Factors Affecting Directionality of External Search for Innovation: A Case for Novo Nordisl and Leo Pharma

Abstract

Although the field of OI theory has become an increasingly influential body of research lately, scholars are arguing external search is an understudied domain within the field. This has motivated this thesis’s scope, which is focused on the reason why some pharmaceutical companies have a higher degree of undirected external search for innovation. However, as the concept of DDIR is a previously unstudied phenomenon, this thesis initially conceptualizes DDIR, based on which propositions were developed in a conceptual framework regarding the factors theoretically expected to affect organizations engagement in undirected external search. Theses propositions were followed by a test of relevance in a multiple-case study of LEO and NN, which supported the propositions to various degrees and with varying certainty. Hence, this gave initial insights into the understudied and complex phenomenon of DDIR and enabled an understanding of why some organizations have a more undirected DDIR. In addition, it is providing a fundament additional research into this highly complex phenomenon as well as further development and validation of the conceptual framework.