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Product and process innovation in manufacturing firms: a 30-year bibliometric analysis

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Abstract

Built upon a 30-year dataset collected from the web of science database, the present research aims to offer a comprehensive overview of papers, authors, streams of research, and the most influential journals that discuss product and process innovation in the manufacturing environment. The dataset is composed of 418 papers from more than 150 journals from the period between 1985 and 2015. Homogeneity analysis by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS) and social network analysis (SNA) are used to accomplish the objectives listed above through the keywords given by authors. Initially, the paper highlights and discusses the similarity between the topics debated by the main journals in this field. Subsequently, a wide-range map of topics is presented highlighting five main areas of interests; namely, performance, patent, small firm, product development, and organization. A SNA is also performed in order to validate the results that emerged from HOMALS. Finally, several insights about future research avenues in the manufacturing field are provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lincoln International Business School, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

    Giacomo Marzi

  2. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, J.F.Kennedy Square 6, 10 000, Zagreb, Croatia

    Marina Dabić

  3. Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4 BU, UK

    Marina Dabić

  4. Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    Tugrul Daim & Edwin Garces

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  1. Giacomo Marzi
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  2. Marina Dabić
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  3. Tugrul Daim
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Correspondence to Tugrul Daim.

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Marzi, G., Dabić, M., Daim, T. et al. Product and process innovation in manufacturing firms: a 30-year bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics 113, 673–704 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2500-1

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