Researching at the Intersection of Innovation, Operations Management, and Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Although innovation is a critical component of entrepreneurship (e.g., innovation is a dimension of firms’ entrepreneurial orientation [Covin & Slevin, 1989]), it seems that the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship run in parallel, with little interaction occurring between the two. While it is unfortunate there has not been more interaction, cross-fertilization, and the co-production of knowledge, the current situation represents a research opportunity—a research opportunity that we begin to explore in this chapter. Innovation refers to the creation of a new product, process, or service that an organization has created for the market; it represents the commercialization of an invention, where invention is an “act of insight” (Li & Atuahene-Gima, 2001, p. 1124). Innovation has been found to lead to enhanced performance in new ventures (Capon, Farley, & Hoenig, 1990; Li & Atuahene-Gima, 2001), superior firm performance (Hull & Rothenberg, 2008; Thornhill, 2006), and dynamic firm capabilities (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997). Not surprisingly, innovation scholars have been interested in understanding what makes some firms more innovative than others. Indeed, the innovation literature has produced a long list of antecedents (for a meta-analysis, see Damanpour, 1991) including inter-firm cooperation (Shan, Walker, & Kogut, 1994), network position (Tsai, 2001), market orientation (Atuahene-Gima, 1996), and industry structure (Teece, 1996). The corporate entrepreneurship literature has also found that innovation outcomes are associated with growth (Burgelman, 1984), higher profitability (Zahra & Covin, 1995), and competitive advantage (Covin & Miles, 1999). (We note this latter point to reinforce our earlier point that while innovation and corporate entrepreneurship cover much of the same ground, one makes little reference to the other and vice versa [for an exception, see Morris, Kuratko, & Covin, 2010].) These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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