International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of organizational learning, market orientation, and transformational leadership on the organizational innovation and firm’s performance amongst the firms performing in Turkey. Using LISREL, structural equation-model, the data gathered from 330 employees were used to identify the variables that significantly affect the firm’s performance. The results indicated that 32% of firm’s performance is explained by the organizational innovation and market orientation, and organizational innovation has the strongest effect. However, organizational learning has no substantial effect on firm’s performance, and transformational leadership is also found to have an insignificant impact on the organizational innovation.

This paper examines the association between a differentiation strategy and the emergence of innovation using a package of management control systems (MCS) tools at the operational level. We empirically test theory developed by Simons [(2005). Levers of Organizational Design. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA (2010). Accountability and control as catalysts for strategic exploration and exploitation: Field study results. Harvard Working Paper 10-051.] and Chenhall et al. [(2011). Journal of Management Accounting Research, 23: 99–128.] to examine organic innovation culture, formal controls, and an entrepreneurial gap job design (EG), as a package of MCS tools at the operational level. There is evidence that all three MCS tools are both selected or are effective in enhancing innovation. However, internally, staff activities, and line activities show significant variation in their use of MCS tools. Formal controls and EG are effective for staff activities but not for line activities. For line activities organic culture is effective but formal controls are detrimental.

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.

The intention of this paper is to give an overview on the issue of technology exploitation within the context of globalization. Multinational companies which have extended business to the global market have more options regarding utilization of their technologies, thus having greater motivation and more chances for development. However, the global context also complicates technology exploitation. In this paper, we first address what technology exploitation means and the patterns of technology exploitation for multinational companies. Then, the benefits and risks of internationally exploiting technologies are discussed. Next, we shed light on some factors influencing the decision on technology exploitation patterns. Moreover, conceptual models helping firms’ option on technology exploitation pattern from perspectives of cost effectiveness and risk aversion are presented. By focusing on the technology exploitation patterns in the global market, this study holds several implications for the multinational companies to manage their efforts on realization of commercial value of technologies.

Research into product innovation and financial orientation in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is burgeoning, yet our understanding of the finance product innovation and performance remains unclear. Given the lack of empirical research on the role of financial orientation on innovation performance in the SMEs, especially in an Asian context, the current study addresses the relationships between financial orientation, product innovation and business performance in the Japanese SMEs, because it has a long established record on product innovation. Data were generated from 189 Japanese businesses and the results were analyzed using multiple regression. Results confirm the study hypotheses. Implications for management are discussed, along with suggestions for further research.

Drawn from structuration theory, this research investigates the role interfirm relationship (IR) agents play in appropriating technology features and utilizing everyday interactions to formulate and manage IRs. We examine how structurational conditions (i.e. routinization and reflexivity), information technology (IT) embeddedness, IT enactment (i.e. task coordination and relationship management) and sense-making together impact relationship quality. Findings support the central contention that agents’ cognitive efforts were necessary mediating conditions to realize the benefits of IT embeddedness and structurational conditions in relationship quality enhancement. Also interesting is while IT enactment and sense-making both positively contribute to a trusting, committed and stable relationship, greater ability in making sense of everyday interactions appears to mitigate the effect of IT enactment on relationship quality.

Extant research has highlighted the critical role of unabsorbed slack resources in internal innovation processes. In recent years, many firms have continued to open up their innovation processes to actively collaborate with external partners. In light of a limited understanding of the determinants of collaborative innovation, we provide new theoretical arguments about the relationship of unabsorbed slack resources with internal and collaborative innovation processes. Specifically, we draw on resource-based and competence-based logic and develop a conceptual framework for intraorganizational and interorganizational innovation with propositions for the impact of unabsorbed slack resources on internal and external knowledge acquisition and commercialization processes. The arguments underscore the critical role of excess resources in collaborative innovation, and they highlight the need for a fine-grained examination of the impact of unabsorbed slack resources in innovation processes. The arguments are particularly important in light of a renewed interest in essential enablers and barriers to collaborative innovation processes.