Championship Behaviors and Innovations Success: An Empirical Investigation of University Spin‐Offs*

Despite the flurry of scholarly research on champions, no prior article has explicitly addressed how different dimensions of championship behavior actually contribute to innovation success. In this article, based on an extensive literature review, the authors argue that champions display four behaviors, namely (1) pursuing innovative ideas, (2) network building, (3) persisting under adversity, and (4) taking responsibility for the idea. The authors use data from 123 university spin‐offs to test proposed linear and curvilinear relationships between the four behaviors and an objective measure of innovation success, namely a longitudinal measure of sales growth. The results indicate that network building has the desired positive relationship with sales performance. Surprisingly, pursuing the innovative idea is not related to sales growth. Furthermore, the present study also reveals some dysfunctional effects of champion behaviors. Persisting under adversity and taking responsibility have the hypothesized inverted‐U relationship with sales growth. The present study provides a more refined discussion of the benefits and dangers of championing behaviors. Our results show that linking technology to markets can be planned and controlled only to a very limited extent even if champions are working hard to sell the idea to potential customers. Moreover, any new idea is often competing with existing products and pursuing such ideas may result in opposition to the idea. In contrast, network building has the desired positive relationship with innovation success. Effective championing behavior keeps an innovative idea alive by mobilizing support and building coalitions around the idea with critical individuals or important third parties. Moreover, this study challenges the widespread “heroic” discussion of championing as fundamentally positive “across the board.” The results show that persisting under adversity and taking responsibility are desirable up to some levels. Beyond such critical levels, these two champion behaviors may actually become detrimental to the innovation process. Being too persistent in the face of adversity or taking too much responsibility for the innovative idea might undermine the power of the champion's justifications for an innovation and thereby increase resistance to change. An “over‐performing” champion may interpret opposing communications as an unwarranted and injurious response. By taking overmuch responsibility for the innovative undertaking, the champion is likely to discourage contributions from other team members who see no valuable opportunity to bring their expertise and knowledge to the idea.     

The Breakfast of Champions: Associations Between Champions and Product Development Environments, Practices and Performance

According to conventional wisdom, if an innovative new product development (NPD) effort is to stand any chance for success, the project must have a champion. The role of the champion has taken on almost mythic proportions, through oft-told tales of the development of such disparate products as instant cameras, automobiles, and microprocessors. Notwithstanding the purportedly essential role that champions play, however, we have only anecdotal evidence of the manner in which effective champions operate and the benefits that they offer. Stephen K. Markham and Abbie Griffin suggest that before we can explore questions about how champions affect product development performance, we must address an even more fundamental issue: whether champions actually influence performance. Using data from the 1995 PDMA study of best practices in product development, they test various widely held assumptions about champions and NDP performance. Specifically, they investigate the association between championing and the following variables: NPD performance at the program, firm, and project levels; industry characteristics; and project- and firm-related NPD characteristics. In several respects, the results of their study run counter to current beliefs about product development champions. For example, the study suggests that champions are just as likely to be found in large firms as they are in small firms. Similarly, the results indicate that the likelihood of finding a champion does not differ significantly between technology-driven firms and marketing-driven firms. For the firms in this study, champions are no more likely to support radical innovations than they are to back incremental innovations or product line extensions. The results of the study suggest that champions do not directly affect firm-level NPD performance. Instead, the results of this study associate increased championing with higher levels of NPD program performance, which positively affects firm-level performance. The results of this study also do not support the notion that a champion can directly improve the market success of a particular project.     

How Relevant Is Government Championing Behavior in Technology Development?

