0000000000365090
AUTHOR
Tomas Falk
How customer knowledge affects exploration : generating, guiding, and gatekeeping
The importance of understanding customers in order to sustain the long-term success of the company has been claimed by academics and practitioners for decades, to the point that the claim has turned into a truism. And still, the role of customer knowledge in organizational renewal, especially via explorative new product development (NPD), remains ambiguous. While existing literature generally emphasizes the value of customer knowledge, critics argue that a strong customer focus can also de-motivate and misguide exploration. This study adds clarity to our understanding of this tension by drawing from an intensive analysis of the corporate archives of a rapidly growing high-tech company. The …
How customer knowledge affects exploration: Generating, guiding, and gatekeeping
Abstract The importance of understanding customers in order to sustain the long-term success of the company has been claimed by academics and practitioners for decades, to the point that the claim has turned into a truism. And still, the role of customer knowledge in organizational renewal, especially via explorative new product development (NPD), remains ambiguous. While existing literature generally emphasizes the value of customer knowledge, critics argue that a strong customer focus can also de-motivate and misguide exploration. This study adds clarity to our understanding of this tension by drawing from an intensive analysis of the corporate archives of a rapidly growing high-tech comp…