Commercialization of innovations: an overarching framework and research agenda

Abstract

Purpose

The commercialization of innovation, which is key to entrepreneurial success, is a combination of several entrepreneurial activities. Building on research from fields of management, strategy, entrepreneurship, economics, and marketing, the paper summarized the extant literature to develop a framework of commercialization and an agenda for future research. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Extensive review of literature, which was comprised of 194 articles across 62 journals in the fields of management, strategy, entrepreneurship, economics, and marketing.

Findings

The literature was categorized into six broad themes of entrepreneurial activities: sources of innovations, types of innovation, market entry (capabilities and feasibility), protection, development, and deployment. Most of the research papers that were reviewed were concentrated on single theme.

Practical implications

Given the identification of six key themes of entrepreneurial activity leading to the commercialization of innovations, research questions were posed as a means to move the research forward by integrating the themes.

Originality/value

This is the first paper in its kind to integrate 194 papers from 62 journals to provide a comprehensive framework of commercialization of innovations.

Citation

Datta, A., Reed, R. and Jessup, L. (2013), "Commercialization of innovations: an overarching framework and research agenda", American Journal of Business, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 147-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJB-08-2012-0048