Beyond listening: the distinct effects of proactive versus responsive customer orientation on the reduction of uncertainties at the fuzzy front end of innovation

Abstract

The extent to which the intensity of R&D employees' interaction with market-oriented employees, proactive customer orientation, and responsive customer orientation affect the ability to reduce product-related uncertainties at the fuzzy front end of innovation was analyzed. They investigated 160 product innovation projects in various high-tech industries and identified proactive customer orientation as an important moderator of the link between R&D employees' interaction with market-oriented employees and the reduction of product-related uncertainties at the fuzzy front end. They also found that responsive customer orientation diminishes the ability to reduce product-related uncertainties at the fuzzy front end. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed.

Bottom‐up solutions in a time of crisis: the case of Covid‐19 in South Korea

“…In a time of crisis, what customers demand becomes transparently observable because of the demand articulation of information intermediaries (or infomediaries), which ‘gather and organize large amounts of information and act as an intermediary between those who want the information and those who supply the information’ (Muzellec et al, 2015, p. 140). Given that one of the most difficult parts of innovation is often referred to as the identification of customer needs (Callahan and Lasry, 2004; Schweitzer et al, 2018), the infomediaries’ demand articulation substantially lowers the barrier to undertaking innovation activities, in the eyes of peripheral actors. Next, intermediaries also provide varying degrees of technical assistance with the innovation activities of peripheral actors, in a manner that helps the bottom‐up solutions to become more customer facing.…”

AI-based audit of fuzzy front end innovation using ISO56002

“…Innovation is an exploratory process (March, 1991) that builds on the internal knowledge of the organisation and its capacity to absorb external learning, which is initiated in FFE (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Therefore, the seeds of the innovation are sown at the FFE, making it foundational to the success of innovations (Schweitzer et al, 2016). This is why weaknesses in FFE result in problems in downstream innovation processes (OP) (Cooper, 2014).…”

Rapid validity testing at the front end of innovation

“…The main body of literature on the front end of innovation (FEI) agrees on the relevance of this early phase for innovation success and fuzziness as its main defining characteristic (Eling & Herstatt, 2017; Kim & Wilemon, 2002a, 2002b; Reid & de Brentani, 2004). The main causes of this fuzziness are traced back to uncertainties about how an idea for a new product, process, or service will be received by its intended users once it is implemented (Schweitzer et al, 2018), the activities that will lead to the implementation of the idea (Eling & Herstatt, 2017), and the exogenous and endogenous elements (resources, contingencies, etc.) that will influence this phase (Zhang et al, 2019).…”

“…This fuzziness is aggravated by the nonlinearity of the processes required to reduce uncertainty at the FEI, which is characterized more often by iterative and simultaneous learning processes (Chappin et al, 2019) rather than a stepwise approach toward the final configuration of the concept to implement (O'Connor & DeMartino, 2006). The early validation of ideas as to their feasibility and potential has been identified as a key determinant of the success or failure of innovation processes (Schweitzer et al, 2018; Williams et al, 2019).…”