Biography
Dr. Sanjay R. Sisodiya
Dr. Sanjay R. Sisodiya
University of Idaho, USA
Title: Inbound Open Innovation and Improving Performance in China: An Investigation of Interfirm Relationships and Spillovers In driving New Product Performance and Financial Success
Abstract: 

To opportunize on the rapid growth of China, many firms have increased and are joining in product development efforts. China proves to be an ideal environment for product development activities, with many firms quickly developing technological innovation capabilities (Yam, Guan, Pun, Tang, 2004). While China is exciting an exciting business environment due to its size and influence, firms may experience resource, managerial, and even other constraints (e.g., Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2001). Researchers have considered the role of strategy (Zhou, Gao, Yang, and Zhou, 2005), imitation (e.g., Zhou, 2006), ownership structure (Choi, Lee, and Williams, 2011), degrees of foreign investment (Fu, 2008; Fu and Gong, 2011), and interfirm relationships (Wang, Jean, and Zhai, 2019) when studying China. One opportunity to improve new product development outcomes in China, is considering the potential of open innovation, a topic not yet thoroughly studied in this context. 

Open innovation considers the pathways for ideas to reach commercialization, and entails the purposeful bringing in of ideas from outside the firm and the deployment of ideas to outside the firm (Chesbrough, 2006). For most firms developing products, this means that firms can consider the external environment as additional sources of inputs to their product development process (outside-in) as well as the external environment being alternate pathways for ideas (inside-out) (Enkel, Gassman, and Chesbrough, 2009). Important to the success of firms pursuing open innovation are the capabilities of innovating firms and the environments they operate within.  

Using s resource-based view (Wernerfelt, 1984) and the evolution of firm capability over time (Helfat and Peteraf, 2003) perspectives, we consider the importance of spillovers and interfirm relationships on improving firm-level performance. We present a testable model to consider not only antecedents to enhance outcomes, but also the importance of selecting appropriate measures of performance when evaluating open innovation and new product development success.

Biography: 
Sanjay R. Sisodiya is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the College of Business and Economics at the University of Idaho. His research interests are in the field of product development and measuring performance. Within the field of product development, he considers interfirm relationships and variety of internal and external factors that contribute to improved firm-level performance.

Dr. Sisodiya’s publications have considered open innovation, interfirm relationships, knowledge spillovers, and branding effects. For his research published in Industrial Marketing Management, he and his co-authors developed a scale for measuring (in-bound) open innovation and performed a large-scale data collection with publicly traded firms in the US to analyze the extent to which spillovers and interfirm relationship enhance financial performance. In his Customer Needs and Solutions publication, with his co-authors, he considered the extent to which interfirm relationships and R&D activity influenced new product outcomes. With his colleague Ian Sinapuelas, he studied the brand equity effects due to introducing consumer packaged goods and they have a publication in Journal of Product and Brand Management. His research often considers the performance implications due to marketing activities. He has served on a number of panels, discussing topics of marketing strategy and new product development, marketing strategy in dynamic business environments, and challenges with using pricing tools as an afterthought to the product development process. To augment his research activities he also performs pedagogical research to investigate mechanisms to enhance student learning.

His teaching experience is broad at the undergraduate and undergraduate level. At the undergraduate level, he has developed a course on new product development, and is also currently teaching pricing. In the past, he has taught introduction to business, introduction to marketing, services marketing, international marketing, consumer behavior, and retail management. At the graduate level, he focuses on marketing strategy and new ways of measuring the effect of marketing activities on firm-level performance. He is active in developing opportunities to increase international experiences for undergraduate students, has taught in China and Greece, and will be teaching in Italy during Summer 2019.

Dr. Sisodiya is active in college and university service, and improving the student experience in undergraduate education. He is the Area Coordinator for the marketing discipline at the University of Idaho, and facilitates the curriculum development and management for five programs of study within the marketing undergraduate curriculum along with the marketing minor. He has received a number of university related teaching, advising, and service awards. He routinely engages with the business community, both within the US and internationally.

He earned a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Idaho, MBA concentration in Supply Chain Logistics and Masters in Manufacturing Management in Quality Manufacturing Management from the Pennsylvania State University, and a PhD in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Washington State University. His work experience is in high-tech product development and manufacturing, and extensive experience in the hospitality industry.