Title: Strategising for innovation and inter-firm collaboration: capability analysis in assessing competitive superiority

Authors: Matti Tuominen, Mai Anttila

Addresses: Department of Marketing, Helsinki School of Economics (HSE), P.O. Box 1210, FIN 00101 Helsinki, Finland. ' Department of Marketing, Helsinki School of Economics (HSE), P.O. Box 1210, FIN 00101 Helsinki, Finland

Abstract: The resource based view of the firm has not been systematically applied to strategising innovation and inter-firm collaboration. By examining the role of organisational capabilities in innovation and business relationship management we attempt, in this paper, to put forward a collaboration-innovation-advantages model, synthesising the various findings in the literature on |market oriented innovation| from a resource-based view. We deploy the conceptual framework to assess firm competitive market posture and performance advantages through organisational innovation and inter-firm collaboration capabilities within 327 Finnish firms across different industries both in the manufacturing and service sector. Our empirical results reinforce the claim that a balanced managerial and technological innovation capability profile plays an essential role in understanding how positional and performance advantages are generated in a competitive context. However, appropriate business relationship management capabilities are needed, facilitating the preceding interface in a positive manner. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.

Keywords: innovation capability; collaborative capability; competitive superiority; inter-firm collaboration: capability analysis; inter-firm cooperation; market oriented innovation; resource-based view; Finland; managerial innovation; technological innovation; business relationship management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2006.008312

International Journal of Technology Management, 2006 Vol.33 No.2/3, pp.214 - 233

Published online: 02 Dec 2005 *

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