External search for exploration of future discontinuities and trends as a driver for innovation: a co-citation and content analysis

Abstract To stay ahead of the competition, firms need to constantly adapt to the changing environment by identifying new opportunities and product innovations. The search for future discontinuities and trends using external... [ view full abstract ]

Abstract

To stay ahead of the competition, firms need to constantly adapt to the changing environment by identifying new opportunities and product innovations. The search for future discontinuities and trends using external knowledge sources enables firms to develop a foresight capability to proactively shape strategic direction and to improve innovation capacity. Recent open innovation literature discusses external search strategies and their impact on innovation performance. In order to investigate the implications of these findings for the search for discontinuities and trends, we systematically analyze the current focus and intellectual structure of the external search field by means of co-citation and content analysis. Findings indicate a strong focus on open innovation research and reveal relevant determinants of external search strategies as a basis for future research.

Introduction

In today’s dynamic environment competitive advantage is largely driven through a firm’s ability to constantly adapt to change by identifying new opportunities and product innovations. Paying attention to early signs of discontinuities and trends in the environment [3] enables firms to identify potential future developments early on and to adjust their strategic direction accordingly [49]. To achieve this, firms need to develop a foresight capability to understand potential future states and to draw implications for their future direction [23,33]. Insights gained from foresight enhance a firm’s innovation capability by exploring new business areas and creating new product ideas [39]. However, uncovering early signs of future developments is challenging since they often originate outside a firm’s area of expertise [14,21]. Hence, foresight literature stresses the importance of utilizing external knowledge sources to broaden a firm’s knowledge base and reduce the risk of ‘blind spots’ [5,12,22]. According to the behavioral theory literature [11,36], firms conduct external search by spanning organizational boundaries to move beyond local search [30,41]. While the use of external knowledge has always been an important part of foresight [5,38] it has recently been reinforced by adopting insights from the open and user innovation literature [12,16,34]. Here, recent research on open innovation has analyzed different external search strategies and their impact on innovation performance [26,29]. However, given the long-term orientation and uncertainty of foresight activities [23], the search for future discontinuities and trends may require different search strategies as opposed to the search for innovations. In order to gain a better understanding of the implications of external search strategies for foresight, we aim to analyze the research field of external search behavior with focus on the intellectual structure of the field, the current research focus, and dimensions of search strategies that affect external search.

Methodology

For analyzing the research field of external search, a co-citation analysis and structured content analysis is conducted. Relevant publications on external search are identified by systematically searching the databases ISI WoS, EBSCO, and ProQuest in February 2016. Based on a keyword analysis of an initial set of relevant papers, the search phrase is defined as a combination of terms related to “search” and “external”. Through filtering and a detailed review, the dataset is reduced to 108 publications. Next, co-citation analysis is conducted as a method to reveal structures in a research field based on co-cited publications [42,44]. For this, bibliographic data of the publications is manually extracted and standardized. The co-citation frequency for each pair of citations is obtained and converted into a normalized measure of content similarity [15,19], which is used for network and cluster analysis to reveal patterns and research subgroups. Finally, content analysis of the original dataset on external search is conducted by means of a systematic and iterative classification process [20,24]. Thereby, the research method, level of analysis, research area, and external search dimensions are retrieved and analyzed for the entire dataset. While results may be potentially biased due to subjectivity of the analysis by a single researcher, this was mitigated by using a structured approach to ensure transparency and replicability of the results.

Preliminary results

Co-citation analysis reveals 14 clusters that constitute the theoretical foundation of the research field. The two main intellectual pillars evolve around the fields of open innovation and knowledge-based view. Clusters on open innovation relate to user innovation [e.g. 17,46], broadcast search [e.g. 2,25], innovation contests [e.g. 7,43], external knowledge sources for innovation [e.g. 47,48], and the concept of open innovation [e.g. 8,13]. The focus of clusters on the knowledge-based view lies on knowledge spillovers [e.g. 1,35], knowledge transfer and protection [e.g. 32,37], and resource complementarities [e.g. 4,45]. The findings reflect the strong focus of external search literature on the innovation area. In contrast, theoretical foundations of organizational search and learning are underrepresented indicating a weak link of current literature on external search with general organizational theory and especially organizational learning and search. Content analysis of the core dataset on external search confirms this impression: 93% of the publications are located in the area of innovation management with 43% being published in innovation-focused journals. With respect to dimensions of external search strategies, the categories of search scope and search distance can be distinguished. Regarding search scope, literature points to the relevance of search breadth [e.g. 9,29], search depth [e.g. 26,29], and search direction [e.g. 10,18]. Search distance is deemed important with respect to technological [e.g. 6,41], geographical [e.g. 28,40], temporal [e.g. 31], and relational distance of external search [e.g. 27].

Conclusion

By revealing the current research focus and intellectual structure of the field on external search behavior this work provides valuable insights for further research. Findings indicate that future research in the area of open innovation and external search could benefit from exploiting the foundations of organizational theory even stronger to enable a broader view on the research field. With respect to the external search in the context of foresight, relevant dimensions and conditions of external search can be derived from the current body of literature on innovation-related search. These findings can serve as basis for analyzing how firms need to shape their external search strategies in order to proactively identify future discontinuities and trends to stay ahead of the competition.