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Research on the lead user method has been conducted for more than thirty years and has shown that the method is more likely to generate breakthrough innovation than traditional market research tools. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper shows a detailed view on the broad variety of research on lead user characteristics, lead user processes, lead user identification and application, and success factors. The main challenge of the lead user method as identified in literature is the resource issue regarding time, manpower, and costs. Also, internal acceptance and the processing of the method have been spotted in literature, as well as the intellectual property protection issue. From the starting point of the initial lead user method process introduced by Lüthje and Herstatt (2004), results are integrated into a revisited view on the lead user method process. In addition, concrete suggestions for corporate realization options are given. The article closes with limitations and future research suggestions.

Entrepreneurs often struggle to find sufficient funding for their start-ups. A relatively new way for companies to attract capital is via an internet platform, locating investors who in return receive something in return for their ventures. Equity crowdfunding is one of several types of crowdfunding, and is also known as crowdinvesting in the German-speaking realm. This article predominantly advances the scientific knowledge regarding the success factors of equity crowdfunding for German start-ups. The study conducted nine qualitative interviews with start-ups and crowdinvesting platforms. Its first result is that German start-ups select crowdinvesting because (1) it is a funding opportunity and (2) it has an expected marketing effect. To organize the results of relevant success factors, the Crowdinvesting Success Model was designed by the researchers. This supports German entrepreneurs by presenting 20 important success elements that help to increase the capital collected during a campaign. The key finding is that an attractive business model, an appropriate preparation in the pre-campaign period, ongoing activities during the campaign, and corresponding advertising activities have a positive impact on a German start-up’s crowdinvesting campaign’s chances of success. The article closes with implications for theory and practice, as well as further research suggestions.

A rich body of literature has emerged from research on Western new product development (NPD). However, the impact of country- and culture-specific influences on these processes has not been examined in detail yet. Hence, this study identifies the differences in NPD practices between the Indian and German research and development (R&D) subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs). Data have been generated by interviews with R&D executives in both countries across multiple cases. The study samples strategic, organisational, and operational aspects and indicates differences in process coordination, reward systems, NPD creativity techniques, market orientation, and the average age of NPD teams. Other aspects, such as top management support, the use of structured NPD processes, and the use of heterogeneous NPD teams, show no substantial differences between the countries. Our findings suggest that, while some aspects are universally applicable across cultural frontiers, Western companies must understand Indias different expectations regarding NPD and adjust their practices accordingly.

Corporate innovation management geared to long-term success calls for a strategy to grow innovations into a substantial competitive advantage. This, however, coincides with an enormous failure-rate at the market, especially in the field of breakthrough innovations. Hence, in recent times, companies are trying to alleviate the risk of lacking user-acceptance through opening their innovation processes to external actors, particularly customers. The method of integrating lead users is determined by the effective and systematic identification of leading-edge customers, which is considered to be a critical phase within this approach. With the arrival of Web 2.0 applications, there is a huge potential to improve these selection processes. Our research into online communities and weblogs scrutinised the search criteria in an online environment and revealed the following characteristics as crucial factors for the online identification of lead users: being ahead of a market trend, high expected benefits, user expertise and motivation, extreme user needs as well as opinion leadership and an online commitment.

Managing Innovation is a three-part series covering contemporary technology and innovation management research areas. Each volume comprises key articles from both the International Journal of Innovation Management and the International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, published by World Scientific, and provides an international, disciplinary approach across its broad coverage of topics. Relevant for both academics and practitioners, this volume looks at the international aspects of innovation with case studies from China, Germany, India and Russia.

What a change in the last three years in the realm of innovation Management! Three years ago, we concluded our book about “Evolution of Innovation Management” (Brem and Viardot 2013) by underlining some essential trends in the management of innovation. Most specifically, we stressed the importance of ambidexterity, which we defined as the ability of companies to realize exploration and exploitation simultaneously in their innovation management process. Some contributions in the book also emphasized the necessity to adopt a more collaborative process with external stakeholders and to move to more “open innovation” (Brau et al. 2013). Other authors underscored the burgeoning importance of platforms (Gawer 2014) and the nurturing of an innovation ecosystem (Thomas and Wind 2013) that federates and coordinates constitutive agents who can innovate and compete. The book had also singled out some key capabilities that innovative companies had to develop in order to be more successful, including the role of communication, culture, leadership, structure, and key performance indicators.

In a world of increasing global knowledge flows with better potential access to domestic as well as international external R&D providers and collaboration partners, innovation management is increasingly challenged to access and relate to the right sources, for the right knowledge at the right time, to ensure long-term innovative performance. Identifying providers and collaborating with appropriate partners that possess heterogeneous and tacit knowledge are truly challenging tasks for even the most experienced innovation managers.

In recent years, innovation management has shown to be a very important topic for academics and professionals. However, the emphasis has mostly been on the upstream activities of the innovation management process and specifically about how to obtain as well as to integrate new sources of innovation beyond the traditional and internal R&D function. Conversely, the downstream activities of the innovation process, specifically marketing and commercialization, have attracted little research. But the situation is changing now due to governments and companies that have realized that in order for an innovation to be successful, it is not enough to have good new ideas: it must foremost be adopted by the market. As a consequence, there is currently a shift in priorities and a renewed interest in the marketing of innovation and especially in the adoption of original products or services, because one important function of marketing is to contribute to the adoption of innovative solutions by potential customers. This book aims to contribute to this advancement and to provide fresh conceptual insights and thinking about the manners to stimulate and to facilitate the adoption of every kind of innovation. This will be managed by a very diverse contributions exploring the role and the balancing of internal and external stakeholders in the marketing of innovation.

The focus of this research study is on newly established technology oriented firms that are both lean and global from their inception. The combination of lean and global characteristics will allow integrating two different research streams which, unfortunately, are currently separate. The first stream is well established focuses on International New Ventures (INVs) or Born Global (BG) firms (Oviatt & McDougall, 1994; Knight and Cavusgil, 1996); the second one is in the process of emerging and deals with lean start-ups (Ries, 2011; Blank, 2013). It is our intention to show that the problems these two groups of firms face during the early stages of their existence are to a large extent identical and could, from a theoretical point of view, be analyzed in a unified way. Integrating the two research perspectives above gives rise to a number of interesting research questions that could be summarized as follows: a) How do new technology start-ups narrow down the scope of their business activities by effectuating the global dimensions of their businesses? What are the reasons for such firms to look for global resources, partnerships or markets right from inception?b) What makes it possible for a firm to be innovative right from or near its founding? How does the degree of innovativeness of its products or services affect the business model formulation and early internationalization processes?c) How are relations and networks used by new technology firms to synergize radical innovation and early internationalization activities? How do they use international partnerships or networks to reduce the complexity and the uncertainties associated with a global market entry?