Commercialization in Innovation Management: Defining the Concept and a Research Agenda

For any firm, the ultimate purpose of new product development is the commercialization of the new offerings. Despite its regular use in the product innovation and general management science literature, commercialization is only loosely defined and applied. This lack of conceptual clarity about the processes at the interface between product development and customer application is noteworthy as it hinders the theoretical development of the field. In this paper, we explore how research has advanced our understanding of commercialization in product innovation over a 30 year period by mapping different definitions and interpretations of commercialization. We offer a process-oriented definition of commercialization that is theoretically founded in the capability-based view of the firm. We also outline an agenda for future theoretical development and empirical research on commercialization aimed at advancing our understanding of the concept.