Complementarity of Innovation Capability and Customer-Linking Capability: A Configurational Approach

Abstract

Customer-linking capability fosters a profitable customer base and ensures that there is a fit between the product or service offered and the customers served (Rapp, Trainor and Agnihotri 2010; Hooley et al. 2005). Innovation capability, in turn, provides a source of organizational renewal. This is necessary because customer preferences change and competitors' innovative activities erode the ability of existing products and services to cater to the needs and wants of the customer (Kim and Pennings 2009; Coad and Rao 2008). Thus, the firm’s customer-linking capability and innovation capability support one another (Maciariello 2009).