IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/techno/v113y2022ics0166497221001978.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploratory and exploitative capability paths for innovation: A contingency framework for harnessing fuzziness in the front end

Author

Listed:
  • Gama, Fábio
  • Sjödin, David
  • Parida, Vinit
  • Frishammar, Johan
  • Wincent, Joakim

Abstract

Based on the results of a multiple case study of seven manufacturing firms, a contingency framework for harnessing fuzziness in the front end of innovation is proposed by delineating two discrete capability paths through which new product ideas are developed into corroborated product definitions. The study illustrates that ideas characterized by high levels of fuzziness benefit from following an exploratory path, where the creative potential of fuzziness is embraced by deploying problem-formulation and problem-solving capabilities. In contrast, ideas at low levels of fuzziness benefit from following an exploitative path, where fuzziness is tolerated by drawing upon idea-refinement and process-management capabilities. When the fuzziness level of the idea and the set of capabilities to develop the idea are poorly aligned, the idea-development process is either inefficient or runs the risk of stalling. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for the front end of innovation and new product idea development.

Suggested Citation

  • Gama, Fábio & Sjödin, David & Parida, Vinit & Frishammar, Johan & Wincent, Joakim, 2022. "Exploratory and exploitative capability paths for innovation: A contingency framework for harnessing fuzziness in the front end," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:techno:v:113:y:2022:i:c:s0166497221001978
    DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2021.102416
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497221001978
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.technovation.2021.102416?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cacciotti, Gabriella & Hayton, James C. & Mitchell, J. Robert & Giazitzoglu, Andres, 2016. "A reconceptualization of fear of failure in entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 302-325.
    2. Teppo Felin & Nicolai J. Foss & Koen H. Heimeriks & Tammy L. Madsen, 2012. "Microfoundations of Routines and Capabilities: Individuals, Processes, and Structure," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(8), pages 1351-1374, December.
    3. Richard L. Daft & Robert H. Lengel, 1986. "Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 554-571, May.
    4. Chamakiotis, Petros & Boukis, Achilleas & Panteli, Niki & Papadopoulos, Thanos, 2020. "The role of temporal coordination for the fuzzy front-end of innovation in virtual teams," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 182-190.
    5. Sjödin, David & Parida, Vinit & Palmié, Maximilian & Wincent, Joakim, 2021. "How AI capabilities enable business model innovation: Scaling AI through co-evolutionary processes and feedback loops," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 574-587.
    6. Herstatt, Cornelius & Verworn, Birgit & Stockstrom, Christoph & Nagahira, Akio & Takahashi, Osamu, 2004. ""Fuzzy front end" practices in innovating Japanese companies," Working Papers 25, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute for Technology and Innovation Management.
    7. Rebecca Henderson & Iain Cockburn, 1994. "Measuring Competence? Exploring Firm Effects in Pharmaceutical Research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(S1), pages 63-84, December.
    8. Johan Frishammar & Patrik Söderholm & Hans Hellsmark & Johanna Mossberg, 2019. "A knowledge-based perspective on system weaknesses in technological innovation systems," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 55-70.
    9. Henrik Florén & Johan Frishammar & Vinit Parida & Joakim Wincent, 2018. "Critical success factors in early new product development: a review and a conceptual model," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 411-427, June.
    10. Karan Girotra & Christian Terwiesch & Karl T. Ulrich, 2010. "Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 591-605, April.
    11. Simms, Christopher & Frishammar, Johan & Ford, Nicholas, 2021. "The front end in radical process innovation projects: Sources of knowledge problems and coping mechanisms," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    12. Rizova, Polly S. & Gupta, Samir & Maltz, Elliot N. & Walker, Robert W., 2018. "Overcoming equivocality on projects in the fuzzy front end: Bringing social networks back in," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 40-55.
    13. Kohtamäki, Marko & Heimonen, Jesse & Sjödin, David & Heikkilä, Vili, 2020. "Strategic agility in innovation: Unpacking the interaction between entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity by using practice theory," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 12-25.
    14. O'Brien, Kieran, 2020. "Innovation types and the search for new ideas at the fuzzy front end: Where to look and how often?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 13-24.
    15. Thomas Mellewigt & Glenn Hoetker & Martina Lütkewitte, 2018. "Avoiding High Opportunism Is Easy, Achieving Low Opportunism Is Not: A QCA Study on Curbing Opportunism in Buyer–Supplier Relationships," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1208-1208, December.
    16. Pauwels, Charlotte & Clarysse, Bart & Wright, Mike & Van Hove, Jonas, 2016. "Understanding a new generation incubation model: The accelerator," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 50, pages 13-24.
    17. Dziallas, Marisa, 2020. "How to evaluate innovative ideas and concepts at the front-end?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 502-518.
    18. Spieth, Patrick & Joachim, Verena, 2017. "Reducing front end uncertainties: How organisational characteristics influence the intensity of front end analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 108-119.
