ABSTRACT
The origins of entrepreneurial insight form a favourite theme in accounts of corporate innovation. Various classifications of the relevant sources of new product concepts are to be found in the marketing literature, from those in which the genesis of innovation inheres in the creative genius of an individual ‘prime mover’ to those which seem to assume that ideas for successful new products are so elusive as to require strenuous generation by experimental techniques such as brainstorming. Another type of classification of the sources of new product ideas dwells upon their location: those sources which are internal to the company – such as the analysis of marketing intelligence data, R&D personnel, venture committees and employee suggestion schemes – are distinguished from such external sources as competitors, customers, patients, consultants and agents. On occasion, idea-deficient situations arise in which these environments must be carefully monitored lest important concepts for effective innovation are overlooked. However, the strategic problem faced by most firms at the early stages of the new product development process is not that too few potentially-workable ideas exist but that the means of discriminating between appropriate and inappropriate ideas are lacking. The strategic need is for ways of ensuring that those ideas selected for development harmonise sufficiently with corporate capabilities and with genuine market opportunities to contribute adequately or better to the fulfilment of business objectives.
