Abstract
Market information can provide pertinent insights into market trends, consumer needs, and shopper behaviour. This is vital information for firms innovating with their products given the rate of competition, environmental change, and new product failure. Until recently, formalised market information received little attention in the small business literature due to the financial resources and analytical expertise required to access data and insights. Research has found loyalty-card data to support marketing capability development and enhance existing knowledge stocks; however, limited research exists regarding the processes required to transform databased insight into action.Drawing on the knowledge-based view of the firm, this research explores the influence of market information on new product development. Specifically, investigating the capability integration between knowledge management and absorptive capacity in enabling small firms to transform market information into usable market knowledge. A qualitative research design was adopted to achieve an in-depth understanding of how market information links to new product development and why some firms are able to better exploit market information. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-five small agri-food firms and interview transcripts were analysed by template analysis using NVivo 12 software.
While the literature acknowledges the link between knowledge accumulation and product innovation, much of the research conducted to date has focused exclusively on either internal or external sources of knowledge; few studies have investigated the interrelationship between knowledge-related capabilities. This research makes a unique contribution by investigating the relationship between internally oriented knowledge management processes and externally oriented absorptive capabilities through extending the well-established SECI model. The findings reveal both constructs are synergistic in enabling firms to create a new configuration of market knowledge for new product development and other performance outcomes. Whilst a significant contribution in itself, this study investigates small firms which is especially important considering research into knowledge management has neglected SMEs.
| Date of Award | Jan 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Sponsors | Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (DAERA) of Northern Ireland (UK) |
| Supervisor | Geoff Simmons (Supervisor) & Lynsey Elizabeth Hollywood (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- market intelligence
- knowledge management
- absorptive capacity
- SMEs
- SECI model