The American Innovation Index (Aii) is a multi-year research initiative that scores and ranks U.S. companies on their innovativeness and social innovativeness based on customers’ experiences. Tim Keiningham, Strategic Consultant at Illuminas, and Professor Lerzan Aksoy of Fordham University will present the results of our research into the relationship between commercial innovation, social innovation and a company’s market performance at the AMA Winter Academic Conference in San Diego. The research results prove that a company’s innovativeness and social innovativeness in the eyes of its customers link to financial performance. Companies who invest in customer-perceived innovation see the benefit in their bottom-line.
Aii is a joint partnership between Illuminas, Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, and Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). The most recent wave of the study was conducted in May 2019, and covered 174 firms from 21 industries, such as airlines, hotels, car rental companies, banks, TV and Internet service providers, wireless phone providers, manufacturers, retailers and utilities. The study surveyed 8,863 consumers and covered over 38,000 customer-company relationships. To date, no large scale, scientifically vetted measure of customer-perceived innovation exists in the United States.