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The Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) was launched in 1984 and over its first two decades of existence evolved into the leading journal in the field of innovation and the management of technology. During these 20 years JPIM contributed to the field by publishing 488 academic papers. This paper is a follow-up study to an earlier study that looked at how JPIM evolved in terms of knowledge stock and knowledge flows during the first two decades (published in JPIM, March 2007). That paper looked at what was published during the first 20 years, which sources were cited, and which journals cited JPIM papers. This study takes a closer look at the impact of JPIM on the field of innovation and the management of technology by identifying the most classic papers published in JPIM during its first two decades of existence. This study used multiple research methods to identify 64 candidate potential classics from the 488 papers published in the first 20 years of JPIM's existence, to analyze how they differ from the other 424 papers published in the journal, and to investigate authors' motivations for writing these papers. Finally, using survey responses from the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) membership and other academics in innovation and new product development, the research then determines which 5 of the 64 candidate papers are considered to be the “most classic” papers published and the factors driving that determination. The findings show that classic papers are those presenting a “pioneering idea” in the field that creates buzz in both the academic and practitioner worlds. High numbers of citations are indeed the outcome of these endeavors, but being a classic requires more than having high numbers of citations. Authors of the true classics generally have worked hard to disseminate their research, usually to both academics and practitioners, perhaps also contributing to the network buzz created by their findings. While one of the five most classic papers represented the first investigation into a particular stream of research, the other four were culminations of a significant body of research, providing a distinct summary of known information on a topic at the time they were published and a clear road forward for future research on the topic. These bodies of knowledge have yet to be superseded by other culminating papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of research on innovation and new product development points to certain foundational issues of concern such as the use of (1) different definitions of constructs germane to the field (e.g., definitions of innovation, innovativeness, and specific types of innovations), (2) different construct labels to refer to specific innovation types, and (3) the same construct label to refer to different innovation types. Over the years, scholars have cautioned that a body of research in a field of study that is based on different definitions of constructs germane to the field would slow the advancement of knowledge. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this Catalyst paper is to initiate a conversation on the prospects for mitigating the definitional quagmire in research on innovation and new product development by developing an inclusive definition of innovation that can be used as a template for defining various types of innovations uniformly. Toward this end, the paper proposes an inclusive definition of innovation based on idea, outcome, and value creation as the defining or essential characteristics of all innovations. Definitions of 10 specific types of innovations defined in a consistent manner, employing the proposed inclusive definition of innovation as a template are also presented. All else being equal, consistency across research studies in the definitions of constructs employed can be conducive to the advancement of knowledge in a field of study in several ways such as streamlining the curation of the research‐based knowledge, facilitating the grounding of new research in prior research (i.e., curated knowledge), and eliminating differences across studies in the definitions of key constructs employed as a potential confound on the research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agglomeration of financial resources is generally considered to encourage business practices that promote green innovation. In addition, green innovation is also subject to firms' location and may exhibit significant spatial effects. However, most studies failed to consider the complex association between financial resources and green innovation from the lens of geographical proximity. This paper scrutinizes the influence of geographical proximity of financial resources on green innovation with the case of Chinese listed firms. It critically examines the role of trade‐offs between competitive and substitution effects triggered by geographical proximity in this complex relationship. The findings demonstrate that the geographical proximity of financial resources affects firms' trade‐offs between competitive and substitution effects, changing their green innovation activities. In addition, green innovation and distance to financial centers have an inverted U‐shaped association, suggesting an optimal location between the firm and financial centers conducive to green innovation. Finally, internal ownership reinforces the effect of geographical proximity of financial resources on green innovation, while external environmental regulation weakens this effect. Therefore, this paper extends the existing green innovation theory from the lens of geographic proximity. This can help us better understand the influence of geographic proximity of financial resources on green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of design as a source of value creation has been studied for decades. In the late 90s, however, a specific approach in the practice of design achieved a rapid diffusion across organizations: Design Thinking. This is a formal method for creative problem solving characterized by user‐centeredness, ideation, and iterative prototyping. The rapid diffusion of Design Thinking in practice has not been coupled with similarly rapid and robust development of its theoretical underpinnings. Most contributions have been inward‐oriented toward a confined community of scholars; therefore, the scientific discourse on Design Thinking has unfolded in a vacuum—often independently from other innovation management theories. The consequence has been that Design Thinking is often confused (especially among those new to the field) with the entire practice of design. Subsequently, we still lack an understanding on whether, why, and when Design Thinking contributes to innovation. In this editorial, we discuss the journey to the Special Issue "Design Thinking and Innovation Management: Matches, Mismatches and Future Avenues" that intends to critically reflect and enrich the scientific debate around Design Thinking. First, we aim at clarifying the distinction between "design" and "Design Thinking." The former is a practice, to be studied; the latter is a paradigm, that is, a set of specific principles, methods, and tools to practice design. Second, we offer a brief overview of the community that has been investigating Design Thinking, a synthesis of the ten papers included in the Special Issue (distributed across this and the next issue), and show how they contribute to close the theoretical and empirical gaps with innovation studies. Finally, we suggest that the paradigm of Design Thinking is significantly contingent: its diffusion and success have been favored by the emergence of specific contextual conditions (substantially by the ubiquitous diffusion of digital technologies in direct interaction with users). As the context is dramatically shifting again, we wonder whether Design Thinking will keep its relevance and ability to support organizations in addressing the new challenges ahead? We address this question with the support of a contingent framework to position several design paradigms and suggest that the context ahead, where problems have multiple stakeholders and are undefined, will require the emergence of new paradigms characterized by a systemic (rather than user‐centered) and reflective (rather than ideative) practice. We therefore propose a few research questions that will hopefully encourage and shape future scholarly efforts into the study of the design practice for innovation in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012, China was ranked fourth in patent filing by region of origin. However, firm innovation quality is not comparable to such quantity. Evidence of this is that no Chinese organization was named as a Thomson Reuters 2011 or 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators. This paradox of firm patenting and innovations in China challenges the traditional understanding of the role of government in industrial innovation. This paper provides a theoretical lens through which to examine traditional protective and strategic patenting motives. Based on institutional theory and the ultimate goals of patenting motives, the paper posits that protective patenting motives are directly law-based while strategic patenting motives are largely law-derived. The paper also aims to empirically examine three questions: (1) What is the relative importance of various patenting motives to firm patenting behaviors? (2) What effects do patenting behaviors have on firm product and process innovations? (3) How, if at all, does governmental institutional support affect firm patenting and innovations? This paper uses dominant analysis, structural equation modeling, and regression analysis to analyze the survey data collected from a sample of 270 firms in China. The empirical results provide new evidence about firm patenting, innovations, and government institutional support. First, the order of relative importance of patenting motives to patenting behaviors was found to be (in the descending order of importance) reputation, exchange, blocking, and protection. Second, patenting behaviors were more relevant to product innovations than to process innovations. Third, more importantly, while government institutional support can enhance the effects of protective patenting motives on patenting behaviors, it can mitigate the effects of strategic patenting motives on patenting behaviors. Moreover, government institutional support reduces the positive effect of patenting behaviors on product innovations. These findings suggest that firm patenting and innovations are distinct activities, and that government institutional support acts as a double-edged sword in firm patenting and innovations: On the one hand government institutional support-an extralegal formal institution-may work alongside the patent system-a law-based formal institution-to advance science and technology, but on the other hand government institutional support may distract firms from commercializing patented knowledge into new products. This paper primarily contributes to institutional theory, new product development literature, and innovation management practice by revealing the dynamics between two different types of formal institutions-patent system and government institutional support-by establishing an institution-based view of patenting motives, by empirically distinguishing firm patenting and innovations, and more interestingly by uncovering a double-edged role of government institutional support in firm patenting and innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks answers to the question: what are the key factors