Zornitsa B. Yordanova has received her PhD in the area of Business Innovations management in the University of National and World economy, Sofia, Bulgaria and now she is an Assist. Professor there. Her research interest includes innovation management, business innovations, project management, innovation projects, enterprise management, management information systems and enterprise software. Her working experience is in the banking and the IT sector. She is also certified as PMP® and CSM® in the area of project management and she is a practitioner in the field of business applications software projects.
PurposeThe study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holisticall... more PurposeThe study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holistically show its current state and potential. The paper aims at contributing to the scientific literature with a comprehensive review of the current state of the art on the application of user innovation (UI) in the e-healthcare sector, as a solid step for discussing the potential, trends, managerial gaps and future research avenues in this field. Despite the crucial importance of the topic and increasing attention toward it in the last few years, there is a lack of comprehensive scrutiny on different angles of involving users in health technology innovations so far.Design/methodology/approachThis study combines two methods of bibliometric analysis and extensive content analysis of 169 journal articles on Scopus and Web of Science to unfold five research questions regarding the mechanisms of involving users, innovations characteristics and the role of users throughout the innovation process.Fi...
The purpose of this study is to systematize and consolidate a scattered literature on the theme o... more The purpose of this study is to systematize and consolidate a scattered literature on the theme of firm-user collaboration by focusing on the strategic, organizational, and managerial dynamics of firms. To achieve this aim, a systematic review of 152 articles was carried out. Papers were first organized into six clusters of firm-user collaboration: (1) Identifying and Selecting Users and Ideas, (2) Organizing Collaboration with Users, (3) Networking with Users, (4) Engaging Users in the Innovation Process, (5) Developing Resources and Capabilities to support Collaboration with Users, and (6) Strategizing for Users' Involvement. The main topics within each area were then organized sequentially, following a typical innovation-management process to facilitate the identification of further research opportunities and under-addressed topics that could be relevant to tackle. The paper contributes to the innovation literature by providing a firm-centered perspective on the strategic, organizational, and managerial preconditions and dynamics needed to enable and enhance collaboration with users.
2020 7th International Conference on Energy Efficiency and Agricultural Engineering (EE&AE)
The paper aims at exploring the possible knowledge transfer from the business concepts Lean Start... more The paper aims at exploring the possible knowledge transfer from the business concepts Lean Startup and Agile, usually applied for innovation, project and product management, now for addressing educational challenges as well. Educational challenges are broadly treated as social and human progress related topics rather than project or product-based initiatives. Following the concept of problem-driven innovation approach, the paper analyzes the contribution and potential benefits of applying Lean Startup and Agile for addressing and solving educational challenges on individual level. The methodology developed in the study can be used from universities and schools for identification and realization of effective educational projects, relevant to their unique internal and external environment as well as bearing in mind local and global challenges. It enables a better comprehension of some potential benefits and challenges of applying Lean startup in educational organizations for the purposes of innovation management and management in general.
It has been largely researched what the factors which determine successful project management are... more It has been largely researched what the factors which determine successful project management are. Most of the research show a huge dependency between project success and type of the projects in terms of size, industry, scope, market, etc. Much research analyze the type of project management and all specifics related to its application. This paper focuses on project management specifically for innovation projects as they are extremely different types of projects which require distinct project management approach. The purpose of the research is to determine the current state of art of the topic by revealing the research achievements in the science literature. The research applies a systematic literature analysis through a traditional approach as well as an advanced technique for digital systematic literature review so to reveal the current status of the state of art of the topic Project management for innovation projects. The systematic literature analysis went through 299 research papers from the Scopus database so to uncover the current accomplishment. The results are of interest to scientists and practitioners primarily from the management sciences, but are also extremely suitable for practitioners from any other industry related to innovation development.
Innovations and entrepreneurship for encouraging and achieving stable growth in terms of the glo... more Innovations and entrepreneurship for encouraging and achieving stable growth in terms of the globalization of economics is an undeniable priority. The problem’s priority lies in a number of European and national (resp. Bulgarian) strategic documents, with the necessity for designing and implementing appropriate operative measure for encouraging investments in newly created enterprises with growth potential taking center stage. At present, the Bulgarian scientific and economic community can talk about studies whose targets are either innovations or entrepreneurship firms as a subject of research and analysis. However, combining the two targets under the problems of creating, developing and encouraging START-up businesses would repeatedly increase the focus and effectiveness of the achieved results in the field of economic policies and strategies. Studies of these important problems are nothing new for global economic thought – a number of researchers can be named, such as ...
