Journal of Product Innovation Management最新文献

This study explores the translation of agile management practices (agile) into a traditional industry context. Using a case study of agile adoption in a development project in a large traditional company of the aerospace and defense industry, this research investigates how the translation process unfolds by studying how both idea and context are adapted to create shared meaning. This research makes two main contributions. First, this research introduces translation theory to the innovation management literature and details its applicability in explaining variations in outcomes of applying management practices in new organizational contexts. Our research suggests that this constitutes a complementary theoretical lens to diffusion theory, enabling the explanation of the process to create shared meaning when idea and recipient context have a low level of compatibility. Second, this research shows the process of translating agile into a traditional context through a non-linear joint creation of meaning. The process was shaped largely by the experience and resolution of project-external (i.e., with the surrounding organization) and project-internal conflicts, which in turn motivated the idea or context to adapt. The study identifies two central concepts, namely isolation, and shielding, which determine how the translation process unfolds and how meaning is created. Managerial implications based on these contributions are presented and discussed.

The effects of the knowledge environment on a firm's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and utilize new knowledge—its absorptive capacity (AC)—to produce innovation (INN) have been largely overlooked in prior literature. Drawing on the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship, we conduct a meta-analysis summarizing findings from 145 empirical studies on 434,985 firms with 798,650 firm-year observations. We distinguish between knowledge-rich environments with abundant, easily accessible information; knowledge-protected environments with high levels of intellectual property rights protection; and knowledge-intensive environments with high levels of reliance on knowledge. Our study assesses the impact of the environment on the AC–INN relationship. First, we confirm that knowledge-rich environments create more opportunities to reap innovation benefits from AC compared to knowledge-scarce environments. Driven by the development of communication technologies and increased information sharing, the effects of AC on innovation are almost twice larger in the smartphone era as they were during the preinternet or early internet era. Second, our analysis indicates that high levels of knowledge protection, as seen in North America and Europe, while safeguarding intellectual property, also dampen positive effects of absorptive capacity on innovation. In environments with less knowledge protection, the effects of AC on innovation are stronger. Finally, our findings suggest that AC is beneficial across industry sectors, but its effects are stronger in less knowledge-intensive sectors. The mean effect size in low-tech manufacturing and services is two times larger than in high-tech industries. Beyond contextual effects, we assess AC's effects on two major creativity outputs: invention, as a breakthrough scientific discovery, and commercialization, as a socially usable and marketable product. Our findings show that AC overall boosts innovation and is more strongly associated with commercialization than with invention. The implications of this study aim to inform practitioners and policymakers and advance future research on knowledge environments.

The proliferation of service robots has stimulated innovation across industries. These autonomous, physically embodied, and adaptable robots engage in diverse interactions, from patient care to goods delivery and hospitality services. However, the deployment of increasingly capable service robots demands not only designing user–robot interactions, but also holistic innovation management that transcends organizational boundaries and involves various societal stakeholders. Our research draws on the emerging Public Value Theory to examine the types of service robots and the innovation ecosystems that harness the expertise of public and private stakeholders and produce Public Value. Based on literature and an illustrative case study, we conceptualize service robots along characteristics such as autonomy, aesthetics, assistive roles, and user interfaces, and introduce Service Robot-based Innovation as the ecosystem-enabled development and employment of such robots. The service robot's autonomy and ecosystem integration are key dimensions determining innovation management practices and Public Value creation. The illustrative case, centered on long-term care, dissects the integration of service robots across the micro (user), meso (organizational), and macro (societal) levels of the ecosystem. An ecosystem-as-structure approach identifies the roles and activities of stakeholders aligning around a shared value proposition of Public Value. A research agenda presents future opportunities within and across various ecosystem levels to advance scholarly understanding of Service Robot-based Innovation.

Research about innovation management explores how the future is created—who is creating it (organizations, collaborations, etc.), for what aims (customer satisfaction, market performance, etc.), and with what broader effects (social, environmental, etc.). With this extended essay, we explore the potential futures of innovation management research in three ways. First, we briefly review the history of past research agendas and priorities published in the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM), highlighting three broad topic areas (technological, social/environmental, and organizational) that have emerged over time and their potential disruptive implications for innovation management research. Second, we describe the outcome of a gathering of leading scholars in innovation management tasked with the challenge of identifying critical research paths for our field. This collaboration resulted in five “deep dive” essays into areas ripe for innovation management research in the years ahead: liquid innovation, artificial intelligence in innovation, business model innovation, public value innovation, and responsible innovation. Third, we reflect on this expansive effort and offer a discussion of implications (tensions, challenges, and opportunities) for future innovation management scholarship.

