Searching for radical new product ideas: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for construct validation

This paper focuses on the practices and techniques that can be used at the front end of innovation to search for radical or discontinuous new product ideas. It addresses a gap in the literature by using empirical data to identify the dimensions of a firm's capability to search for new ideas for potential radical innovation. A review of the literature on the front end of innovation was conducted and used to develop an understanding of the practices applied by firms to search for radical new product ideas. From this a questionnaire was developed to collect data for an exploratory factor analysis of a sample of firms and subsequently a confirmatory factor analysis of a separate sample firms. The results from both samples are consistent and identify five dimensions of the search capability that can be used to search for radical new product ideas.