International Journal of Innovation Management

This study significantly advances innovation management literature by analysing the impact of work-life balance (WLB), organisational learning capability (OLC), and transformational leadership (TL) on product innovation performance (PIP). By employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) combined with Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), it clarifies the roles of these variables in Brazil’s manufacturing sector. Data from 332 organisations revealed that OLC and TL are vital for enhancing PIP, while WLB, though not directly influential, is crucial for innovation. This finding offers a new understanding of WLB’s role in innovation management and highlights the complexity of factors driving product innovation. Integrating NCA with PLS-SEM, this research enriches theoretical debates and provides practical insights for optimising innovation strategies. It fills a gap in the literature by analysing how these key factors interact to impact PIP, contributing to both academic research and practical innovation management.

We study how the chief executive officers (CEOs) compensation perceptions and risk propensity influence exploratory innovation in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on survey data collected from 381 CEOs of private SMEs in Colombia, we find that (1) CEO underpayment perceptions have a positively increasing relationship with exploratory innovation, (2) CEO overpayment perceptions have a positively decreasing relationship with exploratory innovation, and (3) CEOs’ risk propensity does not moderate these relationships. Our study informs small business managers, boards of directors, and policy makers on how compensation aspirations and comparisons serve as motives for exploratory behaviour. Our study also represents a unique attempt to capture CEOs’ perceptions of their compensation and explore their influence on strategic outcomes. Further, we underscore the need to extend social comparison theories to better understand how CEOs’ compensation and dispositional motives shape firms.

This study assesses the adoption of frugal innovation from customers’ and firms’ perspectives using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Three measures of frugal innovation were considered including cost reduction, core functionalities, and performance level. Then, measurement and structural models were developed with three latent, frugal innovations, firm performance, and customer acceptance. Data were collected from 40 Jordanian firms and 200 customers. In total, 300 surveys were distributed. The response rate was 75%. Results indicated that cost reduction, core functionalities, and product performance were mostly affected by used material, functional aspects, and quality of innovative products, respectively. Further, revenues and meeting requirements had the largest impacts on firm performance and customer acceptance, respectively. Finally, frugal innovation significantly impacts firm performance directly and indirectly through customer acceptance. However, the impacts of customer acceptance on firm performance were found insignificant. In conclusion, frugal innovation can enhance firms’ performance and hence firms should offer customers affordable and good enough low-cost, simple, and robust innovative products to have a successful adoption of frugal innovation.

In the era of knowledge economy, the promotion of knowledge worker’s knowledge innovation behaviour (KIB) is a crucial concern for research and development (R&D) team supervisors in the rapidly evolving and competitive technological landscape. The study reported here examined the relationship between knowledge leadership (KL) and KIB of knowledge workers by focusing on the mediating effect of failure learning (FL) and moderating effect of fear of failure (FF). Data from a two-wave survey of 211 R&D supervisor–employee matching questionnaires from 28 high-tech firms in China indicated that as predicted, KL was positively related to KIB of knowledge worker while knowledge worker’s FL mediated this relationship significantly. Moreover, the findings also found that knowledge worker’s FF not only negatively moderated the impact of KL on knowledge worker’s FL, but also affects the mediating effect of FL on the relationship between KL and KIB of knowledge worker. Specifically, higher levels of knowledge worker’s FF weaken the indirect effect of KL on knowledge worker’s KIB through FL. Our findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for the research on managing knowledge workers and their KIB.

This study aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between team innovation climate within the purchasing team and the level of purchasing involvement in open innovation (OI) initiatives. Previous research in psychology and management has documented the impact of team climate on innovation capacity. Furthermore, the purchasing function has been recognised as a bridge between internal and external resources in OI. However, to date, research has not examined the link between the team innovation climate and the role of the purchasing function in OI initiatives. To address this gap, we studied a sample of 258 purchasing teams across industries in France based on a self-audit and questionnaire using established team innovation climate scales. From our analyses, four dimensions of the purchasing team climate towards innovation emerge: the team cohesiveness, the team creativity, the leader support for innovation and the institutional support for innovation. We subsequently conduct regression and necessary condition analysis. Our results show that institutional support is both necessary and positively related to involvement. Moreover, purchasing’s ability to contribute to inbound OI is constrained by each of the four dimensions of the team innovation climate, to various extents. Our work thereby elucidates the individual elements and the collective impact of the team innovation climate that enable the exploitation of the innovative potential of suppliers through purchasing’s bridge function between external and internal innovation actors providing new insights into the human side of OI at team level.

Managerial Highlights

• •Team innovation climate plays an important role in the management of open innovation.
• •Team innovation climate influences the purchasing team’s involvement in open innovation projects of its firm i.e. the way its open innovation is managed.
• •There are four dimensions affecting the purchasing team innovation climate: institutional support, team leader support, team creativity and team cohesiveness.
• •High levels of involvement of the purchasing function do not occur without at least medium levels of these four dimensions.
• •Only institutional support is directly and positively related to the increasing level of involvement of purchasing in open innovation initiatives.

