International Journal of Innovation Management

According to the knowledge-based view (KBV), knowledge is a valuable resource that can lead to a competitive advantage. However, in industries where codified knowledge is used in developing successive iterations of products, codified knowledge has the potential to become obsolete over time and thus can also be an impediment to innovation. Using cycle-time (competitor comparison) as a performance measure, we find that inter-temporal integration — organisational practices designed to transfer tacit knowledge between former and current employees in successive new product development projects (NPDS) — enables a firm to effectively utilize codified knowledge to enhance product development cycle-time performance. Furthermore, using dysfunctional design change frequency as a performance measure, we find that inter-temporal integration has a negative relationship to this variable, but the relationship is stronger when knowledge codification is high. The results provide evidence of an important boundary condition to the benefit of codified knowledge in new product innovation.

The need for effective and efficient Product Innovation (PI) is a great challenge for organisations in today’s hypercompetitive global markets. Many research studies addressed problems/obstacles to successful PI from various perspectives. Many other studies proposed factors to help companies mitigate such problems. Here, the primary objective is to propose an integrated model, to empirically test this model, and get insights about which factors, if managed appropriately, will help reduce the obstacles to PI in practice. A questionnaire was developed, pilot tested, and used to collect data from 47 PI managers. The results support the theoretical importance of a formal PI process, characteristics of the company environment, and the availability of specific resources as important factors to reduce obstacles to company PI. Based on the results recommendations are made to practitioners and researchers in this important area.

Although innovation is considered the lifeblood of many organisations, firms are often challenged to derive the anticipated performance benefits of innovation. Research on the performance outcomes of innovation is similarly beset with mixed results and ambiguity. Through a meta-analysis of 62 studies over 20 years, this paper confirms a strong linkage between innovation and performance and reveals several contingencies. First, we find that inconsistency across performance outcomes is driven in part by stakeholder appropriation. Second, we find that hypercompetition is persistent over time and across industries. Finally, our aggregation of the evidence shows the integration of product and process innovation yields stronger performance gains than product innovation alone, and large firms reap greater performance benefits from innovation than small firms do. We build on these findings to bring focus to areas in which managers may improve performance gains from innovation, and highlight additional areas that can be informed by future research.

This paper examines, using various econometric techniques, the impact of intellectual capital (IC) on the performance of Egyptian insurance companies listed between 2006 and 2011. We measure IC using the value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) approach and its components developed by Pulic (2000), and both a direct and a moderating relationship between VAIC and corporate performance are investigated. Our results show a direct relationship between (IC-VAIC) and the performance of Egyptian insurance companies, particularly with capital employed efficiency (CEE), and to a lesser extent with human capital efficiency. In addition, a positive relationship between IC (capital employed and structural capital) and performance in the prior and current years is found. Evidence also suggests the possibility of a moderating relationship between IC and physical and financial capital, which in turn impacts on corporate performance. Our study also reveals the importance of taking into account any unobservable heterogeneity and endogeneity issues when analysing corporate performance.

This study is based on a phenomenon that occurred in Thai hotel industry. Nowadays, innovation is a critical concern in most enterprises particular in hotel businesses due to the fact that hotels have the uniqueness of product and service. For a hotel to be competitive and achieve efficient outcomes, it is important to understand the manager’s perspectives of product innovation capability (PIC) and entrepreneurial pro-activeness (EPA) that lead to hotel performance (HP). The purpose of this study was to examine and explain the PIC in mediating the effect of EPA and HP in Thailand. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from 240 hotel managers in Thailand. The constructs were measured by using established scales. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to examine research hypotheses. The results showed that PIC has a direct and significant impact on HP and strongly mediates the relationship between EPA and HP. An important finding of this study is being able to integrate the effect of EPA towards HP through PIC as a mediating variable. This finding is also encouraging for hotel owners and managers in implementation and development of strategies appropriate to the environment, and achievement of competitive advantage. It is anticipated that these factors will lead to higher levels of product and service in the Thai hotel industry and enhance the positive travel experiences in Thailand.

Extant literature suggests that acquisition of innovative capability is challenging: the acquired firm must be integrated to realise synergies, but such integration might jeopardise the ability to sustain its innovative capability within the acquiring firm. However, we know little about how managers address this coordination-autonomy dilemma post-acquisition. We therefore investigated how GlobalTech, a multi-national telecommunications solutions provider integrated SmartTech, a small, innovative firm with an adaptive infrastructure management solution and a customer-driven innovation approach. Drawing on dynamic capability theory (DCT) and focusing on structural integration and informal coordination, we reveal how the two management teams collaborated over a two-year period to sustain SmartTech’s innovation capability while at the same time leveraging it as part of GlobalTech’s position and future path. In conclusion, we present a process model with related action strategies for how organisations can orchestrate dynamic capability to manage the coordination-autonomy dilemma post-acquisition.

We have investigated the role played by organisational and environmental factors in innovativeness and business performance relationship. The study is based on a purposive sample of 168 key informants (senior level managers in decision-making roles) from Indian firms. For data collection, we developed scales to measure innovativeness and business performance. The results show that innovativeness is a significant determinant of business performance. We also find that influence of innovativeness on external business performance is moderated by organisational and environmental variables. The organisational decision makers in India can draw insights from these results and better decide their strategic postures for designing organisational structure (OS) and for coping better with the external business environment. The study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence in support of organic structure and innovativeness for Indian firms to achieve superior business performance in the face of turbulent external business environment.

