 While many researchers have fruitfully explored the patterns of adoption of product and process innovations across industries, few have studied these same patterns within individual firms. In this study we address this issue, examining the dynamics that govern the adoption of product and process innovations at the firm level over time. We examine questions such as: Which type of innovation is more readily adopted? Does the adoption of one type of innovation lead or lag the adoption of the other type? And, would the pattern of adoption of innovation types have an effect on organizational performance? Using data on the innovations introduced between 1982 and 1993 by a sample of 101 commercial banks in the United States, we find that: (1) product innovations are adopted at a greater rate and speed than process innovations; (2) a product-process pattern of adoption is more likely than a process-product pattern; (3) the adoption of product innovations is positively associated with the adoption of process innovations; and (4) highperformance banks adopt product and process innovations more evenly than low-performance banks. In 1978 Abernathy and Utterback proposed a three-stage model to explain the rate of product and process innovations during the development of a product class or an industry. According to this model, the type of innovation adopted corresponds to the developmental stage of the industry; for instance, product innovations occur more frequently than process innovations in an industry's early life. Over the years, the Abernathy-Utterback model has helped explain the dynamic of product-process innovations as a factor of industrial competition (Utterback, 1994) and has been instrumental in relating technological innovations to corporate strategy (Butler, 1988). However, past empirical studies have not examined the dynamic of adopting product and process innovations at the firm level despite the Address for reprints:

No abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how different technology sourcing strategies throughout the new product development process influenced innovation speed, development costs, and competitive advantage. We studied 75 new product development projects from ten large, U.S.-based companies in several industries. Results indicated that: (1) more external sourcing during the early (i.e., idea generation) stage was related with lower competitive success; (2) more external sourcing during the later (i.e., technological development) stage was related with slower innovation speed; and (3) development costs tended to rise with greater reliance on external sources of technology, but this result was not statistically significant.

No abstract

No abstract