Collaborative pull innovation: origins and adoption in the new economy

• Published in: Agribusiness (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 24; no. 3; pp. 388 - 402
• Main Author: Weaver, Robert D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.07.2008; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Series: Agribusiness
• Subjects: Collaboration; collaborative pull innovation; consumer demand; Economic growth; food industry; Food processing industry; Hypotheses; Information technology; innovation; innovation adoption; integration (economics); market competition; new methods; private enterprises; Private sector; process innovation; Small & medium sized enterprises-SME; small businesses; Studies; Technological change
• ISSN: 0742-4477; 1520-6297
• DOI: 10.1002/agr.20165

This article argues that collaboration has been a key piston in the engine that is driving economic growth in the new millennium. Innovation in information technology, institutions, and strategic reorientation of technological change has opened opportunity, and competition has put strong imperatives in play for collaborative innovation. First, these imperatives have forced a reorientation of private enterprise from push to pull systems. Second, they have catalyzed a strategic unbundling of integrated firms to create specialized enterprises with enhanced productivity and flexibility, though with increased demand for virtual integration through less formal relationships to establish and manage collaboration. This article presents the hypothesis that these changes induced a fundamentally new dynamic in innovation processes that we label as collaborative pull innovation. This new form of innovation encompasses and directs product, process, and organizational innovation toward fulfilling consumer demand. To examine this hypothesis, the nature of private-sector innovation is assessed within the context of the food sector. This sector is of special interest due to important roles played by small- to medium-sized enterprises.