Inventors don’t just need to borrow ideas—they need to understand where those ideas came from. A new study published in the Journal of Business Research by House of Innovation researcher Holmer Kok introduces the concept of “trajectory integration” to explain how tracing an invention’s full history can lead to more powerful and impactful innovation.

Governments spend billions on procurement, but can these contracts be a tool to drive innovation? A new study co-authored by Giancarlo Spagnolo, professor at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), explores the effectiveness of Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI). Forthcoming in the International Journal of Industrial Organization, the study finds that while PPI can foster innovation—especially for small and young firms—major challenges remain in policy design and implementation.

For the past two decades, Design Thinking has been a driving force in business innovation, helping companies improve products and services. Yet, Design Thinking has serious limitations, according to new research by HOI researcher Roberto Verganti, with co-author Elizabeth Bowie Cristoforetti of Harvard, published in The Design Journal. Its extreme and close focus on user needs (or user-ism, sometimes becoming a face-lifted version of consumerism), can lead businesses to overlook broader systemic challenges, from sustainability to social responsibility. The authors argue that design must evolve—moving beyond being purely reactive to market needs and instead becoming an active shaper of a positive future.

Swedish sports need to talk about the future. The Center for Sports and Business at the Stockholm School of Economics is expanding its collaboration with Enable Sweden. The goal is to merge tradition with innovation and together contribute to a stronger, more competitive Swedish sports sector, on both a national and international level.