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Somers, C., Stockstrom, C., & Henseler, J. (2021). Emerging interstices in communities of innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 30(2), 233-247. https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12430 Online communities are an important source of distributed intelligence and novelty for any firm. Their evolving independence exhibits purpose and progress of the individuals in them. However, research on community innovation is disparate, with literature enshrouded in macroperspectives of a firm's largest external source of innovation. Utilizing critical interpretive synthesis, we uncover three dominant perspectives in literature on community innovation—namely, outside-in, epistemic and competitive. We then propose a multilevel perspective of communities to explore three levels of innovation context. In closing, we examine a missing mesoperspective in literature and present four dynamic stages of exchange in communities—(i) convergence and design, (ii) interaction, (iii) interchange and (iv) productive synergy. With this final and main contribution, we apply a conceptual multilevel perspective to the same sample of 132 articles, previously used to demonstrate the three dominant macroperspectives. In doing so, we reconceptualize diversified knowledge in community literature and acknowledge the innovation context of independent individuals and groups in the community. We hope that scholars of open innovation use variations of the multilevel perspective for further theory construction as a lens into the context of innovation for individual, group and community innovation outcomes. The interconnectivity brought by these levels also creates challenges and opportunities for practitioners, wishing to engage with or design online communities to influence individual, group and community outcomes and motivations. publishersversion published

A growing body of literature has been focusing on the question how individuals in organizations combine exploitation and exploration so as to help organizations become ambidextrous. We take a knowledge-based perspective to understand employees' explorative and exploitative behaviors and conceptualize knowledge-based precursors to these behaviors along two dimensions: (1) focus on internal and external knowledge (level of existing knowledge vs. absorptive capacity) and (2) knowledge domain (need vs. solution knowledge). This focus addresses two significant gaps in the ambidexterity research (Lavie et al. 2010; Raisch et al. 2009): (1) the tensions of focusing on internal vs. external knowledge and (2) the interactions between different knowledge domains. A growing body of literature has been focusing on the question how individuals in organizations combine exploitation and exploration so as to help organizations become ambidextrous. We take a knowledge-based perspective to understand employees’ explorative and exploitative behaviors and conceptualize knowledge-based precursors to these behaviors along two dimensions: (1) focus on internal and external knowledge (level of existing knowledge vs. absorptive capacity) and (2) knowledge domain (need vs. solution knowledge). This focus addresses two significant gaps in the ambidexterity research (Lavie et al. 2010; Raisch et al. 2009): (1) the tensions of focusing on internal vs. external knowledge and (2) the interactions between different knowledge domains.Drawing on a sample of 864 employees in the home appliances sector, we use regression analyses to test six hypotheses. We argue that existing knowledge will relate positively to exploitative behavior, and that absorptive capacity for new knowledge from outside will relate positively to explorative behavior. Our data supports these conjectures, and shows that these relationships increase non-linearly for all tested relationships, except for the positive relationship between need knowledge and exploitative behavior. We also find support for the hypothesized negative interaction between need and solution knowledge on exploitation and a negative interaction effect of need and solution absorptive capacity on exploration.Our findings make three primary contributions to the research on individual ambidexterity and absorptive capacity. First, we extend the understanding of the cognitive precursors of ambidexterity at the individual level by exploring how individuals’ knowledge and absorptive capacities shape their exploration and exploitation. Second, we show that need knowledge and solution knowledge are substitutes in their effects on exploitative behavior and, analogically, that need knowledge and solution knowledge are substitutes in their absorptive capacity effects on explorative behavior. Third, we contribute to the literature on individual absorptive capacity, introducing individual absorptive capacity for need and solution knowledge as precursors of explorative behavior, which extends the understanding of the micro-level outcomes of this capacity.

