Technology-based Service Proposal Screening: Decision Making Effectiveness and Innovation Success

Purpose Technology-based services (TBS) create substantial value for providers and customers alike. Increasingly short life cycles and high innovation failure rates have turned superior innovation competences into a fundamental source of sustainable competitive advantage. In TBS innovation projects, decision-making in pre-development stages (e.g., in the screening or innovation proposal evaluation stage) is challenging, because TBS proposals are difficult to assess. Decision-makers deal with intangible and often highly complex products, making the decision task very complex. Furthermore, screening decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity. Enhancing decision-making in the screening stage of the innovation process could substantially increase success rates. This article identifies information processingrelated antecedents of effective TBS screening decision-making. Design/methodology/approach Combining the literatures on service innovation, new product screening and decision-making under uncertainty, we identify antecedents of decision-making effectiveness in the TBS proposal screening stage. We develop a range of hypotheses and test them with data from 251 TBS innovation projects. Findings The study demonstrates the importance of decision-making team composition, information use and decision perspective for three dimensions of innovation success. Decision­ maker experience and perspective mediate the effects of the composition of the decision team. Research limitations/implications Further research is needed to investigate the screening decision-making process. We provide a research agenda based on our findings.