Narrow Results

This study aims to explore the association between entrepreneurial resilience (ER), absorptive capacity (ACAP), and new product performance (NPP). Additionally, it aims to investigate if marketing agility (MA) acts as a mediator in these relationships within the suggested model. Data were gathered from telecommunications firms in the Kurdistan region of Iraq through a self-administered survey. A total of 556 questionnaires were distributed, and 299 of them were returned and used for statistical analysis. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to assess both the measurement and structural models in the data analysis. Both ER and ACAP have an influence on NPP. In addition, MA not only affects NPP but also enhances the relationship between ER and NPP. Contrary to expectations, ACAP has no impact on MA. This study provides NPP researchers with a deeper insight into the capabilities that can influence the performance of new products.

The study investigates the role of foreign technology licensing and the moderating effects of employee training and research and development (R&D) on the foreign technology licensing–innovation relationship in Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). This research focus is important because prior works on this research stream tend to concentrate on large economies such as China, while little has been done to examine this issue at the firm level in the ASEAN context. Moreover, no empirical studies to date have investigated the moderating effect of employee training, as a proxy for absorptive capacity, on the foreign technology licensing–firm innovation relationship. The study utilizes several novel ordinal regression models to address some popular limitations of the standard ordinal regression model. In addition, the propensity score matching (PSM) method is utilized to account for the endogeneity problem. The study is based on data from the Enterprise Surveys conducted by the World Bank in 2015–2016. The empirical results reveal that foreign technology licensing is positively associated with innovation at a higher degree of radicalness. Furthermore, both employee training and R&D positively moderate the foreign technology licensing–innovation relationship.

Governments all over the world support innovation activities in private companies with several different programs. Typical measures are R&D subsidies, consulting services, incubator facilities, opportunities for networking, and subsidized loans. From an economic perspective, public support for innovations may help to compensate for market failure. But government support encounters the risk of being neither effective nor efficient. Furthermore, the ability of a company to successfully apply for public innovation support programs depends on the amount of administrative resources it already is equipped with, i.e. its size and its existing relationships with research institutions. In this paper, we look at public support for private companies in one specific German region, the Ruhr area. We use a sample of 74 companies, all of which engage in R&D activities and have already filed patents. Our findings show that firms need a minimum company size to be able to successfully apply for public innovation support. Furthermore, we show that an existing cooperation with research institutions makes access to public support measures easier. We also find that public innovation support indeed improves the patent position of companies.

While the goals of long term sustainability and survival were thoroughly studied in family firms’ literature, to the best of our knowledge, rare studies had investigated the influence of values on the capacity of family firms to be resilient. In addition, this likely relationship is highly contingent on cultural and national contexts, as family values – on which family business values are dependent – are not the same across countries and World regions. These theoretical and empirical gaps motivated the present research which aims at investigating the probable influence of family firms’ values on the resilience of these firms in the unique context of Tunisia.

This qualitative research is based on a body of discourse collected from nine managers belonging to five Tunisian family businesses. Our research allowed us to highlight some key family business values in a new underexplored setting that is an oriental country with a culture driven by Islamic and Arab values. More importantly, our analysis shows that family values underlie both community and business values. Finally, our results underscore the importance of business values, community values and family values in the resilience of the firms studied.

Financial development is recognized as an absorptive capacity in the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth. Therefore, FDI effect on economic growth is contingent with the level of financial development. However, existing studies also show that financial development dampens economic growth through the “too much finance harms economic growth” hypothesis. Hence, there is a question of how far financial development should be developed to optimize the benefits of FDI on economic growth. The novelty of this study is that it reexamines the role of financial development in FDI-growth relationship by including the interaction term between FDI and the nonlinearity of financial development on economic growth in the period following the 2007–2008 Global Financial Crisis. Interestingly, our results demonstrate that the nonlinear relationship of financial development on economic growth is a U-shaped curve by using data from the 2009–2013 period, for 65 developing countries, which contrast the findings from previous studies. The absorptive capacity effects work nonlinearly, in that FDI accelerates growth after reaching a certain level of financial development, and that the positive effect originates from a minimum level. The study thus suggests that the level of financial development needs to be increased since it serves as a form of absorptive capacity enabling the positive growth effects of FDI in the recipient countries.

Leveraging intellectual capital has become imperative to facilitate individuals’ innovativeness. However, little is known about the process of knowledge nurturing reflexivity where newborn ideas and newfound knowledge, which may be incomplete or ineffective in their infancy, are further developed instead of being criticised or discarded. Without proper nurturing, they may be abandoned prematurely and never be transformed into innovativeness. To fill the research gap, this study explores knowledge nurturing reflexivity drawn upon the theory of the internal conversation. Data collected from 368 knowledge workers were used to test the research framework. Empirical results show that sociability and solidarity are conducive to absorptive capacity that in turn influences knowledge nurture. In addition, innovativeness is significantly affected by knowledge nurture. This study contributes to overcoming the weakness of reflexivity modelling in the knowledge management (KM) literature. This study also provides important insights about the essential role of the internal conversation in building knowledge nurturing reflexivity.