that enable the scaling of additive manufacturing (AM) from rapid prototyping to high‐volume production? Using a longitudinal case study, we collected primary and secondary data to trace the AM scaling journey of AeroCo, a highly innovative aerospace firm. Based on the case findings, we position AM as a whole system technology because it can print components for a wide range of subsystems in a complex final product. Scaling AM requires a significant realignment of existing, and often deeply entrenched, new technology, and product development processes. To achieve this alignment, AeroCo formed institutional alliances with the UK government and universities to establish university technology centers, which facilitated early stage ideation and "catapult" centers, which enabled high‐volume testing in factory‐like facilities. The case reveals how multiple functions needed to integrate, including research and development, product design, and future programs, to ensure that design changes cascaded from one subsystem to another, and that new technologies were linked to a future product to create a final product pull. These findings inform a managerial framework for additive manufacturing scaling that is generalizable to other digital technologies used in the design and production of complex final products, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, smart factories, and cyber physical production systems. Our framework contributes to innovation thought and practice by explaining how new product development processes and organizational structures change under the effect of digital technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how innovations involving big data are helping to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today. Focusing primarily on the developing world, this paper explores how the large volumes of digital information, increasingly available in these contexts, can help decision-makers better address problems as big as poverty, illness, conflict, migration, corruption, natural disasters, climate change, and pollution, among other areas. This paper argues that the information vacuum that still exists in many developing countries makes the potential for impact from big data much greater in these contexts. Through a series of case studies, the authors demonstrate how big data can be used to address pressing social and environmental challenges in developing countries. The authors present research questions that could not have been addressed in the absence of dramatic recent increases in data volume, variety, and velocity. They then extrapolate from these questions, and discuss the nature of the technological changes that now allow decision-makers in developing countries to leapfrog from data poverty to big data, and permit innovative solutions to the aforementioned challenges. The authors emphasize the importance of looking beyond the current focus, in the literature, on storing, analyzing, and creating commercial value from big data. Instead, they point to the importance of innovativeness in identifying, integrating, disseminating, and applying new sources of data to execute actions that in turn generate product, service, process, and business model innovations that are impactful due to big data. The authors argue that academic researchers have an important role to play in helping the world harness the potential for big data innovations, through validation, visualization, and verification of such data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While radical innovation brings extensive economic rewards to firms, it is an activity fraught with risk. Prior research has shown that such risks mainly stem from organizational arrangements (at the level of individuals, teams, firms, and inter firm collaborations), which are inadequate or inefficient to support radical innovation. The papers in this special issue on 'Organizing for Radical Innovation: Exploring Novel Insights' take stock of past work and provide novel insights about how to organize for radical innovation. The overarching idea linking them is that radical innovation hinges on the creation of fundamentally new knowledge and the continuous stimulation of creativity. Thus, organizational arrangements that support such processes play a crucial role in explaining and predicting the successful commercialization of breakthrough ideas, radically new technologies, and solutions. In particular, the field of science, which in essence aims for the systematic production of new knowledge, can be a valid source of inspiration for how individuals, teams, firms, and interfirm collaborations should organize for radical innovation. Moving from these premises, in this introductory paper, we offer an overview of the topic of organizing for radical innovation and highlight possible linkages with the organizing principles. Then, we summarize the main insights from the papers in this special issue and use their core ideas to sketch a novel research agenda for scholars working at the intersection of organization theory, economics of science, and management of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A salesperson's commitment and effort toward an innovation can determine whether the customer agrees to buy it, such that customers' perceptions of such commitment and effort are critical. But these perceptions also might differ fundamentally from the salesperson's self‐perceptions of commitment and effort. Therefore, this paper presents a theoretical framework of the relation between salesperson‐perceived and customer‐perceived commitment and effort, as exhibited by the salesperson while selling an innovation, which represents salesperson adoption. In the framework, job satisfaction factors also exert contingent, moderating effects. The authors gather unique, dyadic data from surveys of salespeople and their (potential) business customers during visits to sell a conventional, incremental innovation, complemented by objective purchase data gathered from company records. Three key insights emerge fromt this study. First, salespeople's own perceptions of their commitment and effort have only moderate influences on customers' perceptions of salespeople's commitment and effort. Second, customers seem to recognize salesperson effort more readily than salesperson commitment, although salesperson commitment has a higher sales performance impact than salesperson effort. Thus, sales managers should seek to encourage and support both the commitment of salespeople and also perceptions of that commitment among customers. Third, while a higher organizational support or job autonomy strengthens customers' perceptions of salesperson adoption, a higher pay satisfaction diminishes it. Thus, firms might need to find ways to increase the support for the salespeople and their autonomy and to reduce salespeople's satisfaction with their (direct) payments. In total, these findings suggest significant scientific and managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive impact of university–industry collaborations on firms' innovative performance is well recognized. However, to date, the existing heterogeneity within university–industry collaboration processes and the sources of value creation underlying the resulting inventions are left underexplored. As a result, our understanding as to why some of the joint inventions resulting from such collaborations turn out to present a more fertile source of follow‐on developments and value for the collaborating firm than others is limited. The present paper sheds light on this question through the application of a knowledge recombination perspective. Hence, we open the black box of innovation and put a spotlight on the knowledge components that make up the joint inventions resulting from university–industry collaborations. We evaluate how the nature—scientific versus technological—and origins—internal versus external to the collaborating partners—of these knowledge components relate to the inventive impact of the partners' joint invention. Examining a sample of 9102 USPTO co‐patents, joint inventions created through university–industry collaborations are shown to be most fertile as a source of firm follow‐on inventions when they are the result of a recombination process that includes technological knowledge components stemming from both collaborating partners. This effect is most pronounced when the partners' technological knowledge contributions are moderately similar. In contrast, when the joint technology development takes place in a technology domain that is novel to the firm, the resulting joint inventions are most fertile as a source of firm follow‐on inventions when the university contributes through the input of technological knowledge components situated in exactly this technology domain that is novel to the firm. Remarkably, no evidence for such direct effects is found regarding the partners' scientific contributions. Together, these findings provide important insights for firms who intend to spur their internal technology development through collaboration with a university partner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of social media offers tremendous innovation potential. Yet, while current research emphasizes success stories, little is known about how firms can leverage the full potential of their social media use for open innovation. In this paper, the authors address this gap by conducting a configurational analysis to develop an integrative taxonomy of social media‐enabled strategies for open innovation. This analysis stems from the integration of internal and external variables such as social media communication activities, organizational innovation seekers, potential innovation providers, the stages of the open innovation process, and their relationship with different performance outcomes and barriers to social media adoption for open innovation. Through an empirical study of 337 firms based in eight countries, four clusters have been identified that are characterized as distinct strategies: "marketing semi‐open innovators," "cross‐department semi‐open innovators," "cross‐department full process semi‐open innovators" and "broad adopters open innovators." The findings reveal the trade‐offs associated with different strategies for implementing social media for open innovation and provide insights of the use of these strategies. By doing so, they suggest a more nuanced approach that contrasts with the traditionally positive (or even rosy) depiction of the effects of social media on open innovation. Accordingly, managers are encouraged to contemplate their organizational competencies, capabilities, and their strategic intent when drafting social media strategies for open innovation. Selective approaches, along with greater adoption leading to greater benefits, are shown to be more rewarding than a middle way that spreads things too thin. Avenues for further research include qualitative explorations of the trajectories unfolding through implementing social media strategies for innovation activities and the use of objective performance measures rather than subjective perceptions from informants to understand the complex relationships between social media adoption and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts an institutionalist perspective to develop a better understanding of why incumbent organizations struggle to respond to discontinuous innovations. Based on a case study of the hotel industry's early response to the emergence of "sharing economy" businesses, it identifies three patterns of "institution‐infused interpretation" in incumbent managers' sensemaking—i.e., interpretations that are triggered