Impediments to customer integration into the innovation process: A case study in the telecommunications industry

• Case study research involving qualitative interviews and company documents.
• We examine impediments to customer integration related to absorptive capacity.
• We distinguish pecuniary from non-pecuniary external knowledge.

SummaryCustomer integration is an integral element of the innovation process today. Yet, despite the potential for integrating external knowledge into new product development (NPD) processes, companies often fail to benefit sufficiently from customer integration. Research attributes this failure to restricted absorptive capacity, intellectual property concerns, or the “not-invented-here” syndrome but has not yet shown in which different phases of NPD which barriers dominate. To contribute to the discussion on impediments and barriers to customer integration, this authors presents a case study that examines customer integration into different stages of the NPD on the basis on three complementary learning strategies, namely explorative learning, transformative learning, and exploitative learning. The results of the case study can help to sensitise managers for impediments to customer integration throughout their NPD and innovation processes and to overcome typical various types of barriers.