Journal of Product Innovation Management最新文献

Developing innovative, eco-friendlier products that gain traction in the mass market remains a persistent challenge for many firms. To bring consumers to choose “greener” alternatives over conventional products, firms need to overcome prevailing product evaluations that favor traditional solutions. Research on valuation entrepreneurship examines the strategies that actors apply to induce changes in established evaluations. Adding to the emerging literature on valuation entrepreneurship, our study analyzes how the car maker Tesla, Inc. used product design—material artifacts' properties of form and function—to advance the public perception of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). When Tesla entered the market, several firms had tried to promote BEVs as a way of making private mobility more environmentally friendly, but with limited success. In contrast, Tesla produced well-received BEVs that generated enormous consumer interest and led to a more favorable assessment of BEVs as a whole. Drawing on 54 interviews and nearly 2000 pages of archival data, our abductive study identifies three product design strategies that increased the appeal of Tesla's initial models: (1) incorporating discontinuous technological solutions; (2) optimizing the products on traditional evaluation criteria (e.g., driving performance, comfort, space, status); and (3) creating an ecosystem of complementary products. Since some design choices came at the expense of a minimal environmental footprint, they risked attracting blame for compromising on the environmental performance of potentially eco-friendly cars and for committing “greenwashing.” To minimize this risk, Tesla complemented its design strategies by employing three strategies of reputational politics to avoid such blame. After Tesla's initial, lavish models had improved the public perception of electric cars, Tesla and other car makers were able to sell less excessive and more sustainable BEVs in much greater quantities than ever before. Our findings contribute to three literature streams and generate valuable insights for management practice.

Scientific research demands robust findings, yet variability in results persists due to researchers' decisions in data analysis. Despite strict adherence to state-of the-art methodological norms, research results can vary when analyzing the same data. This article aims to explore this variability by examining the impact of researchers' analytical decisions when using different approaches to structural equation modeling (SEM), a widely used method in innovation management to estimate cause–effect relationships between constructs and their indicator variables. For this purpose, we invited SEM experts to estimate a model on absorptive capacity's impact on organizational innovation and performance using different SEM estimators. The results show considerable variability in effect sizes and significance levels, depending on the researchers' analytical choices. Our research underscores the necessity of transparent analytical decisions, urging researchers to acknowledge their results' uncertainty, to implement robustness checks, and to document the results from different analytical workflows. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations and guidelines on how to address results variability. Our findings, conclusions, and recommendations aim to enhance research validity and reproducibility in innovation management, providing actionable and valuable insights for improved future research practices that lead to solid practical recommendations.

This paper builds theory on theatrical cultural design in corporate venturing units, such as manifested in playful esthetics (foosball tables and beanbags), startup lingo, or youthful behavior (building with Lego bricks and informal dressing). We develop a set of propositions, illuminating how theatrical cultural design can (de)legitimize corporate venturing units, highlighting three different functions: attention-direction function, social categorization function, and escapist function. In addition, we explain how such changes in legitimization can influence the resilience of corporate venturing units. Our framework contributes to an emergent debate on innovation theater by pointing to the possibility of innovation theater as a constructive process in contemporary innovation management practices.

Although the literature's case and longitudinal studies provide ample evidence of organizational routines that foster creative behaviors, it still lacks an integrative model of organizational creative capabilities (OCCs) and the quantitative evidence to validate such a model. This research is aimed at conceptualizing and developing a reliable and valid scale for OCCs. First, we define the OCC construct's domain by conducting an extensive literature review. We then generate a list of items for the five dimensions of OCCs through a qualitative study involving a group of 24 practitioners (Study 1a) and by surveying nine senior researchers (Study 1b). We refine the OCC scale using a sample of 269 responses collected in France and Canada (Study 2), and we conduct a first-order confirmatory factor analysis (Study 3). Finally, we perform a second-order confirmatory analysis (Study 4a) on samples of 220 responses collected mainly in the United States and Europe, generalize our results to a sample of 205 responses, and strengthen the predictive validity (Study 4b). Our results provide significant evidence that OCCs can be conceptualized around five dimensions: internal socialization routines, idea management routines, external openness routines, creative equipment routines, and internal agility routines. Furthermore, the research confirms the scale's good psychometric qualities, thus ensuring that researchers can be confident in the reliability of any future academic research design using the scale. We also validate the OCC scale's predictive validity by verifying that a five-dimensional reflective scale with 16 indicators has a significant positive effect on the creative outcome. This OCC scale can be used by practitioners to better understand the organizational routines they have to develop in order to strengthen their organization's creativity. It also provides a way for longitudinal studies to observe how OCCs evolve over time.

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.

