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This paper examines the factors affecting the decision to acquire external technology and the relative importance of different technology acquisition strategies pursued by British and Japanese firms. The paper draws on a study of 38 firms, consisting of 23 UK-based and 15 Japanese firms. This is not a comparative study of British and Japanese technology acquisition strategies. Rather, we aim to identify common factors affecting the decision to acquire external technology and the means by which firms attempt to do this. We identify two clusters of variable which appear to affect the decision to acquire technology. Firstly, an organization's inheritance, which includes corporate strategy, competencies, culture and what we refer to as management's 'comfort' with the technology. Secondly, the characteristics of the technology to be acquired, specifically, its competitive impact, complexity, codifiability and what we refer to as 'credibility' potential. Together, these factors will determine the degree and nature of technology acquisition strategy. We find that contrary to the present academic preoccupation with alliances and joint ventures, the firms examined ranked universities, research consortia and licensing as the most important sources of external technology. Rationale for technology acquisitionFirms choose to acquire technology from external sources rather than develop it in house for a number of reasons. Two theoretical models have dominated the issue of technology acquisition, namely transaction cost analysis and strategic behaviour (McGee and Dowling, 1994). Transaction cost analysis focuses on organizational efficiency, specifically where market transactions involve significant uncertainty. In such cases sellers of technology may engage in opportunistic behaviour (Eisenhardt, 1989). Generally, the fewer potential sources of technology, the lower the bargaining power of the purchaser, and the higher the transaction costs (Pisano, 1990). In addition, where the technology is complex it can be difficult to assess its performance. Therefore transaction costs are increased where a potential purchaser of technology has little knowledge of the technology (Teece, 1986(Teece, , 1988. In this respect the acquisition of technology differs from subcontracting more routine tasks such as production or maintenance work (Hauschildt, 1992). This suggests that acquisition of technology will require a closer relationship between buyers and sellers than traditional market transactions (Haour, 1992), resulting in a range of possible acquisition strategies and mechanisms (Granstrand et al., 1992). For example, Welch and Nayak (1992) argue that the optimal technology acquisition strategy will depend on the maturity of the technology, the firms technological position relative to competitors and the strategic significance of the technology.However, studies of technology licensing suggest that transaction cost considerations are not the most significant factors affecting

Innovation management is inherently inter-disciplinary, but it is much more than simply applying business and management disciplines to innovation, and over time the field has developed a distinct body of knowledge. However, in this paper, we argue that the field of innovation management has failed to fully benefit from the proliferation of relevant research because much of this work has not been sufficiently coherent and cumulative. One reason for this, we propose, is the propensity to follow and fit research and publications into contemporary fads rather than to ground work in more fundamental themes and challenges. We present two examples of such fads, open innovation and business model innovation, to illustrate the trend. Finally, we suggest some more fundamental integrating themes and management challenges, drawing upon the latest edition of Managing Innovation (Tidd, J and J Bessant (2018). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change, Sixth Edition. New York: Wiley). 1

In this paper we review the range of formal tools and techniques available to support the new product development process, and examine the use and usefulness of these by means of a survey of 50 projects in 25 firms. For each firm, we compare routine and novel development projects, and identify the influence of project novelty on the frequency of use and perceived usefulness of a range of different tools and methods. In terms of usefulness, focus groups, partnering customers and lead users and prototyping are all considered to be more effective for high novelty projects, and segmentation least useful. Cross-functional development teams are commonplace for all types of project, but are significantly more effective for the high novelty cases. In addition, many tools rated as useful are not commonly used, and conversely some tools in common use are considered to be of limited use.

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Several decades of research into innovation management have failed to provide clear and consistent findings or coherent advice to managers. In this paper, I argue that this is because innovation management ‘best practice‘ is contingent on a range of factors, and that we need better characterizations of the technological and market contingencies which affect the opportunity for, and constraints on, innovation. I review research on innovation together with relevant studies from organizational behaviour and strategic management, and develop a model which may help to guide future innovation research on the relationships between environmental contingencies, organization configurations and performance. I identify uncertainty and complexity as the key environmental contingencies that influence organizational structure and management processes for innovation.

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