Impact of customer integration on innovation performance: empirical evidence in Korean manufacturers

Abstract

Due to higher intensity of competition and advancements in technology, firms required integration with internal and external members to improve their capabilities. Among various integration, customer integration is considered as important dimension of external integration. Although Customer integration is considered as useful way in innovation process and new product development process, some studies propose the risks of customer integration due to customer’s behavioral factors. Therefore, this research examined the impact of customer integration on 2 different types of innovation performances. In the analyses, international diversification is included to examine the moderating effect due to geographic scope of activities. As results, the customer integration has negative impact on incremental innovation and international diversification has positive moderating effect on that relationship. These results of the study can be useful in integrating customers and international diversification strategy.