Users represent an often untapped source of knowledge which companies can capitalize on during different stages of the innovation process. However, identifying helpful users for innovation projects is far from trivial as these individuals are often hidden within considerably larger populations. We contribute to open and user innovation research by empirically investigating the efficiency of pyramiding and screening, two methods used to identify valuable users. Analyzing a sample of 942 children in 42 school classes, we show that pyramiding, a search process based on personal references from user to user, is significantly more efficient in identifying rare individuals than screening, even though many references are not based on close personal relations. Pyramiding's relative efficiency advantage increases with the size of the population being searched. Finally, we explore how searchers can further increase pyramiding search efficiency by using information to select promising starting points or prematurely abandoning unpromising search chains. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Users are the primary source of new techniques, i.e. systematic activities by which a complex task is accomplished. Even though user-generated techniques are a pervasive phenomenon which can be observed in many different contexts, existing research on user innovation has focused on product and service innovations. We focus on this important area of user innovation by studying four cases in the field of medical devices to analyse the processes by which users generate and diffuse new techniques as well as the interdependencies between user-generated techniques and subsequent changes to product use and product innovation. Our findings suggest that user innovation in techniques triggers product innovation by users and manufacturers. Therefore, users' contributions to total innovation output are much higher than previously considered. Additionally, the diffusion of techniques differs significantly from the diffusion of new products. It can only be achieved with the involvement of diffusion agents and their interpersonal interaction and joint performance of the technique with possible adopters. As the diffusion of a technique is often a prerequisite for the diffusion of any related product, companies are forced to re-think their marketing strategies.

The domain of New Product Development (NPD) is subject to considerable uncertainties. Aside from market-related sources of uncertainty, the degree of innovativeness of the underlying product concept is a significant source of uncertainty, as unclear goals and specifications like, e.g. product specifications may lead to substantial delays in the project. However, companies are required to manage the innovation process as efficiently as possible. The resulting conflicting demands often leave companies struggling to achieve both efficiency as well as flexibility due to their often opposing implications for organizing and managing NPD projects. In this context, planning plays a central role; however, its usefulness for NPD project success is perceived quite differently. While there are reports about a positive influence of initial planning on various success measures, others have questioned the effectiveness of elaborated initial planning and contend that the ability to rapidly react to changes later in the process and to improvise may lead to success in NPD. This study aims at achieving a better understanding of planning in NPD by investigating a sample of 475 Research & Development projects in Japanese electrical and mechanical engineering companies. Regression analysis is used to shed more light on the interplay of planning intensity, changes, and the degree of technological newness of the NPD project and their influence on project success. Our results indicate planning to be of value for different types of innovation projects. Furthermore, the influences of the variables in question vary with the success measures that are taken into account, indicating that a more detailed and contingent understanding of planning in NPD needs to be developed.

In this paper, we report on the results of a large-scale study about typical front-end-related innovation practices in 553 Japanese mechanical and electrical engineering companies. We explore typical activities concerning the generation and assessment of new product ideas, the reduction of technological as well as market uncertainty and front end planning. Finally, we report on the differences between successful and unsuccessful companies. Our study confirms earlier findings about the frequent use of creativity techniques in Japan during the process of idea generation. We also find companies to be intensively involved in upper management and customers on NPD projects. While integrating upper management is of vital importance for assessing new product ideas, integrating customers and users is primarily used to developing product ideas and concepts. We further find evidence that successful companies integrate their customers more frequently in the process of developing and assessing new product ideas than non-successful companies. In addition, the former integrate customer requirements into their product definitions more often and also translate these requirements into technical specifications more frequently than non-successful companies. Finally, successful companies more often systematically plan a project prior to its start than unsuccessful ones.

Im Rahmen dieses Kapitels wird die empirische Untersuchung der Planung von Innovationsprojekten in ihrer Konzeptionierung und Durchfuhrung geschildert. Hierzu wird in Abschnitt 4.1 zunachst auf das Untersuchungsdesign eingegangen und die Operationalisierung der Modellvariablen, das Erhebungsdesign und die realisierte Stichprobenstruktur beschrieben, bevor die eingesetzten Methoden der Datenauswertung naher betrachtet werden. Im nachsten Schritt erfolgt die Aufbereitung der Daten, welche in Abschnitt 4.2 beschrieben wird. Die empirische Uberprufung der in Kapitel 3 hergeleiteten Untersuchungshypothesen erfolgt schlieslich in Abschnitt 4.3.

