The contextual nature of innovation – An empirical investigation of three software intensive products

Abstract

Context: New products create significant opportunities for differentiation and competitive advantage. To increase the chances of new product success, a universal set of critical activities and determinants have been recommended. Some researchers believe, however, that these factors are not universal, but are contextual.Objective: This paper reports innovation processes followed to develop three software intensive products for understanding how and why innovation practice is dependent on innovation context. Method:This paper reports innovation processes and practices with an in-depth multi-case study of three software product innovations from Ericsson, IBM, and Rorotika. It describes the actual innovation processes followed in the three cases and discusses the observed innovation practice and relates it to state-of-the-art. Results:The cases point to a set of contextual factors that influence the choice of innovation activities and determinants for developing successful product innovations. The cases provide evidence that innovation practice cannot be standardized, but is contextual in nature. Conclusion:The rich description of the interaction between context and innovation practice enables future investigations into contextual elements that influence innovation practice, and calls for the creation of frameworks enabling activity and determinant selection for a given context -since one size does not fit all.

Requirements Engineering: Best Practice

“…Such context dependency was shown in other related domains as well (Khurum, Fricker et al 2014). For software built for digital health, the context dependency may imply shifts in the frequency of practice use.…”

The Effects of R&D and Innovation Capabilities on the Thai Automotive Industry Part’s Competitive Advantage: A SEM Approach

“…Krishnaswamy [44] indicated that the ability to work with customers on R&D projects was crucial for product innovation success and growth with leads to competitive advantage [45].…”

“…2) Process Innovation is focused on the implementation of new or greatly enhanced production or delivery methods [26,28,29,[44][45][46].…”

Requirements Engineering as Innovation Journalism: A Research Preview

“…The closer the assets are to a future innovation, the cheaper and easier it becomes to develop that innovation. When describing cases of innovations from Ericsson, IBM, and Rorotika, Khurum reported that software components, business relationships, and business practices affected the way really new innovations were developed [13].…”

“…The objective of the approach is to bring visibility to who the parties are that may enable the innovations and what the background is they may bring into an innovation project. Partners may bring technological background that is important for rapidly developing the product or bring market business legacy that is essential for understanding the value creation for customers and how to reach the customers [13]. We conjecture that knowledge about the partners' past innovations is essential because it determines what the potential benefits, costs, and risks are that each candidate partner brings into the project and whether the idea is feasible.…”