by decision makers' perceptions of the ways in which discontinuous innovations challenge established rules, norms, and taken‐for‐granted assumptions. First, as incumbent managers perceive new entrants that introduce the innovation as violating regulative and normative rules, they develop a sense of unfairness regarding the new competition enabled by the discontinuous innovation. Second, as new entrants deviate from normative and cognitive institutions, they cause collective confusion among incumbents. Third, perceiving discontinuous innovations as challenging regulatory and cognitive institutions, incumbent managers cognitively marginalize new entrants and their offerings as illegitimate and substandard niche phenomena. Interestingly, these institution‐infused interpretive patterns not only contribute to early incumbent inertia, but also motivate incumbents to question established rules and engage in institutional work. Overall, this paper adds to the emergent conversation on the role of institutions in organizational adaptation to discontinuous innovations by revealing the importance of institutional violations for managerial sensemaking and responses in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate innovation is an important driver of a firm's value and long‐term growth. It is the outcome of the creation and/or recreation of new and existing knowledge as well as resources of a firm. Innovation adds values not only to the firm, but also to its suppliers and customers. Drawing on upper echelon theory, this paper examines the effect of the marital status of corporate executives on firms' innovation efficiency, as measured by R&D productivity. To do so, we combine financial data on U.S. listed firms with data on CEOs' identities, their compensations, and their firms' R&D productivity. Our results show a strong connection between unmarried chief executive officers (CEOs) among Standard & Poor's (S&P) 1500 companies and elevated levels of corporate innovation efficiency. The association continues to hold when we control for a set of CEO attributes and adopt alternative identification strategies such as propensity score matching and difference‐in‐difference analysis. Moreover, the observed positive impact is more pronounced when the CEOs have higher levels of discretion due to lower institutional shareholding and smaller firm size. Further evidence indicates that unmarried CEOs generate higher impact innovation and exhibit a greater tolerance for failure, which are the possible mechanisms that underpin the observed association between unmarried CEOs and superior innovation outcomes. Our findings have potential implications for understanding variations in innovation practices between firms and can help firms to identify executives who are more likely to generate innovation and drive growth via R&D. The latter will be particularly important during periods of firm expansion and downsizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the eco‐innovation effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) by its economic agents, multinational enterprises (MNEs), in the context of emerging economies. It particularly focuses on environmental regulations and industrial pollution intensity as the key moderating mechanisms. We develop hypotheses by combining economic rationality of natural‐resource‐based view and institutional rationality of institution‐based view. Our theoretical discussions highlight the importance of the intersection between the two theories in explaining the eco‐innovation effects of foreign ownership and FDI spillovers, and in particular in allowing a nuanced consideration around the under‐explored boundary conditions of FDI effects in the eco‐innovation domain. Using the propensity score matching method to match domestically owned enterprises (DOEs) with foreign MNE‐invested enterprises (FIEs) in China during the period of 2001–2013, we find clear evidence that FIEs outperform their domestic counterparts of similar characteristics in conducting eco‐innovation. This superior performance is particularly pronounced in cities with higher levels of environmental regulation and industries with higher levels of pollution. Furthermore, we assess the local impact of MNEs on eco‐innovation of DOEs and find evidence that the presence of FDI, in particular, that within cities, leads to increased eco‐innovation in DOEs. FIEs' eco‐innovation spillover effects within a city are conditional on environmental regulation and pollution intensity. Thus, in China, MNEs are found to act as agents of change who not only conduct eco‐innovation in the host country but also stimulate the eco‐innovation of DOEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The open innovation (OI) paradigm emphasizes the importance of integrating inbound and outbound flows of technology to increase a firm's innovation performance. While the synergies between technology inflows and outflows have been discussed in conceptual OI articles, the majority of empirical studies have typically focused on either the inward or the outward dimension of OI. According to recent reviews of OI literature, there is a need for further research that takes an integrated perspective on this topic and studies the combination of the inbound and outbound dimensions of OI. This paper follows these calls by focusing on technology licensing as the main contractual form for OI, and by investigating the relationship between technology in-licensing and out-licensing activities at the firm level of analysis. In particular, this paper argues that technology in-licensing positively influences the volume of technology out-licensing through two mechanisms. The first-resource-based-occurs because in-licensing investments expand and enrich the firm's technology base, thus increasing its value and, as a result, creating more opportunities for out-licensing. The second-capabilities-based-occurs because, due to commonalities between technology in-licensing and out-licensing in terms of performed tasks and required skills, repeated execution of in-licensing transactions contributes to the development of higher out-licensing capabilities and, as a result, increase out-licensing volume. These arguments are tested using a panel dataset of 837 Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1998-2007. Consistent with the predictions, the empirical analysis shows that higher investments in in-licensing and more extensive in-licensing experience lead to superior volumes of technology out-licensing. These results contribute to research on OI and licensing, by empirically showing the existence of positive interactions between technology inflows and outflows and of synergies in the development of absorptive and desorptive capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both practice and academic research observe the increasing occurrence and relevance of functional top management team (TMT) positions created to manage critical firm outcomes. Following this trend, firms have established Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) in their TMTs to give research‐and‐development‐ and innovation‐related topics a voice in the firms' upper echelons and to ensure that these topics receive sufficient resources. However, there is large variety in CTOs' positioning and profiles across firms, ranging from CTOs who are deeply rooted in the scientific community with a legacy of subject‐matter expertise to CTOs who are responsible for various other functions and operate at the center of the TMT. Despite this heterogeneity in CTOs' positioning, research has been silent on the CTO's optimal positioning in the top management to ensure that adequate resources are committed to innovation efforts. This paper closes this gap by examining the influence of the depth (conceptualized as structural and expert power) and breadth (conceptualized as multifunctional power) of the CTO's power, as characteristic features of the CTO's positioning, on the TMT's commitment to innovation. The research model is validated empirically by means of a multisource secondary panel data set comprising 266 firm‐year observations from 55 S&P 500 firms between 1995 and 2012. This paper finds that innovation commitment increases with the CTO's level of structural power and decreases with increasing levels of the CTO's expert and multifunctional power. It has several theoretical and research‐related implications for investigations of CTO positions, for innovation management theory building, and for the broader management literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design thinking (DT) is gaining ground among academics and practitioners as a means to improve the innovativeness of organizations. However, with few exceptions, DT studies are most entrenched in practice rather than theory‐driven research. This weak tie between theory and managerial practice calls for delving into the dynamics of DT for innovation to build stronger foundations for future studies. Therefore, this study provides a theory‐based framing of DT for innovation and a critical review of the DT literature to reconcile theory and practice. To this end, we propose framing and advancing DT as a dynamic capability for innovation rooted in lower‐level aspects, namely microfoundations. Based on our theoretical framework, we conduct a systematic literature review that unveils the dynamics of DT and the context‐specific capabilities to innovate. The contributions of the paper are twofold. First, we provide a theory‐based framing of DT and combining it with existing theories in innovation and management (i.e., dynamic capabilities and microfoundations). Second, we review the extant literature on DT for innovation to reconcile previous studies with these theoretical lenses to, hence, guide future research. Based on this interpretation, we then define a number of avenues for future research, thus reconciling practical evidence with theories that can further explain how DT relates to firm innovativeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite technological inventions being a key input to new product development, companies often struggle with commercializing new technologies via the product development route. Drawing on a sample of publicly traded U.S. manufacturing companies that spans the period 1992–2013, our study shows that CEOs play a catalytic role in the technology conversion process, but this role is highly nuanced and depends on the characteristics (generalist vs. specialist) of their human capital. Specifically, generalist CEOs tend to be better at facilitating the conversion process in companies with more diverse and/or higher quality inventions. In contrast, specialist CEOs play a catalytic role in technology conversion when companies have less diverse and/or lower quality inventions. Hence, our paper offers a solution to the technology conversion problem that consists in aligning CEO human capital characteristics with the characteristics of the company's inventions portfolio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feedback and input of users have been an important part of product innovation in recent years. User input has been studied from different approaches and is applied through different methods in particular phases of the innovation process. However, these methods are not integrated into the whole innovation process and are used only in particular phases or on an ad hoc basis. New developments in technology, social media, and new ways of working closer with customers have opened up new possibilities for firms to gain user input throughout the whole innovation process. However, the impact that these new developments in