Many studies emphasize the importance of government support in technology development. However, this study is among the first to provide empirical findings of the relevance of government roles for the performance of technology development projects. Based on earlier research and the strategic management literature, a theoretical model and hypotheses are developed to study the relevance of government roles and project teams' strategic behavior for technology development projects. Our results show that government championship is an important positive factor for the performance of technology development projects. Government championing behavior overcomes regulatory barriers, enthusiastically promotes the technology's advantages, and gets key decision makers involved. As such, government championship has more impact than government financial/technical assistance on both project performance and benefits to customers. The findings also show that both the proactiveness and defensiveness dimensions of project teams' strategic behavior contribute positively to project performance and benefits to customers. The paper concludes with implications for practice: From a policy perspective, government should extend its technology policies by taking on the role as a champion, while companies should invest in building professional relations with champions in government.     

Managing Innovation Champions: The Impact of Project Characteristics on the Direct Manager Role*

A key challenge for organizations seeking to improve the management of innovation lies in determining when to lend direct managerial support, and how much support, to those championing such projects. This research provides insights into the connection between project characteristics and the type and frequency of direct manager involvement. As such, it addresses the following research question: how does the level of project innovativeness, strategic relatedness, and resource requirements impact the level of empowerment of innovation champions and the sponsor or supervisor role played by managers? The research method involves a survey of 89 project champions from four divisions of large, multinational Korean companies. The results show that when innovativeness was high but projects were strategically related, there was greater project champion empowerment but also a more frequent managerial sponsor role. This suggests it may be best to allow innovators, who are close to the project's markets, technologies, and industry conditions, to have greater freedom over objectives and decisions. Yet they may also need the advice and support of their managers to function optimally under the highly uncertain conditions that characterize innovative projects. This combination of empowerment and a sponsor role, though appropriate for highly innovative projects, may also require high strategic relatedness, however. On the other hand, when projects are less strategically related and when resource requirements are high, the analysis suggests managers are more likely to exert control. Managers may therefore need to become more closely involved in decision making for costly ventures representing new strategic directions for their organizations. Overall, this research suggests that both empowerment and manager roles are relevant to the management of innovation. These results offer academic value in recognizing the nature of the direct manager role under different innovation project conditions. It further reveals a need for academics to recognize both the supervisor and sponsor roles in the management of innovation. For managers, the findings suggest that for organizations to effectively develop and commercialize innovations managers need to recognize when certain projects call for different levels and types of involvement.     

Trust Formation in University–Industry Collaborations in the U.S. Biotechnology Industry: IP Policies,Shared Governance,and Champions*,†

Haggling over rights to potential inventions can be a major roadblock to successful university–industry (UI) collaborations. Yet such collaborations are critical for innovation in science‐based industries. This study examines the roles of universities' intellectual property (IP) policies and of shared governance for trust formation between academe and industry. The study also examines how UI champions moderate this process and how trust between university and industry partners affects UI collaboration outcomes. The analysis of survey data of 105 recent UI collaborations in the U.S. biotechnology industry indicates that the flexibility and transparency of university IP policies and shared governance by UI partners are both positively related to trust formation. The activities of UI champions amplify the positive effects of shared governance and at the same time reduce the importance of university IP policies for trust formation between UI partners. The amount of trust between partners is positively related to knowledge transfer and innovation performance. The findings suggest that despite widely reported industry concerns over the control of IP, UI research partners can develop a trustful environment and thereby plant the seeds for a successful collaboration. In order to enhance trust, companies should not only consider university IP policies, but also need to actively engage in shared governance with university partners. UI collaboration champions can help shift the attention of company managers from formal rules set by university IP policies toward shared project planning, coordination, and implementation with university partners.     

A Longitudinal Examination of How Champions Influence Others to Support Their Projects