Innovation partnerships frequently experience tensions due to differences in partners' organizational logics. The literature recommends that partners adopt collaborative, empathetic mindsets but even so, tensions can threaten outcomes and partnership continuation. Difficulties can be exacerbated when firms engage stakeholder organizations in sustainability-oriented innovation projects, where each partner is seeking their own combination of social, environmental, and economic objectives. This study explores strategic responses to these differences in logics through eight case studies of sustainability-oriented innovation engagements between a focal business and an external organization. The key finding is that partners can respond to their differing logics by shaping a new “engagement logic” that guides members of both (or all) organizations. A logic frame with four value-related dimensions—value salience, instrumentality, temporality, and language—allows a subtly idiosyncratic engagement logic to be created that is acceptable to both parties. This classification of ingredients of a logic frame forms a wider contribution to the institutional-logics literature. A complementary range of logic practices is identified, covering logic emergence, logic enactment, and boundary defining. The engagement logic aids the partnership by contributing to four partnership-level generative outcomes: partnership commitment, capability integration, scope flexibility, and system orientation. A notable finding is the presence of a logic boundary, specified in work, time, and space, enabling the engagement logic to co-exist with organizational logics; a research direction is whether this boundary also exists in logics at organizational and field levels. The study shows partnerships to be a new context within which novel logics can emerge, contributing to an understanding of how logics evolve.

Tolerating failure has gained recognition as a crucial catalyst for product innovation. However, there is a limited understanding of how and under what conditions project leaders' perceptions of failure normalization—the norms regarding failure in their work environment—can enhance product innovativeness in the context of new product development (NPD). Drawing upon sensemaking and motivation theories, we propose a moderated mediation model to address this research gap. Data were collected from 181 high-tech ventures in China, with responses gathered at three different time points from matched respondents. Utilizing moderated path analysis and the Monte Carlo method, our findings reveal that failure normalization primarily fosters product innovativeness by facilitating learning from failure. Importantly, this positive effect is contingent upon the project leader's passion for inventing. A profound passion for inventing significantly enhances NPD leaders' motivation to learn from failures, thereby acting as a pivotal factor that determines whether failure normalization promotes or impedes product innovativeness. This research thus elucidates the previously inconclusive relationship between failure normalization and product innovativeness as presented in the literature. It underscores the dual importance of organizational culture (specifically, failure normalization) and individual motivation (specifically, the passion for inventing) in driving learning and innovation within the NPD process. The practical implications of these findings are significant for high-tech ventures seeking to enhance their NPD outcomes. Specifically, cultivating an organizational culture that perceives failure as an opportunity for learning, coupled with recognizing and fostering the passion for inventing among NPD project leaders, can boost NPD product innovativeness.

Innovative firms, like startups, are increasingly making use of technology broadcasting to explore market applications for their technology. While findings from previous studies suggest that these firms can get access to a large pool of suggestions for market applications through technology broadcasting, we lack empirical evidence on whether firms that use technology broadcasting will actually be able to process and explore these suggestions. The current study points to the distinct role of firms' domain-specific and general knowledge base in this respect. It proposes that technology broadcasting is positively related to the number of market applications a firm explores. Moreover, it hypothesizes that this relationship is weakened by the firm's domain-specific knowledge and strengthened by its general knowledge base. We use Poisson analyses on hand-collected survey and secondary data on a sample of 205 Flemish startups. We find that technology broadcasting is positively associated with the number of market applications a firm explores. Furthermore, this positive relationship is stronger with increasing general knowledge, but weaker with increasing domain-specific knowledge. These findings advance our understanding of the boundary conditions of technology broadcasting. Additionally, our study contributes to the open innovation literature which has called for more attention to the challenges an organization faces in managing its external knowledge search. Finally, our study provides important practical insights for innovative firms that are trying to find market applications for their technology.

Technological innovation is critical for high-tech new ventures (HTNVs), and the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has become increasingly crucial in top management teams (TMTs). Drawing upon the upper echelons theory and the attention-based view of the firm, we examined a sample of 429 HTNVs in China between 2014 and 2019 to test whether and how appointing a CTO and the CTO's characteristics affect the new ventures' innovation activities. The results show that having a CTO position promotes HTNVs' exploratory innovation activities but does not affect exploitative innovation activities. While a longer CTO tenure positively affects exploratory innovation, it hinders exploitative innovation. In addition, a CEO serving as the CTO in a HTNV has a negative effect on exploitative innovation activities but no effect on exploratory innovation activities. This effect is contingent on the CEO's technological background and whether the CEO owns shares in the HTNV. The findings of this study enrich the literature on the upper echelons theory, the attention-based view, and entrepreneurship and innovation and provide rare empirical evidence on whether and how appointing a CTO, CTO characteristics, and the interaction of CTO characteristics and CEO characteristics affect HTNVs' innovation activities in emerging markets.