This paper discusses innovation management in low-tech companies. The innovation value chain approach, adopted in this paper, provides a broad view of innovation management. It is not restricted to the traditional approach, which is focused on intensive R&D and product development activities. Through the methodology of multiple cases, we analyze how the case study companies manage and organize their innovation chains and consider a possible convergence with the “typical low-tech mode to innovate” present in the literature. The results do not point to the existence of a typical way to innovate for low-tech firms vis-à-vis the high-tech companies. Empirical evidence shows that although these companies have strategies, objectives, resources and differentiated demands, we found that, contrary to both common sense and the literature, these companies organize and manage their supply chain innovation very similarly to high-tech companies, which does not characterize a typical way to innovate.
Innovation management; Low-Tech firms
