Fabrication spaces (fab-spaces), such as TechShops or Fab Labs, provide access to sophisticated digital manufacturing technologies to individuals. They could be a new institutional context which influences entrepreneurial behaviour. To understand how this might happen, we used a grounded approach to examine the experience of eight individuals who have benefitted from fab-spaces to push forward their entrepreneurial ventures. This examination led to the development of new hypotheses regarding the potential role of fab-spaces in the entrepreneurial journey. In particular, it has emerged that fab-spaces might affect the entry phase of a new venture by lowering the 'perception of performance' threshold. Fab-spaces also affect post-entry barriers, as they provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs for fast learning, and consequently, to establish effective routines. However, this paper also shows how these positive effects might be moderated by fab-spaces' institutional setup, chiefly their location and cultural characteristics.
{"title":"How Do Fab-Spaces Enable Entrepreneurship? Case Studies of 'Makers' Entrepreneurs","authors":"L. Mortara, Nicolas Parisot","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2519455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2519455","url":null,"abstract":"Fabrication spaces (fab-spaces), such as TechShops or Fab Labs, provide access to sophisticated digital manufacturing technologies to individuals. They could be a new institutional context which influences entrepreneurial behaviour. To understand how this might happen, we used a grounded approach to examine the experience of eight individuals who have benefitted from fab-spaces to push forward their entrepreneurial ventures. This examination led to the development of new hypotheses regarding the potential role of fab-spaces in the entrepreneurial journey. In particular, it has emerged that fab-spaces might affect the entry phase of a new venture by lowering the 'perception of performance' threshold. Fab-spaces also affect post-entry barriers, as they provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs for fast learning, and consequently, to establish effective routines. However, this paper also shows how these positive effects might be moderated by fab-spaces' institutional setup, chiefly their location and cultural characteristics.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"201 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134183447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The practice of firms co-creating products and services with their customers has a long history in business markets and, with advances in information technology, is now gaining increasing popularity in consumer markets as well. In this research we study the incentives of competing firms to co-create. We analyze the strategic choices of two competing downstream firms who simultaneously decide whether or not to co-create with an upstream supplier. Within this framework we incorporate, (1) endogenous pricing and effort choice by the upstream supplier and (2) endogenous pricing and effort choices by the downstream firms. Firms contemplating co-creation with a supplier are faced with a trade-off. On the one hand they can benefit from the supplier’s innovation efforts and therefore obtain a better product than they themselves could produce. On the other hand, they are confronted with the adverse effect of their own innovation efforts spilling over to their rivals via the supplier who would sell the co-created products to all firms. Our model captures this tension and offers several insights.First, we show that, when firms compete in the end-consumer market, the supplier can exert lower innovation effort when it co-creates with more firms. This result complements the existing literature that shows that, without competition between firms, a supplier is always better off and exerts more effort when it co-creates with more firms.Second, we show that in the co-creation environment, ex-ante symmetric firms may pursue asymmetric strategies in equilibrium. The asymmetric equilibrium, in which only one of the two firms co-creates with the supplier, is obtained when the degree of competition between the firms is moderate.Third, we find two types of asymmetric equilibria. For moderately low degrees of competition between firms, all parties prefer the asymmetric outcome. For moderately high degrees of competition, both firms prefer co-creation, but the supplier will refuse to co-create with one of them thereby enforcing the asymmetric outcome. Thus, a strategic supplier’s role is critical in that it expands the region where the asymmetric equilibrium obtains, beyond that preferred by the firms themselves.Finally, and counterintuitively, a higher degree of product fit for the rival can actually benefit the co-creating firm in the asymmetric outcome, even though it improves its rival’s product.
