It is also not difficult to suggest that a cost leadership
strategy does not relate to innovation performance
in terms of both product and process from a theoretical point of view. Porter [12] suggests
that companies adopting cost leadership
strategy usually stress cost and budget control, efficient
scale facilities, and the minimization of the
expenses of R&D. Supporting this argument,
Miller [38] suggests that cost leaders not only will
always be imitators in innovation, but they will
also follow a competitors innovation after a considerable
risk-reducing lag, hence, opposing the
major characteristics of product innovators. On
the other hand, Porter [12] suggests that a cost
leadership strategy, to a certain degree, can lead
to process innovation; however, as also argued
by Miller [38], the emphasis on efficiency often
suppresses changes even in the production processes,
particularly costly ones.