The Front End of Innovation in Converging Industries

Industry convergence - the blurring of boundaries between formerly separated industry sectors - is a current phenomenon with vast implications for the front end of innovation. Firms intending to develop so called hybrid products face resource and competence gaps. Existing processes of idea generation and evaluation become obsolete since new areas of technological and market knowledge evolve outside traditional industry boundaries. Stefanie Bröring analyses different project types, innovation strategies and front end decision making approaches in the converging sector of nutraceuticals and functional foods which is developing at the border of the pharmaceutical and the food industry. Results are derived from an empirical sample of 54 R&D projects collected in a North American industry cluster. The author shows that front end decision making in times of industry convergence is challenged by internal rigidities resulting from path dependency and describes how to successfully approach the front of innovation in times of convergence.