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Product Innovation and the Complementarities of External Interfaces
Author(s) -
EBERSBERGER BERND,
HERSTAD SVERRE JOHAN
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
european management review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.784
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1740-4762
pISSN - 1740-4754
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-4762.2011.01014.x
Subject(s) - ambiguity , diversity (politics) , industrial organization , product (mathematics) , open innovation , product innovation , business , new product development , affect (linguistics) , ideal (ethics) , knowledge management , microeconomics , marketing , economics , computer science , mathematics , psychology , sociology , political science , geometry , communication , anthropology , law , programming language
This paper investigates the relationship between new product introduction, and three constructs (search, collaboration and external R&D) developed to capture the different means by which firms link internal R&D to external inputs. By including interaction effects and applying detailed marginal effects analysis, it sheds new light on a research question, which has generated much empirical ambiguity. Search diversity and collaboration diversity measure the extent to which different types of information sources and collaboration partners are used. Both affect innovation performance positively, and are complementary to each other. External R&D measures the relative importance of contract R&D, and is found to have a conditional negative impact which is reduced by search and reinforced when combined with collaboration. When including interaction effects involving the overall R&D intensity of firms, our findings suggest the existence of two competing ideal types of open innovation strategy and organization.