Innovating firms’ strategic signaling along the innovation life cycle: The standards war context

Firms that develop market-focused technological innovations regularly employ strategic signals to influence market participants’ perceptions of the uncertainties that pervade innovation-based competition. Focusing on the standards war context, we argue that an innovation’s technical, market and standards uncertainties will vary as the innovation evolves through its life cycle, influencing innovating firms’ strategic signaling behaviors and, hence, the impacts of these signals on market participants’ perceptions of these firms’ likelihood of innovation success. We also examine how such influences vary depending on innovating firms’ strategic positions during different phases of the innovation life cycle. Our insights are developed into testable propositions.     

基于不同战略导向的创新选择与控制方式研究

本文从战略导向的角度出发,研究了企业的创新选择和管理控制方式选择问题.从战略思维和组织学习两个方面对企业家导向和市场导向在创新程度和管理控制方式上的不同进行了分析,提出概念模型和理论假设.利用从10个省市不同行业得到的585家企业有效样本数据的分析,验证了本文的理论模型.分析结果表明,企业家导向更加注重突破式创新并通过战略控制对其进行管理,而市场导向更加注重渐进创新并通过财务控制对其进行管理.分析结果还表明虽然企业家导向与渐进创新没有直接关系,但却可以通过财务控制方式鼓励企业中渐进创新的出现.     

Configuring knowledge connectivity and strategy conditions for foreign subsidiary innovation

We argue that product innovation by foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations is a complex undertaking requiring a theoretical understanding of how managers combine subsidiary structural arrangements, knowledge connectivity, and contextual conditions into configurations that yield innovative products. Accordingly, we integrate relevant conditions from interrelated literature streams and explore their complementarities and substitutions in relation to subsidiary product innovation. Using a neo-configurational approach and data on 183 foreign subsidiaries operating in Europe, we identify six equifinal configurations associated with subsidiary product innovation. We leverage the configurational patterns to elaborate theory of how subsidiary product innovation is primarily driven by the interrelations among the relevant conditions, thus contributing novel insights to research on subsidiary management and global innovation.     

Linking business models with technological innovation performance through organizational learning

This study examines how business models affect technological innovation performance through the mediating role of organizational learning. Using hierarchical regression analysis with data from 173 Chinese manufacturing firms embedded in global manufacturing networks, this study shows that both efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business models affect organizational learning. The results also demonstrate that organizational learning fully mediates the relationship between efficiency-centered business models and technological innovation performance and partially mediates the relationship between novelty-centered business models and technological innovation performance. This study provides new insights into the influence of business models on technological innovation performance by showing the indirect influence of business models. This study may help managers better understand the influence of business models on technological innovation performance.     

Innovation communities' contributions throughout firms’ innovation processes: An outdoor sports industry case study

Although it is crucial for firms to select openness patterns and strategies to involve innovation communities more effectively, the literature treats innovation communities as homogeneous. However, organizations may mobilize various innovation communities, including external and/or internal members. Similarly, little is known about how firms may involve those different types of innovation community during the distinct phases of their innovation processes. In this context, our main research questions are: For what contributions do companies solicit innovation communities? Do these contributions vary in content and intensity depending on the community and the phase of the innovation process? We distinguish between three types of innovation community (user, practice, and epistemic) and use a dynamic approach, considering four innovation process phases (opportunity recognition, search for solutions, development, and diffusion). The multicase study design includes three iconic firms from the outdoor sports industry and relies on archival data, observations, and 31 semidirective interviews with members of their innovation teams. Our results first show the important involvement of innovation communities during the innovation process. They also highlight the complementary use of those communities to manage their contributions, alongside their dark sides, better. Finally, we emphasize the crucial contribution of internal communities of practice in the firms’ open innovation strategies.     

