以共同演化的觀點探討企業產品創新模式-以一殯葬服務業者為例

Abstract

產品創新作為企業落實創新的手段，其重要性日益提昇。然而，過去針對產品創新的文獻探討多以產品創新的分類、新產品開發流程、創新的績效等主題進行探討，卻少有學者從企業觀點出發探討產品創新是如何產生，並隨著環境變動而進行調適與演進，進一步發展成為影響產業甚至是大環境的力量。 因此，本研究著眼於現有文獻的缺口，從「共同演化」觀點，以宏觀性角度檢視企業產品創新模式的演進歷程。分析層級涵括外部環境、產業條件與個別企業之產品創新模式，並以質性研究的方法針對一殯葬服務業者進行歷史演進脈絡的分析與探討。 研究結果發現，在共同演化的視角下，環境與產業條件的變遷有幾個特徵：（一）法令持續演進及社會文化趨勢改變為環境變遷中之關鍵影響要素；（二）產業層級扮演共同演化機制運作當中之中介角色，具有協調、過渡之功能；（三）殯葬服務產業受限於封閉性與產品特殊性，缺乏重大技術突破。 而在企業產品創新模式的轉變上，則有如下幾點發現：（一）個別廠商受到的創新驅動力，由發展初期來自外部環境激發的模仿學習，逐漸轉變為組織內部策略規劃所驅動的自主創新；（二）在產品新穎程度分類上，以產品線深化與改善現有產品為主要投入方向，突破性的技術創新與概念革新較為稀少。

As a mean for businesses to implement innovation, the importance of product innovation is rising day by day. However, in the past, few researches focused on how product innovation is achieved, adapted and transformed by the environment and industrial changes; also, there’re seldom literatures discuss about how product innovation affects the environment and industry. Therefore, this study uses “co-evolution” as the basic theory, standing in a macro point of view to analyze the evolution path in funeral service industry. This study will focus on relationship between external environment, industry conditions, and business product innovation, trying to find the patterns of changes in the co-evolution process. In addition, this thesis will use a funeral service provider as a case study. The results show that, in the perspective of co-evolution, the changing pattern of business product innovation has several characteristics: (A) the impact of environmental changes: the development of law and trends of culture and society are the most important factors; (B) in the co-evolution mechanism, industry level plays an important role in coordinating effects from business and environment; (C) there is low degree of innovation in funeral service industry since the uniqueness of product and industry; (D)innovation driving force transformed from external-driving to internal-driving; (E) there’re seldom technical innovations and “new-to-the-world” products, and businesses usually invest most of their resources in completing product lines and improving existing products.