ABSTRACT Portfolio innovativeness is a central variable in innovation management. However, the im... more ABSTRACT Portfolio innovativeness is a central variable in innovation management. However, the impact of portfolio innovativeness on new product development (NPD) performance is unclear, which may partly be due to the construct’s multifaceted nature. Different facets may reflect different degrees of innovativeness and may have different relationships with performance. In addition, firm members with different functional backgrounds may perceive and thus assess these facets differently, which again may influence the performance effect of portfolio innovativeness. Based on a sample of 746 CEOs and marketing as well as technology professionals from 117 firms and using Item Response Theory (IRT), a multifaceted scale of portfolio innovativeness, whose facets are able to cover the entire innovativeness spectrum, is developed. In addition, it is shown that the performance impact of portfolio innovativeness is dependent on the facets included in the scale, and on the specialization of the professional assessing the facets. Inverted U-shaped performance effects are found when the scale covers the entire spectrum of innovativeness, and linear positive or zero effects with different types of more narrowly modeled scales. Inverted U-shaped performance effects are also found when technology professionals assess the facets, while the assessments by marketing professionals lead to linear positive effects.
Goal-setting theory: Unexplored areas and future research needs
Journal of Occupational Psychology, 1985
APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser c... more APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
Dynamic boundaries of user communities: exploiting synergies rather than managing dilemmas
A large body of literature indicates that innovation not only stems from a firm’s internal invest... more A large body of literature indicates that innovation not only stems from a firm’s internal investments but also relies on input from external sources. This is also reflected in an increasing interest in user innovation. In particular, users, who increasingly gather in communities, can offer valuable contributions. To create and capture value, firms must engage in some kind of collaboration with these user communities. However, at the interfaces between communities and firms, tensions arise because of undefined boundaries and a lack of clear roles. Current research within the user innovation literature characterises such tensions as dilemmas between competing demands that firms must balance to encourage and benefit from user contributions. This paper brings in a systems theory perspective to show that what is currently described as trade-offs that must be managed are in fact synergies that are mutually enabling and must be embraced to foster innovation. We develop a new boundary construct that explains how firms can attend to competing logics of power, identity, and competence simultaneously, thereby leveraging the innovation potential.
With the rapid rise of Chinese economy, now ranking as the second largest economy in the world in... more With the rapid rise of Chinese economy, now ranking as the second largest economy in the world in 2010, many Chinese firms have started taking technological lead in the global market. Nevertheless, whether Chinese firms have learned from their prior inlicensing technologies and accumulated technological capabilities in sustaining their economic growth remains underexplored. This paper aims to fill this void. Using a unique dataset containing the information on licensing for 83 large Chinese firms in the electronic sector during 2000-2004, we find that these firms have successfully learned from the international technologies that they previously licensed-in when subsequent patent citations made by these Chinese licensee firms to their licensed patents are used to identify these successful learners. Scientometrics (2013) 95:183-195 185
Top Management Team Diversity and Strategic Innovation Orientation: The Relationship and Consequences for Innovativeness and Performance
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 2011
ABSTRACT A firm's strategic innovation orientation, which is aimed at discovering and sat... more ABSTRACT A firm's strategic innovation orientation, which is aimed at discovering and satisfying emerging customer needs with novel technological solutions, has repeatedly been shown to be crucial for firm innovativeness and firm performance. Despite its apparent importance, relatively little research has addressed antecedents of a firm's strategic orientation that help explain heterogeneity in innovation strategies across firms. Especially the influence of top management teams (TMT) should be critical, since innovation strategies are shaped at the top management level. Building on the theory of upper echelon, this study investigates how TMT characteristics affect a firm's strategic innovation orientation, and how this relates to innovation outcomes and firm performance. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of goods manufacturers using a combination of survey data, document analysis, and objective capital market data for firm performance. Results indicate that TMT diversity, measured as heterogeneity in educational, functional, industry, and organizational background, has a strong positive effect on a firm's innovation orientation. A strong proactive focus on emerging customer needs and on novel technologies then lead to a portfolio of new products with higher market newness and technology newness, which both increase firm performance. The results therefore emphasize the importance of TMT characteristics as antecedent for innovation strategy and innovation outcomes.
Implementing formal planning instruments such as the stage-and-gate-type system (SGS) and project... more Implementing formal planning instruments such as the stage-and-gate-type system (SGS) and project management (PM) have long been seen as the key to new product development (NPD) success. They create the structure needed for managing NPD activities, supporting coordination among functional groups, reducing uncertainty and error, and assuring time and cost efficiency. But recent research presents ambiguous results, suggesting that SGS and PM as formal controls can also have a negative effect. Integrating ideas from three literatures-i.e., NPD management, organization control theory, and technical control theory-the present study assesses NPD programs in terms of three perspectives: (1) the formal control mechanisms used for managing NPD programs-specifically SGS, which is mainly seen as a higher organizational level approach used for guiding and implementing a portfolio of NPD projects, and PM, which is a precise formal control mechanism relevant for managing specific problems at a single project level;
This study addresses the contradiction that, although technological innovativeness of new product... more This study addresses the contradiction that, although technological innovativeness of new products is often seen as a major driver of competitive advantage and commercial success, empirical research is not always able to show a significant performance influence. In order to find an explanation, the effects of technological innovativeness are decomposed as its influence on the market, the innovating firm, and the firm's environment is considered. The proposed model is tested on a sample of new product development projects. In order to avoid systematic biases, this paper uses a longitudinal survey design with two informants and a sample that includes both incremental and highly innovative projects.
