Market Orientation and R&D Effectiveness in High-technology Firm

Seminar arranged by Center for Strategic Management and Globalization and Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics

by Gianmario Verona (Bocconi University).

Market Orientation and R&D Effectiveness in High-technology Firm: an Empirical Investigation in the Biotechnology Industry

ABSTRACT: There seems to be lack of consensus among informed scholars about the importance a of market orientation for high-technology firms. This controversy may be alimented to two limitations of existing research on market orientation and innovation performance. First, extant research often overlooked key innovation outcomes for high-technology firms, such as those related to Research and Development (R&D) performance. Second, it proposed little about organizational conditions which can ensure an optimal integration of market knowledge in the high-technology firms’ innovation process.

The present study addresses these problems by providing a test of the effect of market orientation on R&D effectiveness and the moderating role of knowledge integration, using a sample of biotechnology firms. Results show that the different dimensions of a market orientation have diverse effects on R&D effectiveness of high-technology firms: while interfunctional coordination is inherently valuable, customer orientation needs to be complemented by knowledge integration, and competitor orientation does not seem to be influential. The authors discuss how these findings contribute to understanding the role of market orientation in high-technology industries, and conclude by providing directions for future research.

The paper for the seminar can be downloaded here.