technology offer for user input innovation in high-tech firms is unclear. Therefore, we study how high-tech firms collect and apply user feedback throughout the whole innovation process. The paper is based on a comparative case study of eight cases in the high-tech industry, in which qualitative data collection was applied. The key contribution of the paper is a conceptual framework on user data-driven innovation throughout the innovation cycle. This framework gives insight into user involvement types and approaches to collect and apply user feedback throughout the innovation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation researchers have thoroughly discussed how attitudes toward innovation influence people's intentions to use it. Most prior research tried to explore employees' acceptance of technological change through the lens of change initiators; however, using a manager's or the 'great man's' perspective to explain change recipients' reaction to an innovation is indirect and peripheral. This paper argues that innovation should be studied directly from the perspective of change recipients, and that their perceptions of fairness in the wake of an innovation become a key factor in their willingness to accept it. More specifically, this paper argues that the recipients' fairness perceptions mediate the impact of innovation characteristics (operationalized as 'usefulness' and 'ease of use') and implementation approach on their acceptance and belief in the legitimacy of the innovation. Two studies investigated the hypothesized mediating effects of procedural fairness/outcome fairness. The field study was conducted in a real-world technological innovation setting, but raised questions about whether the causal effect of the mediating model really existed. The scenario study was conducted in a semi-experimental condition which had high internal validity and guaranteed the cause-effect relation. Hence, the research design of the two studies complemented each other. The multiple regression analyses using the criteria proposed by Baron and Kenny were used to test the mediating models in the paper. Moreover, both Sobel tests and bootstrapping methods were used to guarantee that the mediating paths do exist among the independent variables, mediators, and the dependent variables. Both the field study and the scenario study showed that most of our hypotheses were supported, and change recipients had strong psychological reactions to the innovation and how the innovation was implemented in terms of fairness perceptions. Change recipients' perception of procedural and outcome fairness mediated the impact of innovation characteristics and implementation approach on their acceptance of the innovation and the perceived legitimacy of the innovation. The results disclosed that the change recipients' fairness perceptions were a key step for their sense-making process of an innovation and its implementation. The results also indicated that studying change from recipients' perspective, as well as trying to understand their fairness perceptions, can broaden our knowledge about change. Other theoretical and practical implications were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the role and relevance of resource scarcity in product innovation. The literature tends to assume that the development of new products requires resource sufficiency for the process to be conducted systematically. But we are also taught that necessity is the mother of invention and that resource scarcity may be a trigger of innovation in adverse contexts. In this discussion, we organize the literature on product innovation in resource-poor contexts in three streams. The paper contributes to a finer-grained understanding of the role of scarcity in product innovation and suggests that creative approaches to scarcity may contribute to knowledge enrichment of product innovation theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to previous studies of pioneer survival that directly compare the survival of market pioneers with later entrants, this paper proposes that a market pioneer, as the first entrant, operates under two distinctly different survival processes, one during the initial monopoly period and another during the later competition period. The two processes of market pioneers need to be separately estimated and compared with the survival process of later entrants. This paper demonstrates a method for decomposing the pioneer's survival and empirically shows how researchers can compare the pioneer survival in two periods with that of later entrants and identify period-specific advantages of pioneering. Our empirical analysis using data collected from two different types of industries-a low-tech (i.e., newspaper) industry and several high-tech industries-reveals several interesting new findings that illustrate the advantages of decomposing pioneer survival. For example, this paper shows that when treating first-mover survival as a single process, one can only find an oversimplified pattern showing that first movers have a survival chance equal to that of second movers in the newspaper industry, but a lower one than the second movers in high-tech industries. However, when analyzing the first-mover's survival as a sequence of monopoly and competition processes, new insights emerge. In the newspaper industry, the pioneers can have survival advantages in both the monopoly and the competition periods relative to the second movers, and there is a significant survival advantage for those second entrants who delay market entry until the first entrant exits. In contrast, the overall pioneer survival disadvantage identified in the high-tech industries when treating the survival as a single process comes from the survival disadvantage in the competition period but not in the monopoly period. Furthermore, our empirical analyses using data from two types of industries reveal completely different patterns with regard to the pioneer survival advantage, which suggests that being first can benefit pioneers in both two-market periods in low-tech industries but can be extremely risky for pioneers to gain any survival advantages in both two-market periods in high-tech industries because the former markets have relatively low market and technology uncertainties, and organizational change is less important; whereas the latter industries have significantly high market and technology uncertainties, technological advances emerge frequently, and firms are required to adapt themselves quickly to a fast-changing environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how longitudinality is investigated in innovation research. A review of longitudinal methods in innovation articles, published between 2000 and 2011, is undertaken. Our findings show that longitudinal approaches to data collection are gaining some credence, in line with increased criticism of the overuse of positivist methods to study process-based phenomena. However, results demonstrate a dearth of systematic longitudinal analytical methods employed in product innovation research. Static analytical methods are prominent. These inevitably lead to static presentation of results, and this is borne out in our findings. Second, the paper discusses the conduct and utility of a specific technique for product innovation research: sequence analysis. By drawing on two studies, which apply sequence analysis in product innovation research, sequence analysis is shown to be a useful technique to achieve rigor in analyzing longitudinal data. The paper concludes by discussing how such systematic methods for analyzing longitudinality in the innovation field demand greater usage and exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine factors that affect the encroachment speed of disruptive innovations with indirect network externalities. The authors focus on the 2010 introduction of a new generation of e-readers in Japan and explore the reasons why, relative to comparable e-readers in the United States, the Japanese e-readers were introduced later and adoption rates have been lower. Existing research suggests several possible explanations for these cross-country differences, including the attitudes and behaviors of the firms that compose the paper book value network in Japan, environmental variables such as legal and regulatory constraints, and cultural differences between Japan and the United States. To assess the importance of these explanations, the authors interviewed 20 key figures in the United States and Japan and reviewed a variety of published information sources. Findings indicate that the slower encroachment speed of e-readers in Japan reflects a kind of myopia among publishing industry insiders arising from three sources: (1) organizational factors, (2) technology factors, and (3) environmental factors. Important elements within these categories include the interpretation of the market performance of earlier generations of e-readers, the interdependence of partners within the value network for e-books, the presence of competing technology formats that create uncertainty among consumers regarding the availability of e-books for a specific platform, and the existence of regulations and institutionalized activities that constrain the supply of e-books and retail pricing flexibility. Findings have important implications for future studies of encroachment speed, the management of disruptive technologies, and strategic responses to potentially disruptive innovations launched by fringe competitors and new entrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that close relationships with internal and external partners are likely to have a significant impact on new product development (NPD). What is unclear is how the effects of internal and external relationships influence development paths for different types of innovations. Prior literature indicates that the pathways for developing incremental innovations differ considerably from those for radical innovations. Thus it is plausible that the effects of external versus internal relationships vary across these two innovation types. This paper uses the 2012 Comparative Performance Assessment Study (CPAS) data set to investigate the roles of internal and external relationship quality on the development of both incremental and radical innovations. The results find that internal and not external relationship quality is beneficial for the development of incremental innovations. When driven by internal relationships, a flexible NPD process is advantageous for the financial performance of incremental innovations. Meanwhile external and not internal relationship quality is valuable for developing radical innovations. External relationship quality results in process flexibility, leading to project execution success and subsequent financial performance for radical innovations. As expected, project execution success consistently leads to increased financial performance. These findings indicate the critical differences in types of relationship quality required when developing new products based on radical versus incremental innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring new technological opportunities and reacting to environmental changes are key factors for firm performance. Collaborating with external partners, especially universities, is considered to be a powerful engine of technological development. However, there are several barriers associated with university-industry collaboration (UIC), such as divergent cultures and competing objectives. Previous studies show rather mixed effects regarding the purported benefits of UIC, and empirical evidence on the effects of UIC on