This study models individual characteristics, leadership, and organisational support in relationship to individual innovation in highly complex research and development (R&D) settings. The study reports on a survey of 166 R&D team members, 43 team leaders, and 10 department managers in five Swedish industrial organisations. Individual innovation was measured using four indicators (new products, new patent applications, scientific publications, and other publications) and team leaders’ ratings of innovative work behaviour. Individuals’ inclination to take personal initiative predicted individual innovation, while intrinsic motivation and leadership (conceptualised by leader–member exchange (LMX) theory) did not. A mediating effect was found whereby LMX was associated with individual innovation through the personal initiative of team members. Organisational support moderated the relationship between LMX and individual initiative. High organisational support strengthened the relationship.

Many authors showed the benefits of open innovation (OI) to firms, consequently encouraging managers to adopt the OI paradigm to improve innovation performance. Nevertheless, whether firms have accepted such exhortations or not is almost empirically unexplored. The frequent claim that firms are increasingly adopting the OI paradigm is mostly anecdotal. This paper presents a large-scale analysis of firms’ OI adoption by means of four waves of the community innovation survey, including 275,697 questionnaires. The analysis focuses on the trends in the use of inbound (internal use of external knowledge) and coupled (collaboration with partners) OI approaches. The results confirm that the share of firms adopting the OI paradigm has increased, both in terms of inbound and coupled OI actions. Similarly, firms have intensified the use of the inbound OI mode, whereas they have not intensified the use of collaborations. However, the analyses of different measures of OI show that in most cases the positive trends have not been monotonic, nor steep as they are anecdotally considered to be.

In the recent, the aspect of foresight is considered globally important. Specially, it has gained a meaningful position in strategic planning. This study examines the quantitative relationships between strategic foresight, ambidexterity and competitiveness of firms. Based on the literature review, it appears that strategic foresight has positive impact on organisational ambidexterity which in turn contributes to competitive advantage. We have utilised structural equations modeling (SEM) to empirically test the mentioned relationships in Iran’s nanotechnology firms. Results show that the degree of strategic foresight has a direct effect on organisational ambidexterity which in turn affects competitive advantage.

The purpose of the present study is to analyse the role of organisational learning as an antecedent to non-technical innovation comprising organisational and marketing innovation. Examining the effect of these dimensions of non-technical innovation on customer satisfaction is also an aim of the present study. The paper formulates research hypotheses based on a comprehensive literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) based on data collected from 226 Greek small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The formulated conceptual model is strongly supported based on empirical evidence. The results confirm that organisational learning capability favours the development of organisational innovation and marketing innovation. Furthermore, the study shows that both dimensions of non-technical innovation promote the achievement of customer satisfaction.

Open innovation has so far been studied mainly in research-intensive industries, while still little attention has been devoted to the more traditional ones. Our study addresses this gap by focusing on low-tech industries, and on the food one in particular by exploring if and how open innovation is implemented by food companies. Drawing on a database collected from food firms operating in Italy and adopting quantitative techniques, we investigate the implementation strategies of the open innovation paradigm, conscious that food companies are adopting an open approach to innovation. Results show that they mainly implement two different strategies, according to different sets of drivers and enabling factors. These strategies should be referred to with the terms “open market pull” and “open technology push”.

Strategy implementation is an important aspect of innovation, as only 30% of planned strategies are matched by realised innovation outcomes. The present study investigates this in a setting of strategic implementation of New Product Development (NPD). In the implementation process, the managers’ characteristics are what lead to successful implementation of NPD. Managers’ characteristics affect the decision outcome. This study incorporates curiosity as a personal trait and NPD experience as a personal characteristic of the manager as moderating effects of the strategy implementation process of NPD. 131 NPD managers of Scandinavia SBUs participated in the study. Data were analysed using partial least squares regression. The study finds that managers influence the realised NPD strategy. NPD managers impose competence traps on strategy implementation. Curious NPD managers implementing aggressive strategic intentions create information overload in the NPD process, which decreases the new product novelty. In contrast, realisation of defensive strategic intentions makes experienced NPD managers focus on known NPD competences, thereby decreasing the new product novelty of NPD efforts. The study identified inadequately developed information competences among NPD managers. The result shows the importance of analysing how personal characteristics facilitate or hinder NPD strategy implementation. The competitive advantage of NPD efforts relies on such an analysis.

One way of circumventing issues associated with constricted resources is to use organisational social resources embedded within both formal and informal social networks to provide increased support for proactive and innovative employee behaviour. Social exchange theorists argue that informal working relationships with non-line management provides an additional power source alongside traditional management relationships to foster proactive and innovative behaviour even when resources are scarce. About 272 Australian engineers, asset managers and technical employees were surveyed from public and private sector organisations, and data was examined using structural equation modelling. The findings depict that formal and informal leader–employee, organisational–employee relationships explained almost 53% of resource adequacy and resource adequacy explained 60.5% of the proactive engineering asset management organisational culture and 28.1% of innovative behaviour. This paper contributes insight into another hierarchical workplace relationship that employees can use to gain access to resources, and be proactive and innovative in the workplace.

The aim of this article is to reveal what organising of innovation and growth can be enabled in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) networks. This is especially interesting for the governance of loosely coupled networks. The research is conducted in the Danish food industry with three food-producing firm networks. The posed hypotheses are tested in a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach with the available data of 60 SMEs.

The findings show that the governance of preferred behaviours of SMEs has a considerable significant positive impact on product and systematic innovation, which have a significant impact on growth. Governance of network connections is also found to have a significant positive impact on growth. The findings contribute to an understanding of how both governance of preferred SME behaviour and network connections enable innovation. This study provides SMEs, SME network organisations and policy bodies with an enhanced understanding of governance approaches.