Using Relationship Marketing and Organisational Learning for Competitive Advantage during Innovation

Without his knowledge, Professor Michael Baker and his work on new product development and innovation provided the fundamental impetus for this chapter. Indeed, Professor Baker played a very important role in forming the research career of the first author. Several years ago (not even the rigours of academic citation will force the exact date from me — some things are best left hazy) this author was pursuing an interest in innovation in search of a dissertation topic. The area was then being ‘rediscovered’ in the USA and certainly worthy of more study. The difficulty then was finding an appropriate conceptual framework with which to winnow ideas. Some of Professor Baker’s work came to light during a daily foray to the library in search of previous thinking on innovation. His careful discussion of a two-by-two grid with innovation in the fourth, high-growth and high-risk, cell offered a parsimonious foundation upon which to build. The dissertation proposal was written, accepted, completed and ultimately led to several more pieces such as the one included here. Much later, I met Professor Baker at an American Marketing Association Conference where I had the pleasure of being the track chair for his paper with Susan Hart (Hart and Baker, 1993) that offered a framework with which to view new product development. His careful pursuit and continuous improvement of thinking about innovation still inspires.