Organisational knowledge stocks and exploitative development of new radical products
ISSN: 0025-1747
Article publication date: 26 July 2023
Issue publication date: 24 August 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the important role that exploitation plays in innovation and new product development (NPD), research on the relative impact of internal organisational stocks of existing knowledge on subsequent exploitation is largely absent. In particular, there is lack of clarity within the extant literature regarding the associations between organisational exploitation and, respectively, the distal-proximal technological experience and radical-incremental innovative experience generated by multiproduct firms. Thus, this study seeks to further enhance researchers’ theoretical understanding on the relationship between organisational exploitation and internal knowledge stocks categorised along two dimensions of organisational experience accumulated by multiproduct firms that have not previously been considered jointly.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper pursues a focussed literature review approach and applies the underlying theory of exploitation to develop a theory explaining the possible relationships between organisational exploitation and internal knowledge stocks.
Findings
Based on the theory of exploitation, this paper proposes a new direction in studying the various internal knowledge stocks and their respective impact on subsequent organisational exploitation.
Practical implications
The proposed research direction suggests an emerging framework of possible relationships between exploitative new radical products development in firms, and respectively, proximal and distal technological experience, and radical and incremental innovative experience, accumulated in multiproduct firms. This novel framework can guide further research on this topic.
Originality/value
To fill a research gap regarding the possible relationships between subsequent exploitative endeavours and two dimensions of organisational experience that have been traditionally associated with the exploration-exploitation construct, this paper proposes and develops a novel typology of knowledge stocks categorised along two dimensions of organisational experience accumulated by multiproduct firms that have not previously been considered jointly in the literature.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Since acceptance of this article, the following author Ravi Chinta has updated his affiliations as Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, USA.
Citation
Wong, B.P.-L., Saleh, M.A., Johns, R. and Chinta, R. (2023), "Organisational knowledge stocks and exploitative development of new radical products", Management Decision, Vol. 61 No. 9, pp. 2670-2697. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-07-2022-0910
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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