The purpose of the paper is to empirically research what is the interconnection between the effor... more The purpose of the paper is to empirically research what is the interconnection between the efforts of business organizations to manage their organizational innovativeness and using management information systems in their management and operations. The organizational innovativeness in the study is narrowed by the prism of innovative potential and innovative capabilities that are defined by the Company Innovative Leadership model. The scope of IT when it comes to business and IT alignment is seen from the usage of ERP, CRM and BI systems for information and process management of operations. These three management information systems act as tools for Business and IT Alignment in the study. The methodology employed in the study relied on 51 middle and high level management respondents who explained what are the possible linkages between innovation goals of organizations and application of information and process information systems. The key findings of the results are concrete identifi...
The paper examines the process of innovation development in science organizations and its project... more The paper examines the process of innovation development in science organizations and its project management. As a methodological approach, the study focuses on Agile method as a technique for improving some old-school practices for innovation, product and project management. The research methodology goes through a systematic review of the literature of the Agile application in project management and innovation in scientific organizations to prove the knowledge gap. The results of the research are of interest to scientists from a wide range of fields and offer knowledge and insight for more effective project management for innovative projects in research organizations. In addition, the methodology applied in this study is based on a specially developed data analytics tool for word and context analysis (based on the principles of literature review) and might be re-used in many other studies which aim at identifying knowledge gap and state of art in interdisciplinary fields of study. The tool is Advanced Analytical Literature Review (AALR) built on Qlik software.
International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 2018
The Lean Startup Method (LSM) provides a systematic management of innovation processes within sta... more The Lean Startup Method (LSM) provides a systematic management of innovation processes within startups and even within well-established companies. Despite its wide use by a lot of innovative companies, this study claims that using the LSM compromises the development of breakthrough and radical innovations and also companies' innovativeness is hindered given that companies usually follow the method and its principles blindly, without fully understanding its advantages and disadvantages. The aim of this study is to make a critical analysis of the LSM with focus on the above two statements and to test the critical findings from the analysis with the help of innovation experts. The methods employed in the study are mainly statistical ones as Pearson correlation, linear regression and statistical mean. The results show that innovation experts generally do agree with the formulated critical points in the research but still use the method because they had not been aware of these disadvantages before entering the research as respondents. Another finding is the negative correlation between commercializing breakthrough innovations and using customers in innovation development process. The contribution of the paper for the readers is mainly related to the impact of customer utilization within the breakthrough innovation development process and how using the LSM might compromise companies' innovativeness in general. Keywords: Lean Startup, breakthrough and radical innovations, company innovativeness, innovation barrier, innovation development methods.
International Journal of Business Innovation and Research , 2018
The paper presents the innovation project tool (IPT) which aims at outlining common characteristi... more The paper presents the innovation project tool (IPT) which aims at outlining common characteristics of innovation projects in terms of project management and using these specifics for creating a tool for categorization of innovation projects. The IPT might be useful for researchers and practitioners alike in their management in order to prevent them from making mistakes, to decrease unpredictability and ambiguity of such projects and to improve innovation projects’ performance and success. The IPT can be also used as a checklist for categorization of innovation projects; as a pre-defined watch list during project work; a risk management tool for better analyzing and assessing project risks and integration management supporting tool for better scoping all possible ingredients in innovation projects. The IPT provided 51 specifics of innovation projects with ranking of their specificity and impact on innovation projects. The research is based on two iteration interviews with 60 highly experienced project managers from different industries. Keywords: innovation management; innovation project; project management; innovation project management; project tool; innovation success; project success; innovation categorization.
International Journal of Technological Learning Innovation and Development, 2017
The paper aims at presenting the results from a study that examines the possibility, usefulness a... more The paper aims at presenting the results from a study that examines the possibility, usefulness and existence of knowledge transfer of some tools and techniques from the lean startup method toward project management. The research focuses on innovation projects and these projects’ need for more flexible and innovative tools and techniques so their performance to be improved. The research includes literature framework, literature analysis, comparative analysis and empirical research in two parts. The empirical research first extracts 13 tools and techniques from lean startup method and then tests the usage and the effect of these techniques implementation in 167 innovation projects. The results show the existing collaboration between the method and the project management practice as well as outline the most appropriate tools and techniques with higher positive impact on innovative projects. Keywords: lean startup method; LSM; project management; PM; innovation projects; knowledge transfer; KT; innovation management.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Yordanova, Z.B. (2017) ‘Knowledge transfer from lean startup method to project management for boosting innovation projects’ performance’, Int. J. Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.293–309.
