Call for paper - Open innovation and customer-based development of new products

Transcription

1 Call for paper - Open innovation and customer-based development of new products Guest Editors: Stefano Bresciani Università degli Studi di Torino Manlio Del Giudice Link Campus Marco Romano Università degli Studi di Catania The journal Mercati e Competitività is launching a call for papers for a Special Issue on the topic <<Open innovation and customer-based development of new products>>. This Special Issue represents an important opportunity to enhance academic interdisciplinary debate on common issues that are creating a growing interest among academic and practitioners. Nowadays, continuous and effective innovation is recognized as a source of competitive advantage to cope with the ever-changing dynamic environment. In such a context, firms increasingly deal with more open and collaborative innovation models and processes recognizing the value of external sources of knowledge (Chesbrough, 2006). Accordingly, open innovation paradigm is based on the idea that new products and services are more and more developed with knowledge and technologies that flow within and across firm s boundaries. Thus, firms should balance internal and external sources for innovation (Bresciani and Ferraris, 2016) developing internal absorptive capacity, namely the capability of recognize, assimilate, and integrate external knowledge, ideas and technologies (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Nicotra et al., 2013). However, in speeding up the innovation process and achieving success through the development of new products and services, firms have to further understand the markets in which they compete implementing a market orientation (Grunert et al., 1996; Filieri, 2013). In fact, introducing

2 new products and services into the markets required market knowledge following the input from several market-based actors (Du et al., 2014). Above all, customers are recognized as the main source of knowledge and market information in order to develop a powerful open innovation strategy (Cova et al., 2011; Santoro et al., 2016). As a result, such a consumer-led approach to product development can greatly increase the likelihood of enhance the key stages of the innovation process (Dahan & Hauser, 2002). First, the knowledge provided by customers may help companies to adequately assess and fulfill customers needs, reducing the risks of products failure (Ogawa and Piller, 2006). In this context, web technologies are enabling communication flows and collaborations between firms and customers that were difficult to gather through traditional marketing research methods (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994; von Hippel, 2005; Mahr, 2011). Second, in the product development phase, crowdsourcing represents a web technology through which obtaining ideas, services or content by soliciting contributions from the crowd, especially online communities (Schenk and Guittard, 2011). Third, an open approach can improve market communication which in turn enhance the product and brand image (Costa and Jongen, 2006). Such an approach is also evident in the social sphere where users are no longer passive consumers of content and applications, but co-creators and innovators with an increasing and relevant role in global smart ecosystems (Ferraris and Santoro, 2014). Summarizing, an effective ability to translate subjective needs into objective product specifications is essential for the satisfaction of consumer needs through the development of products and services. At the same time, marketing strategies communicating the existence of a new or improved product which satisfies consumer needs in a distinctive and superior way must be conceived (Costa and Jongen, 2006). Thus, there is an implicit relationship between consumer needs, product development and market communication that requires further understanding. In fact, although several studies have analyzed the relationship between market-orientation and innovation and financial performance (Grunert et al., 1996; Kok et al., 2001), there is still a scarcity of studies on open innovation from a marketing perspective (Parmentola and Tutore, 2016). In turn, in

3 marketing literature, there is a dearth of studies exploring how companies are involving customers in their innovation process (Hoyer et al., 2010). Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following: User innovation and open innovation Customer-centric innovation Customer co-creation in open innovation Market-based sources of knowledge for creative ideas Crowdsourcing, communities and open innovation Open innovation in the new media and digital age The role of marketing function in absorptive capacity Technology and marketing innovation Open innovation, marketing strategy and performance Co-innovation and cross-pollination Relationship between consumer needs, new product development and market communication Smart city, smart networks and Internet of Things Smart and connected products in open innovation networks Open social innovation Start-up strategies and innovation ecosystems The editors of this special issue would be pleased to receive articles that contribute to the creation of a solid evidence base concerning the relationship between open innovation and marketing. Submitted papers may be either theoretical and conceptual or empirical analyses adopting quantitative or qualitative methods.

4 The papers must be in English, no longer than characters (including spaces) and they will all be anonymously peer-reviews according to the regulation of the journal. Timing and valuation criteria/procedures of the proposals. All those who are interested may kindly submit their proposal electronically to the guest editors and to the journal in cc before the stated deadline. The papers should follow the editing guidelines which can be found at The Guest editors of this Special Issue are Stefano Bresciani, Manlio Del Giudice, and Marco Romano. Submission deadline: 1st November, Stefano Bresciani ( Manlio Del Giudice ( Marco Romano ( References Bresciani, S., & Ferraris, A. (2016). Innovation-receiving subsidiaries and dual embeddedness: impact on business performance. Baltic Journal of Management, 11(1), Chesbrough, H.W. (2006). Open innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Harvard Business Press. Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative science quarterly, 35(1),

5 Costa, A.I., & Jongen, W.M.F. (2006). New insights into consumer-led food product development. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 17(8), Cova, B., Dalli, D., & Zwick, D. (2011). Critical perspectives on consumers role as producers : Broadening the debate on value co-creation in marketing processes. Marketing Theory, 11(3), Dahan, E., & Hauser, J. R. (2002). The virtual customer. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19(5), Du, J., Leten, B., & Vanhaverbeke, W. (2014). Managing open innovation projects with science-based and market-based partners. Research Policy, 43(5), Ferraris, A., & Santoro, G. (2014). Come dovrebbero essere sviluppati i progetti di Social Innovation nelle Smart City? Un analisi Comparativa. Impresa Progetto-Electronic Journal of Management, 4, Filieri, R. (2013). Consumer co-creation and new product development: a case study in the food industry. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 31(1), Grunert, K.G., Baadsgaard, A., Larsen, H.H., & Madsen, T.K. (1996). Market orientation in food and agriculture. Boston, MA: Kluwer. Hoyer, W. D., Chandy, R., Dorotic, M., Krafft, M., & Singh, S. S. (2010). Consumer co-creation in new product development. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), Kok, R.A.W., Hillebrand, B. & Biemans, W.G. (2001). Market-oriented product development as an organizational learning capability: Findings from two cases. Research report no. 02B13. Groningen: SOM, University of Groningen. Mahr, D. (2011). Customer co-creation of knowledge during the innovation process. In European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC 2011), Ljubljana.

6 Nicotra, M., Romano, M., & Del Giudice, M. (2014). The Evolution Dynamic of a Cluster Knowledge Network: the Role of Firms' Absorptive Capacity. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 5(1), Ogawa, S., & Piller, F.T. (2006). Reducing the risks of new product development. MIT Sloan management review, 47(2), Parmentola, A., & Tutore, I. (2016). New trends in the development of Chinese high-tech companies: an open innovation perspective. Mercati e competitività, 1, Prahalad, C.K., & Hamel, G. (1994). Strategy as a field of study: Why search for a new paradigm? Strategic management journal, 15(S2), Santoro, G., Ferraris, A., Giacosa, E., & Giovando, G. (2016). How SMEs Engage in Open Innovation: a Survey. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Schenk, E., & Guittard, C. (2011). Towards a characterization of crowdsourcing practices. Journal of Innovation Economics & Management, 7(1), von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing Innovation. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.