Martina Ayoub

 

PhD Email: Martina.AYOUBneoma-bs.fr (Martina[dot]AYOUB[at]neoma-bs[dot]fr) CV

 

 

 

 

From 2019: Doctorale School of Grenoble Faculty of Economics

Funding: glyco@alps and Ecole de commerce NOEMA de Reims.

PhD supervisors: Mireille Matt, GAEL and Stéphane Lhuillery, NOEMA

Thesis title: Three essays on green innovation and bioeconomy.

Defended: July, 11th 2022

Jury:

• Nadine MASSARD, professor, Université Grenoble Alpes
• Piergiuseppe MORONE, rapporteur, professor, Unitelma Sapienza Université de Rome
• Muge OZMAN, rapporteur, associate professor, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School
• Danielle GALLIANO, member, directrice recherche, INRAE Toulouse
• Diana MANGALAGIU, member, professor, NEOMA Business School
• Mireille Matt, DR, université Paris Est Marne La Vallée - université Grenoble Alpes, Thesis co-director
• Stephane Lhuillery, professor, NEOMA Business School, Thesis co-director

Abstract:
The urgency of climate change calls upon the acceleration of environmental innovations. However, it is not an easy task. Many green innovations, such as the bioeconomy, face considerable impediments related to the nature of environmental innovation. Eco-innovations and bio-based innovations are complex, require knowledge from a variety of sources, and are reliant on multidisciplinarity. Moreover, green innovations encounter obstructions because of their unreadiness to be commercially viable and competitive. For these innovations to prevail, they must surmount these challenges. In this dissertation, we explore the strategies developed by actors to obtain the necessary know-how to innovate in bioeconomy and green innovation and to integrate global value chains to diffuse and commercialise it. We develop a three-level analysis that relies on a value chain lens. The value chain of any production activities includes upstream and downstream activities. The first level/chapter of analysis is centred around agriculture which plays a preeminent role in the bioeconomy as a provider of biomass. We take agriculture as a case in point to reconnoitre the strategies created by farmers to gain the requisite knowledge to shift to sustainable farming. We delve into the diversity of these knowledge sourcing strategies to explore their variations across crop categories. We mobilise data from the French Ministry of Agriculture on farming practices in 2017 and run a multivariate probit regression. First, the findings reveal the importance of internal and external knowledge sources to innovate sustainable farming. Second, the relevance of different knowledge sources is ranked differently by different growers cultivating different crops and adopting different practices. Finally, the farmers detain a diverse knowledge base but are capable of using the same knowledge to devise multiple crops. In the second level/chapter of analysis, we focus on firms situated downstream engaged in eco-innovation. We focus on eco-innovation because, first,  understanding the role of biotechnology and other disciplines (ICT, nanotech..) in inducing eco-innovation is indispensable. Second, we address the challenges related to knowledge complexity and multidisciplinarity. We use data from the Community Innovation Survey and the R&D means survey developed by the French Ministry of higher education and research for 2014. We also employ a bivariate probit model with Heckamn selection. The findings, first, indicate that green R&D and non-green R&D stocks are drivers of eco-innovation. Second, the analysis shows the importance of knowledge complementarity between green R&D and biotech R&D to generate eco-innovation. In the third level/chapter, we study a complete value chain. Some innovations are characterised by a cross-industry nature, linking various sectors simultaneously. Therefore, an analysis of the complete value chain is adequate. We use microalgae as a case study of a niche innovation to explore the challenges of commercialisation and diffusion. We argue that actors have to integrate the division of labour in the form of global value chains to break out of the niche and head to market. We use diverse datasets to follow the development trajectory of microalgae as a niche innovation. We find that actors undertake collective exploration and exploitation activities. These activities leverage different forms of alliances between actors situated in the primary value chain of microalgae and adjacent value chains. Finally, we demonstrate that niche innovation modifies existing linkages in value chains leading to value web formation. This thesis calls for specific policy recommendations. Eco-innovations require policies that consider the variety of knowledge sourcing strategies, the knowledge complementarity and the multidisciplinarity of eco-innovation. Finally, we need demand-side policies, the coordination of sectoral policies or the development of intersectoral policies.