Customer involvement in the new process innovation: antecedents, mediation and performance

Abstract

PurposeThe paper proposes customer involvement can be considered an organization-level construct of knowledge creation in the new process development. Specifically, the paper evaluates three distinct organizational practices as knowledge antecedents – competitor orientation, social network and internal coordination – that can facilitate the adoption of customer involvement in the process innovation development.Design/methodology/approachThe paper empirically tests this theory for 2,000 firms that are stratification sampled from a population of 33,844 Taiwanese firms, and a data set of 170 valid questionnaires is collected. The questionnaire was mainly modified from a Kim and Kim (2010) measure which was designed based on the 3rd edition of the Oslo Manual OECD/Eurostat 2005. The concept of customer involvement in new service development proposed by Alam (2002) was also applied to the questionnaire.Findings(1) The antecedents of customer involvement, which include competitor orientation, external social networks and internal coordination, function as a determinant to nourish customer involvement. (2) Customer involvement significantly positively mediates the relationship between knowledge antecedents and new process performance. (3) Customer involvement is a crucial knowledge creation for improving the new process innovation performance in manufacturing firms.Originality/valueTwo basic tenets of theory building serve as the foundation of the model in this paper. First, research on customer involvement is augmented by showing that customer involvement can emerge as a shared perception among organizational members that is distinct from individual-level involvement. Moreover, customer involvement in process innovation can help firms manage their knowledge and further enhance firm performance. Second, the knowledge management model provides a key lens through which researchers can take a process-oriented view that focuses on customer involvement as a unique capability that firms can develop in process innovation.

The state of the art of innovation management: insights from a retrospective review of the European Journal of Innovation Management

“…The fourth and smallest basic theme is product and process innovation , which constitute topics such as product innovation, process innovation, market orientation and technological innovation. This is also seen through the studies under this theme involving the determinants of product (Aydin, 2021; Zhang, 2011) and process innovation (Chang et al. , 2022; Ramírez-Alesón and Fernández-Olmos, 2020) as well as the adoption of technological innovation (Henao-García and Cardona Montoya, 2021; Saaksjarvi, 2003).…”

Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences

“…In the literature, there are studies examining the knowledge approach regarding service co-creation. One such study is by Chang et al [32], who examined the knowledge management concept and discovered several indispensable conditions for the effective co-creation of service innovations. They revealed inter alia that service providers need to develop and practice measures for involving customers and set a user-friendly platform for facilitating the involvement of customers.…”

Análisis del modelo que estudia las variables influyentes en la capacidad de innovación de las empresas, y como afecta al desempeño en los resultados del sector hotelero

“…Los recursos externos utilizados por algunas organizaciones son los clientes, que en cierta medida generan una ventaja competitiva al participar en la innovación de procesos pueden ayudar a mejorar aún más el desempeño de la empresa generando un mayor conocimiento y una visión centrada en el cliente (Chang et al, 2021).…”