Collaborative innovation types and performance of firms: insights on consumer innovation

Objectives. Current study aims to understand the dynamics of collaborative innovation between firm and clients. Our research questions are: what is the most valuable collaboration type? How does it impact innovative performance of firms? Methodology. As for the methodology and consistently with explorative aim of the study, we use one-way Anova to test validity of our hypotheses. Then, we measure correlations among variables. Findings. Findings largely confirm model hypotheses. We identify five different patterns of collaboration. At large, firms for which collaboration is the most valuable method have better innovative performance than others and they also tend to search for collaborations broadly. Firms adopt collaboration with clients to co-design the meaning of incremental innovation. Research limits. The explorative intent led us too choose a general statistic method, although more robust and sophisticated tests are necessary to achieve a clearer knowledge on the phenomenon. Practical implications. The study suggests that firms should be more externally oriented to achieve radical innovation. Precisely, collaboration with both clients and suppliers is the most valuable method. Originality of the study. As far as we can see, none of prior studies distinguishes the impact of specific collaborations on either the different dimensions of innovative performance of firms or value co-creation.