Innovation is a key driver of firm success. To encourage innovation, firms often offer equity-based compensation, such as stock options, to better align CEOs' personal interests with shareholder value. Drawing on agency theory, we argue that stock options may not always benefit a firm by encouraging innovation. Instead, we demonstrate that CEOs intending to exercise their stock options have the incentive to be myopic in R&D management so that they can temporarily boost the stock price and, thus, increase their personal wealth. Using a unique multi-source dataset of 335 Standard & Poor 500 companies from 2007 to 2015, we find evidence supporting this argument. Moreover, the findings suggest that factors that can affect the perceived pressure to promote innovation by CEOs might reshape the association between stock option exercise and myopic R&D management. For example, power resulting from CEO duality decreases the perceived pressure to promote innovation, which increases the likelihood of CEOs engaging in myopic R&D management when exercising their stock options. However, when shareholders present a long investment horizon or when firms have high innovativeness, CEOs perceive more pressure to promote innovation and thus are less likely to opt for myopic R&D management while exercising stock options. The findings provide important insights for better understanding and controlling managerial myopia in innovation management.

This study delves into the intricate relationship between customers' willingness to co-create (WCC) and the required level of co-creation (LCC) for effective service innovation adoption. In response to recent findings suggesting a “co-creation sweet spot,” beyond which additional co-creation activities have detrimental effects, this research aims to provide both theoretical and empirical insights into this phenomenon. Unlike previous investigations focusing on either the willingness to co-create or the level of co-creation at a particular point in time and overlooking potential interactions, our study considers their interactions over time, acknowledging that revenue for most digital services is generated through ongoing customer usage. Utilizing longitudinal data from 352 participants across four waves and employing structural equation modeling, our analysis reveals a nuanced pattern. Customers' willingness to co-create predominantly shapes usage intention in the pre-adoption stage, while the level of co-creation becomes a critical driver for continuous usage in the post-adoption stages. Further analysis using response surface analysis with polynomial regression confirms a specific matching logic: customers with low (high) willingness to co-create expect a low (high) level of co-creation from a service innovation. From a theoretical perspective, our findings contribute to bridging the research gap concerning an optimal co-creation level, offering insights into psychological processes underlying the co-creation sweet spot. Furthermore, we also shed light on temporal aspects of the interplay between willingness to co-create and the level of co-creation, offering a more holistic perspective on their joint influence on adoption behavior. From a managerial perspective, our study challenges the traditional assumption that more co-creation naturally leads to better outcomes. It emphasizes the significance of tailoring the level of co-creation in digital service innovations based on customers' intrinsic willingness. This strategic customization aligns with the evolving landscape of digital service innovation, offering practical insights for managers striving to optimize their co-creation strategies.

The increasing introduction of intelligent, interactive robots in the service industry raises concerns about the potential dehumanization of service provision and its influences on corporate brand perceptions. To avoid adverse effects, new service development (NSD) managers seemingly favor service robots that feature anthropomorphic design metaphors, so they appear more human-like. The current research investigates explicitly how customers' perception of a robot's anthropomorphic design metaphors might spill over to affect corporate brand perceptions. Study 1, a picture-based scenario study with 109 participants, reveals the impact of anthropomorphic design metaphors on untested corporate brand outcomes, such as brand trust and brand experience. Then Study 2, a video-based scenario study with 530 participants, addresses whether these effects depend on the service context. In Study 3, a field study of 393 participants, the authors examine how anthropomorphic design metaphors influence other firm-related outcomes (e.g., shopping enjoyment, sales). The combined results confirm that anthropomorphic design metaphors strongly affect brand trust and brand experience, as well as other critical firm-related outcomes; they also reveal notable context effects, such that customers of people-processing (e.g., care services) and mental-stimulus-processing (e.g., shopping assistance) services appear more likely to use anthropomorphic design metaphors as corporate brand cues. Our research encourages NSD managers and scholars to consider the effects of introducing anthropomorphic service robots on corporate brands.

Innovation is essential for sustaining the global competitive viability of multinational enterprises (MNEs), yet the internationalization–innovation relationship remains theoretically debatable and empirically inconsistent. To resolve the puzzle and identify the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the mixed findings, this study integrates existing empirical evidence from 298 independent samples and presents a multilevel meta-analysis. Taking an organizational learning perspective, this study explores two critical yet underexplored national sentiments that can moderate the MNEs' innovation propensity in internationalization, including technologism and nationalism. Our results show that while technologism strengthens MNEs' innovation in internationalization, nationalism weakens it. In addition, the interaction between the national sentiments exerts significant moderating effects on the relationship. Through exploring the novel drivers and barriers at country level, this study generates new and nuanced insights into innovation management in an international context. It also provides important managerial implications and discusses opportunities for future investigations into the complexity of innovation management in an interconnected and competitive world.