technological newness of innovation is lacking. This study investigates whether and under which conditions UIC enhances the recombination of extant knowledge across technologies and facilitates the implementation of novel technologies at the firm level. The paper is based on the resource based view of the firm and analyzes the interaction between collaboration diversity and UIC intensity. This longitudinal analysis examines joint publications and the patent data of 318 technology-oriented companies from the S&P 500 Index in the years 1985-2007. This study focuses on technological newness as the dependent variable, defined as the extent to which new technology fields are discovered as a result of either exploration of completely new technologies or the novel combination of existing technology fields. Results show that UIC has a significant positive effect on technological newness, with a time lag of two years. The effect follows an inverted U-shaped pattern in UIC portfolios with high diversity, and a U-shaped pattern when diversity is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is one of the key drivers of success that a firm must utilize to develop a competitive advantage. The ability to innovate is especially important for a firm's survival in dynamic, changing environments. Customer demands are constantly changing, and more purchases are made when a firm's product design incorporates what customers perceive as cutting-edge innovations. Satisfying customer demands is a distinct challenge for product designers because firms must develop a clear understanding of what aspects of design the customer wants. Although the importance of design has increased, very little research has been done to explain the relationship between product innovation and product design. Studies indicate that design innovation may create greater customer value through improvements in design value. Previous research has been limited and has not provided a clear concept of design innovation or defined the relationship between design innovation and marketing competencies. This paper seeks to offer a conceptual definition of design innovation, and to define the link between design innovation and marketing competencies. This paper utilizes cross-cultural research to discover how these concepts differ due to cultural differences between the United States and Korea. This research contributes substantially to our understanding of the relationship between design innovation and customer value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New product development ( NPD) is a knowledge-intensive activity, perhaps even more so in recent years given the shift toward more open innovation processes, which involve active inward and outward technology transfer. While the extant literature has established that knowledge is critical for NPD performance, knowledge generated through NPD can have an additional impact on external technology exploitation-as when firms go beyond pure internal application of knowledge to commercialize their technologies, for example, by means of technology outlicensing. Grounded in the knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper examines how the integration of domain-specific knowledge, procedural knowledge, and general knowledge generated through NPD affects a firm's proficiency in identifying technology commercialization opportunities. Additionally, analysis of how technology opportunity identification relates to technology commercialization performance is provided. Empirically, the paper draws on survey data from 193 Swedish medium-sized manufacturing firms in four industries active with NPD, and regression analyses and structural equation modeling were used to test the hypotheses. The results highlight the importance of integrating domain-specific and general NPD knowledge to proficiently identify technology licensing opportunities. The empirical findings also provide strong support for a subsequent link between technology opportunity identification and technology commercialization performance. Altogether, these results point to strong and previously unexplored complementarities between inward and outward technology exploitation, that is, between NPD and technology licensing. As such, the results provide important theoretical implications for research into the fields of knowledge integration, technology exploitation, opportunity identification, and technology markets. Moreover, the results have significant managerial implications concerning how knowledge generated through NPD can help firms to achieve both strategic and monetary benefits when trying to profit from technology. In particular, to set up proficient technology commercialization processes, it appears beneficial for firms to integrate knowledge that is gained through the ordinary activities of developing and commercializing products. Specifically, the integration of domain-specific knowledge and general knowledge helps firms to match their technologies with new applications and markets, which is often the critical barrier to successful technology commercialization activities. Managers are thus encouraged to integrate domain-specific knowledge and general knowledge from NPD to reap additional benefits in profiting from investments in innovation and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A popular strategy currently employed for new product introductions is co-branding. Such a strategy allows a brand to innovate with the support of a partner brand. The present study investigates how consumers perceive a new product with two brands. Previous research focused on the logic of a brand combination by investigating the impact of the fit between both existing product categories (i.e., product-product fit) and the fit between both brand images (i.e., brand-brand fit) on the evaluation of a new co-branded product. However, no study has yet focused on the relationships between both brands and their existing product categories, and the specific new product that has been developed. The present paper aims to improve the understanding of the potential benefits of co-branding by taking the role of the new product into account. The empirical study discussed in this paper replicates and extends the model of Simonin and Ruth (1998) by adding two new measures to their model. These measures are related to the fit of both existing product categories with the new product (i.e., new-product-product fit) and the fit of both brand images with the new product (i.e., new-product-brand fit). The results from this empirical study with 210 consumers in The Netherlands show that product-product fit, brand-brand fit, and new-product-brand fit have a significant positive impact on the evaluation of a new co-branded product. New-product-product fit was not significantly related to consumer evaluations. In addition, the results show that consumers prefer a new co-branded product that can be clearly associated with one of the brands in the partnership so that it can be categorized unambiguously. This paper discusses these findings and provides implications for research and managerial practice in the important and growing field of brand-driven innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of markets and business operations is a trend that will continue strongly in the coming decades. One inescapable aspect of globalization has been the trend toward global outsourcing, especially that of knowledge-based services. Due to firms' compulsion to reduce costs in the developed world, the issue is not if a particular firm will outsource or offshore work but when it will outsource it and how effectively it will leverage outsourcing to achieve superior competitive advantage. An important implication of the outsourcing of knowledge-based services is the management of intellectual property (IP). Managers and researchers alike are interested in understanding the effects of global outsourcing of knowledge-based services on the management of IP. The challenge of accessing, exploiting, and defending IP in global outsourcing relationships is first examined in this paper. IP can be managed by balancing the trust and control and verification in the outsourcing relationship. Given that defending IP is a major concern for outsourcing firms, the moderating roles of multitier suppliers, supplier country legal regimes, and global supplier communities of practice on defending IP is examined in detail through moderating effect propositions. Finally, the paper examines the effect of accessing, defending, and exploiting IP in global outsourcing relationships on the generation of incremental and radical innovation for the outsourcing firm. This research tries to extend current academic research on global outsourcing in three ways. First, it offers a framework to understand the management of the buyer-seller relationship in the global outsourcing of knowledge-based services and its relationship to the management of IP and innovation generation. Second, the framework takes a broader perspective of outsourcing and innovation generation, including globalization, tiered suppliers, supplier country legal regimes, and global supplier communities of practice on defending IP. Third the research examines the effect of accessing, exploitation, and defense of IP on generation of incremental and radical innovation for the outsourcing firm. Managerial implications of this research and future research directions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing interest in the concept of justice in the group behavior literature, the procedural justice (PJ) climate attracts many researchers and practitioners from different fields. Nevertheless, the PJ climate is rarely addressed in the new product development (NPD) project team literature. Specifically, the technology and innovation management (TIM) literature provides little about what the PJ climate is, its nature and benefits, and how it works in NPD project teams. Also, few studies investigate the antecedents and consequences of the PJ climate in NPD teams enhancing the understanding of this concept from a practical perspective. This paper discusses the PJ climate theory in a NPD team context and empirically demonstrates how team members' positive collective perceptions of a PJ climate can be developed and how a PJ climate influences a project's performance in NPD teams. In particular, team culture values including employee orientation, customer orientation, systematic management control, innovativeness, and social responsibility were investigated as antecedents, and team learning, speed to market, and market success of new products were studied as outcomes of PJ climate in this paper. By studying 83 NPD project teams it was found on the basis of using partial least squares (PLS) method that (1) the level of employee, customer and innovativeness orientation as well as systematic management control during the project had a positive impact on developing a PJ climate in an NPD team; (2) a PJ climate positively affects team learning and product development time (i.e., speed to market); and (3) team learning and speed to market mediate the relations between the PJ climate and new product success (NPS). Based on the findings, this paper suggests that managers should enhance the PJ climate and team culture in the project team to enhance team learning and to develop products faster. In particular, managers should (1) open a discussion forum among people and create a dialogue for people who disagree with the other project team members rather than dictating or emposing others ideas to them, (2) facilitate information searching and collecting mechanisms to make decisions effectively and to