The road ahead is digital for innovation management and there is no way back

The thought-provoking paper by Cooper (2021) provides a beacon for researchers across disciplines contributing to the domain of innovation management. identifies five developments originating from need accelerating product development in COVID-19 pandemic, but he also highlights root cause which lies at deeper level change, viz. digital transformation. Digitalization has increasingly reduced cycles and accelerated new development. current pandemic is acting as virtual magnifying glass shows micro snapshot what future store rightly points out that will increase efficiency 19% reduce time-to-market 17% on average. These statistics are impressive, even more impressive performance top 10% champions (PWC, 2019): they their 31%, 28%, production cost 20% (13% average). fundamentally changed way we innovate introducing novel business models, smart products services, emerging technologies, evolution experience economy. How can academic research support this paradigm shift management? First all, maybe most importantly, learn disciplines. clearly shown us truly interdisciplinary approach find solutions challenges it posed global community. Numerous have explored potential impact transformation management, still lack an study phenomena integrative perspective avoid white spots our field study. Digital requires revision theories well methods. Our classical methods based surveys, experiments, qualitative techniques might only show part studying. resulted availability large quantities unstructured data, such text, images, video, audio, eye-tracking, facial expressions neuro growing ever-increasing pace (Balducci & Marinova, 2018). It estimated data constitute about 80%–90% all worldwide. be harnessed Unstructured analytical approaches extract features further analysis. For instance, Khanday et al. (2020) machine learning used diagnose using clinical text data. However, takes place disciplinary silos ultimately integrate these conceptual empirical insights order stimulate One popular tools toolbox crowdsourcing. More particular contests, operate platforms allowing participants contribute generating, developing, discussing ideas. example, Vermicelli provide evidence 16 projects crowdsourcing effective challenges. In how processes evolve during contests take perspective. We users communicate with each other typically textual whom point time. realize theoretical lenses disciplines, information systems, computer science, linguistics, education, communication. This involves computational natural language processing, social network analysis additional over use focus groups surveys (cf. Ludwig al., 2014). Innovation hardly ever splendid isolation anymore. Quite contrary, process co-creation different parties process. BioNTech Pfizer decided cooperate early vaccine, first mRNA vaccine authorized humans. Information obtained communication customers, human agents. complemented generated sensors services Internet-of-Things. Smart create value customers bundle cyber-physical arrangements (Raff 2020). Customers co-create necessary personalize customer personalized touchpoints journey firms customers. Design thinking concepts helpful meaningful (Micheli 2019). mobile apps fellow (https://www.experiencefellow.com) or indeemo (https://indeemo.com) allow record journey. then compiled into dashboard valuable aware privacy issues, give up experience. A key example importance concerns various tracking Bluetooth technology. Teams been considered panacea underlying mechanisms teamwork remain under-researched. team than sum its members, interaction leading not understood. Video audio recording patterns teams granular automatic coding gestures expressions, voice analysis, transcription sequences. Using wearables multiple sensors, sociometric badges (Pentland, 2008) complementary insights, body movement, speech features, proximity, face-to-face among members. Virtual teams, faced critical Virtualness almost universally negative satisfaction. longer-term effects considerably weaker disappear (De Guinea 2012). Especially, dedicated proven invaluable Pfizer. individual determine should composed stages Recently, Rindfleisch highlighted technologies content same authors showed actually less dozen papers focused predominantly covering media big augmented reality (AR/VR), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain received adequate attention management community date. Augmented (AR/VR) great promise prototype relatively low within short timeframe. Different version easily created testing. 42dp Labs build German retailer Metro stores France testing purposes (https://www.42dp.com/projects/metro-vr-store/). addition, 3D-printing may haptic feedback prototypes, while scents could employed simulate multisensory Artificial developing fast idea generation processing drug candidates (Keshavarzi Arshadiet Blockchain technology under-researched Its main applications currently finance, cryptocurrencies. Some compare upcoming decennium advent Internet 1990s (cf., Morabito, 2017). solution media. Diaspora platform built principles, allows own without revealing identity. networks, Steemit Minds, cryptocurrency pay platform. COVD-19 ongoing real challenge practitioners alike situation message is: there no back. Interdisciplinary longer “nice have,” rather “must have.” tools, crowdsourcing, road insights. Co-creation open doors Emerging understand Martin Wetzels professor marketing supply chain School Business Economics, Maastricht University, Netherlands. He serves Scientific Director Education Institute Economics. His interests marketing, research, B2B channels, media, analytics, visual AR/VR, marketing. work 90 international journals, as, MIS Quarterly, Journal Marketing, Management Science, Operations Management, Consumer Research, Accounting, Organizations Society, Academy Marketing Retailing, Service Long Range Planning, Industrial Product Psychology, Studies, Psychology Letters, European International Research Marketing. contributed 130 conference proceedings presentations. 24000 citations Google Scholar resulting h-index 57 g-index 155. recent PLOS Biology included him 2% scientists worldwide according citation impact. supervised 25 PhD completion. Finally, editorial review board 10 journals.