Product Innovativeness Strategy with Crowdsourcing

Purpose This paper explores openness within new product development (NPD) projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of breadth, depth and partner newness on product innovativeness and product competitive advantage. The authors also seek to examine the contingent effects of the appropriability regime. The authors make suggestions to academics and practitioners based on the findings. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a structured survey instrument producing an empirical analysis of 205 NPD projects in the manufacturing sector in the UK. The authors use an ordinary least squares regression model to test hypothesised relationships between openness (breadth, depth and partner newness), product innovativeness, product competitive advantage and the appropriability regime. Findings The authors find that each of the three dimensions of openness, depth, breadth and partner newness, have a significant but differing impact on product innovativeness. Specifically, the study indicates that breadth has a positive effect but only in the presence of a strong appropriability regime, partner newness has a direct positive effect, and depth a direct negative effect. The authors also find that product innovativeness has a positive impact on product competitive advantage. Research limitations/implications Further research should focus on replicating the findings in other countries, search for further moderating factors, such as the stage of the NPD process, and analyse the longitudinal impact of openness within NPD projects. Practical implications Organisations are encouraging managers to be more open in their approach to NPD. The authors’ findings suggest that managers need to think about the three dimensions of openness, breadth, depth and partner newness. Their engagement with each of these dimensions depends on the desired outcomes of the innovation project and the strength of patents. Originality/value The research extends the extant supplier involvement in new product development literature to examine the effect of up to 11 types of external actor in NPD projects. The authors test a new multi-dimensional measurement scale for the openness construct. The authors show that each dimension has a different relationship with product innovativeness.

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The Intensity of Knowledge Capital Investment in Kenya: Evidence from Manufacturing and Service Sectors

International Journal of Economics and Finance ◽

10.5539/ijef.v9n10p179 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (10) ◽

pp. 179

Author(s):

Simon Ndicu ◽

Lucy Wacuka

Keyword(s):

Capital Investment ◽

New Product ◽

Knowledge Capital ◽

Firm Level ◽

Product Innovativeness ◽

Service Sectors ◽

Innovation Output ◽

And Performance ◽

Product Output ◽

Combined Data

The study investigates the extent to which firms in Kenya manufacturing and service sectors invest in knowledge capital leading to innovations. 534 firms were included in the analysis. This was the combined data from the first Kenya innovation survey data of 2012, which covered 158 firms, (2008-2011) and the second Kenya innovation survey of 2015 which covered 376 firms (2012-2014). The Crépon, Duguet, and Mairessec (CDM) (1998) model, which considers a system of four equations: innovation propensity, innovation investment, innovation output and performance equations, was used as the estimation technique. The results revealed that, a firm’s decision to spend on R&D was significantly influenced by firm ownership, financial turnover and product innovativeness. A firm’s R&D intensity was significantly determined by its financial turnover and ownership. A firm’s activity and financial turnover were also significant in determining whether it introduced a new product in the market or not. The results of this paper suggest that a firm’s financial turnover was significant in R&D decisions but R&D intensity did not significantly matter to a firm’s product innovativeness. Further, a firm’s level of innovativeness was a significant determinant of its productivity. In addition, the results suggest that, innovations among the Kenyan firms in the manufacturing and service sectors were heavily reliant on financial capital and were struggling to convert knowledge inputs into product output. This study thus recommends a policy that incorporates the academia and firm level innovation with national innovation systems to enhance knowledge and skill intensive innovations that are new to the world.

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Moderating Role of Environmental Settings in Relationship Between Product Innovativeness and Its Performance During the Launch

Economics and Business ◽

10.1515/eb-2017-0017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 44-54

Author(s):

Indrė Brazauskaitė ◽

Viltė Auruškevičienė

Keyword(s):

New Product ◽

Product Performance ◽

Product Innovativeness ◽

Sales Channel ◽

Channel Characteristics ◽

New Product Performance ◽

The Relationship ◽

Moderating Role ◽

Commercial Environment

AbstractThe current research depicts the relationship between new product innovativeness and its performance, which was addressed in previous studies; yet the results remain contradictive with little focus on environmental settings. The paper aims to reveal the role of commercial environment towards new product performance, which allows forecasting the performance on the basis of expected settings and exploring the link between new product innovativeness and its performance in a more detailed way. In the study, moderating environmental settings are defined as a set of marketplace characteristics on market level, company commercial characteristics, and a set of sales channel characteristics on retailer’s category level. Research contributes to the following areas: reveals the role of environment towards performance and allows forecasting new product performance on the basis of expected settings.

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