External knowledge sourcing and new product development: Evidence from the Italian food and beverage industry
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of external knowledge in the innovation process of firms in the food and beverage (F&B) industry and the effects of two external knowledge sourcing modes on new product development (NPD) performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies a quantitative approach, relying on data from 157 Italian firms operating in the F&B industry to test the hypotheses through OLS regression models.
Findings
Results suggest that the surveyed firms actively engage in open innovation with strong ties with market-based sources. Moreover, the authors found that market-based sources are associated with income from incremental innovation and time to market, while science-based sources are associated with income from radical innovation. Finally, the authors found that the R&D intensity enhances the benefits of the above external knowledge sourcing modes.
Originality/value
Despite the large amount of studies assessing the effects of external knowledge sourcing on performance in the open innovation field, few studies focused on a specific industry, especially with regard to F&B. Moreover, this paper considers different types of NPD performance measures given that different external knowledge sourcing modes exert different effects.
Keywords
Citation
Santoro, G., Vrontis, D. and Pastore, A. (2017), "External knowledge sourcing and new product development: Evidence from the Italian food and beverage industry", British Food Journal, Vol. 119 No. 11, pp. 2373-2387. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-02-2017-0120
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited