A Product Innovation Readiness Level Framework

The term readiness became popular following emergence of NASA's now widely recognized technology readiness level (TRL), leading to studies examining the readiness levels of a particular field or context. Whilst TRL is widely accepted and various types of readiness level frameworks have emerged, there is a weakness in the literature specifically examining the concept of innovation readiness. This is evident in the lack of comprehensive frameworks designed to assess the readiness of a product innovation. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to establish the first multidimensional framework to assess the level of readiness of product innovations. In order to construct this framework, we conducted a systematic literature review and examined a total of 55 articles from the product innovation and readiness levels literature. Our findings provide several contributions to the literature. First, by merging two streams of literature we link the main themes of product innovation success factors to potential readiness level scales. As a result, we establish the first product-innovation readiness level (P-IRL) framework: consisting of four readiness levels that include project, market, product and technology capability readiness levels. The P-IRL framework is introduced to support the product innovation investment decisions. The results of our study provide important implications for innovation managers, fund providers, and product innovation managers.