Innovating into trouble: When innovation leads to customer complaints. Research Paper No 76

Published: 15 April 2019

This paper examines the unintended consequences of innovation. We show that innovative activity can have adverse outcomes in the form of increased customer complaints with the potential for reputational and financial damage. Complaints may arise directly from adverse reactions to innovative services or service failures where firms prioritise innovation. Our empirical analysis focuses on legal services in England and Wales. Survey data on innovation by legal service providers is matched with complaints data from the UK Legal Ombudsman. This allows us to identify causal links between innovation activity and subsequent customer complaints. Our analysis reveals that higher levels of innovation activity increase the probability and number of consumer complaints. We identify how firms can reduce the potential for consumer complaints by adopting collaborative innovation strategies and engaging in multi-functional teamworking. Our results have strategic, regulatory and policy implications

Associated Themes

Industry 4.0 is coming: Is digital adoption a new mechanism linking entrepreneurial ambition to business performance? Research Paper No 72

Published: 8 November 2018

The advent of Industry 4.0 emphasises the potential importance of digital adoption for sustained competitiveness. Here, based on new survey data for over 9,000 firms in the UK, Ireland and USA we consider whether digital adoption provides a new mechanism through which firms’ growth ambition is realised. Our analysis emphasises the commonality of factors linked to adoption in each of the three countries. Four key conclusions emerge.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation and Exporting

Organisational capital, exploration and exploitation: Econometric evidence for UK services firms. Research Paper No 65

Published: 8 February 2018

Across all sectors, firms face pressure to serve their customers better by innovating in the delivery of goods and services. Undertaking innovation involves a range of different activities, however, from exploratory knowledge creation or acquisition to commercial exploitation. This may create tensions due to the very different resource and organisational requirements of effective exploration and exploitation. Here, we draw on new survey data for five UK service sectors which separately identifies firms’ exploratory and exploitative activities, to identify those organisational practices which are associated with effective exploration and effective exploitation. Strong contrasts emerge, with more ‘organic’ practices associated with exploration and more ‘mechanistic’ practices better supporting exploration. We find no evidence, however, that those organisational practices associated with effective exploration have any detrimental effect on exploitation, and vice versa. Our results suggest very different organisational strategies for services firms adopting business models which emphasise exploration, exploitation or both.

Associated Themes

Work organization and innovation in legal services: analysis from a ‘deep dive’ study. Research Paper No 45

Published: 24 May 2016

Despite its potential social and economic benefit, innovation in legal services has to date received little academic attention. Drawing on the largest survey of legal services innovation ever undertaken (c. 1500 firms) this paper explores the strategic, resource and environmental drivers of service and delivery innovation among solicitors, barristers and other legal service providers.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation and Exporting

Innovation, quality management and learning: a dynamic analysis. Research Paper No 30

Published: 18 May 2015

ERC Research paper No 30
Quality improvement and innovation are central strategies for firms in an increasingly globalised marketplace. Implementing both quality improvement and innovation, however, poses significant managerial, organisational and technical challenges and may also involve significant lags before benefits are realised. Here, using panel data on a large group of Irish manufacturing firms and econometric analysis, we establish the dynamic influence of firms’ adoption of quality improvement methods (QIMs) on firms’ innovation performance. Our study highlights the short-term disruptive and longer-term beneficial effects of QIM adoption on innovation.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation and Exporting

Creating value from embodied knowledge – the link between advanced manufacturing technologies and innovation. Research Paper No 31

Published: 18 May 2015

Research paper No 31
The ability to innovate successfully is a key corporate capability, depending strongly on firms’ access to knowledge capital: proprietary, tacit and embodied. Here, we focus on one specific source of embodied knowledge – advanced manufacturing technologies or AMTs – and consider its impact on firms’ innovation success.

Associated Themes

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  Innovation and Exporting