Journal of Product Innovation Management最新文献

Idea championing is key for implementing new ideas. A few research studies show that inventors use the consultation tactic to champion their new ideas inside organizations—that is, inventors ask others to contribute to their new ideas in the hope of obtaining others' commitment. However, prior research does not indicate why inventors should use consultation and when it is beneficial. This research proposes that consultation enhances psychological ownership, and that psychological ownership increases idea commitment. Additionally, we posit that the extent to which idea receivers contribute and build psychological ownership will vary depending on the format of the new idea. We hypothesize that consultation is beneficial when idea receivers are asked to contribute to low-elaborated ideas framed in a non-narrative format, as this type of idea format provides greater opportunities for inputs. In contrast, we argue that idea receivers build less psychological ownership when they are asked to contribute to high-elaborated ideas and/or ideas framed in a narrative format (e.g., storytelling). An exploratory survey with 204 inventors confirms that the use of consultation for gaining idea commitment is widespread in companies. The survey shows that inventors present their new ideas at varying levels of elaboration and narrative format. Furthermore, three laboratory experiments provide strong support for our predictions. This study extends our understanding of the idea championing process by providing new insights into how consultation best fosters psychological ownership.

Research compares the influence of two types of chief executive officers (CEOs) on a firm's innovation strategy: founder CEOs, who founded the firms they lead, and professional CEOs, who worked in corporations at different levels before being selected as CEOs. We introduce a third type of CEO, external founders, who founded other ventures before being appointed as CEOs. Drawing on upper echelons theory, we propose that the unique combination of external founder CEOs' values and knowledge predisposes them to place less strategic emphasis on innovation than founder CEOs do but more than professional CEOs do. Heterogeneity among external founder CEOs may be due to nuances related to their exposure to professional investors in and successful exits from the ventures they founded. We assess our hypotheses empirically using the innovation-related speech in investor communications and patent applications of 1637 CEOs of 789 S&P 500 firms from 2000 to 2019. We find that external founder CEOs emphasize innovation less than founder CEOs do, but contrary to our hypotheses, also less than professional CEOs do. However, certain nuances in external founder CEOs' founding experience bring their strategic emphasis on innovation close to that of founder CEOs. We extend upper echelons research by providing a fine-grained view of the role of (founding) experience and its qualitative nuances in shaping CEOs' strategic decision-making.

Consumer co-creation, an approach in which consumers and organizations jointly innovate, can yield valuable knowledge about consumers' needs and how to satisfy these needs. Yet, innovating with consumers is challenging due to their varying levels of commitment, skills, and motivations. In this research, we focus on challenges we cluster as cognition- and affect-driven and examine how these challenges can be addressed using a design thinking approach. Building on the insights gained from interviews with key co-creation stakeholders (n = 73) and three focus groups with experts in design thinking and co-creation, we develop a grounded process model facilitating co-creation with consumers. More specifically, we distill three co-creation phases (labeled as co-creating context, content, and confluence), consisting of eight constituent activities and resulting dynamics that are cognitive or affective in nature. The distilled affective dynamics manifest in ideation confidence, empathy for diverse perspectives, pleasurable engagement, and being creatively inspired; the distilled cognitive dynamics manifest in an expanded knowledge base and an enhanced ability to analyze and evaluate information. Our grounded model is integrative and responds to calls to further examine affective influences within innovation and organization. Furthermore, our research advances the theoretical substance of design thinking by explaining underlying mechanisms at play that make design thinking an effective approach. Finally, our results add to the literature on consumer co-creation by developing a robust process model that leverages design thinking and adopts a multistakeholder approach to optimize consumer co-creation outcomes. In terms of managerial implications, our research presents a structured framework with phases and (micro)activities that will help organizations to actively involve consumers in their innovation process.

The hidden champion concept has received much interest in practice. As market leaders in niche markets, hidden champions represent the success of the (German) Mittelstand. Innovation is a key element of their strategy and their focus and niche market strategy are associated with specific technological capabilities. However, thus far, little quantitative empirical evidence exists about the innovation output of hidden champions. Drawing on a capability perspective and using patent data, the present study analyzes differences between hidden champions and comparable non-hidden champion firms in their technological innovation. Our results show that hidden champions have a significantly larger technological innovation output but do not have a higher efficiency in their innovation creation compared to other firms from the same industry, size, and age. Moreover, the innovations produced by hidden champions show higher levels of technological depth and indicate lower levels of technological breadth. The sources of technological knowledge of hidden champions seem to be more inward oriented. Finally, innovations of hidden champions have similar technological impact, novelty and quality compared to those of other firms. Overall, our study supports many of the anecdotal beliefs about the innovation of hidden champions contributing to a better understanding of what makes hidden champions different from other Mittelstand firms. Practical implications for hidden champions and Mittelstand firms are discussed.

