Industrial marketing in the context of innovation development: Review and research agenda

Abstract

Goal: to outline the structure of the research discussion on innovation industrial networks; to determine the state of the discussion regarding the participation of various actors in innovation networks at various stages of the innovation process; to identify fundamental works on this topic and to form the agenda for future research.

Methodology: the study was conducted using two bibliometric approaches: keyword analysis and co-citation analysis using the Scopus database; also manual coding of 116 documents was used in order to identify “hot topics” and emerging topics (little-studied).

Findings: five key areas of research were proposed, dividing the broad topic into narrower and more specific areas; the core of the most authoritative research in the field was proposed, demonstrating the implicit fusion of two disciplines: industrial marketing and innovation management.

Originality and contribution of the author: The article presents the first bibliometric analysis of the existing literature in the studied area with a focus on the structural units of the network (actors) at various stages of the innovation process. The study makes a significant contribution to clarifying the interdisciplinary nature of the study of relationships between actors for innovation. The existing and emerging (little-studied) trends in research are highlighted.