There appears to be an ambivalent dimension in innovation strategies: timing. When is an innovation ready for the market or when is the market ready for the innovation? This paper empirically investigates the determinants of a firm?s decision to become a first mover or a follower in innovation...

Globalization has set new paradigms, especially in the business world. Breakthroughs in technology (telecommunications, logistics, the internet) and ideology (most notably economic and political trends in China and India) are creating exciting opportunities as well as crucial challenges. This...

The innovation activities of foreign subsidiaries have been identified as an important source of competitive advantage for multinational corporations. The success of these engagements depends heavily on tapping host country pools of localized expertise. To achieve this foreign subsidiaries have...

This study focuses on the early stages of international innovation activities, i.e. the organizational processes through which promising ideas from around the globe are collected and evaluated. We ask: What characteristics make foreign knowledge interesting to domestic R&D managers? We envision...

Searching for externally available knowledge has been characterised as a vital part of the innovation process. Previous research has, however, almost exclusively focused on hightechnology environments, largely ignoring the substantial low- and medium-technology sectors of modern economies. We...

Valuable knowledge emerges increasingly outside of firm boundaries, in particular in public research institutions and universities. The question is how firms organize their interactions with universities effectively to acquire knowledge and apply it successfully. Literature has so far largely...

Innovation success depends heavily on firm's ability to set priorities and select the most promising options from its project portfolio before the odds of success or failure become visible and reliable. We ask: What does previous innovation experience tell firms about what not to do in the...

This paper investigates the impact of in-house R&D and innovation management practices on innovation success in small and medium-sized firms (SMEs). While there is little doubt about the significance of technology competence for generating successful innovations, inhouse R&D activities may be a...

Valuable knowledge emerges increasingly outside of firm boundaries, in particular in public research institutions and universities. The question is how firms organize their interactions with universities effectively to acquire knowledge and apply it successfully. Literature has so far largely...

Searching for external knowledge has frequently been characterized as crucial for firm success. However, little is known about how the direction of search strategies influences innovation performance. In this paper, we argue that firms need to specialize their search strategy and that its...