{"title":"Competing with Co-Created Products","authors":"Dinah A. Cohen-Vernik, A. Pazgal, Niladri B. Syam","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2591143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2591143","url":null,"abstract":"The practice of firms co-creating products and services with their customers has a long history in business markets and, with advances in information technology, is now gaining increasing popularity in consumer markets as well. In this research we study the incentives of competing firms to co-create. We analyze the strategic choices of two competing downstream firms who simultaneously decide whether or not to co-create with an upstream supplier. Within this framework we incorporate, (1) endogenous pricing and effort choice by the upstream supplier and (2) endogenous pricing and effort choices by the downstream firms. Firms contemplating co-creation with a supplier are faced with a trade-off. On the one hand they can benefit from the supplier’s innovation efforts and therefore obtain a better product than they themselves could produce. On the other hand, they are confronted with the adverse effect of their own innovation efforts spilling over to their rivals via the supplier who would sell the co-created products to all firms. Our model captures this tension and offers several insights.First, we show that, when firms compete in the end-consumer market, the supplier can exert lower innovation effort when it co-creates with more firms. This result complements the existing literature that shows that, without competition between firms, a supplier is always better off and exerts more effort when it co-creates with more firms.Second, we show that in the co-creation environment, ex-ante symmetric firms may pursue asymmetric strategies in equilibrium. The asymmetric equilibrium, in which only one of the two firms co-creates with the supplier, is obtained when the degree of competition between the firms is moderate.Third, we find two types of asymmetric equilibria. For moderately low degrees of competition between firms, all parties prefer the asymmetric outcome. For moderately high degrees of competition, both firms prefer co-creation, but the supplier will refuse to co-create with one of them thereby enforcing the asymmetric outcome. Thus, a strategic supplier’s role is critical in that it expands the region where the asymmetric equilibrium obtains, beyond that preferred by the firms themselves.Finally, and counterintuitively, a higher degree of product fit for the rival can actually benefit the co-creating firm in the asymmetric outcome, even though it improves its rival’s product.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"560 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127679805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
New changes after the pioneer works in Oviatt & McDougall (2005b) and Oviatt & McDougall (2005) suggest that we have now entered Phase II of internationalization, featuring an “IE Capitalism” with three stylized facts: The birth of INVs by MNEs through global value chains; the accelerated marketization through e-commerce platforms, and international commitment based on expected returns. The first fact provides the human agency to IE; the second drives up, enlarges and empowers accelerated internationalization to make it popular, efficient and long lasting; the last fact links INVs and Non-INVs, suppliers and consumers and short- and long-term outcomes. With a unified IE concept we no longer need separate concepts of IE and INV; with accelerated marketization the rules of entrepreneurial game have been changed and we can no longer just look at firms but ecosystems; Finally with expected returns it is no longer sufficient to rely on firms unique assets to gain and to maintain sustainable competitive advantages.
{"title":"Reconceptualizing International Entrepreneurship (IE)","authors":"Jay Wu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2707654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2707654","url":null,"abstract":"New changes after the pioneer works in Oviatt & McDougall (2005b) and Oviatt & McDougall (2005) suggest that we have now entered Phase II of internationalization, featuring an “IE Capitalism” with three stylized facts: The birth of INVs by MNEs through global value chains; the accelerated marketization through e-commerce platforms, and international commitment based on expected returns. The first fact provides the human agency to IE; the second drives up, enlarges and empowers accelerated internationalization to make it popular, efficient and long lasting; the last fact links INVs and Non-INVs, suppliers and consumers and short- and long-term outcomes. With a unified IE concept we no longer need separate concepts of IE and INV; with accelerated marketization the rules of entrepreneurial game have been changed and we can no longer just look at firms but ecosystems; Finally with expected returns it is no longer sufficient to rely on firms unique assets to gain and to maintain sustainable competitive advantages.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133546647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I analyze the impact of online ads on the advertiser's competitors, using data from randomized field experiments on a restaurant-search website. I find significant positive causal effects of ads on the chances of sales for non-advertised restaurants. The spillover benefits are concentrated on restaurants that serve the advertiser's cuisine and have a high rating on the website. The extent of spillovers also depends on the intensity of the advertising effort. The spillovers are largest when the intensity (frequency) of advertising is low. As the intensity increases, the spillovers disappear and the advertiser gains more. These patterns are consistent with the following mechanism: ads increase the chance of consumers buying the advertised product, but also remind consumers of similar (non-advertised) options. Higher ad intensity leads to a stronger direct effect favoring the advertiser and can offset the spillover caused by the broader reminder.
