Linking Customer Interaction and Innovation: The Mediating Role of New Organizational Practices

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    The notion that firms can improve their innovativeness by tapping users and customers for knowledge has become prominent in innovation studies. Similar arguments have been made in the marketing literature. We argue that neither literatures take sufficient account of firm organization. Specifically, firms that attempt to leverage user and customer knowledge in the context of innovation must design an internal organization appropriate to support it. This can be achieved in particular through the use of new organizational practices, notably, intensive vertical and lateral communication, rewarding employees for sharing and acquiring knowledge, and high levels of delegation of decision rights. In this paper, six hypotheses were developed and tested on a data set of 169 Danish firms drawn from a 2001 survey of the 1,000 largest firms in Denmark. A key result is that the link from customer knowledge to innovation is completely mediated by organizational practices.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalOrganization Science
    Volume22
    Issue number4
    Pages (from-to)980-999
    ISSN1047-7039
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jan 2011

    Keywords

    • Interaction with Customers
    • Innovation
    • New Organizational Practices

    Cite this