Preface

The text investigates the interactions among innovation, entrepreneurship, and ecosystems.

Chapter 1 investigates family firm entrepreneurial strategies' impact on innovation ability during new venture step and reveals how family firms take an initial step for the outcome. Basically, family firms are often assumed to be conservative in their innovation strategy. However, the truth is that many family-owned businesses are amongst the most innovative in their industries. Moreover, many of them can thrive across generations, which indicates that the spirit of innovation is at the very heart of their company culture. In addition, to adjust according to market demand and uncertainty, top management or founder must modify the in-hand resources according to the market demand. Nevertheless, due to the current era of digital globalization due to Covid 19, family-owned small and medium-sized enterprises face many challenges to sustain for the long term in the uncertain market. Therefore, strategic policymakers are needed to replace or modify the current business model by adopting digital technologies. Because without adoption of digital entrepreneurial activities cannot sustain for the long term. Therefore, the current study gives several suggestions to the policymakers and governmental institutions to replace and modify the existing resources and capabilities through digital technologies.

Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between formality and SME innovation. Specifically, the analysis considers the impact of formality on product, process, organizational, and commercial innovation. The research methodology is based on the analysis of the IRDC data set from Cameroon and Senegal. The authors use a logit model. The results show that formality significantly determines the capacity of firm innovation. Besides, the role of formality varies depending on the type of innovation, the sector of activity, and the country. It is therefore essential to intensify initiatives aimed at the formalization of businesses to improve SME innovation in French-speaking Africa and move from simple copying of innovations and their adaptation to real innovations that can impact growth. On this issue, Cameroonian public authorities are even more concerned because not only does the rate of informality remain very high in Cameroon, but the impact of formality remains insignificant, especially when considering the frequency of innovation.

Chapter 3 will explore the impact of a foreign investor on the development of Bank Pekao S.A. A literature review will be applied for this aim. It covers a detailed analysis of transaction documentation and post-audit statements of both the Supreme Audit Office as well as delegations of the Ministry of State Treasury. Thanks to research it can be assessed how UniCredito Italiano has positively influenced the operation of Pekao S.A. after the acquisition of shares. Thereby, the results of this study contest popular opinion about the exploitation of domestic employees by foreign companies.

From the methodological point of view, there are many definitions of foreign direct investment. The subject of this article leads to a special emphasis on definitions which refer to the creation of a long-term relationship between an investor and the company in which the shares are acquired.

In line with the special attention paid to ecosystem conditions that encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, Chapter 4 provides a critical review and expands the understanding of the concepts of the innovation ecosystem and entrepreneurial ecosystem. The entrepreneurial ecosystem represents a collection of actors that interact within a geographically bound entrepreneurial environment and factors, which contribute to the development of productive entrepreneurship. Innovation ecosystems represent communities of interacting actors that support innovation processes and create technologies and innovations. The focus of the innovation ecosystem is on value creation through the creation of innovations, while the focus of the entrepreneurship ecosystem is on the development of entrepreneurship. There are differences between the two concepts, but also the relationships and interactions, which are revealed in the chapter. Also, there are highlighted the framework, components and features of both entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems.

Chapter 5 discusses the important role of capital evaluation. In particular, the capital return rate is the relative time change rate of value. Correspondingly, the current value can be produced in terms of value change rate divided by capital return rate. There is a variety of ways to approximate the expected capital return rate. These are briefly discussed. The approximation of the value change rate is still more variant, depending on the type of businesses discussed. A variety of businesses may appear within a firm, in which case the value change rates must be integrated. An example is provided of a real estate firm benefiting from the growth of multiannual plants of varying ages. It is found that the application of a duration-dependent reference capital return rate increases the value increment rate of juvenile stands and decreases that of mature stands, however increasing the valuation result of both.

Chapter 6 considers a centralized one-echelon supply chain with two retailers selling products and facing stochastic demand. Given the large distance between the supplier and retailers, and the corresponding large fixed transportation cost (by order) long replenishment cycles are typically used. In such situations, transporting stocks between retailers is much easier and less costly, and may be done on a more frequent basis. In this work, the authors explore the cost benefits of allowing multiple shipments between retailers during a supplier replenishment cycle. Items' transshipment between retailers still involves of course certain costs, for handling and moving the items. Since multiple items can often be shipped on a single pallet, part of those costs will be independent of the number of items shipped. Instead of only including a variable transport cost per item, the authors also include a fixed transport cost per shipment.

Finally, Chapter 7 attempts to understand New Product Development Approaches and Strategies adopted by key global and domestic brands operating in the Indian Textile market and derive lessons for the development of future models of New Product Development in the Indian Textile and Apparel Industry. The brands have been selected on the basis of their popularity and position in the Indian Textile markets. Indian players: The Raymond Group and Siyaram's particularly cater to

the men's clothing range only. With the advent of the multinational brands like Allen Solly into the Indian markets, women's formal as well as comfortable casual clothing range has been given due attention over the period of time. It may also seem that women's apparel garments only came into being after the substantial rise in their numbers in the workplace otherwise there might be a connotation in the minds of the companies that formal wear is only about men's clothing and perhaps the monopoly of it. Secondly, Casual/Comfort wear clothing is the largest category in terms of market size and a lot of small and large players have come up which though not mentioned in the current paper but constitute a substantial market size in the Indian Readymade Garments Industry. Thus there is a lot of scope for New Product Development in this category of clothing segment which so far has not been done by the Indian brands which have largely followed the trends and patterns of international brands. Thirdly, the discussions in this chapter have confirmed the hypothesis that the most sought-after strategies of New Product Development have been launching of the New Product Lines followed by the Additions to the Product Lines/Product Improvement. New-to-the-World Products have been particularly pursued by multinational brands like Van Heusen. Apart from this, it is also to be realised by the apparel brands that apart from the elite section, India has a large middle-income segment that can be cashed on to the fullest potential. But so far the brands only have capitalised on the premium and elite class. Thus, there is a need for the Indian brands to catch up with the multinational brands so as to become more competitive in the domestic and overseas markets which would only be possible by developing an extensive innovation culture and capabilities of the small innovative firms on the part of the policy-making institutions in India.

> **Luigi Aldieri** Department of Economic and Statistical Sciences, University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy

## **Chapter 1**
