Radical innovations: Between established knowledge and future research opportunities

The fast growing body of radical innovation research is fragmented and difficult to overlook. We provide an overview of the most cited journals, authors, and publications and conduct a bibliographic coupling to structure the literature landscape. We identified the following research clusters: management of radical innovations, organizational learning and knowledge, financial aspects of radical innovation, radical innovation adoption and diffusion, radical industry innovations as challenges for incumbents, and radical innovation in specific industries. Based on an in-depth content analysis of these clusters, we identify the following future research opportunities: A systematic compilation of all intra- and extra-organizational management aspects, moderators, and mediators, extending radical innovation research's epistemological basis by adding strategic foresight, further research in individual, group (team), organizational, and inter-organizational capabilities required for radical innovation, a managerial perspective on adoption and diffusion of radical innovations, applying portfolio theory and real options theory to radical innovation research, stronger research efforts on coping strategies for firms faced with competitors' radical innovations, and intensifying both industry-specific and cross-industry research.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURAL VALUES AND TRUST FOR INNOVATION — A EUROPEAN STUDY

Cultural values and social capital are important parts of the context that determines countries’ innovation performance (and, hence, economic development). This paper investigates the culture–innovation relationship in a European context, as well as the mediating role of the national-level trust in this connection. Data are used to test the hypotheses that a country’s innovation performance is influenced by its cultural value emphases and societal trust, and that the culture–innovation relationship is mediated by societal trust. Based on data from the Global Innovation Index and the European Social Survey covering 27 European countries, we find that innovation at the country level is positively correlated with the level of societal trust and with three cultural value dimensions: “Autonomy versus Embeddedness”, “Egalitarianism versus Hierarchy”, and “Harmony versus Mastery”. A multivariate SEM analysis reveals that when “Autonomy versus Embeddedness” is controlled, the two other cultural value dimensions are no longer significant. Further, a SEM path analysis confirms that the relationship between cultural values and innovation performances is completely mediated through the level of trust in a society. Overall, “Autonomy versus Embeddedness” has a stronger total effect than societal trust on a country’s innovation performance, but most of this effect is indirect, mediated through societal trust. Implications of our findings for the corporate level (i.e., entrepreneurs and managers) as well as for the institutional settings (i.e., policy makers) are discussed. It is suggested that for successful innovation to blossom, the actors on both levels should aim at strengthening the cultural emphasis on individual autonomy, institutional integrity and mutual trust.

FLEXIBLE NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES AND APPROPRIABILITY: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND FIRST-MOVER

Prior research argues that higher levels of innovation require less flexible, or more formalised, new product development (NPD) processes; that is, there is a negative relationship between level of innovation and flexible NPD processes. In this paper, we investigate the moderating role of firms’ appropriability strategies, intellectual property (IP) and first-mover, on the use of flexible NPD processes for different levels of innovation (radical, more innovative, and incremental). Using the Product Development and Management Association Foundation’s 2012 Comparative Performance Assessment Study, this research shows that the greater use of IP and first-mover appropriability strategies is associated with an increased use of flexible NPD processes as the level of innovation moves from incremental to radical. Therefore, the results show that the greater use of these appropriability strategies weakens the negative relationship between level of innovation and flexible NPD processes.

From practice to structures

This paper addresses the important topic of how project-level processes of knowledge creation result in firm-level routines for information storage and knowledge dissemination. Using data from 99 Swedish medium-sized technology firms pursuing R&D and product innovation activities, the study finds that project-level knowledge creation is significantly linked to firm-level routines for knowledge storage and dissemination. Building on the established SECI (Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination, and Internalisation) model, the study shows that project-level knowledge creation processes and firm-level knowledge dissemination routines are closely related though conceptually distinct. Moreover, while studies on the SECI model have implicitly assumed that all four knowledge-creation modes are equally important, this study's findings indicate that modes related to tacit knowledge creation (i.e. socialisation) are related to firm-level knowledge routines more closely than are modes related to explicit knowledge creation. These findings offer important contributions to the literature on knowledge creation in firms and helpful guidance for managers seeking to systematise information.