Innovation success and failure: the moderating role of marketing innovation

Innovation is increasingly attracting attention by public authorities, firms and academics. Academic research has largely focused on the role of technological innovation in driving firm performance. Although there is emerging evidence that marketing innovation should regarded as important as technological innovation for enhancing companies’ competitiveness, few studies have taken it into account (Medrano and Olarte-Pascual 2016). The present study aims at addressing this gap by examining the moderating role of marketing innovation in the relationship between technological innovation and innovation success - the share of turnover related to technological innovation - and failure - the abandoning of an innovation. This study performs an analysis on a sample of German CIS firms related to the 2010-2012 period by means of a double hurdle model and a probit model with sample selection. Results show that introducing a marketing innovation does not play a significant role as far innovation success and failure are concerned. However, when the four types of marketing innovations are disentangled in the analysis, innovations in product packaging and design and in product promotion are found to moderate, respectively, positively and negatively the relationship between technological innovation and innovation success. Firms should then carefully evaluate which marketing innovation should be selected to leverage innovation success in the short run.