The Endogeneity of Innovation: Synchronous and Asynchronous Links between Stages of Innovation in Large Biopharmaceutical Firms

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Organization Learning and Change

Abstract

Research on innovation typically examines one or sometimes two stages of innovation (i.e., invention, development, and implementation), but fails to examine common factors that influence success across all the stages of innovation. Viewing innovation in a piecemeal fashion produces explanations of success that are disjointed, inconsistent, and under theorized. To fill this gap, I develop a framework for explaining success across the broad stages of innovation. The argument presented in this paper is that stages of innovation are endogenous, with activities at one stage generating either complimentarities that are beneficial at other stages or tensions that may prove detrimental. Structural equation modeling is used to test this argument using data on product invention, product development, and products on the market for a sample of 114 biopharmaceutical firms. The findings indicate that success in the first and third phases, product invention and product implementation, create benefits that can be utilized at other stages while success at the intermediate stage, product development, decreases the likelihood of success for product implementation.

Author

• Eric C. Dahlin, Brigham Young University