This study examines the impact of open innovation through cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) on the real options value of Chinese publicly listed firms between 2008 and 2020. The findings demonstrate that open innovation through cross-border M&A has a positive effect on the upside potential and a negative effect on the downside risk of firm performance. Additionally, absorptive capacity and corporate governance play significant moderating roles in shaping the real options value of open innovation through cross-border M&A. These findings are robust across alternative measures of real options value and open innovation investments, sample classification based on institutional distance, and endogeneity tests. The research implies that cross-border M&A, particularly in countries with a favourable innovation environment, plays a crucial role in strengthening firm performance. Additionally, the study underscores the need for firms to develop absorptive capacity and enhance corporate governance as part of their innovation strategies.

Little is known about the different barriers that firms face as they advance with their technology uptake and tap into new markets. We show on a sample of 36,900 industrial enterprises that inwards-oriented firms had access to financial means but shied away from the economic risks associated with innovation activities. Exporters see opportunities for their innovation projects, but shy away from the investments needed. The failure to provide a supportive eco-system for innovation is one of the reasons why Russian manufacturers have not succeeded to integrate into global supply chains beyond the territories of the former Soviet Union.

This study identifies a key cognitive mechanism through which information encountered by managers influences their pursuit of ambidexterity when implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in organisations. Additionally, it investigates the roles of managers’ understanding of technological environments and risk-taking strategies of their organisations in this relationship. We conducted three studies with managers at the above-middle level. The results indicate that managers with situationally induced promotion focus tend to have greater opportunity appraisal (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and pursuit of ambidexterity (Studies 2 and 3) compared to those with situationally induced prevention focus. Opportunity appraisal mediates the relationship between situationally induced regulatory focus and ambidexterity pursuit (Studies 2 and 3). Further, organisational risk-taking strategy moderates the links from situationally induced regulatory focus to opportunity appraisal to ambidexterity (Study 3). This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the cognitive processes underlying managers’ pursuit of ambidexterity when facing technological uncertainty.

This study examines the relationship between women in pivotal organisational roles, innovation, and firm performance in the MENA region. It employs data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) across six MENA countries to explore how female leadership, combined with managerial experience (ME), impacts innovation and firm performance. We employ the two-stage least square instrumental variable (2SLS-IV) regression method, which addresses potential biases caused by endogeneity and allows us to discern genuine causal relationships better. Our results indicate a positive influence of female leadership on innovation, although this effect diminishes with more excellent ME. Innovation remains a critical factor for firm performance in the MENA region. This research illuminates the multifaceted role of women in organisational leadership, underscoring their impact on innovation and firm performance, with implications for policymakers and business leaders globally.

This research examines the effects of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) on informal sector digital micro-enterprise growth in developing countries and the moderating role of networking social capital. The majority of EO research on company growth has focused on registered traditional SMEs and larger enterprises in higher-income markets. A total of 248 informal online micro-enterprises from Senegal were studied. The findings show that IEO has distinct effects on informal digital microbusiness development. Individual risk-taking boosts digital micro-enterprise growth, whereas inventive behaviour hinders it. Proactiveness does not seem to increase growth. Different social capital’s moderating effects on IEO dimensions and online micro-enterprise growth are also found. This study is one of the first to examine individual entrepreneurial behaviour that may lead to the growth of informal digital micro-businesses and the differentiated role of SC. It has also expanded business contextualisation to better comprehend IEO in informal online micro-enterprises outside developed countries.

The orchestrator plays a vital role during the design, mapping, and analysis of the ecosystems’ pre-initiation stages, which will be important in shaping the ecosystem guidelines later. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how these firms plan entry strategies before innovation ecosystem (IE) building. So, this study aims to investigate which orchestration practices support orchestrators in the design of ecosystems. This work transposes innovation network practices to a more complex ecosystem context. We summarised these practices into four orchestration mechanisms. We draw on orchestrating innovation networks’ theoretical perspective and depict the orchestration mechanism into practices associated with understanding how orchestrators design IE in its very early stages of formation. This study contributes to the literature on uncertainty management at the IE level by showing practices for uncertainty management as one important driver for unlocking ecosystem emergence. Second, this study advances the configurational view of IE by depicting an underlying set of practices performed by IE orchestrators and members to foresee and design the IE before its emergence, addressing the dynamics of nascent ecosystem operations. Third, this study contributes to the shaping literature by showing ways to imagine future possibilities and acting proactively to realise those possibilities inside this actionable new structure of economic relationships that requires specific management to increase the probability of success for value proposition’s (VP’s) creation and delivery to the market.