Foresight and STI Governance

Generative AI as a Disruptive Innovation: Implications for Marketing Strategic Transformations

2025-04-08T14:09:12+03:00

This study explores the potential for small marketing firms to disrupt the market by leveraging generative AI technology within the framework of disruptive innovation theory. A qualitative approach was employed, combining a comprehensive literature review with in-depth interviews with leaders from small marketing firms. The data was analyzed using the Natural Language Processing (NLP) and thematic analysis techniques. This study is the first to apply the theory of disruptive innovation to the use of generative AI at small marketing firms. It contributes to the emerging body of knowledge on AI in marketing and offers practical guidance for scholars and practitioners to advance this field. The findings suggest that small firms can gain a competitive edge by adopting AI early, utilizing it to target underserved markets, and developing innovative, cost-effective services. The study positions generative AI as a significant technological evolution, with the potential to revolutionize the marketing industry. It identifies generative AI as a tool for enhancing efficiency, content development, customer service, and research. Small marketing firms are found to be in various stages of AI adoption, with many viewing it as a complement to human creativity. This study highlights the need for new skills, such as AI literacy and strategic thinking, while also emphasizing the continued importance of human oversight.

Exploring Green Growth in SMEs: Global Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions

2025-04-08T14:09:13+03:00

This systematic literature review examines the adoption of green growth practices at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), synthesizing findings from 56 peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2024. The study explores key dimensions of green growth, including environmental innovation, circular economy practices, and green financial management across various sectors and geographical regions. The analysis reveals a progressive shift in SMEs’ sustainability practices, from initial awareness to ecosystem development, influenced by factors at the macro, meso, and micro levels. Key drivers identified include government policies, market pressures, and technological innovations, while primary barriers encompass financial constraints and knowledge gaps. The research highlights emerging trends such as the integration of digitalization, circular economy models, and green finance in SMEs’ sustainability efforts. Additionally, it uncovers significant research gaps, particularly in understanding the long-term impacts of green growth initiatives and the role of resilience in post-pandemic recovery. This study concludes by proposing a future research agenda focusing on themes like AI-driven business model innovation, blockchain in green finance, and cross-sector policy harmonization. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, business leaders, and researchers in fostering sustainable practices across the SME sector.

Towards a Sustainable Disruptive Growth Model: Integrating Foresight, Wild Cards and Weak Signals Analysis

2025-04-08T14:09:12+03:00

This paper introduces epistemological and methodological innovations for analyzing non-linear dynamics in sustainability systems, such as deforestation tipping points, exponential renewable adoption, and protests driving global reform. It focuses on adaptive resilience (e.g., decentralized grids stabilizing renewables) and topological models (e.g., network analysis of deforestation or policy diffusion). The study develops metrics to assess four dimensions of evolutionary change – context, people, process, and impact – supporting adaptive resilience and stability. In environmental systems, this may involve tracking early deforestation signals before tipping points, while in economics, it could mean analyzing how small policy shifts trigger market changes. It highlights Wild Cards and Weak Signals Analysis within the Sustainable Disruptive Growth Model (SD-Growth Model), enabling the early detection of disruptions – such as AI breakthroughs or geopolitical shifts – so systems can anticipate, reorganize, and adapt effectively to shocks. The research emphasizes constraints as the key to resilience and stability amid disruptions. It integrates advanced analytical approaches to monitoring and managing simultaneous information flows, ensuring efficient responses to shocks. This model also explores AI, machine learning, and explainable AI (XAI) in labor market dynamics, where predictive algorithms can identify trends and mitigate systemic risks. By combining quantitative metrics with strategic foresight, this framework enables decision-makers to preserve stability, sustain functionality, and adapt dynamically to change.

Evaluation of Financial Inclusion and Financial Well-Being in expanded BRICS economies

2025-04-08T14:09:14+03:00

Most of the challenges to sustainable development are interconnected and systemic in nature, which makes achieving this goal particularly challenging. Research on these barriers and their solutions revealed that neither technological nor social innovation hinders the adoption of this development model. The main reason lies in the specific mechanisms for overcoming inertia, resistance to change, path dependency, and entering a new trajectory. One of the key spaces where the widest circles of the population are in close contact with new technologies is the financial sector. Fintech has significant potential to overcome these limitations, change behavioral patterns, reduce path dependence, and launch development on a new trajectory. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of these processes using the example of the expanded BRICS countries. It compares heterogeneous socioeconomic landscapes and assesses the readiness of the countries in question to master more complex development models, using digital banking as an example. The study identifies the blocking factors and suggests ways to overcome them. An interdisciplinary synthesis of the theories of narrative persuasion, evolutionary governance, and path dependence provides a new understanding of the interaction of financial systems, governance structures, and social behavior, upon which financial inclusiveness depends as a cornerstone for achieving balanced economic growth.

