Effects of consumer behaviour on innovations in fast food industry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine effects of consumer behaviour oninnovation commercialization among fast food restaurants via theanalysis of restaurant selection criteria in the Lithuanian fast foodmarket. In today's global economic competitive environment whereinnovation is becoming more important, companies need to successfullymanage innovations in order to ensure their competitive advantage,exploit new markets and attract customers. There is extensive researchin the area of innovation (for instance, Schumpeter, 1934; Drucker,2002; Lundvall, 2004; Freeman, 1982; Alam and Perry, 2002; Berghman,2008; Ottenbacher, 2007, 2008 and etc.); however, the literature on theimpact of consumer behaviour on commercialization of innovation is notwell-established. The paper is innovative and relevant due to theselected fast food industry for analysis. It addresses the question: howdoes consumer behaviour contribute to innovation processes in the fastfood industry and what are the ways to optimize the innovationperformance, based on consumer needs? Fast food could be considered asan innovation itself. Nowadays it is not enough to just provide a fastfood. Companies need to innovate in order to attract new customers -there is a new trend of healthy fast food, where requirements for fastfood companies are very high. The present paper overviews and comparesthe academic literature on innovation, various classifications ofinnovation types and innovation process. It also presents the specifictrends and issues of the EU system of innovation, choosing theLithuanian case due to its sensitivity to transformation and rapidimprovements, and only then it evolves into a quantitative survey-basedstudy on fast food; restaurant selection criteria.