Public-private partnerships influencing the initiation and duration of clinical trials for neglected tropical diseases.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are often studied as an organizational form that facilitates the management and control of the huge costs of drug research and development. Especially the later stages of drug development, including clinical trials, become very expensive. This present study investigates whether and how the type of PPPs influences the initiation and duration of NTD clinical trials. Using the ClinicalTrials.gov database, a dataset of 1175 NTD clinical studies that started between 2000 and 2021 is analyzed based on affiliation information and project duration. For the NTD clinical trials that resulted from PPPs, the collaborating types were determined and analyzed, including the public sector-, private sector-, governmental sector-, and nongovernmental organization-led collaborations. The determinants for the discontinuation of all stopped clinical trials were categorized into scientific-, funding-, political-, and logistic dimensions. The results reveal that public sector-led PPPs were the most common collaborative types, and logistic and scientific issues were the most frequent determinants of stopped clinical trials. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov.

Collaborative university-industry R&D practices supporting the pharmaceutical innovation process: Insights from a bibliometric review.

University-industry collaborative research and development (UIC R&D) is generally seen as a driver of the pharmaceutical innovation process. Here, we perform a bibliometric review of UIC R&D practices over the past 30 years (1991-2020) by analyzing 800+ publications. At the strategic level of organizational cooperation patterns, the analysis shows that pharmaceutical UIC R&D mainly aims at strategic alliance formation, which gears toward universities and companies collaboratively exploring and commercializing technological breakthroughs. At the structural level of universities and companies investing in cooperation and aligning their activities, analytical results indicate that universities and companies organize themselves as interdependent entities in an open innovation ecosystem. At the cultural level of generally accepted collaboration norms and habits, analytical results show that university-company partnerships are becoming a rule rather than an exception. This study delves into a 30-year history of UIC R&D practices that support the pharmaceutical innovation process. It provides academics and practitioners with an insight into possible strategies for UIC R&D in the future and presents avenues for science, business and innovation research.

Optimizing Employee Creativity in the Digital Era: Uncovering the Interactional Effects of Abilities, Motivations, and Opportunities.

An increasing digitalization in all aspects of life and work reshapes traditional assumptions about human creativity. Both scholars and practitioners raise many questions with regards to how to stimulate employee creativity in the digital work context. While there are many studies that examine predictors of employee creativity, little effort has been made thus far to synthesize these findings in way that would provide meaningful guidance to organizations and to provide bases for future research. With this paper we aim to contribute to filling this gap. We systematically review empirical studies on predictors of employee creativity published in the past 30 years and organize findings following an established human resources management framework: Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) theory. This organizing framework enables us to clearly depict how contextual factors (a) separately and (b) jointly influence individual employee creativity. Specifically, it enables us to depict two possible models-combination and multiplicative models-through which contextual factors interact with individual factors in predicting employee creativity. Through synthesizing evidence for each of the models, we demonstrate to scholars and practitioners what is known about the interactional effects of contextual and personal factors on employee creativity, and what still needs to be studied if we are to take the field of research on creativity in the digital era forward.

Servant Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior in Chinese High-Tech Firms: A Moderated Mediation Model of Meaningful Work and Job Autonomy.

Scholars acknowledge the critical role of employee innovative work behavior (IWB) in facilitating organizational innovation in high-tech industries. However, the current knowledge is far from complete to paint a clear picture of how to evoke employee IWB in the Chinese high-tech industry. Many Chinese high-tech firms face a challenge moving from hierarchy-based leadership toward more employee-centered leadership styles, as the styles have different effects on employees' IWB. This perspective may complement and sharpen the incomplete picture. Drawing on a dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation, this study proposes and tests a moderated mediation model that examines the hypothesized positive influence of servant leadership on employee IWB via meaningful work as well as the moderating role of job autonomy in this process. We collected data (N = 288) from three Chinese high-tech firms and found that employees' perceptions of meaningful work mediate the relationship between servant leaders and IWB. We also found that this mediating relationship is conditional on the moderating role of job autonomy in the path from servant leadership to meaningful work. The results further show that the indirect effect of servant leadership on employee IWB via meaningful work exists only when job autonomy is high.