clarify uncertainties, and (3) allow team members to challange project-related ideas and decisions and modify them with consensus. Also, to enhance the PJ climate during the project, managers should (1) respect and listen to all team members' ideas and try to understand why they are sometimes in opposition, (2) define team members' task boundaries and clarify project norms and project goals, and (3) set knowledge-questioning values by facilitating team members to try out new ideas and seek out new ways to do things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology alliances create market development rights that are shared between partners in an alliance relative to codeveloped product technology. Alliance partners will often manage the shared market development rights in a cooperative manner by forming an agreement in which one partner (i.e., the licensor) licenses its market development rights to the other partner in the alliance (i.e., the licensee). The real options and bargaining power literatures provide opposing recommendations regarding whether a licensor creates greater shareholder value by licensing its market development rights to the licensee on a more or less restrictive basis. Empirical analysis of technology alliance contracts reveals that the restrictiveness by which a licensor should license its market development rights to a licensee depends on the licensee's strategic marketing emphasis. Specifically, a licensee will create greater value by following a more restrictive distribution strategy when its partner's marketing strategy emphasizes value creation. Alternatively, a licensee will create greater value when its partner's marketing strategy emphasizes value appropriation by following a less restrictive distribution strategy. From a theoretical perspective, the paper's findings provide early evidence regarding the contribution of marketing strategy toward value creation in technology alliances and help resolve the differing expectations offered by the real options and bargaining power literatures. Managerially, the paper identifies an alliance partner's strategic marketing emphasis as a hitherto unrecognized factor determining when managers should follow a more or less restrictive distribution strategy when licensing marketing development rights within technology alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can mobile communication technologies bridge the digital divide between developing and developed countries? This paper shows that the divide looks differently from what was previously thought for the fastest-growing developing countries--Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) based on 2006 data. While mobile technology depth (number subscriptions as percentage of population) is lower in BRIC, it has been rapidly growing, equaling, or surpassing some developed countries for BRIC such as Russia and Brazil. BRIC such as India and Russia also equal or surpass several developed countries in 2006 in terms of mobile technology breadth (service variety) on 34 individual and five categories of mobile services available worldwide. While some BRIC may be behind developed countries on one of these dimensions in 2006, they are ahead on the other dimension. Thus, the digital divide between BRIC and developed countries can be narrower, absent, or even reversed, depending on the metric used. This paper argues that BRIC can serve as frontrunners whose lessons on technology diffusion can be applied in other developing countries. The paper presents implications for new product and innovation management and digital divide research and for policy making and business processes for high-tech companies in BRIC and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies highlight the challenges facing incumbent firms in responding effectively to major technological transitions. Though some authors argue that these challenges can be overcome by firms possessing what have been called dynamic capabilities, little work has described in detail the critical resources that these capabilities leverage or the processes through which these resources accumulate and evolve. This paper explores these issues through an in-depth exploratory case study of one firm that has demonstrated consistently strong performance in an industry that is highly dynamic and uncertain. The focus for the present study is Microsoft, the leading firm in the software industry. The focus on Microsoft is motivated by providing evidence that the firm's product performance has been consistently strong over a period of time in which there have been several major technological transitions—one indicator that a firm possesses dynamic capabilities. This argument is supported by showing that Microsoft's performance when developing new products in response to one of these transitions—the growth of the World Wide Web—was superior to a sample of both incumbents and new entrants. Qualitative data are presented on the roots of Microsoft's dynamic capabilities, focusing on the way that the firm develops, stores, and evolves its intellectual property. Specifically, Microsoft codifies knowledge in the form of software “components,” which can be leveraged across multiple product lines over time and accessed by firms developing complementary products. The present paper argues that the process of componentization, the component “libraries” that result, the architectural frameworks that define how these components interact, and the processes through which these components are evolved to address environmental changes represent critical resources that enable the firm to respond to major technological transitions. These arguments are illustrated by describing Microsoft's response to two major technological transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on design management have helped us to better comprehend how companies can apply design to get closer to users and to better understand their needs; this is an approach usually referred to as user-centered design. Yet analysis of design-intensive manufacturers such as Alessi, Artemide, and other leading Italian firms shows that their innovation process hardly starts from a close observation of user needs and requirements. Rather, they follow a different strategy called design-driven innovation in this paper. This strategy aims at radically change the emotional and symbolic content of products (i.e., their meanings and languages) through a deep understanding of broader changes in society, culture, and technology. Rather than being pulled by user requirements, design-driven innovation is pushed by a firm's vision about possible new product meanings and languages that could diffuse in society. Design-driven innovation, which plays such a crucial role in the innovation strategy of design intensive firms, has still remained largely unexplored. This paper aims at providing a possible direction to fill this empty spot in innovation management literature. In particular, first it proposes a metamodel for investigating design-driven innovation in which a manufacturer's ability to understand, anticipate, and influence emergence of new product meanings is built by relying on external interpreters (e.g., designers, firms in other industries, suppliers, schools, artists, the media) that share its same problem: to understand the evolution of sociocultural models and to propose new visions and meanings. Managing design-driven innovation therefore implies managing the interaction with these interpreters to access, share, and internalize knowledge on product languages and to influence shifts in sociocultural models. Second, the paper proposes a possible direction to scientifically investigate the management of this networked and collective research process. In particular, it shows that the process of creating breakthrough innovations of meanings partially mirrors the process of creating breakthrough technological innovations. Studies of design-driven innovation may therefore benefit significantly from the existing body of theories in the field of technology management. The analysis of the analogies between these two types of radical innovations (i.e., meanings and technologies) allows a research agenda to be set for exploration of design-driven innovation, a relevant as well as underinvestigated phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology has recently begun to be explored as a way to cope with the challenges related to the aging of the population. However, while many technological systems for older adults have entered the market, the rate of adoption is low despite the potential benefits they intend to provide. The market response suggests that older adults' adoption of technology is not simply a matter of performance and price, but a complex issue that is affected by multiple factors. To address the issue in a more comprehensive way, this review study identifies factors that influence older adults' perceptions and decisions around adoption and use of technology-enabled products and services with an integration of related findings from various fields. Based on a survey of related studies, 10 factors-value, usability, affordability, accessibility, technical support, social support, emotion, independence, experience, and confidence-are identified as the facilitators or determinants of older adults' adoption of technology. While previous studies have focused on detailed design and physical ease-of-use, the 10 factors provide a holistic framework that covers social contexts of use and delivery and communication channels as well as individual characteristics and technical features. This paper describes the factors with empirical evidence and design implications. The goal of this paper is to provide a base for a more comprehensive understanding of older adults as users and consumers of technology; to inform designers, developers, and managers about practical implications; and to set a research agenda for future studies in related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative features such as hands-free car entry and ignition systems, stop-start devices, telematics systems, and panoramic windshields are increasingly important to carmakers' innovation strategies. However, while product-centric innovation has been extensively studied, there is less insight into the way companies implement their feature-innovation strategies. The capability to explore, integrate, and deploy such attractive features is a critical dynamic capability; it allows carmakers to refresh their products, develop their competences, and maintain the efficiency of their traditional new product development. This research investigates the structures and processes of feature innovation in the automotive industry. It is based on a global investigation encompassing 9 generalist carmakers and 26 cases of feature innovation. The results show a clear trend, over the past decade, toward a structure of autonomous 'advanced engineering' units and processes that are responsible for exploring innovative features and transferring them to multiple products. This paper details the key attributes of these units, and the role they play along the multiproduct learning cycle. Supplementing this structural analysis, the paper also identifies the coordination patterns between exploration and new product development activities. These results provide industry-level insights into the way firms organize their feature-innovation capability, and bring empirical elements to the ambidexterity literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental mandates, energy security concerns, and societal demands place considerable pressure on automotive manufacturers to develop