. Thee problems identified with the demand side. 1) It is difficult to involve outsiders in the innovation process, and that most companies do not want to open their innovation process as innovation is a mean for gaining a competitive advantage. 2) Standardized packages do not offer incentives to innovation. 3) The problem of measuring the assets flow trough a distributed system makes it hard to separate the gain from e-innovation from others, thereby making it hard to measure the return on investments (ROI). Comments and insights for managers The author’s definition of e-innovation includes the method and the content of innovation. The method is using the Internet to plan, initiate, conduct, facilitate and run and innovation. The content is proving a new product or service and creating new channels on the Internet. I argue that e-innovation is not only possible for the e-products and e-services, but also for other field in which cooperation can be arranged by modules, and there exist a wide wide-understanding of a common language and culture. This would allow a creative blending of individual genius with contributions from a community of developers. The atelier of Reubens consisted of craftsmen who manufactured art. One did the background; the other the hands. Reubens was the architect, the designer, and the controller of quality. Techno music is the manipulation of compilations of rhythms from diverse sources. In light of new capabilities brought by e-commerce, individual geniuses located anywhere will be able to directly input and interact with the design, manufacturing and service providers. If the input is accepted payments can be made and their work credited. E-innovation would allow innovation on a global basis. It recognizes that the distribution...