{"title":"Advertising Spillovers: Evidence from Online Field-Experiments and Implications for Returns on Advertising","authors":"Navdeep S. Sahni","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2440907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2440907","url":null,"abstract":"I analyze the impact of online ads on the advertiser's competitors, using data from randomized field experiments on a restaurant-search website. I find significant positive causal effects of ads on the chances of sales for non-advertised restaurants. The spillover benefits are concentrated on restaurants that serve the advertiser's cuisine and have a high rating on the website. The extent of spillovers also depends on the intensity of the advertising effort. The spillovers are largest when the intensity (frequency) of advertising is low. As the intensity increases, the spillovers disappear and the advertiser gains more. These patterns are consistent with the following mechanism: ads increase the chance of consumers buying the advertised product, but also remind consumers of similar (non-advertised) options. Higher ad intensity leads to a stronger direct effect favoring the advertiser and can offset the spillover caused by the broader reminder.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125651962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Entrepreneurs are turning to crowdfunding as a way to finance their creative ideas. Crowdfunding involves relatively small contributions of many consumer-investors over a fixed time period (generally a few weeks). The purpose of this paper is to add to our empirical understanding of backer dynamics over the project funding cycle. Two years of publicly available data on projects listed on Kickstarter is used to establish that the typical pattern of project support is U-shaped — in general, backers are more likely to contribute to a project in the first and last week as compared to the middle period of the funding cycle. We further establish that this U-shape pattern of support is pervasive across projects, including both successfully and unsuccessfully funded projects, those with large and small goals, and projects in different categories. We then empirically explore the dynamics associated with several factors, including collective attention effects from platform sorting options, the role of family and friends in supporting projects, the effects of social influence, and the role of project updates over the project funding cycle.
{"title":"Crowdfunding Creative Ideas: The Dynamics of Project Backers in Kickstarter","authors":"Venkat Kuppuswamy, B. Bayus","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2234765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2234765","url":null,"abstract":"Entrepreneurs are turning to crowdfunding as a way to finance their creative ideas. Crowdfunding involves relatively small contributions of many consumer-investors over a fixed time period (generally a few weeks). The purpose of this paper is to add to our empirical understanding of backer dynamics over the project funding cycle. Two years of publicly available data on projects listed on Kickstarter is used to establish that the typical pattern of project support is U-shaped — in general, backers are more likely to contribute to a project in the first and last week as compared to the middle period of the funding cycle. We further establish that this U-shape pattern of support is pervasive across projects, including both successfully and unsuccessfully funded projects, those with large and small goals, and projects in different categories. We then empirically explore the dynamics associated with several factors, including collective attention effects from platform sorting options, the role of family and friends in supporting projects, the effects of social influence, and the role of project updates over the project funding cycle.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132778625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Benjaafar, Guangwen Kong, Xiang Li, C. Courcoubetis
We describe an equilibrium model of peer-to-peer product sharing, or collaborative consumption, where individuals with varying usage levels make decisions about whether or not to own. Owners are able to generate income from renting their products to non-owners while non-owners are able to access these products through renting on as needed basis. We characterize equilibrium outcomes, including ownership and usage levels, consumer surplus, and social welfare. We compare each outcome in systems with and without collaborative consumption and examine the impact of various problem parameters including rental price, platform's commission fee, cost of ownership, owner's moral hazard cost, and renter's inconvenience cost. Our findings indicate that, depending on the rental price, collaborative consumption can result in either lower or higher ownership and usage levels, with higher ownership and usage levels more likely when the cost of ownership is high. We show that consumers always benefit from collaborative consumption, with individuals who, in the absence of collaborative consumption, are indifferent between owning and not owning benefiting the most. We also show that the platform's profit is not monotonic in the cost of ownership, implying that a platform is least profitable when the cost of ownership is either very high or very low.