A framework is presented for investigating and understanding human behaviour connected with knowledge and information management (KIM), developed from a case study in the UK defence sector. Qualitative research was undertaken in three organisations within the wider defence and security sector. The research showed that particular areas of sensitivity leading to resistance to change when KIM systems were introduced include a perceived lack of usability of KIM IT systems, the length of time required to learn how to use them, their perceived lack of reliability and the users’ consequent lack of trust in them. These issues led to the widespread use of “work arounds” to cope with the demands of the job without using the KIM systems as designed. The framework’s purpose is to contribute to the current field of knowledge about how organisations can best approach and implement required KIM changes, taking these human issues into account.

The present research explores the role of knowledge storage and documentation and realised absorptive capacity as mediating variables between potential absorptive capacity and internal knowledge creation. The theoretical model is developed and further tested with a sample of 111 organisations from multiple industry sectors. The results show that the technology-driven process of knowledge storage and documentation, as well as the realised absorptive capacity of the respondent companies, reinforces the human-driven process of internal knowledge creation, and mediates, individually and jointly, the relationship between potential absorptive capacity and intra-firm knowledge creation. Mediation analysis relies on the use of bootstrapping confidence intervals. The authors draw practical implications for organisational psychologists and human resources managers. The small sample size and the cross-sectional design limit the generalisation of the present findings. Further research should explore the complementarity of absorptive capacity phases with other knowledge management processes that could enable the creation of new knowledge in organisations.

To gain insight into how successful community banks are continuously “adaptive” to environmental challenges, we examined the role absorptive capacity (ACAP) plays in effecting improved performance. ACAP is the formal mechanism used for sensing and experimentation of knowledge — and as such is adopted to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit knowledge so as to positively influence performance. Data obtained from a survey of 151 community bank CEOs confirmed that ACAP does indeed enhance performance. We also demonstrated the multi-dimensional structure of ACAP, the consequence of cultivating an active learning orientation and the relevance of potential cultural inhibitors on decision behaviour for innovative performance. Several directions for future studies utilising knowledge-based responses are proposed.

The Global Manufacturing Network (GMN) is a new manufacturing system, which provides great opportunities for local firms in developing countries to acquire knowledge and upgrade capabilities through collaborations in the GMN. This paper hypothesizes that local firm's potential absorptive capacity has a positive impact on its knowledge acquisition in the GMN, and the association between them is moderated by network embeddedness. Using data from Chinese manufacturing firms, this paper confirms the hypothesis that local firm's potential absorptive capacity can contribute to its knowledge acquisition in the GMN, and the hypothesis of the moderating effect of network embeddedness is partially supported by the results.

Why and how do Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) contribute to the strategic competitiveness of organizations? This paper reviews the literature and proposes a model in which KMS is viewed from three different perspectives: (1) crucial resource; (2) driver of absorptive capacity; and (3) innovation adopted by the organization. The paper critiques the method used by KMS researchers whereby co-variation of KMS and competitiveness is utilized to study the relationship between these variables. The model proposed here is a multi-stage process. The successful use of KMS generates intermediate outcomes that in turn impact the organization and produces improved strategic competitiveness. The different approaches to KMS and the stage-process allow for the unique attributes of knowledge systems, different from information systems. The advantages and limitations of the model are discussed.

Expropriability is the ability of (potential) competitors to extract information about innovation and utilize it to their advantage in a manner that decreases the competitive advantages of the original innovator. It has an effect on the profit margins and, subsequently, on the strategic behavior of a firm in terms of innovation activities. In this study, the relationship of appropriability and expropriability is clarified, and empirical evidence from 299 companies is provided to increase understanding of the strategic protection of intellectual assets. The results indicate that industries differ in terms of expropriability and that innovation performance depends on the level of expropriability.

This paper documents the relationship between appropriation instruments and the innovation activity in Tunisia. It focuses on the factors that determine the appropriation of innovation activities like the value of sales of the firms, networking, science–industry linkage, competitive pressure and demand pull. To this end, we suggest an econometric analysis of 586 Tunisian firms using simple and bivariate logit regressions. We find significant interaction effects between appropriability and R&D activity. The results confirm that patenting is primarily driven by firm-level factors, not by industry affiliation. Access to external knowledge and firm's specific characteristics are the most linked factors to the innovation protection. Firms that use appropriation instruments have a higher probability of investing in R&D than others. Indeed, the capacity to integrate external knowledge and performing R&D (networking, science–industry linkage, cooperation with other firms, belonging to a group) is related to the use of appropriation instruments. We find that appropriation instruments have a significant effect on product innovation. The effect on process innovation is not significant for Tunisian firms.

