Customer Integration during Innovation Development: An Exploratory Study in the Logistics Service Industry

Abstract

Previous research has shown that though customer integration during innovation development can enhance companies' innovation performance, it can also harm innovativeness. A possible reason for these contradicting findings is that innovation development is a dynamic process that requires different tasks. Thus, a more fine‐grained picture of how customer‐oriented companies engage in customer integration throughout the entire innovation development process is necessary. This article contributes to the innovation and marketing literature by providing insights into how companies co‐create knowledge about customer needs relevant for innovation development. Using a multiple case study design, this study examines four substantive cases that illustrate the activities logistics service providers undertake to integrate customers during the process of idea generation, development and implementation. The results show that companies focus on both proactive and reactive customer integration during idea generation and implementation but refrain from reactive customer integration during development.