The image of the project champion fighting corporate inertia, rallying support, and leading a project to success makes for a great story, but that story may not reveal the true nature of the champion's role. All those oft-told tales about champions fail to provide hard evidence of the techniques that champions use, the activities they perform, and the effects that champions have on project success.
Stephen K. Markham addresses this knowledge gap in a study that examines how champions influence other people and what effects champions have on projects and the people those projects involve. The study uses responses from 53 champions of innovation projects in four large firms as well as team members from those projects. Rather than look at the champions' work on project tasks, the study focuses on the influence champions have on other people to support their projects.
The results of the study only partially support the idea that champions affect projects by influencing people. In the four firms studied, champions use cooperative rather than confrontative tactics to influence other people. However, the champions' choice of influence tactics does not affect the level of compliance or the willingness to participate in the project that those people demonstrate. On the other hand, the champions appear to have a strong influence on their target's behavior if the champions enjoy positive personal relationships with those people.
In general, the tactics used by the champions do not seem to play an important role in the projects studied. From the perspective of the team members, the results of this study do not support the notion that champions make a positive contribution to project performance. However, the champions in this study consistently hold a more positive view of the project than those of the team members.     

University innovation centres and academic venture formation1

Successful innovation requires both products and product champions. Evidence suggests that academic projects are usually not products and few academics are able or willing to champion adequately their projects. Thus the role of university technology transfer officers and of university innovation centres is to find efficient ways of transforming research projects into potentially profitable products and also to obtain credible commitments from capable champions.     

Determinants of IT Usage and New Product Performance*

Explosive growth of information technologies (IT) has prompted interest in examining the role of IT in new product development (NPD). Through desktop software and Web‐based tools, IT has been used to aid idea generation and product testing as well as for NPD activities such as process and portfolio management. Recent research suggests, however, that a gap exists between IT availability and usage. Given the importance of IT in creating business value through the development of new products and services, the present study seeks to identify factors that affect IT usage. Further, anecdotal evidence and conceptual studies intimate that the usage of IT tools for NPD can shorten time to market, can improve product quality, and can increase productivity. However, empirical substantiation of this impact is mostly nonexistent. The current study investigates the relationship between IT usage and two measures of new product performance: speed to market and market performance. Employing a mail‐survey methodology, the study uses data from a sample of practitioner members from the Product Development & Management Association to examine the effect of project risk, existence of a champion, autonomy, innovative climate, IT infrastructure, and IT embeddedness on the extent of IT usage. These data are also used to explore the impact of IT usage on speed to market and market performance. The results indicate that project risk, existence of a champion, and IT embeddedness positively affect the extent of IT usage for NPD. Additionally, IT usage positively and significantly influences the performance of the new product in the marketplace. Surprisingly, and contrary to popular belief, IT usage does not have any impact on speed to market. An important implication of this study is that IT usage influences performance but not in the way managers expect. Specifically, IT usage does not seem to affect speed to market but rather positively impacts the performance of the new product in the marketplace. This result suggests that IT usage in NPD provides far more value to firms than previously thought and provides evidence to support greater investments in IT for product development efforts. Other implications of the study are that unless IT is embedded into the NPD process and champions for IT tools exist, chances are that IT will not be used and its benefits will not be realized.     

Making Sense of an Interconnected World: How Innovation Champions Drive Social Innovation in the Not-for-Profit Context

Social innovation is critical for supporting the economic and social fabric of communities globally. Yet little is known about the processes through which social innovation occurs and how context shapes them. To date, scholarship has focused primarily on social entrepreneurs and social enterprise creation, while the role of established not-for-profits (NFPs) as agents of social innovation has received surprisingly little attention given their importance to communities. It is expected that innovation will be increasingly important for NFPs as shifts in their funding models create greater complexity in maintaining sustainability and continuity in social service delivery. This research generates a deeper understanding of the processes of social innovation within NFPs by examining how multiple levels of context influence the behaviors of a key set of agents: innovation champions. Adopting an interactionist lens, the study explores how shifts in funding policy at the macro level, and the role of leaders (CEOs and Boards) and organizational institutional logics at the meso level, influence champion behavior at the micro level. To do this, we draw on sensemaking as an important cognitive and action-enabling mechanism. A qualitative, multicase study design with 46 interviews across six case organizations allows an in-depth exploration of this under-investigated area. The findings indicate that bricolage activity can facilitate championing that supports social innovation within NFPs and that organizational context guides the direction and content of champion behavior. The findings further uncover a broader range of behaviors and outcomes than have been previously attributed to champions, while highlighting the critical role that bricolage-enabled championing can play in driving social innovation that is both directly impactful and offers significant longer-term social impact. The important roles that sensebreaking, sensegiving, and sensemaking play in connecting champions’ interpretations of their contexts to their behaviors are also outlined.     

