An Agenda for Future Research on IT and Product Development - Information Technology and Product Development - page 185

The objective of this topic has been to examine the issues related to the applica-
tion of IT in product/service development from multiple disciplinary and theoretical
perspectives. The various chapters have considered a wide range of issues including
the business value of IT applications, PLM implementation, virtual teams, customer
co-innovation, and knowledge management systems. In examining these issues, the
authors of the various chapters drew from multiple fields and areas including mar-
keting, strategy, organizational behavior, and information systems. The discussions
in these chapters identified several issues for future research related to the different
topics.
In this concluding chapter, I identify and discuss some of the broader research
themes that have emerged from the different chapters. The objective is to bring a
sharper focus on and lay out a rich and promising agenda for future research on IT
and product/service development.
10.2 Critical Themes for Future Research on IT
and Innovation
10.2.1 IT and Network-Centric Innovation
The increased emphasis on organic (or innovation-driven) growth strategies in
many companies has also been accompanied by a growing realization regarding
the need to “look outside” for innovative product ideas and technologies, i.e.,
the need to reach out to customers, suppliers, independent inventors, academic
researchers, innovation brokers, and a host of other external entities. These different
entities together represent the global brain, a vast untapped creative potential that
lies beyond company boundaries (Nambisan & Sawhney, 2007). However, making
such a shift from innovation initiatives that are centered on internal resources to
those that are centered on external networks and communities - i.e., a shift from
firm-centric innovation to network-centric innovation - is quite challenging and
complex.
Network-centric innovation has been defined as an “externally focused approach
to innovation that relies on harnessing the resources and capabilities of external net-
works and communities to amplify or enhance innovation reach, innovation speed,
and the quality of innovation outcomes” (Nambisan & Sawhney, 2007).
Four key principles underlie network-centric innovation. First, the innovation
network should establish and promote a set of shared goals and objectives that
would give direction and bring a level of coherence to the innovation activities.
Second, it is important that network partners adopt a shared “world view” or
awareness of the external environment - i.e., key assumptions, evaluation meth-
ods, frameworks, etc., related to the innovation context. Third, the network will
need to support social knowledge creation, i.e., knowledge creation that occurs in a
collaborative and cumulative manner through interactions among the different part-
ners. Finally, the network has to define an architecture of participation that bring