novel powertrain technologies that reduce energy consumption, and in turn, carbon emissions. The economic case for these novel technologies is far from clear, however, and firms often turn to the respective national governments for R&D aid and demand-side subsidies. Government on the other hand often feels unable to back any single technology for competition regulatory reasons, while at the same time being presented with conflicting messages from industry where to focus its support. This paper reports on an initiative by the U.K. Government that led to the establishment of a permanent forum for government-industry exchange, the Automotive Council U.K., in which the author has participated from the outset. In the course of the Council's work, two 'consensus roadmaps' have been developed jointly by industry and the U.K. Government to guide national efforts in the transition for both passenger car and commercial vehicle powertrain technologies toward low-carbon alternatives. This paper discusses the key technological development stages and projections outlined in these technology roadmaps and comments on the general determinants of an effective interaction between government and industry in the light of a technological discontinuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many manufacturing firms have opened up their product innovation processes and actively transfer knowledge with external partners in the markets for technology. However, the markets for technological knowledge have remained inefficient in comparison with the markets for most products. To reduce some of the market inefficiencies, manufacturing firms may collaborate with innovation intermediaries, which are defined as organizations that act as agents or brokers in the innovation process between two or more parties. These innovation intermediaries comprise different service providers ranging from consulting companies to Internet marketplaces for technology. In light of an increasing importance of intermediary services in the context of open innovation, this paper specifically focuses on the collaboration of manufacturing firms and innovation intermediaries, which may be critical for the success of intermediary services. Based on new interview data from 30 innovation intermediaries and 30 European manufacturing firms, this paper examines the question of how innovation intermediaries and manufacturing firms collaborate concerning the following issues, which emerged as the key themes from the interviews: potential of intermediation, roles of intermediaries, types of intermediation, drivers of intermediation, complementarity of intermediation, compensation of intermediation, and the importance of repeated collaborations. The findings indicate how manufacturing firms may reduce their transaction costs in technology markets by collaborating with intermediaries. However, intermediary services can only be regarded as a complement rather than a substitute of manufacturing firms' internal activities of managing technology transfer. Thus, manufacturing firms need sufficient internal capabilities for managing technology transfer, such as absorptive capacity and desorptive capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why and how an ambidextrous interorganizational R&D collaboration outperforms other collaboration structures in the creation of innovation. This research effort contributes to a growing stream of research in social network theory suggesting that the contradictory theories of the strength of weak ties and weak network structures on the one hand and the theory of strong ties and closed network structures on the other have a mutually reinforcing effect on innovation outcomes if combined rather than considered separately. An in-depth exploratory single case study approach within an innovatively organized national R&D collaboration allowed giving further evidence for such a superior innovation performance and for this research to contribute to theory by demonstrating why and how such a combination may lead to higher innovation output and how this effect can be actively reinforced. It is suggested that the combination of strong and weak ties should occur at the individual rather than at the project or firm level. The authors distinguish between the additive effects of the respective innovation benefits of strong and weak ties, a positive interaction effect in the portfolio of dyadic ties of an individual and a second multilevel interaction effect of weak ties embedded in the ambidextrous network structure. Referring to previous empirical findings, intellectual property regulation and structural interdependency between network members showed a higher impact than trust with regard to leveraging weak ties and are important sources for achieving the multilevel interaction effect. Managerial implications of this research are that a large network will outperform several smaller, independent networks given that the right structure and processes are in place. Direct implications for the architecture of an ambidextrous R&D collaboration are discussed, and a framework for a new form of technology R&D collaboration called 'semi-open organization' is presented, which places itself between the extremes of traditional R&D in closed organizations and completely 'open innovation' approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the effect that a market orientation ( MO) and resource orientation ( RO) have on three performance outcomes: financial performance, customer value, and innovation. Individually, the effect each orientation has on performance has been explored but with conflicting results. This study addresses a pertinent gap in the literature by providing insight into a relationship yet unexamined; the role of RO as a moderator of the MO and performance relationship. Although the existing literature considers the role of environmental phenomena as moderators on the MO and performance relationship, the role of alternate orientations has not been studied. While customer value and dynamic resources are needed to succeed, can they each assist the other to perform better? Specifically, does the ability to better develop, deploy, and alter dynamic resources help a firm to better provide customer value to improve performance? This paper is the first to our knowledge to integrate literature from the two paradigms to assess this. Results show that both orientations, when analyzed individually, have a significantly positive effect on all three-performance outcomes: financial performance, customer value, and innovation. Thus, support for each of the first six hypotheses is provided. The moderated regression provided support for two of the three hypotheses pertaining to this component of the study. It was found that an RO significantly moderates the relationship of an MO with customer value and financial performance but is unable to exert any moderating effect on the MO and innovation relationship because of the dominant role of the RO. Thus, RO appeared superior in delivering innovative outcomes relative to MO. From this, implications, limitations, and recommendations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the synchronized change of mindset and capability within a business network that is driven by the adoption and provision of smart services. The research is implemented as an empirical multi‐case study, and the primary data include interviews and observations in seven globally operating firms. The findings identify two categories of barriers and three categories of alignment needs to successful adoption of smart services. The study combines the institutional theory and dynamic capability perspectives to make three main contributions to the research of service innovation for an improved understanding of the determinants of successful field‐level adoption of smart services. The results show that firms need to align the change of logic and capabilities within the organization and the business network to succeed in the adoption of smart services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a natural language processing approach, the paper takes stock of extant disruption research and analyzes the full‐text corpus of 1078 journal articles published on disruption between 1975 and 2016. This yields a topic map composed of 84 distinct topics that present the overall topic structure of this dynamic field. Topic network analyses uncover the existence of two increasingly disconnected subnetworks centered around disruptive innovation at the macro level and radical innovation at the micro level. This disconnect is consequential, as both perspectives appear to be highly interdependent and conceptually constitute two sides of the same coin. To counteract the threat of growing fragmentation and reconnect these subnetworks, three research priorities are proposed, firmly grounded in a systematic literature analysis: (1) the need to consolidate peripheral and decoupled topics, (2) the necessity to reconcile competing terminologies and refocus the theoretical core, and (3) the imperative to strengthen the generalizable empirical evidence base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most scholars tend to agree that it is worthwhile for firms to strive for ambidexterity, less consensus exists on how to organize simultaneously for exploration and exploitation. Although firms increasingly conduct R&D activities in multiple locations and countries, prior ambidexterity research has ignored a geographical dimension in explaining the ambidexterity–performance relationship. In this paper, we develop and validate the concept of “spatial ambidexterity,” which we define as the degree to which firms pursue technology exploration and exploitation in proximate locations. We argue that both activities benefit from proximity as firms will increase their ability to enact cross‐fertilization opportunities and synergies between explorative and exploitative technological activities. Relying on a panel dataset (1995–2003) of the technological activities of 156 large R&D intensive European, U.S. and Japanese firms, we examine the degree to which technology exploration and exploitation activities are pursued simultaneously in similar or different geographical regions. Patent data are used to construct indicators of technology exploration and exploitation activities. Spatial ambidexterity is measured as the degree to which global technology exploration and exploitation activities are pursued in proximity. Our analysis confirms that firms exhibiting greater geographic proximity between technology exploration and exploitation activities display an elevated level of technological performance. Both technology activities of an explorative and exploitative nature appear to benefit from spatial proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas most of the literature on the benefits of alliances for learning and innovation has taken on a competence perspective, this paper provides an alternative integrated framework based on both a competence and governance point of view. The former focuses on the role of knowledge flows as means to access new knowledge, whereas the latter is centered around the core concepts of opportunism and freeridership in knowledge exchange situations. Although it has generally been acknowledged that competence-based benefits of collaboration may come at a price of elevated risks due to knowledge spillovers and freeridership, such a governance view remains understudied. This paper explains how a firm's alliance network structure affects benefits as well as risks of collaboration in the context of the creation of core and noncore technology. In the case of core