It has been empirically observed that 'understanding user need' and 'good internal and external communications' are factors which discriminate strongly between commercially successful industrial product and process innovations and those that fail. The research reported in this paper examines how the innovating firm achieves desirable levels of these factors through multiple and continuous interaction with the user throughout the innovation process.In the sample of thirty-four medical equipment innovations from eleven companies, twenty six (76 per cent) were developed through multiple and continuous interaction, resulting in twenty two (65 per cent) of these being successful.There appear to be two major reasons for this high level of interaction: (1) the requirement that any equipment that is to be potentially introduced into clinical use first needs clinical assessment and trial; and (2) the 'state of the art' clinical and diagnostic knowledge resides in the user. A special relationship is, therefore, needed between the clinical advisory and trial team on the one hand and the manufacturer on the other.The introduction t o this paper reviews the findings of other work in the examination of the role of the user in the innovation process. Details of the sample, the methods of sample selection and classification of the data follow in section 2. The results of the research are summarised in section 3. These detail the nature of the medical equipment innovation process, identifying in particular the high level of interaction between the user, intermediaries and the manufacturer, resulting in good communications and understanding of user need. Section 4 attempts to determine the significance of these results for the effective management of innovation and suggest areas for further research.

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This paper examines and explains the nature of networking in the Russian aerospace industry under the centrally administered innovation system and the impact on the network of the changes that have arisen post‐perestroika. The context, pre‐August 1991, was a centrally administered innovation system with the dominance of the military in resource allocation in a ‘shortage’ economy. The network was made up of the ministry of defence, design bureaux, manufacturing plants, research institutes, specialist universities and testing centres and the Aircraft Certification Authority. The focal actor was the aircraft design bureaux. The role and relationships between the actors concerned with aircraft design, development, manufacturing and marketing are determined by the activities that they perform in the seven stage innovation process, the resources available and the strategies that they adopt. Post‐perestroika the need for new customers, international certification, western collaboration, and the presence of supply chain disruption and the funding crisis are reshaping the network. The new actors, post‐perestroika, include new customers, financiers, the Department of Aviation Industry, International Certification Authorities, the ICAO and ‘nearest and furthest abroad’ subcontractors. A major change has been the linking together of the design bureaux, aircraft manufacturing, engine and avionics plants, subcontractors, financial institutions and aircraft export agencies into joint stock Complexes, or Financial Industrial Groups (FIGS).

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