Текич Желько

From disruptively digital to proudly analog: A holistic typology of digital transformation strategies

2019 · ARTICLE · en

Recently booming academic interest in digital transformation aims to provide continuous support to managers in dealing with this important issue. However, as with all new fields, the scholarly literature is characterized by increased variability and diversity of topics covered, constructs used, and the relationships between them, resulting in an unclear and blurry understanding of the whole of digital transformation. Our article closes this gap by identifying distinctive digital transformation strategies in terms of two critical dimensions: usage of digital technologies and readiness of a business model for digital operation. The result is a typology of four generic digital transformation strategies that essentially differ in the primary motivation and target of transformation, leadership style, importance of skills like creativity and entrepreneurial spirit among employees, risks and challenges faced in the process, consequences of potential failure, and available tactics for improvement. By providing heuristics and a systematic basis for comparison of different strategies, it is our belief that the proposed framework will be useful to researchers and managers responsible for and interested in digital transformation.

What drives technology innovation in new space? A preliminary analysis of venture capital investments in earth observation start-ups

2019 · ARTICLE · en

This article analyzes venture capital (VC) investments in the Earth observation (EO) industry, with the aim of identifying technology trends. We collected tech- and investment -related publicly available data on all private, nonsubsidiary companies using their own satellite constellation or other EO instruments as needed to solve the problem of remote sensing of Earth's surface in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum and that were attracting investment and announcing plans for the future, as of 31 December 2016. We refer to these companies as EO start-ups. In the final sample, there are nine EO start-ups and 21 instruments used in their missions. This article also presents a first attempt to use start-up valuations by VC investment as an input for the quantitative analyses of technology trends in the EO sector. We believe that, next to shedding light on technology trends, the proposed method itself is the article's primary contribution. The method is based on understanding that venture capitalists, by selecting the most promising market opportunities in industries where the main technology assets cannot be changed easily, quickly, and without risks are a kind of invisible hand that (indirectly) shapes technology development We are also convinced that the provided evidence is sufficient for the method validation and offers grounds for critical discussion in future research.

Moving Ideas to Impact: Entrepreneurship Education for STEM Geeks

2019 · CHAPTER · en

Modelling a laboratory for ideas as a new tool for fostering engineering creativity

2015 · ARTICLE · en

This paper outlines the principles of modelling and designing a laboratory for ideas, an innovative solution dedicated to the development of creativity and creative problem solving skills in an engineering context. Reflecting the objectives, this paper defines the connection between creativity and engineering, adopting them as a single mindset, and describes how creativity should be taught, having in mind new education models at leading engineering schools. It highlights five factors which have a significant impact on creativity of individuals - motivation, environment, knowledge and domain skills, openness to other domains, and open ended problems in assignments. As a co-creative and supportive environment, laboratory for ideas covers these factors and encompasses different groups of actors and activities. By encouraging students' entrepreneurial intentions and practical innovativeness, it is described how it should systematically strengthen both their creativity and engineering mindset.

PSALM - Patent Mining Tool for Competitive Intelligence

2015 · ARTICLE · en

Patent document is a valuable source of information. However, it is neither easy to extract useful information from patents nor simple to track evidence about all patents that may be relevant. This paper describes PSALM (Patent Search and Analysis for Landscaping and Management), a recently developed software tool for competitive intelligence based on patent data. PSALM enables transformation of raw patent data into meaningful and useful information for business decision making. The tool is based on MySQL database and web robot, both supported by routines developed in Java and PHP. PSALM tool assembles patent data from publicly available data bases, collects and analyses bibliographic parameters of patents, but also does text mining and clustering. The objective of this paper is to describe the structure and functions of developed software, to show efficiency and accuracy of its modules (text processing, clustering, visualisation), as well as to demonstrate its usability through an in-depth case study.

Thinking styles and product development project types: How to match them?

2014 · ARTICLE · en

Focusing on the characteristics of different thinking styles and different product development project types, we suggest that people should adapt their thinking strategies according to the challenge they face and choose a thinking style that is a best match for the type of project they are working on. Even though people can perform well in more than one thinking style, they can be more successful if they adequately choose the most appropriate one for solving the problem in front of them. Considering that different thinking styles have different ideas and conclusions as results, we propose how to match them to a specific product development project type that has a certain degree of change in the product as a deliverable. For further research, these findings open the possibility to define the most appropriate creative problem solving methods and techniques that spur and support a specific style of thinking.

From patent data to business intelligence–PSALM case studies

2014 · ARTICLE · en

This paper describes PSALM, a recently developed software tool for business intelligence and its functionality through several case studies. Patent Search and Analysis for Landscaping and Management (PSALM) tool assembles patent data from publicly available data bases, collects and analyses bibliographic parameters of patents but also does text mining. High-dimensional data contained in the patent documents are transformed into much lower dimensionality space (2D or 3D), clustered and visualized. The PSALM functionality and usability is demonstrated through three case studies of analyzing, comparing and evaluating strengths and weaknesses of different patent portfolios.

Customer co-creation throughout the product life cycle

2013 · ARTICLE · en

To sustain their competitive advantage, companies rely more and more on customers' knowledge and experiences in product innovation processes. Considering that for radical innovations a distance from current market needs is crucial, customers are not in great amount involved in the development of products that represent breakthroughs on the market. However, customers' knowledge and experience is very important for the incremental product improvements. Co-creation can be seen as a powerful engine for innovation. This paper focuses on giving the answer to the research question - is it possible to map co-creation processes throughout the product life cycle By means of a literature review, the authors try to provide the understanding of this relation and offer the distinction of three co-creation levels (breakthrough level, high co-creation and low co-creation level) throughout the life cycle of a product.

Threat of litigation and patent value: what technology managers should know

2013 · ARTICLE · en

Patent dealers have achieved exceptional growth in scale and scope of operations; today, their approaches to patent value affect intellectual property strategies for companies in many industries, even beyond the high-technology sector. To clarify the strategy patent dealers use, we studied a set of 392 U.S. patents sold to a patent dealer by a global consumer electronics firm; the dealer then sold the patents during 2010 and 2011. The analysis shows that under the strategy employed by patent dealers, patent value is driven by the threat of litigation—the higher the threat of litigation, the greater the monetary value of the patent. The evidence suggests that broadly drafted, older patents that cover mainstream technology and for which evidence of infringement may be ambiguous present a greater threat of litigation, and therefore carry a higher value.