反应型和先动型市场导向对产品创新和经营绩效的影响研究

探讨了反应型和先动型市场导向是否影响以及如何影响利用式创新和探索式创新,进而影响企业的经营绩效。对227家制造型企业的问卷调查研究结果显示:①反应型和先动型市场导向及利用式和探索式创新量表在我国制造业环境下具有良好的信度和效度;②2种类型市场导向对2种程度的创新均具有正向影响,其中,先动型市场导向对组织创新和企业绩效的促进作用更为明显;③2种类型的创新都有助于改善企业绩效;④创新均衡对企业绩效的改善也有显著作用。此外,研究为我国制造企业在何种程度上采纳市场导向战略管理工具来改善组织创新和经营绩效,提供了管理上的启示。     

Leveraging global sources of knowledge for business model innovation

This article explores the concept of leveraging global knowledge for business model innovation, whereby knowledge is transferred across space and firm boundaries for the reconfiguration of an incumbent firm's business model. Considering the implications of an ever-increasing fragmentation of global value chains and the associated dispersion of global knowledge sources, we propose that supply chain partners at foreign locations can provide valuable knowledge that incumbents can leverage to change their business model. Integrating insights from global supply chain, business model, and organizational learning literature, we theorize and empirically test how different organizational capabilities enable firms to acquire knowledge from foreign partners, integrate external with internal knowledge, transform knowledge through experimentation, and finally apply global knowledge in the form of business model innovation. We conclude with suggestions for future research.     

A Staged Service Innovation Model*

Drawing from the new product development (NPD) literature, service quality literature (SERVQUAL), and empirically grounded research with 53 service innovation decision makers, we develop a staged service innovation model (SIM) for decision makers. We tested the model using empirical data from 329 firms across five industries. The empirical results show that integrating prelaunch service quality training into new service development process leads to successful service innovation. The model developed in this article can be used as a decision support tool and diagnostic model for assessing service innovation ideas, evaluating performance of ongoing service innovations, allocating resources, and improving success rate of service innovations. Decision makers can use the measures developed in this study as a checklist to identify their strengths in delivering service quality to their own customers as well as areas of improvement. This article extends service innovation research by combining NPD and service quality development into a single study and opens the door to further work that could help improve the success rate of service innovations. The model can serve as a base model for future research extensions in service innovation research. A major takeaway for the academic reader is that the SIM demonstrates the value of using the SERVQUAL literature to understand how best to provide excellent quality that results in more fully satisfied customers and, ultimately, improved service performance.     

What affects new venture firm’s innovation more in corporate venture capital?

Although corporate venture capital (CVC) is a potential source of innovation, few studies have directly examined the impact of a parent company’s knowledge and resources on a new venture firm’s innovation performance. This article investigates the impact of experience with parent’s alliance and investment intensity on the extent to which new ventures in the U.S. use their parents’ knowledge and financial resources for their innovation activities at the inception of the CVC relationship over a 44-year period. Our findings suggest that ventures with alliance experience draw more on collaboration knowledge and relational capital, while investment intensity also increases innovation. At a low level of investment complexity, the use of alliance experience and investment intensity is positively related to innovation performance. However, when a parent company has high investment complexity for innovation performance, investment intensity and alliance experience are less effective. Our results, thus, unveil the CVC backing associated with the innovation of new venture firms.     

The multi-level effects of corporate entrepreneurial orientation on business unit radical innovation and financial performance

Corporate enterprises must support its business units to adapt to changes that are increasingly dramatic and complex. In response, corporate entities must organize to embed a corporate entrepreneurial orientation (EO) that pervades the actions of its business units to create the radical innovations needed to thrive in these circumstances. By developing a global willingness–local ability framework, we test a multi-level model of corporate EO by conceptualizing its effects on business unit radical innovation and business unit financial performance, moderated by business unit R&D resourcing and business unit absorptive capacity. With data from 2820 business units of 1290 Taiwanese corporations from two separate surveys, we find support for our theoretical expectations and contribute much-needed knowledge of the multi-level effects of EO and the conditions to turn EO into actual innovation activity and profit from it.     

Innovation strategies of Asian firms in the United States

This paper examines the relationship between Asian firms’ technological and non-technological strategies and innovation capability. Particular attention is focused on subsidiaries in the United States (US) with headquarter units in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Empirical evidence from a sample of 151 subsidiary plants and establishments suggests that Asian firms invest in the US to upgrade their their knowledge base with a view to supporting new product and market-based innovations. The results of an ordered probit regression model of innovation performance suggests that new product development and marketing capability make a significant contribution to increased US patents among Asian firms while applied research is only marginally significant in explaining firms’ innovation capability. The major sources of innovation capability are revolved around a tacit understanding of technology and products than more explicit forms of knowledge. Our empirical findings also suggest that stronger business performance is associated with new product development and marketing capability.     

