João José Ferreira

Abstract
The initial phase of the innovation process is widely accepted as an important driver of positive results for new products and for the success of businesses. The Front End of Innovation (FEI) is a multidisciplinary area that includes a variety of activities, such as ideation, opportunity identification and analysis, feasibility analysis, global trends analysis, concept definition, customer and competitor analysis, and even business model development. Due to the number and variety of FEI responsibilities, this phase entails a considerable level of complexity and decision making. This fact is reflected in the literature, where one finds a variety of FEI approaches and proposals, seldom overlapping and offering no clear consensual guidance. This work aimed at overcoming this gap by proposing an Ontology for the Front End of Innovation as a comprehensive knowledge representation of the FEI, the so-called Front End of Innovation Integrative Ontology (FEI2O). The ontology balanced the differences and addressed the shortcomings of the main FEI Reference Models and included contributions from the field. This research builds on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. It combines the qualitative methods of interviewing and focus group discussion to collect the views of domain experts, used to refine the artefact and later to evaluate the final ontology. Quantitative analysis of data was carried out using the Attribute Agreement approach. The FEI2O explicitly provides a description of a domain regarding concepts, properties and relations of concepts. The main benefit of the FEI2O is to provide a comprehensive formal reference model and a common vocabulary.

Abstract
The key contribution of this paper is the proposal of a novel conceptual model for the social business value proposition. This research was about making sense out of the body of knowledge underlying social business concepts and perspectives, stemming from the social entrepreneurship literature, and building on the so-called business model ontology that underlies the widely used business model canvas. The developed constructs were built in the scope of a design science approach to research, supported by an assessment process that involved several steps comprising the interaction with well-known academicians and practitioners in the area of social business, culminating with a case-study for final validation and assessment. Interviews with the experts from the field helped in the iterative development process of the ontology and its assessment, further supported by informed arguments and a continuous review of the literature.

Abstract

Abstract
Innovation and knowledge creation are tightly related concepts. Collaborative innovation networks (COINs) are very productive ecosystems for knowledge generation. Acknowledging their relevance for innovation, we propose a novel ontology for knowledge management (KM) in COINs, which builds on COINs related literature and is partially derived from topic-related and enterprise ontologies. The utility of the ontology is illustrated through an application case in a software house. The ontology can be applied in different cases involving KM in COINs, such as support the development of IT-based KM services for knowledge co-creation in COINs or, be used as an auditing tool in collaborative innovation processes. © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Abstract