Evaluating exploitation strategy for technological innovation: cost or compatibility?

Innovation becomes an important asset for firms to compete in today´s business environments. It is essential for firms to choose method of exploitation wisely in order to exercise proprietary invention to its utmost potential. Some of the past literatures suggested cost perspective to evaluate exploitation strategy while its validity has been questioned by scholars who believe in contradictory theories. This research is dedicated to explore determinants of exploitation strategy. It takes qualitative approach by in-depth interviewing five case studies of innovative products from multiple industries. The finding revealed that firms may not factor in cost perspective even though the main objective is to gain big profit. In contrary the results indicated that firms indeed pay attention on factors which lead to evaluation of compatibility between the invention and commercialization environment. Additionally, the finding suggested that exploitation strategy is a dynamic process and shall be reevaluated throughout life cycle of invention especially when the commercialization environment has changed.