The front end (FE) of innovation is critical for a firm's new product
success. Since academic interest in this research field has increased
significantly, we include 168 FE papers and their 9119 references to
conduct a comprehensive analysis of the FE literature. We use cocitation
analysis to reduce their risk of researchers' implicit bias. We show
that 11 intellectual research bases characterize extant FE literature:
new product development (NPD) capabilities, NPD process, knowledge
creation and NPD, organizational NPD creativity, externally influenced
NPD creativity, external NPD creativity, new process development, social
NPD capital, new product success, NPD project performance, and
competitive NPD advantages. The citation burst analysis shows that
researchers have varying degrees of interests in these topics. A better
understanding of FE research's intellectual background and the
identification of hot, cold, and evergreen FE topics are valuable
contributions. For instance, FE researchers discuss the nature and
characteristics of FE activities by referring to NPD process and
new-process literature. They call for further assessments of this issue
in order to make both the process implementation and the
operationalization more flexible.