Das folgende Kapitel dient der Entwicklung des Untersuchungsmodells auf Basis der bereits geschilderten Uberlegungen. Wie in Kapitel 2 aufgezeigt wurde, sollte sich eine Analyse der Projektplanung nicht nur der Formulierung des Plans, sondern auch dessen Implementierung widmen. Auf diese wird in den Abschnitten 3.2 und 3.3 eingegangen. Daruber hinaus wurde deutlich, dass die Projektplanung in ihrem jeweiligen Kontext betrachtet werden muss. Als besonders relevante Einflussfaktoren wurden der Planungsgegenstand, also die Eigenschaften des zu planenden Projektes, und das Planungsumfeld, also die Unternehmensumwelt, identifiziert. Abschnitt 3.4 und die zugehorigen Unterabschnitte beschaftigen sich mit den hieraus abgeleiteten Konstrukten. Um schlieslich zu einer Bewertung der Planungsaktivitaten zu gelangen, bedarf es einer abhangigen Variablen. Wie bereits in Kapitel 2 deutlich wurde, wahlt die grose Mehrheit aller Untersuchungen hierfur den Projekterfolg. Auf diesen wird in Abschnitt 3.5 naher eingegangen.

Recently, increased attention has been paid to the front end of New Product Development (NPD). In this paper, we report on the key factors for success with regard to the front end activities of NPD in 513 Japanese companies. We develop and test a causal model of relationships among key variables relating to front end factors and success. The causal model is tested with AMOS using information from 513 completed NPD projects from Japanese manufacturing firms. The results of this study are summarised as follows: First, the more both market uncertainty and technical uncertainties are reduced during the front end, the higher is the effectiveness of NPD projects. Second, the more intensively new projects are planned prior to the start of development, the more both market and technical uncertainties are reduced. Finally, in industry goods firms, it is easy for managers to develop Initial Planning, which has a greater impact on Reduction of Market Uncertainty compared to consumer goods firms. In contrast, as it is very difficult for managers in consumer goods firms to develop an initial plan, managers involve several function members within their project team, and often bring in external resources to reduce market uncertainty.

In this paper, we report on the results of a large-scale study about typical front-end-related innovation practices in 553 Japanese mechanical and electrical engineering companies. We explore typical activities concerning the generation and assessment of new product ideas, the reduction of technological as well as market uncertainty and front end planning. Finally, we report on the differences between successful and unsuccessful companies. Our study confirms earlier findings about the frequent use of creativity techniques in Japan during the process of idea generation. We also find companies to be intensively involved in upper management and customers on NPD projects. While integrating upper management is of vital importance for assessing new product ideas, integrating customers and users is primarily used to developing product ideas and concepts. We further find evidence that successful companies integrate their customers more frequently in the process of developing and assessing new product ideas than non-successful companies. In addition, the former integrate customer requirements into their product definitions more often and also translate these requirements into technical specifications more frequently than non-successful companies. Finally, successful companies more often systematically plan a project prior to its start than unsuccessful ones.

In this paper we report on the results of an interview research about new product development (NPD) processes and planning in 15 Japanese mechanical and electrical engineering companies. We asked the companies to describe one successful and one less successful project. All in all, we collected data for 29 projects, 15 of which were successful. We explore how these companies structure their NPD processes and conduct their planning activities in order to strike a balance between the needs for efficiency and flexibility, which often carry opposing implications for organizing and managing new product development projects. While the majority of the companies in our sample build their NPD efforts on a similar process model, we find them to employ diverse procedures to achieve their aims. In the companies we interviewed, there is a strong inclination towards planning RD R&D efforts. However, not all aspects are planned in equal depth and later phases of NPD projects, such as the implementation of the product concept into production, which exhibit lower uncertainty, are planned in much more detail. The need for flexibility in planning is highlighted by our finding that the less successful projects failed to anticipate changes - especially within the environment - and therefore were often carried out according to outdated plans and information. Our results suggest that the quality of the initial project plan with regard to the information it is based upon is closely linked to success. Despite the environmental turbulence, there seem to be no pronounced differences between successful and less successful projects concerning changes of the plan throughout the course of the project. Consequently, our interview partners consider the project managers of the unsuccessful projects to be less skilled in marketing and management than their successful counterparts.