{"title":"Peer-to-Peer Product Sharing: Implications for Ownership, Usage and Social Welfare in the Sharing Economy","authors":"S. Benjaafar, Guangwen Kong, Xiang Li, C. Courcoubetis","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2669823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2669823","url":null,"abstract":"We describe an equilibrium model of peer-to-peer product sharing, or collaborative consumption, where individuals with varying usage levels make decisions about whether or not to own. Owners are able to generate income from renting their products to non-owners while non-owners are able to access these products through renting on as needed basis. We characterize equilibrium outcomes, including ownership and usage levels, consumer surplus, and social welfare. We compare each outcome in systems with and without collaborative consumption and examine the impact of various problem parameters including rental price, platform's commission fee, cost of ownership, owner's moral hazard cost, and renter's inconvenience cost. Our findings indicate that, depending on the rental price, collaborative consumption can result in either lower or higher ownership and usage levels, with higher ownership and usage levels more likely when the cost of ownership is high. We show that consumers always benefit from collaborative consumption, with individuals who, in the absence of collaborative consumption, are indifferent between owning and not owning benefiting the most. We also show that the platform's profit is not monotonic in the cost of ownership, implying that a platform is least profitable when the cost of ownership is either very high or very low.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126591680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2015-06-30DOI: 10.1504/ijmed.2015.070094
A. Rezazadeh, A. Davari
This study attempts to develop and empirically test a measurement instrument assessing alliance entrepreneurship. The proposed scale comprises three dimensions: pre-alliance formation factors, post-alliance formation factors, and alliance performance, each incorporating several sub-dimensions. A series of three studies are implemented to generate an initial pool of items, to test the quality of data, and to purify the proposed scale. Data analysis is conducted in terms of reliability and validity assessment, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and also outer and inner model estimation. Employing the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique in both covariance-based and component-based approaches, our findings from a sample of firms in Iran's telecommunication and automotive industries provide strong evidence of reliability and validity, multidimensionality of constructs in second-order hierarchical modes, and the goodness of fit for measurement models as well as the structural model.
{"title":"Toward the Measurement of Alliance Entrepreneurship: Initial Scale Development and Validation","authors":"A. Rezazadeh, A. Davari","doi":"10.1504/ijmed.2015.070094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmed.2015.070094","url":null,"abstract":"This study attempts to develop and empirically test a measurement instrument assessing alliance entrepreneurship. The proposed scale comprises three dimensions: pre-alliance formation factors, post-alliance formation factors, and alliance performance, each incorporating several sub-dimensions. A series of three studies are implemented to generate an initial pool of items, to test the quality of data, and to purify the proposed scale. Data analysis is conducted in terms of reliability and validity assessment, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and also outer and inner model estimation. Employing the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique in both covariance-based and component-based approaches, our findings from a sample of firms in Iran's telecommunication and automotive industries provide strong evidence of reliability and validity, multidimensionality of constructs in second-order hierarchical modes, and the goodness of fit for measurement models as well as the structural model.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125109105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using co-pricing as a means for gaining deep customer insights offers much potential, ultimately expanding profitability and markets. Models of co-pricing could provide new basis for segmenting customers, based on their perceptions of value. Involvement in co-pricing decisions can also offer opportunities for enhancing relationships, building trust, fairness and commitment between a supplier and customer. A firm can develop value propositions and use them as part of a dynamic learning process that occurs between customer and supplier. Customer segments can be determined based on value perceptions, with each requiring discrete value propositions that are designed around relationship goals. Breakthrough opportunities relating to the special challenges of digital services are highlighted.
{"title":"Co-Pricing: Co-Creating Customer Value Through Dynamic Value Propositions","authors":"Pennie Frow, Richard Reisman, A. Payne","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2634197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2634197","url":null,"abstract":"Using co-pricing as a means for gaining deep customer insights offers much potential, ultimately expanding profitability and markets. Models of co-pricing could provide new basis for segmenting customers, based on their perceptions of value. Involvement in co-pricing decisions can also offer opportunities for enhancing relationships, building trust, fairness and commitment between a supplier and customer. A firm can develop value propositions and use them as part of a dynamic learning process that occurs between customer and supplier. Customer segments can be determined based on value perceptions, with each requiring discrete value propositions that are designed around relationship goals. Breakthrough opportunities relating to the special challenges of digital services are highlighted.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125694977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Private labels are referred to as home brands, own brands, own labels, store brands, retailer brands and probably more. Kumar and Steenkamp (2007) define a private label “to be any brand that is owned by the retailer or the distributor and is sold only in its own outlets”. Therefore brands such as IKEA, Gap and H&M, Next, Tesco, Asda, Woolworths Select and Coles SmartBuy are private labels because they are sold only in their own stores and their products are not sold through any other outlets. It is also possible to observe such kind of private labels in some Azerbaijani companies, such as Azersun Holding and Azersun’s private labels are sold in its own retail named Bazar Store.