生产链位置是否影响创新模式选择——基于微观角度的理论与实证

企业创新模式选择不仅与自身因素相关,还与生产分工流程相关;本文首次从理论与实证验证了企业的生产链位置对于创新模式选择具有显著影响。首先,基于产品分工构建了一个理论框架,诠释了企业生产链位置对于创新模式的影响:位于生产链上游的企业的产品可塑性强,适用范围更广,激进式创新引入的新产品替代旧产品的可能性较小,它们面临更小的"利润侵蚀效应";生产链上游企业中间品种类相对较少,激进式创新带来的高不确定性产生的协调成本较低,它们的"协调成本效应"也相对较小,因此位于生产链上游的企业采取激进式创新具有比较优势,反之位于生产链下游的企业偏向于渐进式创新。在实证上,本文首次通过插值法估算出1998~2011年中国投入产出系数,进而量化企业生产链位置指标,然后基于企业和专利数据库,根据理论的推论,对生产链分工位置影响企业创新模式选择的效果,以及如何影响创新行为进行了全面细致的验证,证实了两个效应是生产链位置影响企业创新模式选择的重要传导路径:在各使用3类指标区分企业对"利润侵蚀效应"与"协调成本效应"敏感性的基础上,结合使用分类回归发现,高产品替代性企业、在位企业以及一般贸易企业由于对"利润侵蚀效应"更敏感,它们创新模式的选择对生产链位置的反应更强烈;高产品复杂度企业、大规模企业以及低管理效率的企业由于对"协调成本效应"更敏感,它们创新模式的选择对生产链位置的反应也更强烈。最后,本文使用Heckman两步法对可能存在的估计偏误进行稳健性检验,结果证实了本文理论模型的主要命题和基础回归结果的稳健性。     

顾客导向和创新导向对企业绩效的影响机制研究

在市场导向相关研究的基础上.本文探索了顾客导向(Customer Orientation)以及创新导向(Innovation Orientation)经由组织学习(Organizational Learning)对公司绩效(Firm Performance)的影响.通过对欧洲的390家制造企业的调查.发现顾客导向和创新导向都对组织学习产生正向影响,组织学习提高了公司的新产品绩效(New Product Performance).最终提升了公司绩效.最后,文章讨论了本研究的理论和实践意义,以及未来的研究方向.     

The impact of corporate social performance on the cost of debt and access to debt financing for listed European non-financial firms

This study addresses the controversial issue of how non-financial performance affects the cost of debt capital and access to it. The relationship between corporate social performance and two measures of debt cost (accounting-based and market-based) and the measure of debt access are analysed by means of a multi-theoretical framework combining economics with social theories. By observing a sample of listed European non-financial firms over an 8-year period from 2005 to 2012, we find a negative relationship between corporate social performance and interest rate. Consistent with this result, we find a positive relationship between corporate social performance and debt rating. Thus, corporate social performance has a positive role in reducing the cost of debt capital. Moreover, firms with better corporate social performance are more attractive to lenders in terms of leverage allowance. Overall, our findings provide deeper insight into the reasons why companies should improve their corporate social performance.     

Internationalization Orientation in SMEs: The Mediating Role of Technological Innovation

This study examines the relationship between internationalization orientation and international performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the mediating effect of technological innovation. Prior research suggests that internationalization is a prominent strategic choice for SMEs growth and profitability. However, there is still no explicit agreement on how internationalization affects international performance. Similarly, the role of innovation on performance has long been emphasized, but the implications of technological innovation on international performance are still eluding us. Our investigation of 116 SMEs in the United Kingdom reveals that internationalization orientation has a significant effect on their international performance, with SMEs adopting simultaneously an inward and outward international orientation achieving superior results. We further demonstrate that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between technological innovation and international firm performance among SMEs. Meanwhile, we find that technological innovation positively mediates the effect of internationalization orientation on international firm performance, particularly for the SMEs exhibiting moderate levels of technological innovation activities. The findings of this study suggest that managers can improve international performance by combining inward and outward internationalization orientation with technological innovation activities in their strategic decisions.     