The Relationship of Individual Capabilities and Environmental Support with Different Facets of Designers' Innovative Behavior

Theoretical perspectives on employee creativity have tended to focus on an individual's capability to generate original and potentially useful ideas, whereas definitions of innovation also include the process of putting those new ideas into practice. This field study therefore set out to test how theoretically distinct types of individual knowledge and skills are related to different aspects of employees' innovative behavior in terms of both their new idea generation and idea implementation. Using a sample of design engineers (n = 169) in a multinational engineering company, measures were taken of different aspects of innovative work behavior (patent submission, real‐time idea submission, idea implementation) and a range of individual capabilities (creativity‐relevant skills, job expertise, operational skills, contextual knowledge, and motivation) and environmental features (job control, departmental support for innovation). Analyses showed that creativity‐relevant skills were positively related to indices of idea generation but not to idea implementation. Instead, employees' job expertise, operational skills, and motivation to innovate demonstrated a stronger role in idea implementation. In terms of environmental factors, job control showed no positive relationship with innovative work behavior while departmental support for innovation was related to employees' idea generation but not idea implementation. The theoretical perspective that correlates of idea generation differ in certain aspects to those for idea implementation are confirmed by the study. Practical implications for organizations wishing to improve their innovativeness are discussed in terms of tailored training, development, motivational, and environmental interventions designed to improve the capabilities of individuals to engage in all parts of the innovation process.     

Procedural Justice Climate in New Product Development Teams: Antecedents and Consequences

With the increasing interest in the concept of justice in the group behavior literature, the procedural justice (PJ) climate attracts many researchers and practitioners from different fields. Nevertheless, the PJ climate is rarely addressed in the new product development (NPD) project team literature. Specifically, the technology and innovation management (TIM) literature provides little about what the PJ climate is, its nature and benefits, and how it works in NPD project teams. Also, few studies investigate the antecedents and consequences of the PJ climate in NPD teams enhancing the understanding of this concept from a practical perspective. This paper discusses the PJ climate theory in a NPD team context and empirically demonstrates how team members' positive collective perceptions of a PJ climate can be developed and how a PJ climate influences a project's performance in NPD teams. In particular, team culture values including employee orientation, customer orientation, systematic management control, innovativeness, and social responsibility were investigated as antecedents, and team learning, speed to market, and market success of new products were studied as outcomes of PJ climate in this paper. By studying 83 NPD project teams it was found on the basis of using partial least squares (PLS) method that (1) the level of employee, customer and innovativeness orientation as well as systematic management control during the project had a positive impact on developing a PJ climate in an NPD team; (2) a PJ climate positively affects team learning and product development time (i.e., speed to market); and (3) team learning and speed to market mediate the relations between the PJ climate and new product success (NPS). Based on the findings, this paper suggests that managers should enhance the PJ climate and team culture in the project team to enhance team learning and to develop products faster. In particular, managers should (1) open a discussion forum among people and create a dialogue for people who disagree with the other project team members rather than dictating or emposing others ideas to them, (2) facilitate information searching and collecting mechanisms to make decisions effectively and to clarify uncertainties, and (3) allow team members to challange project‐related ideas and decisions and modify them with consensus. Also, to enhance the PJ climate during the project, managers should (1) respect and listen to all team members' ideas and try to understand why they are sometimes in opposition, (2) define team members' task boundaries and clarify project norms and project goals, and (3) set knowledge‐questioning values by facilitating team members to try out new ideas and seek out new ways to do things.     