ABSTRACT Portfolio innovativeness is a central variable in innovation management. However, the im... more ABSTRACT Portfolio innovativeness is a central variable in innovation management. However, the impact of portfolio innovativeness on new product development (NPD) performance is unclear, which may partly be due to the construct’s multifaceted nature. Different facets may reflect different degrees of innovativeness and may have different relationships with performance. In addition, firm members with different functional backgrounds may perceive and thus assess these facets differently, which again may influence the performance effect of portfolio innovativeness. Based on a sample of 746 CEOs and marketing as well as technology professionals from 117 firms and using Item Response Theory (IRT), a multifaceted scale of portfolio innovativeness, whose facets are able to cover the entire innovativeness spectrum, is developed. In addition, it is shown that the performance impact of portfolio innovativeness is dependent on the facets included in the scale, and on the specialization of the professional assessing the facets. Inverted U-shaped performance effects are found when the scale covers the entire spectrum of innovativeness, and linear positive or zero effects with different types of more narrowly modeled scales. Inverted U-shaped performance effects are also found when technology professionals assess the facets, while the assessments by marketing professionals lead to linear positive effects.
Goal-setting theory: Unexplored areas and future research needs
Journal of Occupational Psychology, 1985
APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser c... more APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
Dynamic boundaries of user communities: exploiting synergies rather than managing dilemmas
A large body of literature indicates that innovation not only stems from a firm’s internal invest... more A large body of literature indicates that innovation not only stems from a firm’s internal investments but also relies on input from external sources. This is also reflected in an increasing interest in user innovation. In particular, users, who increasingly gather in communities, can offer valuable contributions. To create and capture value, firms must engage in some kind of collaboration with these user communities. However, at the interfaces between communities and firms, tensions arise because of undefined boundaries and a lack of clear roles. Current research within the user innovation literature characterises such tensions as dilemmas between competing demands that firms must balance to encourage and benefit from user contributions. This paper brings in a systems theory perspective to show that what is currently described as trade-offs that must be managed are in fact synergies that are mutually enabling and must be embraced to foster innovation. We develop a new boundary construct that explains how firms can attend to competing logics of power, identity, and competence simultaneously, thereby leveraging the innovation potential.
With the rapid rise of Chinese economy, now ranking as the second largest economy in the world in... more With the rapid rise of Chinese economy, now ranking as the second largest economy in the world in 2010, many Chinese firms have started taking technological lead in the global market. Nevertheless, whether Chinese firms have learned from their prior inlicensing technologies and accumulated technological capabilities in sustaining their economic growth remains underexplored. This paper aims to fill this void. Using a unique dataset containing the information on licensing for 83 large Chinese firms in the electronic sector during 2000-2004, we find that these firms have successfully learned from the international technologies that they previously licensed-in when subsequent patent citations made by these Chinese licensee firms to their licensed patents are used to identify these successful learners. Scientometrics (2013) 95:183-195 185
Top Management Team Diversity and Strategic Innovation Orientation: The Relationship and Consequences for Innovativeness and Performance
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 2011
ABSTRACT A firm's strategic innovation orientation, which is aimed at discovering and sat... more ABSTRACT A firm's strategic innovation orientation, which is aimed at discovering and satisfying emerging customer needs with novel technological solutions, has repeatedly been shown to be crucial for firm innovativeness and firm performance. Despite its apparent importance, relatively little research has addressed antecedents of a firm's strategic orientation that help explain heterogeneity in innovation strategies across firms. Especially the influence of top management teams (TMT) should be critical, since innovation strategies are shaped at the top management level. Building on the theory of upper echelon, this study investigates how TMT characteristics affect a firm's strategic innovation orientation, and how this relates to innovation outcomes and firm performance. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of goods manufacturers using a combination of survey data, document analysis, and objective capital market data for firm performance. Results indicate that TMT diversity, measured as heterogeneity in educational, functional, industry, and organizational background, has a strong positive effect on a firm's innovation orientation. A strong proactive focus on emerging customer needs and on novel technologies then lead to a portfolio of new products with higher market newness and technology newness, which both increase firm performance. The results therefore emphasize the importance of TMT characteristics as antecedent for innovation strategy and innovation outcomes.
Implementing formal planning instruments such as the stage-and-gate-type system (SGS) and project... more Implementing formal planning instruments such as the stage-and-gate-type system (SGS) and project management (PM) have long been seen as the key to new product development (NPD) success. They create the structure needed for managing NPD activities, supporting coordination among functional groups, reducing uncertainty and error, and assuring time and cost efficiency. But recent research presents ambiguous results, suggesting that SGS and PM as formal controls can also have a negative effect. Integrating ideas from three literatures-i.e., NPD management, organization control theory, and technical control theory-the present study assesses NPD programs in terms of three perspectives: (1) the formal control mechanisms used for managing NPD programs-specifically SGS, which is mainly seen as a higher organizational level approach used for guiding and implementing a portfolio of NPD projects, and PM, which is a precise formal control mechanism relevant for managing specific problems at a single project level;
This study addresses the contradiction that, although technological innovativeness of new product... more This study addresses the contradiction that, although technological innovativeness of new products is often seen as a major driver of competitive advantage and commercial success, empirical research is not always able to show a significant performance influence. In order to find an explanation, the effects of technological innovativeness are decomposed as its influence on the market, the innovating firm, and the firm's environment is considered. The proposed model is tested on a sample of new product development projects. In order to avoid systematic biases, this paper uses a longitudinal survey design with two informants and a sample that includes both incremental and highly innovative projects.
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Papers by Søren Salomo