Industry and Innovation

Industry and Innovation is an international refereed journal publishing high-quality original research on the dynamics of industries and innovation. Interdisciplinary in nature, Industry and Innovation builds on and contributes to advancing the theoretical frontier within economics, management, and organizational studies. We are therefore open to a variety of topics, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches, as long as the manuscripts are theoretically grounded and address novel, meaningful, and interesting questions related to innovation.

More specifically, Industry and Innovation encourages the intersection between different areas of knowledge and lenses (e.g., technology management, international business, entrepreneurship, human resources, corporate governance, economic geography, organizational behavior) in the study of innovation. Policy evaluation studies that can extend our understanding of innovation and industrial, institutional, or organizational dynamics are equally welcome.

Industry and Innovation welcomes research at different levels of analysis, including:

• Individual level - e.g., how and why do certain groups of individuals contribute to innovation, and how are they affected (positively or negatively) by innovation activities and technological progress?
• Firm level - e.g., how do different firms manage and are impacted by innovation?
• Industry and regional levels - e.g., how are innovation patterns, types of innovation, and economic performance related to different industrial and/or regional structures?
• Cross-country studies - e.g., what are the institutional underpinnings for different paces and types of innovation?

Industry and Innovation is committed to nurturing the community of innovation scholars by promoting intellectual curiosity, boundary-spanning ideas and academic rigour, by contributing to both emerging and ongoing debates and sketching promising avenues in future research, as well as by providing high-quality, insightful, and timely reviews.

Focus Themes

Industry and Innovation is currently dedicating special attention to three focus themes that the editorial board believes to hold considerable opportunities for future research. The focus themes are meant to provide inspiration for potential authors to conduct work in these areas and to encourage them to submit their research to Industry and Innovation. The three focus themes are:

• Innovation, Corporate Responsibility and Social Value Creation

Existing research has largely focused on the economic gains accruing from innovation. These gains may be unequally distributed and hide increasing disparities across individuals, firms, and regions. At the same time, firms are increasingly pressured to respond to stakeholders needs and standards, to act responsibly, to do good besides doing well. This focus theme encourages manuscripts that can advance our knowledge on the complex linkages between innovation, firms (ir)responsible conduct, and social value creation. More specifically, we seek novel contributions identifying how the different forms in which firms may demonstrate their (ir)responsible behavior impact innovation or be affected by innovation activities. In addition, we welcome manuscripts that study the broader societal impacts of innovation and uncover the role of innovative firms in preventing or reproducing inequalities. Contingency factors or moderating effects can for example relate to the characteristics of top management or inventor teams, the processes used in innovation activities, or other specific qualities of individuals, organizations, industries, or regions.

For some examples on research within this Focus Theme already published by Industry and Innovation, see the "DRUID 2015" Special Issue and, more recently, Coad, Biggi & Giuliani (2021).

• Innovation in the Green Transition

Climate change is one of the grand challenges of our time. In this regard, governments around the world are designing new policies to promote a green transition, which is expected to have sizeable impacts on how firms engage in innovation. The green transition requires efforts at multiple levels and is evolving at a very different pace across firms, regions, and countries. Understanding these differences and the role of innovation in the green transition is at the core of this focus theme. We seek to stimulate research on green/eco-innovation, the role of innovation ecosystems in enabling this green revolution, the industry and geographic distribution of the green transition, and the microfoundations of these processes (e.g., types of human capital or managerial characteristics that may activate or accelerate firms green transition). The integration of different disciplinary lenses (e.g., international business, corporate governance, human resources, entrepreneurship, economic geography) can be particularly promising in answering research questions within this focus theme.

For some examples on research within this Focus Theme already published by Industry and Innovation, see the Special Issue on "Eco-Innovation Dynamics" and, more recently, Kobarg, Stumpf-Wollersheim, Schlägel & Welpe (2020).

• Innovation in the Digital Era

Big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence technologies are central pieces of the current digital revolution we are going through. These can create enormous opportunities for growth and technological progress, but also potential disruptions that could ultimately question the relevance of industries as appropriate levels of analysis for innovation studies. This focus theme calls for research that can offer deeper insights on the opportunities and challenges created by the digital era. We encourage submissions that expand our knowledge about the industry transformations, the organizational changes, and the individual-level outcomes induced by this digital revolution. How does the digital era challenge existing innovation and organizational theories? How will it change labor markets, interactions in the work environment, new venture creation, and industry dynamics? Under which contingencies do digital technologies create new opportunities for firms to innovate and how (e.g., business model innovation)? How do they redesign industry boundaries and generate new value systems and partnership networks? Submissions that integrate multiple focus themes are also welcome (e.g., research on the linkages between digital revolution on social value creation and/or green transition).

For some examples on research within this Focus Theme already published by Industry and Innovation, see the Special Issue on "Exploring Industrial Change in the Platform Economy" and, more recently, Cassetta, Monarca, Dileo, Di Berardino & Pini (2020).

The focus themes were introduced for the first time in 2015 and are revised periodically as warranted by new developments. While putting special emphasis on these focus themes, it is important to note that Industry and Innovation invites submissions of all work that falls under the broader aims and scope outlined above.

Peer Review Policy

All articles have undergone rigorous editorial screening and double-anonymized peer review by a minimum of two recognized scholars. Industry and Innovation strives for a smooth and constructive review process with a first decision made not later than eight weeks after submission and a final decision after a maximum of two rounds of reviews.

Authors can choose to publish gold open access in this journal.

Read the Instructions for Authors for information on how to submit your article.