Dispersed collaboration provides many benefits such as members' closeness to local cultures and markets and reachability of talent worldwide. Hence, it is no surprise that dispersed collaboration is frequently being used by product development teams. A necessary but not sufficient condition for innovation performance is the sharing of tacit, noncodified and explicit, codified knowledge by the team. Situated learning theory, however, predicts that tacit knowledge sharing will be largely prevented by ''decontextualization.'' Therefore, increasing usage of dispersed collaboration will decrease levels of tacit knowledge-crucial to innovation and organizational performance-in the business unit. This research investigates the moderating role of mechanisms believed to enable tacit knowledge transfer in the front end of innovation. Using data from 116 business units, the moderating role of communities of practice and organizational climate on the relationship between the proficiency of dispersed collaboration and front end of innovation performance is investigated. Encouragement of communities of practice is found to moderate the relationship between proficiency of dispersed collaboration and front end of innovation performance on the business unit level. More specifically, proficiency of dispersed collaboration is not related at all to front end of innovation performance in business units with low support for communities of practice; but a positive relationship exists in business units with high support for communities of practice. This study does not provide support for the moderating effect of organizational climate on the relationship between proficiency in dispersed collaboration and front end of innovation performance. However, supportiveness of climate has a significant direct effect on front end of innovation performance. The findings of this study suggest that managers should simultaneously invest in increasing proficiency in dispersed collaboration and supporting communities of practice. Either one by itself is insufficient. Because of its significant direct effect, managers should also nurture an open climate favoring risk taking, trust, and open interaction.

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Time pacing, which refers to the regulation of intensity and direction of people's attention and effort, is central to innovation management. However, in a study of complex product innovation in pharmaceuticals, we find that time pacing is a major source of conflict between managers and scientists over innovation management. Our analysis of this tension reveals that two very different forms of time pacing operate in this complex innovation. Clock-time pacing, which gauges progress by the predictable passage of clock time, is used by strategic managers to reduce unnecessary exploration, focus on necessary questions, and speed up the execution of steps. Event-time pacing, which gauges progress by the unpredictable achievement of learning events, is used by the scientists to develop a deep understanding of how a drug might behave in the body against a disease, to focus on learning by asking many questions, and to integrate emergent results into plausible patterns. We identify four dimensions that differentiate clock-time pacing from event-time pacing, which drive the tension between the two. We summarize negative effects that this tension can have on innovation if left unaddressed, and then suggest ways to integrate clock-time pacing with event-time pacing. We also discuss implications for Chinese management.

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Innovation in large established firms may be broadly divided into three areas: the front end of innovation (also known as fuzzy front end or predevelopment), the new‐product development process, and commercialization.

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The front end of innovation or what has often been referred to as the fuzzy front end is the first part of the innovation process. Considerable research has been published in both academic and practitioner journals on the new‐product development process, which occurs after the front end. In contrast, much less research has focused on the front end. We discuss nascent empirical studies and put them in an exploitation and exploration framework. Exploitation refers to a more incremental development, while exploration refers to a more radical development. Exploitation practices follow a well‐practiced routine, which is typically thought of as consisting of three activities: discovery, scoping, and building a business case. In this article, we propose a more holistic model and include the companies' organizational resources (i.e., strategy, vision, and climate) as antecedent to the front‐end activities. Empirical studies concentrating on exploitative front activities mostly have converging findings, although the necessity of having a well‐conceived business plan is not per se confirmed in more recent studies. Practices in the front end for exploration projects are significantly different from those for exploitation projects due to the large amount of market and/or technology uncertainty. An understanding of how to manage the front end for exploration projects is just beginning to emerge. As such, we have provided a review of the relevant studies and have woven them into a model that uses a more iterative process than that used to explain exploitation projects.