Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

performance (Human and Naudé, 2010). To address this issue we focus on product innovation in thecontext of Russian emerging economy and its two dimensions – platform and solution innovation(Sawhney et al, 2006).The research on the product innovations developed by Russian firms does not provide sufficientevidence for explaining the drivers and performance outcomes of the NPD process in Russian firms. Roud(2007) states that the level of innovations in Russian firms is four times lower than in some Europeancountries – e.g. Germany and Sweden. Comparing the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economiesand their innovation environment, Kaartemo (2009, p.11) reports that ―Russia seems to be the worstpositioned among the BRIC countries on the innovation front‖. There is even prediction that Russia mightbe excluded from BRIC if innovation will not become central focus of economy.The aimed contribution combines re-assessment of the relationship between market orientation(MO), innovativeness and firm performance in emerging economy context, as well as testing mediatingeffect of platform vs. solution innovation. The paper is presented in the form of extended abstract andincludes short literature review and hypothesis formulation, sample description, short overview of theresults, conclusion and references.Literature review and hypotheses formulationWhile MO concept has been widely tested in multiple markets, its validity for transforming contextof emerging economies can still be seen as agenda for research. With some exceptions there is hardlyenough evidence on how MO constructs (customer and competitor orientation and interfunctionalcoordination) work in emerging economies, including Russia (Akimova, 2000; Greenley, 1995).The discussion on relationship between both constructs of market orientation and innovativenesshas been developed in later research (e.g., Grinstein, 2008; Zhou et al, 2005), among which an alternativeapproach has been presented – opposing MO and innovation orientation as a strategic choice of a firm(Berthon et al, 1999; Berthon et al, 2004). Thus in the latter approach market orientation and innovationorientation are looked at within dichotomy ―to serve or to create‖ (Berthon et al, 1999), discussingopportunities of firm‘s focus on just one of these two strategic orientations. The more radical innovation