An industrial cluster, due to its close network of institutions, will experience various pressures that force the industry to have a homogeneous structure, norms, and practices. These pressures can also lead to adoption of innovative technologies. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is perceived as a sophisticated technology and diffuses across the cluster by its innovative characteristics. However, firms in the industrial cluster will have different rate of adoption of technologies due to the varying level of knowledge spillover and a heterogeneous absorptive capacity. This study empirically tests how absorptive capacity mediates the institutional forces and the perceived innovation characteristics towards the ERP adoption in an industrial cluster. Mediation effect and the model validity are tested using SEM technique. The results show that absorptive capacity complements the forces of institutional pressure and the perceived innovation characteristics on ERP adoption. The implications of managing the absorptive capacity for better ERP adoption are discussed.

This paper analyzes the mediating effect of absorptive capacity (AC) on the relationship between digital transformation from e-business capabilities (EBC) perspective and product innovation (PI). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was carried out with the survey data from a sample of firms that belong mainly to highly digitalized sectors. The results indicate the existence of a full mediation, which means knowledge derived from the digital operation of the business can only result in PI if AC plays an intermediation role. Hence, this finding calls into question the idea that digitalization alone and automatically acts as a PI driver.

International business (IB) collaborations can create a difference in the performance of the firms. Some previous studies had doubt if this superior performance is due to the internationalization itself or is related to the characteristics of one of the partners. However, here it is argued that difference in performance can be due to the characteristics of dyad between the partners, i.e. cultural distance. We tested the role of cultural distance (cultural diversity) between partners, while considering a network of countries. Social network analysis (SNA) is applied by utilizing UCINET software. This study built a database of around six hundred thousand patents data from The United States Patent and Trademark Office, and analyzed innovations resulting from cross-cultural collaborations. The result illustrates that increase in cultural distance decreases the number (quantity) of innovations, but has an inverted U-shape relationship with the quality of innovations. Researches which studied the relationship between cultural diversity and innovation in IB, mainly either conclude diversity hinders innovation or promotes it. This study fills this gap by analyzing two important dimensions of innovation i.e. quantity and quality of innovation.

The responsibilities of leaders have grown as a result of information technology organizations’ increasing reliance on information and development to carry out their work. It is important for leaders to guide and support organizations as they respond to the challenges of continually generating new innovation and information frameworks. The participative initiative, therefore, is characterized as an authority that draws on part data and part insight to reduce progressive obstructions by including individual hierarchical individuals in the decision-making process. The participative initiative encourages a positive style of leadership in which the leader provides workers with the chance to partake in dynamic and critical thinking through consolation, backing, and impact. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of participative leadership on employee innovative work behavior through the mediating role of employee knowledge-sharing attitude and absorptive capacity, with project risk management as moderator. The non-probability convenience sampling technique was used and data collection occurred over three months from January 2022 to March 2022. As data collection took place in one time period, the design is cross-sectional in nature. The data were collected from 273 workers (i.e. engineering manager, project manager, project leader, team leader, software engineer, advisor, and expert) working in different public and private sector IT companies of Portugal. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both hard and soft copies of surveys were distributed via email. The analysis was performed using Smart PLS version 3.2.8. The results revealed that participative leadership had a direct effect on employee innovative work behavior that was positive and significant. Also, both the knowledge-sharing attitude and absorptive capacity of employees positively and significantly mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee innovative work behavior. Project risk management, however, only significantly moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and employee innovative work behavior. Lastly, some theoretical, practical implications, study limitations and future directions were discussed.

This study investigates the adoption of technological innovation in a least-developed economy: Lao People's Democratic Republic. World Bank Survey data encompassing nearly 380 enterprises from 2009 and 2012 were used to analyze the effects of collaboration between smaller domestic firms and larger firms, both foreign and domestic. Collaboration with larger firms is statistically significant for adopting new technologies and for adopting new processes, with the former significant for sales. In addition, foreign ownership is statistically significant for sales in one of the OLS estimates. This suggests small and medium enterprises (SMEs), particularly the latter at this point in Lao PDR, would benefit from membership in global value/supply chains.

Acquisitions are widely argued to be an increasingly common solution for technology needs. This paper uses the information and telecommunications industry as background for assessing how technical knowledge and absorptive capacity, the rate of invention and prior acquisition experience affect the likelihood of acquisition. The results indicate that in this standards-based industry, even firms with relevant patent portfolios and R&D expenditures are as likely as less knowledgeable firms to acquire rather than enter the market with internally developed products. The strong predictors of acquisition are experience in acquisitions and the ability to pay. Thus, while the number of acquisitions has increased dramatically, the use of this approach is limited to a small group of firms and is not a widespread solution.

The issue of the cooperation of private industrial firms with universities and the relevant transfer of knowledge is discussed here with special reference to the problems and opportunities that small and medium size enterprises face in such cases. A typology of barriers and facilitators within a broad network framework provides a structural approach to the description of these problems and opportunities. The longitudinal investigation of a case study enables an in-depth consideration of the evolution of barriers and facilitators of collaboration over time. The case indicates a fluid pattern of knowledge generation, transmission and absorption, which is then compared to (and contrasted with) the findings of the existing literature.