Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Ahmed Elsetouhi and Ibrahim Elbeltagi
ence <strong>of</strong> organizational capital and social capital, on product innovation in Spanish industrial companies.
Their findings showed that structural capital has an indirect effect on product innovation through
positive influence on social capital.
CC and innovation
The integration between customer and innovation process is a powerful mean to reduce failure rates
and to increase <strong>the</strong> revenue from new products (Rohrbeck et al., 2010). CC has a positive effect on
incremental and radical innovation (Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005). Kammerer (2009) show that
customer has a significant effect on product innovation.
Based on previous results, IC (I.e. HC, SC and CC) has an essential role to support innovation so this
study expects that <strong>the</strong>se components will improve both product and process innovation. Consequently,
HC, SC and CC become as candidates to share in <strong>the</strong> focal actor's network.
3.2.2 Interssement
With <strong>the</strong> end <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> previous stage, focal actor has conviction that <strong>the</strong>se actors (HC, SC, CC) have a
key role to sustain product and process innovation. Therefore, focal actor should do great efforts to
convince actors to support its aim. As soon as actors adopt innovation, <strong>the</strong>y will gain a lot <strong>of</strong> interests
from innovation as follows:
HC's interests from innovation
Innovations create <strong>the</strong> desire to make a good prestige, pr<strong>of</strong>essional position, support personal ambition,
growth and increase job satisfaction. They improve <strong>the</strong> stock <strong>of</strong> knowledge (West and Farr,
1990). West (1989) reported that innovation makes changes in job areas "(1) changed work objectives
or introduced new work objectives, (2) changed work techniques (3) Changed whom you deal
with or how you deal with people (4) learned new skills". In addition to, Marqués et al., (2006) mentioned
that incremental and radical innovations have a positive effect on human capital.
SC's interests from innovation
It is also important to highlight <strong>the</strong> effect <strong>of</strong> Incremental and radical innovations on structural capital.
The results assert that both dimensions <strong>of</strong> innovation have a key role to support structural capital
such as, developing rules, databases, knowledge management and it generates innovation culture
inside organization.
CC's interests from innovation
A fur<strong>the</strong>r important result is that Incremental and radical innovations have a greater impact on CC
than <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r elements <strong>of</strong> IC (Ibid). This means that, organization has a clear understanding <strong>of</strong> user
wants and needs. Innovation have many advantages for customer for instance, (1) developing customers'
life (2) enabling customers to find new ways to service <strong>the</strong>ir personal needs (3) representing a
mean to enable customers to productively pursue <strong>the</strong>ir individualized satisfaction (4) helping to find
new ways <strong>of</strong> co-solving customer problems (Michel et al. 2008).
3.2.3 Enrollment
The third moment <strong>of</strong> translation is enrollment, when actors are “willing to anchor <strong>the</strong>mselves to <strong>the</strong>
collectors” (Callon 1986). In this stage, actors accept definition <strong>of</strong> focal actor. This acceptance gives
more strength to <strong>the</strong> obligatory passage point than it in previous two moments. These actors consider
that this network is indispensable to achieve all interests. Enrollment is made visible through actors
create and interchange a new ideas with o<strong>the</strong>r actors and adoption product and process innovation
(e.g. Potts 2009; Rhodes 2009). Focal actor should improve an appropriate working environment to
enable <strong>the</strong>se actors to support product and process innovation.
3.2.4 Mobilization
Current actors are encouraging o<strong>the</strong>rs to participate in <strong>the</strong>ir actor-network. Mobilization supports <strong>the</strong>
emergence <strong>of</strong> spokespersons that convince o<strong>the</strong>r actors not linked before to enter to <strong>the</strong>ir actornetwork
(Potts 2009). Therefore, this activity significantly streng<strong>the</strong>ned <strong>the</strong> IC actor-network. For example,
social capital is possible to add this element to IC actor-network that Zheng et al. (2010) mentioned
that social capital has significant positive effect on innovation and it supports human capital to
be more effective in innovation.
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