2017-Muthu De Silva
The Effect of Capabilities of Service Sector Firms on Co-Creating Innovation with Supply Chain Partners
Dr Muthu De Silva, Birkbeck, University of London
Co-Investigator: Prof Zaheer Khan
Project summary: Co-creation, a process in which firms develop innovation in collaboration with external parties, is emerging as an essential source of firms’ competitive advantage. Co-created innovation ensures enhanced revenue, learning market performance as well as social value creation.
Yet, existing research suggests that firms face multiple challenges in co-creating different set of innovation, especially with international partners. As co-creation involves in establishing ‘deep’ relationships with international partners to integrate knowledge bases, networks and resources of partners, capitalising on right capabilities is necessary. Nevertheless, surprisingly little is known, either conceptually or empirically, about how firms use their relational (i.e. the quality of relationships with external parties) and internal (i.e. resources and knowledge vested within an organization) capabilities to co-create innovation.
We, by adopting an exploratory multiple case study design, address this knowledge gap by investigating how the interaction between firms and their international partners influence their ability to co-create innovation and social and business value.