International Journal of Innovation Management

Organisations lack clear guidance on how they can become more innovative at the operational level. The operations strategy literature shows that organisations compete on four generic capabilities: cost efficiency, quality of products or services, speed of delivery, and flexibility of operations. Should organisations choose between these capabilities, i.e., engage in trading-off these capabilities and focussing on one capability ("trade-off" model), or combine them, thereby competing on multiple capabilities simultaneously ("cumulative capabilities" model), remains an unresolved issue. Our paper addresses this by empirically testing the relationship between the four operations capabilities and innovation performance through a large-scale global study of manufacturing plants. Our results show support for the cumulative capabilities model and not the trade-off model. Furthermore, both delivery and flexibility capabilities are comparatively stronger predictors of innovativeness than cost efficiency and quality capabilities. This study provides interesting insights for practitioners and managers in generating clearer guidelines as to what organisations need to do with their key operational capabilities, in order to become more innovative.

The integration of customers in the process of mutual value addition (co-design process) is one of the most important aspects of mass customisation (MC). Their role as co-designers, enables customers to directly influence the development and configuration of their products. However, the necessary interaction with the provider during product development requires sufficient knowledge and expertise from customers. Customer integration capability (CIC) describes the skills a mass customiser's customers need to collaborate in interactive value adding processes in order to co-design them smoothly, effectively and to their own satisfaction. Taking these ideas into consideration, this paper analyses CIC and dependencies with other aspects of corporate value added in a causal model. The idea underlying this study is that, apart from classic tools of customer relationship management, mass customisers in particular have to foster CIC by systematic actions in order to remain internationally competitive in the long term.

Interdependence between Technically Trained Managers and Marketing Managers in new product development (NPD) teams is inherent, though few studies have investigated its effects within such teams. Here, interdependence is disaggregated into two underlying dimensions — the dependence of the Technically Trained Manager on the Marketing Manager, and the dependence of the Marketing Manager on the Technically Trained Manager during the project. Our model is tested using data from 184 Technically Trained Managers from Australian companies involved in NPD. The results suggest that interdependence is an important contextual variable during NPD projects. Senior managers should communicate its importance to NPD team members because of its positive effects within the NPD team. Where the Technically Trained Manager and Marketing Manager recognise their interdependence, they engage in more frequent, and more bidirectional communication. This is important because more effective communication between these two managers positively influences the quality and effectiveness of their working relationships, which in turn can increase NPD project success.

Technology roadmapping is a well-established method used in strategy development to map alternative future paths, while text mining offers untapped potentials concerning early detection and environmental scanning. In this paper, the roadmapping process is split into different steps in order to analyse which text mining methods could add further value within each. This leads to a two-layered process model, which includes text mining techniques to systematically integrate external information in ongoing roadmapping processes. Textual data can be used for a structured analysis and exploration of thematic fields and an objective, quantitative summary of actual developments. To demonstrate some of the benefits, the field of "cloud computing" is used to illustrate the procedure. As this article will show, the results provided by this approach extend the existing methodology, integrates an external view and complements expert opinion.

Opportunity recognition plays a central role in the emergence of nascent ventures in entrepreneurship research. The main purpose of this study was to present the mediating effects of opportunity recognition on incubation resources and human capital. Moreover, the study scrutinises the complex inter-relations between opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial product innovation. The data were collected from 389 incubated software start-ups in Thailand and statistically performed by Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The analysis revealed a persistent impact of the opportunity recognition on the incubation resources and human capital. Opportunity recognition also serves as a significant driver in enhancing entrepreneurial potential to boost new products/services. Interestingly, the study found that the human capital of incubated software entrepreneurs has no significant effect, statistically, on product innovation, against the better judgement of business empires worldwide.

Technological change often leads to competitive turbulence in established industries. Little is known about how the introduction of social media affects incumbent and entrant firms. This paper explores the impact of social media on the fashion journalism industry. Our findings show that entrant fashion bloggers have toppled incumbent fashion journalists. Through a netnographic analysis of published blog content, we argue that entrants have become dominant by transforming the profession of fashion journalism and in doing so, they have acted as institutional entrepreneurs. We argue that entrants are less bound by established institutional practices and that their ability to redefine the dominant logic of an industry can explain why they have outperformed incumbents.

This study investigates a special kind of corporate ventures, so called spin-along ventures, and their motivations to internationalise early. Insights are built from a multiple case study approach, investigating the spin-along program of Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs). Our results show that early internationalisation can avoid or reduce challenges that spin-alongs face when entering the domestic market. Four major motivations for early internationalisation could be identified: (1) avoid termination based on the parent's perceived threat of cannibalisation of existing products, (2) enable a venture's collaboration with competitors, (3) overcome restrictions of parental assets in the domestic market, and (4) address markets that offer greater chances for success than the domestic market does. Based on our findings we derive concrete implications for practitioners and academics in the field of innovation management.

We test the relationship between alliance scope and firm performance in the context of the biotechnology industry by means of a meta-analysis. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that allows a systematic review of the existing research that is more rigorously systematic compared to conventional narrative reviews as it uses statistics to capture the strength of relationships. The analysis confirms that a relationship between alliance scope and firm performance does exist. Furthermore, results suggest that there is a statistically significant difference in firm performance between exploitation alliances and exploration alliances, confirming recent studies in the innovation and R&D management literature. Managerial implications and future research suggestions are provided.