The Role of Marketing Logics in the Selection of Innovations

The presented study utilizes data collected from an extensive real world concept selection process in new product development (NPD), to investigate whether department specific dominant logics and competences influence the selections made by a marketing department, and what might be driving this logic.

The study specifically investigates the impact of the departmental viewpoint onto idea selection in the innovation process, by comparing the selections made by the marketing department (n=31) with those of R&D (n=25) and company executives (n=8). In the NPD project seven concepts were screened for continuation through an individual pairwise comparison, to test eight hypotheses all based on h0: There is no difference between the innovations selected by marketing, R&D, and executive groups.

Through an analysis of the between-department variance h0 was rejected (F(12, 366)= 2.312, p<.001), and the results from the eight following hypotheses lend support to extending the concept of dominant logics to the department level, providing some explanations for the large variance found in the evaluation of the three groups.

The reported findings have important managerial implications, as they point to which type of logic, and thereby screening of ideas, can be achieved based on which departments are involved in the critical selection of ideas and concepts for continuation in NPD.