Partners' centrality diversity and firm innovation performance: Evidence from China

While most studies of firm innovation with a social network perspective have focused on the focal firm's network structure, we explore the value of second-order social capital by examining partners' network structure to better understand firm innovation. Specifically, we examine how centrality diversity of the focal firm's network partners affects its innovation performance. A longitudinal study of Chinese publicly listed manufacturing firms from 2000 to 2016 indicates that partners' centrality diversity in a firm's board interlock network is positively related to that firm's innovation performance. We also find that the focal firm's knowledge breadth weakens the effect of partners' centrality diversity on innovation performance for the focal firm, while the proportion of non-independent ties between the focal firm and its network partners strengthens the effect.     

隐形冠军发展天花板的多元化突破——从“安索夫矩阵”得到的启示

隐形冠军企业在成立初期依靠准确的市场定位和高度专业化在某一细分市场中占有绝对的领导地位。但随着市场透明度的提高,产品生命周期的缩短,隐形冠军面临愈发激烈的竞争,其发展空间受到压制。依据"安索夫矩阵"中企业多元化发展战略,隐形冠军只有培养自身核心能力,执行行业跨度小的相关多元化战略,开发市场前景广阔的产品,才能实现成功突围。     

Innovation Performance in New Product Development Teams in China's Technology Ventures: The Role of Behavioral Integration Dimensions and Collective Efficacy

In emerging markets, technology ventures increasingly rely on new product development (NPD) teams to generate creative ideas and to mold these innovative ideas into streams of new products or services. However, little is known about how behavioral integration (a behavioral team process) and collective efficacy (a motivational team process) jointly facilitate or inhibit team innovation performance in emerging markets—especially in China, the world's largest emerging‐market setting with collectivist and high power distance cultures. Drawing on social cognitive theory and behavioral integration research, this article elucidates the relationships between behavioral integration dimensions (i.e., collaborative behavior, information exchange, and joint decision‐making) and innovation performance and also examines how collective efficacy moderates these relationships in China's NPD teams. Results from a sample of 96 NPD teams in China's technology ventures reveal that information exchange is positively associated with innovation performance. Collaborative behavior positively but marginally influences innovation performance, whereas joint decision‐making does not relate to innovation performance. Moreover, collective efficacy demonstrates an important moderating role. Specifically, both collaborative behavior and joint decision‐making are more positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. In contrast, information exchange is less positively associated with innovation performance when collective efficacy is higher. This study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on team innovation and behavioral integration in emerging markets by offering a better understanding of how behavioral and motivational team processes jointly shape innovation performance in China's NPD teams. This study also extends social cognitive theory by identifying collective efficacy as a boundary condition for the overall effectiveness of behavioral integration dimensions. In particular, this study highlights the condition under which behavioral integration dimensions facilitate or inhibit NPD team innovation performance in China.     

A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of R&D,Patents, and Product Innovation on Firm Performance

Because of increasing levels of competition and decreasing product life cycles, a firm's ability to generate a continuous stream of innovations may be more important than ever in allowing a firm to improve profitability and maintain competitive advantage This paper investigates several issues that are central to an examination of the innovation productivity in a firm. First, the relationship between a firm's commitment to research and development and its innovative outcomes is examined. Two innovative outcomes are analyzed: (1) invention, which focuses on the development of new ideas; and (2) innovation, the development of commercially viable products or services from creative ideas. Invention is measured by the number of patents granted, and innovation is assessed by the number of new product announcements. Second, because many inventions ultimately result in marketable innovations and because patents may provide protection for new products, the relationship between patents and product announcements is also investigated. Finally, the ability of a firm to benefit from its inventions and innovations is studied by examining their separate effects on firm performance, measured as return on assets (ROA) and sales growth. Drawing from a sample of 272 firms in 35 industries over 19 years, the results from a model of simultaneous equations provided support for some of the hypotheses, but several other surprising findings were found. As expected, R&D spending was positively related to patents. This finding is consistent with others who argue that internal research capabilities, particularly those with a strong basic research component, is key to enabling a firm to generate creative outputs. More surprising was the finding of increasing returns to scale to R&D spending. While this contradicts much of the existing research, it is consistent with economic arguments for the advantages of scale in innovation. Also interesting is the finding that, while a significant curvilinear relationship exists between R&D spending and product announcements, it is not the predicted inverse‐U but instead a U‐shaped relationship. Consistent with previous work, product announcements were found to be positively related to both performance measures. A negative relationship was found between patents and both ROA and sales growth. While these findings were unexpected, they are intriguing and call into question the value of patents as protection mechanisms. In addition, these results may be resulting from the rise of strategic patenting, where an increasing number of firms are using patents as strategic weapons. As expected, a positive relationship was found between patents and new product announcements.     

