Taken from The Proceedings of the XVII ISPIM Conference, Athens, Greece - 11-14 June 2006 ISBN 952-214-213-1
The full paper and/or presentation is available to current members of ISPIM who must log in to the Members Section of http://www.ispim.org to gain access.
http://www.ispim.org/members/proceedings/ISPIM2006/Saives_Anne-Laure_Paper_1.pdf
Strategic dilemmas within an innovative industry: The functional foods and nutraceuticals (FFN) case in Canada
Abstract
A variety of economic factors contributes to the emergence and development of the new market for “nutra-ceuticals” (contraction of nutriment-and-pharmaceutical) and functional foods (food with validated effects on human physiological functions). The market for FFNs experiences a massive growth in Canada but it is still difficult to clearly identify the participants that underlie its dynamics. The impacts the introduction of the new regulation have on the commercialization of natural health products (Health Canada, 2003) and on these dynamics remain unknown. In this paper, an analysis of two surveys of the FFNs’ firm behavior in Quebec, one conducted in 2000-2001 and the other repeated in 2004-2005 are presented. This comparative study is helpful to answer the following questions: (1) What are the changes in the composition of the strategic groups of firms in this sector in Quebec?, and (2) What are the characteristics of the dilemmas these groups appeared to have experienced with the introduction of a new regulatory framework? The results suggest that firms may be taking advantage of technological modularity in the innovation process to evolve in a complex business environment.
Keywords
Strategic dilemma; open innovation; emerging sector; modularity; strategic groups; product/platform/hybrid business model; flexibility; coordination; functional food; nutraceuticals.