PurposeThe study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holisticall... more PurposeThe study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holistically show its current state and potential. The paper aims at contributing to the scientific literature with a comprehensive review of the current state of the art on the application of user innovation (UI) in the e-healthcare sector, as a solid step for discussing the potential, trends, managerial gaps and future research avenues in this field. Despite the crucial importance of the topic and increasing attention toward it in the last few years, there is a lack of comprehensive scrutiny on different angles of involving users in health technology innovations so far.Design/methodology/approachThis study combines two methods of bibliometric analysis and extensive content analysis of 169 journal articles on Scopus and Web of Science to unfold five research questions regarding the mechanisms of involving users, innovations characteristics and the role of users throughout the innovation process.Fi...
The purpose of this study is to systematize and consolidate a scattered literature on the theme o... more The purpose of this study is to systematize and consolidate a scattered literature on the theme of firm-user collaboration by focusing on the strategic, organizational, and managerial dynamics of firms. To achieve this aim, a systematic review of 152 articles was carried out. Papers were first organized into six clusters of firm-user collaboration: (1) Identifying and Selecting Users and Ideas, (2) Organizing Collaboration with Users, (3) Networking with Users, (4) Engaging Users in the Innovation Process, (5) Developing Resources and Capabilities to support Collaboration with Users, and (6) Strategizing for Users' Involvement. The main topics within each area were then organized sequentially, following a typical innovation-management process to facilitate the identification of further research opportunities and under-addressed topics that could be relevant to tackle. The paper contributes to the innovation literature by providing a firm-centered perspective on the strategic, organizational, and managerial preconditions and dynamics needed to enable and enhance collaboration with users.
2020 7th International Conference on Energy Efficiency and Agricultural Engineering (EE&AE)
The paper aims at exploring the possible knowledge transfer from the business concepts Lean Start... more The paper aims at exploring the possible knowledge transfer from the business concepts Lean Startup and Agile, usually applied for innovation, project and product management, now for addressing educational challenges as well. Educational challenges are broadly treated as social and human progress related topics rather than project or product-based initiatives. Following the concept of problem-driven innovation approach, the paper analyzes the contribution and potential benefits of applying Lean Startup and Agile for addressing and solving educational challenges on individual level. The methodology developed in the study can be used from universities and schools for identification and realization of effective educational projects, relevant to their unique internal and external environment as well as bearing in mind local and global challenges. It enables a better comprehension of some potential benefits and challenges of applying Lean startup in educational organizations for the purposes of innovation management and management in general.
It has been largely researched what the factors which determine successful project management are... more It has been largely researched what the factors which determine successful project management are. Most of the research show a huge dependency between project success and type of the projects in terms of size, industry, scope, market, etc. Much research analyze the type of project management and all specifics related to its application. This paper focuses on project management specifically for innovation projects as they are extremely different types of projects which require distinct project management approach. The purpose of the research is to determine the current state of art of the topic by revealing the research achievements in the science literature. The research applies a systematic literature analysis through a traditional approach as well as an advanced technique for digital systematic literature review so to reveal the current status of the state of art of the topic Project management for innovation projects. The systematic literature analysis went through 299 research papers from the Scopus database so to uncover the current accomplishment. The results are of interest to scientists and practitioners primarily from the management sciences, but are also extremely suitable for practitioners from any other industry related to innovation development.
Innovations and entrepreneurship for encouraging and achieving stable growth in terms of the glo... more Innovations and entrepreneurship for encouraging and achieving stable growth in terms of the globalization of economics is an undeniable priority. The problem’s priority lies in a number of European and national (resp. Bulgarian) strategic documents, with the necessity for designing and implementing appropriate operative measure for encouraging investments in newly created enterprises with growth potential taking center stage. At present, the Bulgarian scientific and economic community can talk about studies whose targets are either innovations or entrepreneurship firms as a subject of research and analysis. However, combining the two targets under the problems of creating, developing and encouraging START-up businesses would repeatedly increase the focus and effectiveness of the achieved results in the field of economic policies and strategies. Studies of these important problems are nothing new for global economic thought – a number of researchers can be named, such as ...
The purpose of the paper is to empirically research what is the interconnection between the effor... more The purpose of the paper is to empirically research what is the interconnection between the efforts of business organizations to manage their organizational innovativeness and using management information systems in their management and operations. The organizational innovativeness in the study is narrowed by the prism of innovative potential and innovative capabilities that are defined by the Company Innovative Leadership model. The scope of IT when it comes to business and IT alignment is seen from the usage of ERP, CRM and BI systems for information and process management of operations. These three management information systems act as tools for Business and IT Alignment in the study. The methodology employed in the study relied on 51 middle and high level management respondents who explained what are the possible linkages between innovation goals of organizations and application of information and process information systems. The key findings of the results are concrete identifi...
