Innovation as a socio-political process: An empirical analysis of influence behavior among new product managers

Abstract

An influence decision-making framework is used to represent innovation as a socio-political process of contested change involving new product managers and innovation stakeholders. Relationships between individual, organizational, and new product antecedents, influence context and strategic influence decision-making were investigated with data from a sample of 107 new product managers in the electronics manufacturing industry. Managers' influence intensity and influence methods decision-making varied depending upon the target and decision-type characteristics of influence context. Relatedly, antecedent variables discriminated among influence strategies, and influence intensity and influence strategy decision-making were related. These findings strongly suggest that new product innovation has a socio-political dimension and that organizational and new product variables, as well as contextual factors, are effective predictors of the influence decision-making that determines how new product managers acquire resources and support from innovation stakeholders.