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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Competitor Intelligence and Product Innovation
T2 - The Role of Open-Mindedness and Inter-Functional Coordination
AU - Lin, Fenfang
AU - Evans, Richard
AU - Kharel, Rupak
AU - Williams, Richard
N1 - ©2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.
PY - 2022/4/1
Y1 - 2022/4/1
N2 - Drawing on the central theme of open innovation and the inbound flow of knowledge for improving a firm’s innovation performance, this research investigates the application of external knowledge (i.e., competitor intelligence) in product innovation through the mediators of inter-functional coordination and open-mindedness. We examine the joint moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on results obtained from survey data involving 284 executives from Chinese IT SMEs. Our results reveal that competitor intelligence has a positive and direct effect on product innovation, and that relationships can be further strengthened by inter-functional coordination and open-mindedness. In testing their interaction with dynamic external environments, we found that the level of environmental uncertainty interacts positively with open-mindedness, but negatively with the effect of inter-functional coordination on product innovation. We conclude that by building openly-innovative and knowledge sharing culture, SME managers can improve their product innovation performance by obtaining and processing external knowledge relating to competitors. This study contributes to the open innovation literature, advancing understanding of the inflow of external knowledge for innovative output and, more importantly, sheds light on the research of open innovation practices in SMEs from emerging economies.
AB - Drawing on the central theme of open innovation and the inbound flow of knowledge for improving a firm’s innovation performance, this research investigates the application of external knowledge (i.e., competitor intelligence) in product innovation through the mediators of inter-functional coordination and open-mindedness. We examine the joint moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on results obtained from survey data involving 284 executives from Chinese IT SMEs. Our results reveal that competitor intelligence has a positive and direct effect on product innovation, and that relationships can be further strengthened by inter-functional coordination and open-mindedness. In testing their interaction with dynamic external environments, we found that the level of environmental uncertainty interacts positively with open-mindedness, but negatively with the effect of inter-functional coordination on product innovation. We conclude that by building openly-innovative and knowledge sharing culture, SME managers can improve their product innovation performance by obtaining and processing external knowledge relating to competitors. This study contributes to the open innovation literature, advancing understanding of the inflow of external knowledge for innovative output and, more importantly, sheds light on the research of open innovation practices in SMEs from emerging economies.
KW - Open Innovation
KW - Competitor Intelligence
KW - Inter-Functional Coordination
KW - Open-Mindedness
KW - Environmental Uncertainty
U2 - 10.1109/TEM.2019.2943359
DO - 10.1109/TEM.2019.2943359
M3 - Journal article
VL - 69
SP - 314
EP - 328
JO - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
JF - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
SN - 0018-9391
IS - 2
ER -