Strategic responses to imposed innovation projects: The case of carbon capture and storage in the Alberta oil sands industry

Today's ‘activist’ attitudes and strong power of non-market stakeholders (such as government agencies, non-governmental organizations, labor unions) have triggered the phenomenon of imposed innovation projects. These are investment projects carried out by profit-seeking firms primarily in response to the demands of influential non-market stakeholders. Such projects are supposedly instrumental to the emergence of new, socially beneficial products and production processes. We use a stakeholder management perspective to analyze the case study of a set of salient imposed innovation projects in the realm of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, pursued in the 2011–2014 period by a number of energy companies in Western Canada. We describe the peculiarities of these projects and reveal the scope and drivers of firm-level actions in response to the pressure to pursue imposed innovations. The findings reveal a spectrum of strategic responses to imposed innovation pressures, with varying degrees of cooperation with other economic actors, and varying levels of engagement to tailor the imposed innovation to the firm's technological profile. We develop a set of propositions on the performance implications for firms implementing imposed innovation projects. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy makers concerned with the improved diffusion and effectiveness of such projects.     

Framing the multifaceted nature of design thinking in addressing different innovation purposes

Scholars and practitioners acknowledge the role of design, and specifically design thinking, as a driver of innovation and change. Design thinking is gaining attention in the business community beyond the traditional product innovation realm and is increasingly promoted as an engine for the creation of novel user experiences, new businesses, strategic transformation, organizational and cultural change. Is it reasonable to assume that the same set of practices fits such a broad range of applications equally well? This study addresses how design thinking applications are differently framed when addressing diverse innovation purposes. Specifically, we compare two purposes: innovation of solutions, encompassing traditional product and service development projects, and innovation of direction, encompassing strategic and organizational renewal projects. Based on data collected from 146 design thinking projects conducted by European consulting firms we investigate the relationships between the design thinking practices adopted and the value generated by the projects. We then analyze how these relationships vary depending on the purpose of the innovation project, namely whether focused on innovating solutions or direction. The results show that different purposes indeed call for different practices. In projects aimed at innovating solutions, market value is positively related to capturing current user needs and envisioning future society. Conversely, in projects aimed at innovating direction, market value is positively related to challenging current assumptions.     

Digital orientation: Conceptualization and operationalization of a new strategic orientation

Although there is ample evidence that digital technologies are strategically important for value creation, extant literature lacks holistic concepts that capture an organization’s strategic orientation concerning digital innovation and transformation initiatives. This study integrates recent digitalization themes with IT business alignment research to conceptualize a new strategic orientation construct: digital orientation. The construct is manifested in four dimensions which we operationalize for computer-aided text analysis. We validate the construct based on 6498 shareholder letters from large US firms over 16 years. Building upon the resource-based view, we validate the digital orientation construct by linking it to firm performance. Our findings advance the literature on strategic orientations and bring the domains of strategy and information systems closer together. The novel digital orientation construct and the validated measurement instrument lead to many new research opportunities.     

Stakeholder Green Pressure and New Product Performance in Emerging Countries: A Cross-country Study

Despite the burgeoning literature on stakeholder green pressure, research is scarce on how it influences eco-product innovation and new product performance. This article examines stakeholder green pressures as antecedents of eco-product innovation and new product performance in firms operating in resource-constrained countries. Using data gathered from surveys in Vietnam (N = 183) and Ghana (N = 217), we find that the positive effects of stakeholder green pressures on new product performance are serially mediated by environmental sustainability orientation and eco-product innovation. Our findings contribute to ongoing efforts to clarify the mechanisms channelling stakeholder pressures into new product performance in resource-constrained environments.     

Does innovation lead to global orientation? Empirical evidence from a sample of Italian firms

This paper analyses the relationship between innovation at firm and industry level, and the global vs regional strategy of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Based on data from a sample of large Italian manufacturing firms, the analysis shows that technological assets affect a firm’s ability to overcome the liability of (regional) foreignness: the extent to which MNEs can exploit their firm-specific technological advantages is greater within their home region, but they also exploit them outside it. Furthermore, the results show that a firm’s foreign (outside the home country) and global sales (outside the home region) are higher, the greater the technology intensity of the industry in which they operate. These findings suggest that, although MNEs tend to operate regionally rather than globally, their strategic orientation is contingent upon firm- and industry-specific factors. Managers need to take the potential for globally exploiting R&D investments into account, even if it may not be equally successful within and outside the home region, and may be constrained by a number of inter-regional barriers.