{"title":"Private Label in Marketing and its Importance","authors":"S. Guliyev","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2580087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2580087","url":null,"abstract":"Private labels are referred to as home brands, own brands, own labels, store brands, retailer brands and probably more. Kumar and Steenkamp (2007) define a private label “to be any brand that is owned by the retailer or the distributor and is sold only in its own outlets”. Therefore brands such as IKEA, Gap and H&M, Next, Tesco, Asda, Woolworths Select and Coles SmartBuy are private labels because they are sold only in their own stores and their products are not sold through any other outlets. It is also possible to observe such kind of private labels in some Azerbaijani companies, such as Azersun Holding and Azersun’s private labels are sold in its own retail named Bazar Store.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128669418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the ‘knowledge economy’ upheld by the European Lisbon strategy, knowledge‐intensive services are considered a key driver for innovation and competitiveness. A category of knowledge‐intensive services that has become of utmost importance in the last few decades is new product development (NPD) services, which interconnect distant knowledge domains with the client firms. In addition to NPD service providers, web‐based innovation intermediaries have started to help innovative firms access dispersed bodies of knowledge. Despite the heterogeneity of their characteristics, however, a clear typology of the strategies used by traditional NPD service providers and web‐based intermediaries to interact with their knowledge sources and with their clients is missing. This typology would be very useful for those firms that are willing to collaborate with innovation intermediaries because it could highlight the typologies of NPD problems different intermediaries are apt to address and the managerial challenges that working with them entails. Developing such a classification framework is the main goal of this paper. The typology proposed in this paper suggests that innovation intermediaries should be distinguished based on the following: (1) the way they access their distributed knowledge sources and (2) the way they deliver value to their clients. By combining these two dimensions, four categories of innovation intermediaries are identified, which are named brokers, mediators, collectors and connectors. A multiple case study analysis involving four innovation intermediaries and 12 of their clients is presented in the paper. The analysis provides exploratory insights into (1) the typologies of NPD problems that each class of intermediaries addresses and (2) the managerial challenges that working with each of them entails. These preliminary findings call for further theoretical and empirical research into the complex interaction among innovation intermediaries, their dispersed sources of knowledge and their clients.
{"title":"Exploring the Contribution of Innovation Intermediaries to the New Product Development (NPD) Process: A Typology and an Empirical Study","authors":"Gabriele Colombo, C. Dell’Era, F. Frattini","doi":"10.1111/radm.12056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/radm.12056","url":null,"abstract":"In the ‘knowledge economy’ upheld by the European Lisbon strategy, knowledge‐intensive services are considered a key driver for innovation and competitiveness. A category of knowledge‐intensive services that has become of utmost importance in the last few decades is new product development (NPD) services, which interconnect distant knowledge domains with the client firms. In addition to NPD service providers, web‐based innovation intermediaries have started to help innovative firms access dispersed bodies of knowledge. Despite the heterogeneity of their characteristics, however, a clear typology of the strategies used by traditional NPD service providers and web‐based intermediaries to interact with their knowledge sources and with their clients is missing. This typology would be very useful for those firms that are willing to collaborate with innovation intermediaries because it could highlight the typologies of NPD problems different intermediaries are apt to address and the managerial challenges that working with them entails. Developing such a classification framework is the main goal of this paper. The typology proposed in this paper suggests that innovation intermediaries should be distinguished based on the following: (1) the way they access their distributed knowledge sources and (2) the way they deliver value to their clients. By combining these two dimensions, four categories of innovation intermediaries are identified, which are named brokers, mediators, collectors and connectors. A multiple case study analysis involving four innovation intermediaries and 12 of their clients is presented in the paper. The analysis provides exploratory insights into (1) the typologies of NPD problems that each class of intermediaries addresses and (2) the managerial challenges that working with each of them entails. These preliminary findings call for further theoretical and empirical research into the complex interaction among innovation intermediaries, their dispersed sources of knowledge and their clients.","PeriodicalId":344620,"journal":{"name":"Entrepreneurship & Marketing eJournal","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132795568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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