Working paper No. 283: Digitalization and Collective Value Creation
Isaksson, D., & Wennberg. K. (2016). Digitalization and Collective Value Creation. Ratio Working Paper No. 283. Stockholm: Ratio.
Isaksson, D., & Wennberg. K. (2016). Digitalization and Collective Value Creation. Ratio Working Paper No. 283. Stockholm: Ratio.
We discuss the spread and impact of digitalization as a disruptive technological change. We show how digitalization is intimately connected to globalization by first, being dependent on globalization for its impact, and second, enhancing the speed of globalization. Digitalization lowers barriers to funding, marketing, sales and distribution, and enables an increasing global flow of goods, services, and financial transactions. We discuss how digitalization also contributes to changing consumer habits and a blurring line between producers and consumers where the latter now have capabilities to build collective knowledge by they themselves becoming producers. Digital platforms are emerging, aggregating data and providing new business models where contact costs are approaching zero. These platforms wield strong economic power and the algorithms by which they operate also change incentives and transaction costs for producers and consumers. We sketch the patterns by which industries digitialize as being characterized by one or a few ‘platforms’ dominating a global market, but where such platforms also facilitate the emergence of more narrow niche businesses and products and allow new types of micro-multinationals to reach out to a larger global crowd and satisfy latent demand. These changes have already happened in media and music, and the principles seen in these industries can be seen as emerging in other sectors. We conclude by
highlighting the potential of digitalization to enhance the value of collective goods. We particularly highlight the cases of health care and the energy, and discuss how digital technologies can contribute to collective value creation in these areas.
Isaksson, D., & Wennberg. K.
2016
Ratio Working Paper
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Small Business Economics, 62(2), 775-806
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In Moonshots and the New Industrial Policy (pp. 125–143). Springer.
This chapter reviews theoretical rationales for mission-oriented innovation policy and provides an empirical overview of extant 28 papers and 49 cases on the topic. We synthetize varieties of mission formulations, actors involved, and characteristics of missions described as more or less failed or successful. Fifty-nine percent of the studied missions are still ongoing, 33 percent are considered successful, and 8 percent as failures. Sixty-seven percent of the studied missions have taken place in Europe, 24 percent in North America, and 8 percent in Asia. The majority of innovation projects referred to as missions do not fulfill the criteria defined by the OECD. Results suggest that missions related to technological or agricultural innovations are more often successful than broader types of missions aimed at social or ecological challenges. Challenges regarding the governance and evaluation of missions remain unresolved in the literature. We find no case that contains a cost-benefit analysis or takes opportunity cost into account.
2024
Foundations and Trends® in Entrepreneurship, 19(8), 664-772.
While considerable efforts have been made to conceptualize and outline the theoretical and normative logic of mission-oriented innovation policies and the role of the entrepreneurial state, there is a stark lack of empirical studies concerning how missions are designed and executed, and when they may work or do not. This monograph reviews theoretical rationales for mission-oriented innovation policy and provides an empirical overview of 30 articles which together cover 51 concluded or ongoing missions from around the world. We synthetize varieties of mission formulations, actors involved, and analyze characteristics of missions described as more or less failed or successful. Among the projects analyzed, many do not fulfill common definitions of “innovation missions.” Missions related to technological or agricultural innovations seem more often successful than broader types of missions aimed at social or ecological challenges, and challenges in the governance and evaluation of missions remain unresolved in the literature. None of the mission cases contain a cost-benefit analysis or takes opportunity cost into consideration.