technology, firms attach more value to reducing governance-based risks relative to obtaining competence-based benefits. The opposite is found when firms develop noncore technology. This paper contributes to the existing literature by going beyond the common idea that competence and governance perspectives are either complementary or competing. Instead, this study shows that for technology-based collaboration, they can both apply at the same time, implying a trade-off in some cases and offering synergy in other cases. Based on an empirical test in three different industries (pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and automotive), there is support for most of our hypotheses. Direct ties have an inverted U-shaped effect on both core and noncore technology, and the effect is relatively stronger for the former. The results furthermore show that indirect ties play a positive role in noncore technology development and that this effect is not hampered by the number of direct ties a firm has. In contrast, indirect ties seem to hamper core competence development when companies have a lot of direct ties. Finally, firms are found to benefit from nonredundancy in their alliance network in their efforts to strengthen their core technology. The joint effect of these three network characteristics leads to optimal results for core and noncore technologies under quite different alliance network structures. This poses a problem for the ambidexterity of companies, when they simultaneously try to strengthen core and noncore technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The merits of being customer-oriented for firm innovation have long been debated. Firms focused on their existing customers have been argued to be less innovative. This paper distinguishes between mainstream and emerging customer orientations and examines their effects on the introduction of disruptive and radical product innovations. Radical product innovations draw on a substantially new technology and could initially be targeted at a mainstream or an emerging market. In contrast, disruptive innovations are initially targeted at an emerging market, and may not involve the newest technology. This paper hypothesizes that mainstream customer orientation is negatively related to disruptive innovation and positively related to radical innovation, and that emerging customer orientation is positively related to disruptive innovation. To test these hypotheses, longitudinal and multiple informant data from senior executives in 128 SBUs of 19 Fortune 200 corporations are analyzed, with technology scanning and willingness to cannibalize as key control variables. The results support the hypotheses, providing evidence for contrasting effects of being oriented to mainstream customers and/or emerging customers on radical and disruptive innovations. Mainstream customer orientation has a positive impact on the introduction of radical innovations but a negative impact on disruptive innovation, while emerging customer orientation has a positive effect on disruptive innovation and is unrelated to radical innovations. Technology scanning is positively related to radical innovation but not to disruptive innovation, supporting the idea that disruptive innovation may not require new technology. In contrast, willingness to cannibalize is positively related to disruptive innovation but not to radical innovation, supporting the idea that radical innovation does not require cannibalization of existing investments. Additionally, mainstream customer orientation is found to have a near-zero correlation with emerging customer orientation, indicating that the two can coexist and can be pursued simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long argued that in new product development integrated innovation processes replace sequentially organized ones because of changing capabilities, integration of knowledge, and the increasing importance of market orientation. The intention of this paper is to study whether this also applies in process-oriented industries. Process-oriented settings are fundamentally different from product-oriented ones as the emphasis is on efficiency, clear guidelines, and tacit knowledge, while radical innovation is less important. It is also less obvious why market orientation-a key driver of integration in new product development-should change the way the innovation process is organized, as there is no product to be developed in the first place. A Stage Gate Model could therefore be well-suited to achieve more efficiency and effectiveness. In order to investigate process innovation in a process-oriented setting, we decided to study the upstream oil and gas industry, a scale-intensive, process-oriented setting that substantially contrasts with traditional science-driven industries such as biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, where patents are relevant. The particular advantage of this setting is that virtually no product innovation occurs, allowing the isolation of process innovation. Relying on five inductive case studies of major projects ( BP's Prudhoe Bay, Chevron's Kern River, Conoco Philips's Ekofisk, ENI's el- Bouri, and Shell's Troll field), we find that integration occurs in process-oriented settings but does so for different reasons than in product-oriented ones. Integration emerges from an innovation mode characterized by: (1) trial and error (not R&D) as the main mode of innovation; (2) the cooperation of experts from different knowledge backgrounds; (3) the development of Information and Communication Technology ( ICT), which facilitates this cooperation across disciplines and projects; and (4) the need to increase efficiency as demand outstrips supply. More precisely, demand shapes reward systems and determines whether new raw materials will be used (creating new supply that requires innovation of processes in periods when demand outstrips supply). Supply and reward systems therefore create the conditions where trial and error, integration of knowledge, and ICT development mutually enforce each other, leading to the integration of the innovation process. Besides contributing to the literature on innovation the paper also offers interesting insights for managers. In order to foster innovation in process-oriented settings they need to provide specialists with room to experiment over extended periods of time, encourage cooperation across disciplines, and create both incentives and systems to facilitate this process. Finally, managers need to consider the ability of staff to cooperate at the outset, when they set up their recruitment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the effect of different external technology sourcing modes on the creation of radical innovation in companies. Moreover, since prior research has indicated that exploration consists of looking beyond both organizational and technological boundaries, the role of technological distance between the partnering firms and the role of technological newness are also included. In particular, this paper examines how they affect the relationship between external technology sourcing and the creation of pioneering technologies (technologies that do not build on any existing technologies), which are used as a proxy for radical innovations. Using a sample of companies that were from the pharmaceutical industry, the results indicate that strategic alliances and corporate venture capital investments have a positive effect on the creation of pioneering technologies, whereas the effect of M&As is found to be negative. Additionally, the results show that the impact of these governance modes on the creation of pioneering technology is indeed affected by the newness of the technology and relatedness of the technological portfolios of the partnering firms. A larger technological distance between the two partnering firms increases the effect of strategic alliances on the creation of pioneering technologies. In addition, the results indicate that technological newness weakens the positive effect of CVC investments and non-equity alliances on the creation of pioneering technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the popular understanding of the influence of design is growing, academic research has largely been restricted to considering consumer-level responses to design elements. This paper reviews this past work and proposes a more strategic research agenda for the field, with the potential to explicate linkages between design elements and strategies and outcomes related to innovation and corporate performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generally, radical innovations are not easily adopted in the market. Potential adopters experience difficulties to comprehend and evaluate radical innovations due to their newness in terms of technology and benefits offered. Consequently, adoption intentions may remain low. This paper proposes bundling as an instrument to address these problems. More specifically, this paper examines how consumer comprehension, evaluation, and adoption intention of radical innovations may be enhanced by bundling such products with existing products. In addition, it is argued that the proposed effects are contingent upon the level of fit perceived to exist between the radical innovation and the product that accompanies it in the bundle. Furthermore, consumers' prior knowledge may affect the influence of bundling on the innovation adoption process as the interpretation of the meaning of new products may be strongly related to prior knowledge. This study therefore investigates whether consumer prior knowledge has such a moderating effect. Hypotheses are tested by means of an experimental study with three different radical innovations and distinguishing among offering the radical innovation separately, offering the radical innovation in a bundle with moderate perceived fit between the products, and offering the radical innovation in a bundle with high perceived fit between the products. Results show that product bundling enhances the new product's evaluation and adoption intention, although it does not increase comprehension of the radical innovation. Moreover, the results show that comprehension, evaluation and adoption intention of the innovation significantly decrease when consumers perceive a moderate fit between the products in a bundle. Taken together, these findings contribute to the bundling literature by showing not only that product bundling may indeed be an effective instrument to introduce a radical innovation but also that product bundling may be counterproductive when ignoring the critical role of perceived product fit as core characteristic of a product bundle. In addition, the notion that product bundling helps to enhance the evaluation and purchase intention of new and relatively complex products suggests a suitable strategy for new product managers to enhance benefits and reduce learning costs for radical innovations. Moreover, the effects of bundling on consumer appraisals of radical innovations are also shown to depend on the level of knowledge respondents possess regarding the product category of the radical innovation. More specifically, if bundled with a familiar product, novices tend to evaluate the innovative product more positively, but for experts no such effect can be detected. As such, these results provide additional specific implications for managers when introducing radical innovations in the market. Offering a radical innovation in a product bundle could be a fruitful strategy for companies that target customers with little or no prior knowledge in the product domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]