Abstract: We develop a model of resource-customer interaction for ideating, developing, and diffusing innovations. Innovation is a critical phenomenon for value creation. While accounts of resources and competences for innovation abound, we lack an understanding of the strategic and organizational actions firms take to increase consumers’ willingness-to-pay. As a consequence, we lack a coherent integration of the producer- and demand- sides of strategy, an integration that would allow us to fully understand how to create value by connecting resources to customers. Our extensive review of the Consumer Behavior, Marketing, and Strategic Management literatures identifies and presents the extant schools of thought, unveils specific prescriptions on the innovation process, and integrates these findings into a set of propositions. We also discuss the implications of a demand-based perspective (see Priem, 2007) for Strategic Management.

Abstract: Successful innovation requires distinct types of search in different domains. However, we know little about how an organizational context can accommodate varying search processes. Based on a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of 15 work units at three major corporations, we find that a work unit’s formal structure and informal culture appear to be associated with exploitation or exploration in the technology-oriented supply-side search domain, while its target system and monitoring system are associated with different search types in the market-oriented demand-side domain. Our findings allow us to contribute to search theory by providing insights on how different search types may be accommodated across search domains. Furthermore, we contribute to nascent organizational ambidexterity research by introducing organizational-level antecedents for cross-functional ambidexterity.

Abstract: Resource value is among the most debated concepts in the resource-based theory. In this paper, we refine and test recent arguments that resource value is a function of a resource’s ex ante standalone value, the presence of complementary resources, and demand-side factors using a dataset of all new patented molecules by the 38 largest pharmaceutical corporations in the US market during 1980-1990. We find a positive direct effect of standalone technological value of a new patented molecule on the likelihood to enter clinical trials. We further find that the level of demand and the firm’s position in the therapeutic class positively moderate the relationship between standalone technological value and the likelihood of entering clinical trials, whereas the scientific and technological strengths negatively moderate this relationship.

Abstract: Due to the growing importance of organizational innovativeness as a source of competitive advantage, the impact of a firm’s strategic orientations on innovativeness has been subject of extensive research. However, empirical findings have revealed inconsistent and fragmented results. Therefore, our understanding of how organizations can successfully foster innovativeness remains limited. Hence, the aim of this study is to quantitatively synthesize empirical findings of the relationships between strategic orientations (market orientation, learning orientation and entrepreneurial orientation) and innovativeness from over 20 years of research through meta-analytic methods supplemented by multivariate analyses. Drawing on our preliminary results from 40 studies, covering 12,437 firms, we find overall significant positive relationships which are influenced by moderating factors, indicating e.g., that strategic orientations enhance different stages of the innovation process.