Corporate Reputation and the Commercialization of Innovation: Does Reputation Match Reality, and Does Innovation Matter?

Avimanyu Datta,Richard Reed,Len Jessup

doi:10.4236/ti.2011.24027

Abstract

We seek to understand which firms excel at innovation and commercialization. In doing so, we first ranked companies that performed well on four measures: spending on R&D Spending (2006), Patenting (cumulative 2006 and 2007) and Commercialization of Innovations (Cumulative for 2007 and 2008). We then compared our rankings with that of Business Week/Boston Consulting Group’s annual ranking of the most innovative companies, which primarily is based on reputation measured as perceptions among sitting CEO’s. Somewhat surprisingly, there is not complete overlap between our more quantitative ranking and the one done by Business Week/BCG, and we highlight the reasons why. Second, we tested the relationship among R&D, patents, and product releases and the role they play in driving revenue. We found that although innovation and commercialization are different, they need to be considered together, that perceptions and reality in this realm often do not match, and that joint innovation and commercialization activities can influence the bottom line.

Highlights

To survive firms must continue to innovate and successfully commercialize these innovations, whether by creating significant improvements to existing products in order to maintain or grow market share, or by creating entirely new products that potentially drive new markets [1,2,3,4]
We tested the relationship among R & D, patents, and product releases and the role they play in driving revenue
The path coefficients from Commercialized innovations (CI) to revenue increased from β = 0.075 in 2008 to β = 0.127 in 2009 to β = 0.135 in 2010

Summary

Introduction

To survive firms must continue to innovate and successfully commercialize these innovations, whether by creating significant improvements to existing products in order to maintain or grow market share, or by creating entirely new products that potentially drive new markets [1,2,3,4]. Research on and rankings of the world’s most innovative companies, and how they achieve this status, is useful and timely in a variety of ways. Popular rankings of firms based on their innovative capabilities has been done primarily using measures based on the perceptions of CEO’s rather than using measures of definitive activities and hard outcomes within firms. We feel there is need for a better understanding of the role that innovation and commercialization play in firm success

Objectives

Results

Conclusion