In today's environment of rapid technological change companies can not rely on incremental innovations alone. To sustain long-term competitiveness companies need to develop radical innovations as well. Such innovations typically incorporate new and highly complex technologies, create new markets...

Discussion of "market pull" versus "technology push" approaches in the field of busi-ness innovation research has followed a certain trend. The empirical research under-taken until now has been concerned in particular with the question of how each of these approaches differently influence the...

In this paper we explore how knowledge brokers – specialised design and engineeringcompanies offering services to clients in diverse industries – use analogies for productdevelopment. Our research is based on interviews with project leaders of 13 knowledgebrokering companies. The interviews...

Manufacturers usually benefit by dividing their innovation processes into distinct phases inorder to ensure that the development activities are performed efficiently in an appropriatesequence [1]. Users usually do not apply such structured processes. They follow a moreintuition-driven approach....

Analogies can trigger breakthrough ideas in new product development. Numerous examples demonstratethat substantial innovations often result from transferring problem solutions from one industry ordomain to another. For instance, the designers of the new running shoe generation of Nike,...

In der einschlägigen Literatur wird in der Regel das Bild stark formalisierter und methodengestützter Innovationsprozesse aufgezeichnet, das primär für große Unternehmen zutreffend erscheint. Inwieweit sich diese Vorstellung auch auf Organisationen geringerer Größe übertragen lässt,...

Analogies can trigger breakthrough ideas in new product development. Numerous examples demonstrate that substantial innovations often result from transferring problem solutions from one industry or domain to another. For instance, the designers of the new running shoe generation of Nike, Nike...

In this paper we explore how knowledge brokers - specialised design and engineering companies offering services to clients in diverse industries - use analogies for product development. Our research is based on interviews with project leaders of 13 knowledge brokering companies. The interviews...