The emergence of online entrepreneurship platforms made it possible for entrepreneurs to fund their innovative ideas through financial support from business angels, venture capitalists, and crowds. Nevertheless, technology product development projects are the most difficult to fund on such platforms, with the least funding success and highest unsuccessful dollar value among all categories. One major factor affecting funding success on these platforms is the extent of perceived innovativeness of the presented technology products. The extant literature evinces that product innovativeness perception is influenced not only by novelty but also meaningfulness perception and that innovativeness brings higher funding success when novel projects are also perceived to be meaningful. By drawing on the theory of resonance, this study investigates the impact of interactivity on the extent of perceived innovativeness by creating an impact on resonance, which is proposed to represent all pre-identified aspects of meaningfulness. An online experiment was conducted to empirically validate the proposed research model, and increased interactivity was found to be positively associated with perceived product innovativeness through higher resonance. Theoretically, this study proposes the resonance concept to account for the meaningfulness perception regarding innovative product ideas and demonstrates the positive effect of increased interactivity on perceived innovativeness. For practitioners, the results provide evidence for the positive impact of interactive product presentation on the increased perception of resonance and, thus, innovativeness, which evinces a higher potential for funding success in highly innovative product development projects. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The video game industry in Sweden has experienced tremendous growth since 2009 with its revenue generation being compared to iron ore, an important revenue generator for the country. The ability of these firms to record recurrent increases in revenue is due to the innovativeness of the industry. External sources of knowledge affect firms’ innovative performance. However, the complexity of the knowledge acquired is influenced by the strength of ties between the firm and its counterparts. This study investigates how Swedish video game firms develop new products to stay competitive through their relationship with their strong ties counterparts, level of cooperation and firms’ absorptive capacity. We model strong ties relationship with latent constructs including closeness, commitment and trust. A nationally representative survey was conducted among selected video game firms across Sweden. Structural equation modelling was then utilized to assess the effect of strong ties on new product innovativeness. The results show that strong ties with external counterparts have a positive and statistically significant effect on new product innovation through the mediating channel of cooperation and absorptive capacity. Closeness, commitment and trust show a direct effect on cooperation, cooperation on absorptive capacity and absorptive capacity on new product innovativeness. The implications of these findings have been discussed.

The remarkable growth of the video game industry has triggered an interest for the capabilities that video game companies need in order to seize opportunities in the market. Companies that continuously provide product innovations are arguably better equipped to succeed in the dynamic, digitized video game landscape. Market sensing capabilities have been brought forward as particularly useful in environments with these characteristics and research suggests that user communities could be critical sources of external knowledge for video game companies. Hence, the aim of this study is to provide a framework where these concepts are combined into a unified dynamic capability, Community Sensing Capability, and to quantitatively test its effect on product innovativeness. An interview-administered questionnaire was used to gather data, resulting in a sample of 72 observations. The capability builds on three different sub-processes; sensing, sensemaking and response. Reliable measurements were developed for Community Sensing Capability, sensing and response respectively. The regression analysis indicate that sensing and response are positively related to product innovativeness, while Community Sensing Capability is not significantly related. This study contributes to literature by shedding light on a new phenomenon and giving initial insights to how the Community Sensing Capability can be exploited in innovation processes.

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