Perceptions of Material Resources in Innovation Projects: What Shapes Them and How Do They Matter?

Studies on the role of material resources for team performance in innovation projects have provided inconclusive results. This paper focuses on team members' perceptions of the provided material resources' adequacy to address this gap. Understanding what drives perceptions of material resource adequacy may not only reconcile conflicting results in the literature, but may also provide much‐needed guidance for project funding, so as to maximize innovation project performance. Further, the analyses in this paper differentiate between two outcome dimensions of innovation project performance, namely, the degree of new product quality and new product novelty, and thus offer a more fine‐grained analysis of the relationship between perceptions of material resource adequacy and innovation project teams' performance. The posited hypotheses are tested using a sample consisting of survey data from 121 innovation projects in the electronics industry. To avoid common source bias, data from different respondent groups, that is, team leaders, team members, and team external managers of the examined innovation projects, were used. The results of the regression analyses identify team potency and workload as socio‐cognitive drivers of innovation project teams' perceptions of material resource adequacy. Moreover, it is found that perceived material resource adequacy relates positively to new product quality, while it relates negatively to new product novelty. This paper thus provides an important step toward disentangling the ambiguity surrounding the relationship between material resource adequacy and innovation project teams' performance, showing that a key finding of cognitive psychology seems to hold also on the team level of inquiry: the significant influence of socio‐cognitive factors on perceptions. This finding paves the way for putting more attention in research on innovation and project management on cognitive aspects, in particular considering mechanisms behind the formation of team perceptions. Further, the results provide evidence for differential effects of perceived material resource adequacy on innovation project performance, depending on the indicators used for measuring the outcomes of an innovation project. This contributes necessary detail to studying the relationship between material resource adequacy and innovation project performance, which so far has produced inconclusive results, suggesting that these contradictions might result to a large degree from different operationalizations of innovation project performance. On a practical level, the findings of this paper suggest that material resource adequacy seems not to be a catch‐all variable, influencing innovation project outcomes in a uniform way. It appears to be a useful lever for influencing team outcomes depending on the desired result, which may be manipulated by shaping team variables that exert a systematic influence on perceptions of material resource adequacy.     

Resource allocation strategy for innovation portfolio management

Our study demonstrates empirically that the choice of resource allocation strategy affects innovation performance. Allocating resources to a broader range of innovation projects increases new product sales, an effect that appears to outweigh that of resource intensity. In addition, we find that the performance benefit of breadth is higher for firms that allocate resources selectively at later stages of the innovation process. This breadth‐selectiveness effect is greatest for firms intending to create relatively more novel products, departing further from their knowledge base. Based on these results, we theorize that breadth increases performance because it spreads firms' bets on unproven innovative endeavors. Limiting resource commitments by selecting out deteriorating projects prevents an escalation in the costs of breadth. This advantage increases with the uncertainty implicit in greater innovative intent. The paper thus contributes to theory of how resource allocation strategies influence performance outcomes of innovation project portfolios. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does Strategic Planning Enhance or Impede Innovation and Firm Performance?*