    19. Cornelius Herstatt & Birgit Verworn, 2004. "The ‘Fuzzy Front End’ of Innovation," Palgrave Macmillan Books,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zámborský, Peter & Ingršt, Igor & Bhandari, Krishna Raj, 2023. "Knowledge creation capability under different innovation-investment motives abroad: The knowledge-based view of international innovation management," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Wenna Wang & Zhen Yang & Jin Chen & Jun He, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and enterprise ambidextrous innovation: Exploration or exploitation?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1234-1258, August.
    3. Cai, Ying & Lin, Jun & Zhang, Ruxin, 2023. "When and how to implement design thinking in the innovation process: A longitudinal case study," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    4. Cubric, Marija & Li, Feng, 2024. "Bridging the ‘Concept–Product’ gap in new product development: Emerging insights from the application of artificial intelligence in FinTech SMEs," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hazhir Rahmandad & Nelson Repenning, 2016. "Capability erosion dynamics," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 649-672, April.
    2. Justin J. P. Jansen & Michiel P. Tempelaar & Frans A. J. van den Bosch & Henk W. Volberda, 2009. "Structural Differentiation and Ambidexterity: The Mediating Role of Integration Mechanisms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 797-811, August.
    3. Sunkee Lee, 2019. "Learning-by-Moving: Can Reconfiguring Spatial Proximity Between Organizational Members Promote Individual-level Exploration?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 467-488, May.
    4. Criscuolo, Paola, 2005. "On the road again: Researcher mobility inside the R&D network," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1350-1365, November.
    5. Johann Piet Hausberg & Peter S. H. Leeflang, 2019. "Absorbing Integration: Empirical Evidence On The Mediating Role Of Absorptive Capacity Between Functional-/Cross-Functional Integration And Innovation Performance," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(06), pages 1-37, August.
    6. Dushnitsky, Gary & Lenox, Michael J., 2006. "When does corporate venture capital investment create firm value?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 753-772, November.
    7. Esther Tippmann & Pamela Sharkey Scott & Vincent Mangematin, 2014. "Stimulating Knowledge Search Routines and Architecture Competences: The Role of Organizational Context and Middle Management," Post-Print hal-00864332, HAL.
    8. Esther Tippmann & Pamela Sharkey Scott & Vincent Mangematin, 2014. "Stimulating Knowledge Search Routines and Architecture Competences: The Role of Organizational Context and Middle Management," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-00864332, HAL.
    9. Young In Koh & Sung H. Han & Junseong Park, 2022. "A systematic process for generating new blockchain-service business model ideas," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 16(1), pages 187-209, March.
    10. Tom J. M. Mom & Frans A. J. van den Bosch & Henk W. Volberda, 2009. "Understanding Variation in Managers' Ambidexterity: Investigating Direct and Interaction Effects of Formal Structural and Personal Coordination Mechanisms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 812-828, August.
    11. Brian T. McCann & Timothy B. Folta, 2009. "Demand‐ and Supply‐Side Agglomerations: Distinguishing between Fundamentally Different Manifestations of Geographic Concentration," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 362-392, May.
    12. Dushnitsky, Gary & Lenox, Michael J., 2005. "When do incumbents learn from entrepreneurial ventures?: Corporate venture capital and investing firm innovation rates," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 615-639, June.
    13. Olga Lucía Anzola Morales & Diego Armando Marín Idárraga & Juan Carlos Cuartas Marín, 2017. "Fundamentación teórica de la cultura, la estructura y la estrategia de la organización. Referentes para el análisis y diseño organizacional," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Administración de Empresas, edition 1, number 45, August.
    14. Cillo, Paola & Priem, Richard L. & Verona, Gianmario & Zanella, Paola, 2021. "Consumer-CEO interaction as catalyst for business model innovation in established firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 241-253.
    15. Dongil D. Keum & Kelly E. See, 2017. "The Influence of Hierarchy on Idea Generation and Selection in the Innovation Process," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 653-669, August.
    16. Attah-Boakye, Rexford & Adams, Kweku & Hernandez-Perdomo, Elvis & Yu, Honglan & Johansson, Jeaneth, 2023. "Resource re-orchestration and firm survival in crisis periods: The role of business models of technology MNEs during COVID-19," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    17. Xu, Xiao-Yu & Jia, Qing-Dan & Tayyab, Syed Muhammad Usman, 2024. "Exploring the stimulating role of augmented reality features in E-commerce: A three-staged hybrid approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    18. Wang Kai, 2019. "Towards a Taxonomy of Idea Generation Techniques," Foundations of Management, Sciendo, vol. 11(1), pages 65-80, January.
    19. Windsperger, Josef, 2001. "The fee structure in franchising: a property rights view," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 219-226, November.
    20. Cumming, Douglas & Deloof, Marc & Manigart, Sophie & Wright, Mike, 2019. "New directions in entrepreneurial finance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 252-260.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:techno:v:113:y:2022:i:c:s0166497221001978. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01664972 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.