Customer value propositions as interorganizational management accounting to support customer collaboration

a r t i c l e i n f o New technology-based firms aim to create commercially successful products and services based on new technology. For example a startup company may be founded to commercialize a particular technology developed by a university. One of the key challenges is to identify which products and services are valuable for customers. However, the relevant knowledge is typically dispersed across the technology firm and potential customers. This study explores how, in this context, interorganizational management accounting may support companies to collaborate and integrate knowledge. First, drawing on business marketing literature, a customer value proposition is conceptualized as a form of interorganizational management accounting. Second, several case studies demonstrate how calculations of customer value were made by new technology-based firms, and they show that these firms had implemented particular offering changes that were informed by specific insights obtained from their calculations of customer value. Third, the study offers a theoretical lens for understanding the potential role of customer value propositions as integrating devices for managing knowledge across boundaries. The topic of this paper is collaboration between companies in the context of technology commercialization, and we focus on a specific way in which interorganizational management accounting might support it. Technology commercialization concerns the application of new technology to improved or new products and services, which are successfully sold in customer markets and effective transitions from the " the lab " to " the market " are important for our economic growthogy commercialization happens in many different ways, such as within large and established companies, but this paper focusses on new technology-based firms. Although there is no universal definition, these firms have the following characteristics: a clear focus on exploiting a technologically innovative idea, a small group of experts at the core of the company, and independence from established companies (Bollinger, Hope, & Utterback, 1983). Sometimes, the technology that the firm intends to bring to the market is in a very early stage of development (Maine & Garnsey, 2006), but this paper focusses on the situation when the basic technology has been developed and can be demonstrated, for example in a laboratory test or with early prototypes, and there are general ideas for various possible applications, requiring further development. We focus on one particular issue of technology commercialization in this context: collaboration and knowledge integration involving different companies. Why? A key success factor for new technology …