Does strategic planning enhance or impede innovation and firm performance? The current literature provides contradictory views. This study extends the resource‐advantage theory to examine the conditions in which strategic planning increases or decreases the number of new product development projects and firm performance. The authors test the theoretical model by collecting data from 227 firms. The empirical evidence suggests that more strategic planning and more new product development (NPD) projects lead to better firm performance. Firms with organizational redundancy benefit more from strategic planning than firms with less organizational redundancy. Increasing R&D intensity boosts both the number of NPD projects and firm performance. Strategic planning is more effective in larger firms with higher R&D intensity for increasing the number of NPD projects. The results reported in this study also consist of several findings that challenge the traditional views of strategic planning. The evidence suggests that strategic planning impedes, not enhances, the number of NPD projects. Larger firms benefit less, not more, from strategic planning for improving firm performance. Larger firms do not necessarily create more NPD projects. Increasing organizational redundancy has no effect on the number of NPD projects. These empirical results provide important strategic implications. First, managers should be aware that, in general, formal strategic planning decreases the number of NPD projects for innovation management. Improvised rather than planned activities are more conducive to creating NPD project ideas. Moreover, innovations tend to emerge from improvisational processes, during which the impromptu execution of NPD activities without planning spurs “thinking outside the box,” which enhances the process of creating NPD project ideas. Therefore, more flexible strategic plans that accommodate potential improvisation may be needed in NPD management since innovation‐related activities cannot be planned precisely due to the unexpected jolts and contingencies of the NPD process. Second, large firms with high levels of R&D intensity can overcome the negative effect of strategic planning on the number of NPD projects. Specifically, a firm's abundant resources, when allocated and deployed for NPD activities, signal the high priority and importance of the NPD activities and thus motivate employees to acquire, collect, and gather customer and technical knowledge, which leads to creating more NPD projects. Finally, managers must understand that managing strategic planning and generating NPD project ideas are beneficial to the ultimate outcome of firm performance despite the adverse relationship between strategic planning and the number of NPD projects.     

Subjective Performance Assessment of Innovation Projects*

Performance assessment of innovation projects is a central issue in innovation management research. Using existing literature, a model is developed to assess the performance of new product and new service development projects. In this model, project performance is defined as a combination of a formatively indicated operational performance construct and a reflectively indicated product performance construct. The validity of this model is tested based on a sample of 219 innovation projects assessed by innovation managers. Using only the innovation managers' responses, it is, however, not possible to distinguish between operational and product performance. The impact of common method bias and informant bias is subsequently assessed using a subsample of 128 of these 219 innovation projects that are assessed by the innovation manager and the project leader. These latter results show that operational and product performance are two distinct constructs. In addition, the multitrait–multimethod analyses show that especially the more abstract items of performance, such as the perceptions of quality, captured knowledge, competitive advantage, gained reputation, and customer satisfaction, suffer from random error and informant bias. Project leaders appear to be better informed to assess operational performance, while innovation managers are better in assessing product performance. The paper concludes with a qualitative comparison of several alternative performance models: the project performance model as derived from the literature, a similar (misspecified) reflective performance model, two stand‐alone models in which operational and product performance are assessed separately, and a mixed model that uses a combination of innovation managers' and project managers' data. Based on this comparison, it is advised to use either the stand‐alone models for operational performance and product performance or the mixed model whereby the project leader assesses operational performance and the innovation manager the product performance of an innovation project.     

Non‐R&D innovation and firms’ new product performance: the joint moderating effect of R&D intensity and network embeddedness

Non‐R&D innovation increasingly plays a critical role in explaining firms’ new product performance. Yet, there has been little research on the consequences and contingent mechanisms of non‐R&D innovation for firms embedded in collaborative network environments. To address this research gap, we investigated a conceptual framework of non‐R&D innovation using data drawn from Chinese manufacturing firms. First, we found that non‐R&D innovation positively affects firms’ new product performance. Second, we discovered that high R&D intensity positively strengthens the impact of firms’ non‐R&D innovation on new product performance. Third, we provided critical analysis of the role of non‐R&D innovation in promoting new product performance, accomplished by enhancing R&D investment while simultaneously improving the degree of network embeddedness. Our findings extend both the non‐R&D innovation literature and open innovation literature while providing managers with several key recommendations.