Hani Elzoumor
Visiting Research Fellow
Unit for Innovation and EntrepreneurshipAbout Hani Elzoumor
I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Management of Intellectual Assets at the Unit for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IE). My research interests are generally: innovation processes and strategies of firms, innovation ecosystems, sustainability and environmental innovations, and firm-level openness and collaboration strategies, mainly from an evolutionary economics perspective. I have a track record in academia since 2011 as a teaching and research assistant of economics at Cairo University, Egypt. As well as in Sweden, I have been involved in collaborative research and applied activities with some research arenas and NGOs in Gothenburg focusing on innovation and sustainability transformation issues in the geographical location of western Sweden. My Ph.D. research is part of a large research program at IE that investigates knowledge-intensive innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems in western Sweden, with direct implications regarding policy recommendations for public and private organizational entities.
Ph.D. project: Openness, Environmental Innovations, and Performance of Firms in Innovation Ecosystems: A Quantitative Inquiry in Strategic Innovation Management
My Ph.D. dissertation investigates three interrelated aspects of innovative firms using the lens of innovation ecosystems: openness, environmental innovations, and economic performance of such firms. In particular, it explores the role of specific attributes of the innovation ecosystem where firms reside for their openness, the introduction of environmental innovations, and economic performance. Besides ecosystem attributes, the dissertation investigates the moderating role of firm's internal capacities, such as appropriability strategy (methods of capturing return from the firm's intellectual assets), on its openness, environmental innovations, and performance.
The empirical analysis adopts a quantitative research strategy, drawing on large-scale firm-level survey data on Swedish and European innovative and entrepreneurial firms. Survey data for Swedish firms is accessed through the micro-data (MONA) system of Statistics Sweden (SCB) for the Swedish version of CIS (Community Innovation survey), Research and Development survey, and company database (FDB).
The dissertation is expected to have direct theoretical contributions to the interplay of firm-level openness (i.e., managing knowledge flows across firm boundaries to create and capture value under competitive and other external pressures), environmental sustainability (reducing the environmental footprint and being more environmentally responsible), and innovation and business performance (forms and share of new products, marketing, processes and organizational methods, as well as the growth, profitability, and productivity of firms). That is from the lens of the conceptual frameworks of innovation ecosystems (in which the firms are embedded, mutually dependent, and co-evolve with other ecosystem actors and stakeholders). Policy implications are expected from the dissertation as discussion would inform national and regional policy entities forming public innovation policy. Insights for the latter are the enabling factors to enhance environmental sustainability and sustainable finance for innovation activities of firms across Sweden in a wide spectrum of industries.
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Research areas
- Innovation processes and strategies
- Sustainability and environmental innovation
- Innovation Ecosystems
- Open and collaborative innovation
- Evolutionary Economics
- Innovation and entrepreneurship finance