Appendices

Accounting for Oslo Manual: reflecting on the past and setting the stage for future research

2025-04-08T14:09:13+03:00

The Oslo Manual is the internationally recognized reference for guiding the collection and interpretation of evidence on innovation. This research explores its three-decade-long implementation and influence, emphasizing its role within the research community. We assess the content’s quantity and quality through an advanced bibliometric and textmetric analysis of over 1300 research papers published in internationally indexed journals. Our study offers an evidence-based understanding of the Oslo Manual’s adoption and impact, elucidating disciplinary integration, geographical interest, and reception phases. Notably, the findings unveil the increasing significance of innovation-related topics since its inaugural edition in 1992, with a pronounced surge gaining momentum after 2008. Furthermore, the consistently cited references underscore the researchers’ focus, highlighting the rising importance of innovation and interconnected domains like entrepreneurship, performance, knowledge, and management. This study enhances our understanding of the Oslo Manual’s use and influence, revealing its enduring relevance and its broader impact on shaping innovation research.

Shaping Innovation Capabilities to Enable Transformative Sustainability Transitions in Agriculture

2025-04-08T14:06:41+03:00

The agro-industrial sector is one of the largest socio-technical systems upon which the prospects of transition to sustainable development critically depend. To meet the food needs of a growing population, it requires profound transformation, new knowledge, advanced technologies, and highly qualified specialists. The agro-industry is moving from traditional schemes to fourth and fifth generation smart models that have innovative potential to ensure food security, heal natural systems, and stimulate economic growth. This potential will be able to be realized only if provided with an appropriate human resource base.

The article uses the example of young agri-preneurs in Malaysia to assess the key components of human capital that determine the performance of modern agro-industry, as well as the potential contribution of the government interventions in strengthening their effects. Three factors are considered - innovativeness, willingness to take reasonable risks, and proactivity. It is found that the presence of targeted governmental support, significantly enhances the influence of the first two on business performance. As for proactivity, its presence does not produce an operational tangible impact on performance, regardless of the context, including the presence of external support. The outcomes from proactivity manifest rather in the distant perspective. The latter circumstance is due to the high uncertainty and turbulence that accompany the activities of the studied sector, caused by uncontrollable, hardly predictable natural and social processes and their consequences. An in-depth understanding of the interrelationship of the factors under consideration can contribute to the development of more effective policies and support systems to foster sustainable growth in the agribusiness sector.

Technology Adoption: Evidence from an E-Government Cloud Service

2025-04-08T14:09:11+03:00

This study investigates the effects of formal and informal external factors on citizens’ intention to use DigiLocker, which is a government-backed cloud storage service (CSS). It also examines how trust in government moderates these effects. This research framework is grounded in institutional theory. The proposed model was validated by quantitative analysis of primary data collected through a survey in Delhi, the national capital region (NCR) of India.

The findings indicate that pressures can be divided into two categories — 1) formal (coercive pressure), and 2) informal (mimetic, and normative). Both significantly influence citizens’ attitudes, which in turn influence their intention to use DigiLocker. Moreover, coercive pressure has been found to be the strongest influencer of citizens’ attitudes. The moderating function of trust in the government has an ambiguous impact on different dimensions. That is, it is positive regarding the relationship between coercive pressures and citizens’ attitudes. At the same time it negatively moderates the relationships between mimetic and normative pressures and citizens’ attitudes. This study suggests that in order to effectively encourage the adoption of public CSSs, policymakers and service providers should consider the interplay of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures along with trust.

Unveiling a Governance Analysis Framework for Basic Research in Iran

2025-04-08T14:09:13+03:00

Basic science, as a cornerstone of the national innovation system, has long been at the center of debates on which management approaches are most effective for this activity due to its specific nature that distinguishes it from other types of research. For example, given the long time lag between investment in basic research and the manifestation of economic and social effects from its results, many organizations, especially in the private sector, are reluctant to invest in it. However, insufficient support for basic science becomes a brake on further innovative development and creates the risk of stagnation. This article contributes to the development of these discussions. It considers key concepts of research governance with an emphasis on their application and achieved results in the Iranian context. A comprehensive theoretical framework for analyzing the processes of basic research management in Iran is developed, which can be adapted to similar contexts worldwide. Strategies for improving the alignment of needs and priorities at different funding levels, both operationally and strategically, are proposed. It is concluded that improving the governance of basic science can not only increase the economic returns from research activities, but also bring them into line with societal needs.

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