Front End of Innovation: An Integrative Literature Review

The beginning of the innovation process also known as Front End of Innovation (FEI) is an important contributor to the successful development of new products and the business success. The present study aims at giving an overview of how the FEI concept has been handled over the years, by identifying the focus of the research conducted in this domain knowledge. To this end, this study unfolds an encompassing perspective by developing an analysis of existing publications against two FEI Reference Models. This analysis comprised of the compilation, selection, and review of the content of 169 publications concerning the Front End of Innovation. The period of analysis covered all years until 2015. Evidence shows that this topic has received greater attention in the recent years both regarding depth and the number of publications. However, there are still pending gaps in the literature that are highlighted in this paper. The topics addressing organisational issues were the ones that received more attention.