Barriers and facilitators of reverse innovation: An integrative review

Abstract

The reverse innovation mainly refers to innovations developed in developing or emerging markets, and that has the potential to be disseminated to developed countries. This new locus of innovation demands that organizations implement new business models and new management strategies. In this context, this article aims to identify the barriers and the facilitators to the generation of successful reverse innovations. For this, an integrative review of the literature was carried out from articles selected in the Scopus database and the Google Scholar tool, together with others considered relevant by the authors. Among the main barriers to reverse innovation found in the literature are the dominant logic of the strategic actions of multinational companies based in developed markets; the prejudgment in relation to reverse innovations, considered as of low quality; the institutional distance between the headquarters of multinationals and their subsidiaries; the fear of cannibalization of products; and regulatory barriers. Among the facilitators are the growing demand of emerging markets for new products; increasing role of technology as a facilitator of the development of economical and easy-to-use innovations; the need for multinational companies to expand their markets; the increasing internationalization of companies and the consequent increase in the decentralization of research and development (R&D) areas.