Understanding the strategy-innovation link in an era of disruptions

Abstract

Whereas innovation and strategy traditionally are treated as two separate fields of expertise and research, this conceptual paper aims to identify how strategy theory can be linked to recent developments within the innovation field. Innovation research seeks to explain the process of creating new products and services. Strategy research, in turn, intends to explain how businesses create lasting competitive advantages. In recent years, research in strategy has shifted towards explaining how organizational capabilities and environmental turbulence are related, increasingly recognizing that it is difficult to retain sustainable competitive advantages, unless market dynamics and business renewal are addressed. To establish a systematic integration and analysis, we present the results of an extensive literature review of 1,268 research articles published between 2007-2017 to address the question: To what degree, and how, have strategy and innovation been linked in leading management journals? Our analysis reveals that research addressing both strategy and innovation is limited, but highly cited. Moreover, we identify 5 main themes, which in turn reflected 12 subsidiary themes addressed in extant research. These themes combine to give important insights about the research that been done and what is likely to be needed going forward.