The paper examines the process of innovation development in science organizations and its project... more The paper examines the process of innovation development in science organizations and its project management. As a methodological approach, the study focuses on Agile method as a technique for improving some old-school practices for innovation, product and project management. The research methodology goes through a systematic review of the literature of the Agile application in project management and innovation in scientific organizations to prove the knowledge gap. The results of the research are of interest to scientists from a wide range of fields and offer knowledge and insight for more effective project management for innovative projects in research organizations. In addition, the methodology applied in this study is based on a specially developed data analytics tool for word and context analysis (based on the principles of literature review) and might be re-used in many other studies which aim at identifying knowledge gap and state of art in interdisciplinary fields of study. The tool is Advanced Analytical Literature Review (AALR) built on Qlik software.
International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 2018
The Lean Startup Method (LSM) provides a systematic management of innovation processes within sta... more The Lean Startup Method (LSM) provides a systematic management of innovation processes within startups and even within well-established companies. Despite its wide use by a lot of innovative companies, this study claims that using the LSM compromises the development of breakthrough and radical innovations and also companies' innovativeness is hindered given that companies usually follow the method and its principles blindly, without fully understanding its advantages and disadvantages. The aim of this study is to make a critical analysis of the LSM with focus on the above two statements and to test the critical findings from the analysis with the help of innovation experts. The methods employed in the study are mainly statistical ones as Pearson correlation, linear regression and statistical mean. The results show that innovation experts generally do agree with the formulated critical points in the research but still use the method because they had not been aware of these disadvantages before entering the research as respondents. Another finding is the negative correlation between commercializing breakthrough innovations and using customers in innovation development process. The contribution of the paper for the readers is mainly related to the impact of customer utilization within the breakthrough innovation development process and how using the LSM might compromise companies' innovativeness in general. Keywords: Lean Startup, breakthrough and radical innovations, company innovativeness, innovation barrier, innovation development methods.
International Journal of Business Innovation and Research , 2018
The paper presents the innovation project tool (IPT) which aims at outlining common characteristi... more The paper presents the innovation project tool (IPT) which aims at outlining common characteristics of innovation projects in terms of project management and using these specifics for creating a tool for categorization of innovation projects. The IPT might be useful for researchers and practitioners alike in their management in order to prevent them from making mistakes, to decrease unpredictability and ambiguity of such projects and to improve innovation projects’ performance and success. The IPT can be also used as a checklist for categorization of innovation projects; as a pre-defined watch list during project work; a risk management tool for better analyzing and assessing project risks and integration management supporting tool for better scoping all possible ingredients in innovation projects. The IPT provided 51 specifics of innovation projects with ranking of their specificity and impact on innovation projects. The research is based on two iteration interviews with 60 highly experienced project managers from different industries. Keywords: innovation management; innovation project; project management; innovation project management; project tool; innovation success; project success; innovation categorization.
International Journal of Technological Learning Innovation and Development, 2017
The paper aims at presenting the results from a study that examines the possibility, usefulness a... more The paper aims at presenting the results from a study that examines the possibility, usefulness and existence of knowledge transfer of some tools and techniques from the lean startup method toward project management. The research focuses on innovation projects and these projects’ need for more flexible and innovative tools and techniques so their performance to be improved. The research includes literature framework, literature analysis, comparative analysis and empirical research in two parts. The empirical research first extracts 13 tools and techniques from lean startup method and then tests the usage and the effect of these techniques implementation in 167 innovation projects. The results show the existing collaboration between the method and the project management practice as well as outline the most appropriate tools and techniques with higher positive impact on innovative projects. Keywords: lean startup method; LSM; project management; PM; innovation projects; knowledge transfer; KT; innovation management.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Yordanova, Z.B. (2017) ‘Knowledge transfer from lean startup method to project management for boosting innovation projects’ performance’, Int. J. Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.293–309.
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Reference to this paper should be made as follows:
Yordanova, Z.B. (2017) ‘Knowledge transfer from lean startup method to project management for boosting innovation projects’ performance’, Int. J. Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.293–309.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows:
Yordanova, Z.B. (2017) ‘Knowledge transfer from lean startup method to project management for boosting innovation projects’ performance’, Int. J. Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp.293–309.