Affordable or Premium Innovation The Influence of Individual and Contextual Factors on Innovators' Engagement in Different Innovation Types

Affordable innovations target customers with a low willingness or ability to pay. While researchers and practitioners increasingly recognise the importance of affordable innovation to society, we know little about the conditions under which individual innovators engage in affordable innovation rather than its counterpart: premium innovation. In our qualitative study of 55 innovators, we first uncover the individual and contextual factors that determine innovators' commitment to affordable and premium innovations. We also identify common combinations of factors that lead to different types of affordable and premium innovators. Finally, we highlight the conditions under which innovators move from affordable to premium innovations and from premium to affordable innovations. These results contribute to the innovation literature by showing that a conceptual distinction between affordable and premium innovations is necessary to understand individual innovative commitment and by explaining why innovators often choose premium innovations over socially relevant affordable innovations

Mit Low-End Innovationen die medizinische Versorgung verbessern – Potenziale und Herausforderungen

Unsere Gesellschaft im 21. Jahrhundert steht vor zahlreichen globalen Herausforderungen. Besonders das Gesundheitswesen sieht sich trotz Verbesserungen von Untersuchungs- und Behandlungsmethoden großen Aufgaben gegenüber. Ein drängendes Problem stellt die Bereitstellung von medizinischer Versorgung dar. Mehrere Milliarden Menschen, v. a. in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern, verfügen über keinen oder nur unzureichenden Zugang zu medizinischer Grundversorgung. Ein Weg, um diese Herausforderungen zu bezwingen, stellen Low-End Innovationen dar. Hierbei handelt es sich um neue Produkte oder Dienstleistungen, die deutlich kostengünstiger sind als bisher erhältliche Produkte oder Dienstleistungen. Sie adressieren somit Patienten, deren finanzielle Ressourcen für existierende High-End Lösungen nicht ausreichen. Um das Potenzial von Low-End Innovationen für die Bekämpfung von sozialen Herausforderungen zu nutzen, muss eine Vielzahl von Problemstellungen angegangen werden. In diesem Kapitel beschreiben wir deshalb die Potenziale sowie unternehmerische, staatliche und angebots- und nachfrageseitige Hürden, die genommen werden müssen, damit Low-End Innovationen einen Beitrag zur verbesserten medizinischen Versorgung leisten können

Affordable innovation rejection attitudes: conceptualisation, scale development, and validation

Affordable innovations, which serve consumers with a low willingness or ability to pay, are a means to address grand challenges while also generating economic value. However, less is known about how managers’ and decision makers’ individual-level preferences and attitudes for or against affordable innovation hinder their development. Hence, in addition to identifying and conceptualising the affordable innovation rejection (AIR) attitudes of decision makers as a major obstacle, this study proposes a scale to measure them. Specifically, with a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, this research develops and validates a parsimonious psychometric scale that can measure decision makers’ AIR attitudes. The resulting six-item scale is based on a tripartite AIR conceptualisation, which proves valid in terms of convergent, discriminant, experimental, nomological, predictive, and test–retest reliability. The proposed research agenda in turn details some possible applications of this scale

Attitude towards Low-end and High-end Innovation

As innovation processes are characterized by high levels of uncertainty, key individuals’ higher-level attitudes shape their behavior. We investigate new product development decision makers’ and agents’ attitudes towards two crucial innovation types: low-end innovation (positioned below the average market price of the product category) and high-end innovation (positioned above the average market price of the product category). While previous research suggests that these key individuals have inherent preferences towards low-end or high-end innovations, we lack knowledge regarding what constitutes their attitudes. Consequently, we investigate why some key individuals prefer low-end innovations while others favor high-end innovations. Using a qualitative approach, we collected data from 48 individuals, including a pilot study with 26 experts, followed by semi-structured interviews with 11 potential innovators and 11 actual innovators. We content-analyzed the data, applying inductive as well as deductive approaches. Our results reveal three overarching perspectives that innovators use to create low-end and high-end attitudes: the firm perspective (i.e., firm benefits and firm fit), the personal perspective (i.e., personal benefits and personal fit), and the societal perspective (i.e., social benefits). These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the human side in innovation management

Why do innovation managers put a premium on premium?

Researchers and practitioners call for innovation that is affordable to consumers with a low willingness or ability to pay. However, many affordable innovation ideas may never come to fruition because they do not get past important innovation gatekeepers; managers and decision-makers’ individual-level preferences and attitudes may hinder the development of affordable innovation. This research identifies affordable innovation rejection attitudes among decision managers as a major obstacle in developing affordable innovation and proposes a scale to measure them. Across a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, this research develops and validates a parsimonious psychometric scale to measure decision-makers’ affordable innovation rejection (AIR) attitudes. The resulting six-item scale is based on a tripartite conceptualization of AIR and proves to be valid in terms of convergent, experimental, nomological, and test-retest reliability. We discuss possible applications of the scale in light of a short future research agenda