The positioning of the marketing unit and proactive market learning: The relationship and the effects on radical innovation

Abstract

Although radical innovation is a prerequisite to sustain long-term competitive advantage for firms, they often fail to exploit technological opportunities that could lead to radical innovations due to their inability to properly evaluate market potential. This study focuses on marketing organizational structure and identifies three types of structures based on how marketing units are positioned within firms. Additionally, this research examines whether such positioning affects the frequency of radical innovations through market exploration. This study analyzed the data collected from 162 Japanese companies. The results show that the differences in the marketing-unit positioning influence market exploration. Furthermore, market exploration is positively related to the frequency of radical innovations.