Configuring innovation portfolio management practices in an era of emerging digital technologies

Organizations that innovate with emerging digital technologies increasingly manage portfolios in which activities differ not only in risk and maturity, but in the kind of management they require. Research on innovation portfolio management has often approached the portfolio as a managerial object whose practices can be optimized, offering limited guidance for managing heterogeneous portfolios in contexts shaped by emerging digital technologies. Drawing on interviews with 26 informants in seven incumbent Scandinavian organizations, this study explores how organizations differentiate and configure their innovation portfolio management practices. Through an abductive analysis, we develop a taxonomy comprising three innovation portfolio management practice configurations: the product-developing, platform-mediating, and problem-solving configuration. The taxonomy helps explain portfolio heterogeneity by showing how qualitatively different innovation activities correspond to different configurations of innovation portfolio management practices. By reconceptualizing portfolio heterogeneity as the coexistence of qualitatively different practice configurations, the study extends innovation portfolio management theory and offers a practical framework for managing innovation portfolios in contexts shaped by emerging digital technologies.