How do the attributes of a firm's top management team (TMT) influence corporate entrepreneurship across organizational and national contexts? Drawing on upper echelons theory and the managerial discretion perspective, this meta-analytic study examines the dynamic relationship between TMTs' attributes and corporate entrepreneurship, focusing on the moderating role of managerial discretion arising from organizational and national-level factors. To provide insights into the micro-foundations of firm behavior, we explore how key TMT attributes—diversity, size, transformational leadership, tenure, general human capital, and entrepreneurial human capital—affect corporate entrepreneurship. A comprehensive meta-analysis of 57 primary studies reveals that the effect of a TMT's attributes is context-dependent and is significantly influenced by the approach to managerial discretion taken by the country in which the firm operates. By showing that transformational leadership and the TMT's entrepreneurial human capital and size affect corporate entrepreneurship, while attributes like tenure, diversity, and general human capital have limited or no impact, our findings challenge the prevailing view that a standardized approach to the TMT's composition drives corporate entrepreneurship. The study also underscores the role of the national-level managerial discretion and finds that firms in institutional environments that feature low managerial discretion must align their TMT strategies with local institutional contexts to maximize their corporate entrepreneurship. These findings advance upper echelons theory by demonstrating that managerial discretion acts as a boundary condition in shaping how the TMT's attributes influence corporate entrepreneurship based on the national context. This research contributes to the fields of strategic and innovation management and offers practical insights for leaders who seek to harness the full potential of their TMTs.

Firms are increasingly adopting innovation contests to obtain ideas for new products and services from external parties, but many firms may not be sufficiently entrepreneurial to benefit from those ideas. Using an inductive longitudinal case study of three financial service firms, we explore the value of external innovation contests for less entrepreneurial and stagnant firms. Our findings indicate that stagnant firms indeed struggle to benefit from ideas generated through external innovation contests. However, we also show that firms undergo a structural change process toward higher entrepreneurial orientation through such contests. In particular, they become aware of an organizational readiness gap and act on it by (i) developing entrepreneurial skills, (ii) collaborating with external partners, and (iii) adapting organizational design and governance. Based on our findings, we propose an original framework for a corporate entrepreneurial learning process triggered by the innovation contest experience.

Not all firms exhibit the same level of commitment to green new product introductions (GNPIs), yet our understanding of the factors underlying these disparities remains incomplete. Prior research has primarily focused on firm-level factors, paying little attention to individual-level antecedents of GNPIs. This imbalance in the GNPI literature contrasts with the broader innovation and general management literature, which displays an ever-growing interest in the “human side of innovation,” acknowledging the relevance of Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs') political ideologies for organizational outcomes. Addressing this imbalance, our study examines the relationship between CEOs' political ideologies and their firms' GNPIs, along with the conditions that shape this influence. Grounded in social identity theory, our study first argues that the more liberal CEOs are, the more GNPIs their firms are likely to generate and that this association is amplified by CEO power. It then proposes that the more liberal CEOs are, the more likely they are to respond to adverse situations beyond their control (a Republican presidency or lower levels of consumer green sentiment) by initiating more GNPIs. It finally posits that the more liberal CEOs are, the fewer GNPIs they tend to initiate in response to adverse situations for which they are accountable (involvement in sustainability-related scandals). We integrate data from seven databases into a longitudinal dataset comprising 89 firms and 192 CEOs over the period 2010–2020 to test our theoretical framework empirically. Time-lagged panel regression analyses strongly support our theoretical arguments. Our findings contribute to the emergence of an individual-level, microfoundational perspective on sustainable innovations, our knowledge about the organizational implications and boundary conditions of CEOs' political ideologies, and the treatment of multiple identities within social identity theory, especially the relationship between political and occupational identities. The implications of our findings extend to business practitioners, offering valuable insights for CEOs, boards of directors, and investors.