Capabilities, Innovation and Competitive Advantage

Introduction

Special issue of Industrial Marketing Management, Edited by Jay Weerawardena and Felix Mavondo; Deadline 31 Dec 2010

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Capabilities, Innovation and Competitive Advantage
Call for papers, Special Issue of Industrial Marketing Management
Deadline: December 31, 2010

Innovation is frequently acknowledged as the source of organizational renewal and growth. It is cited as the primary source of competitive advantage (Porter, 1990; Hurley & Hult, 1998; Day & Wensley, 1998) and central to marketing strategy (Varadarajan & Jayachandran, 1999). Although there is general consensus in the literature that innovation should be conceptualized broadly to capture all forms of innovation (Porter, 1990) literature has primarily focused on product innovation. There is growing evidence to suggest that firms use both technical (product, process) and non-technical (marketing, managerial) innovation to gain competitive advantage suggesting the need to examine the role of all forms of innovation in a firm’s competitive strategy. Similarly, although the capability-based view of competitive strategy suggests that firms possessing distinctive capabilities gain competitive advantage, research examining the role of capabilities in innovation-based competitive strategy is limited.

This special issue aims at bringing together, on an international scale, research on capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage in Industrial or Business-to-Business markets. As applicable to this theme the topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Conceptualization and measurement of organizational innovation (technical and non-technical)
  • Different types of innovation and how they interact and relate to competitive advantage
  • The degree of innovation (incremental & radical) and competitive advantage
  • The capabilities driving organizational innovation
  • How does a firm’s absorptive capacity interact with external learning in innovation-competitive advantage relationship
  • R&D and marketing interface, innovation and competitive advantage
  • Different contexts in which the individual innovation types will be separately and jointly effective in a firm’s competitive advantage
  • Environmental sustainability in the innovation-based competitive strategy
  • The influence of contingency factors such as the industry structure on innovation-competitive advantage relationship

The special issue solicits original contributions that were previously unpublished and are currently not under consideration by any other journal. Submissions that can provide a unique perspective using diverse methodological approaches, and interdisciplinary/international/industry-academic co-author teams are encouraged. Submissions should be sent electronically to Jay Weerawardena with a copy sent to the IMM editor at plaplaca@journalimm.com. All papers should focus specifically on capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage in Industrial or Business-to-Business markets Authors with questions about the acceptability of proposed topics are urged to contact the guest-editors early.

Authors should check the Guide for authors on the IMM web site for details on formatting all submissions: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505720/authorinstructions

IMM guest editors

Jay Weerawardena, PhD, The University of Queensland, Australia, j.weerawardena@business.uq.edu.au

Felix Mavondo, PhD, Monash University, Australia – Felix.Mavondo@buseco.monash.edu.au