The strategy literature has widely acknowledged the negative impact of cultural diversity between the partners of an alliance on their innovation performance. We argue that innovation is more ...challenging in alliances involving subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs), as they embody a dual background that encompasses the cultures of their host and home country. We also propose that the effect of cultural diversity is contingent on the content of the alliance, being positive in explorative and negative in exploitative alliances. Our findings, obtained from an analysis of 161 strategic alliances established by 31 MNC subsidiaries in the biotech industry from 1987 to 2010, confirm that subsidiaries are generally less innovative in alliances involving partners from other cultures. However, the impact of such cultural diversity becomes positive when those alliances focus on exploration activities, as the challenges of cultural diversity are offset by the benefits of exposure to novel cognitive schemes.
•We investigate how the dual cultural background of MNC subsidiaries influence the innovation of their cross-border alliances.•We claim that this influence depends on the explorative content of the strategic alliances.•Results confirm that subsidiaries are generally less innovative in alliances involving partners from other cultures.•Results reveal that the negative influence becomes positive when the alliances are explorative (rather than exploitative).
The objective of the paper is to assess the state and changes of innovativeness of Poland in 2011–2022. According to the study, innovation in Poland still remained low, although it was slightly ...improving. The results of this study can be used as an instrument in setting the direction of the country's innovation policy to support the increase of its innovativeness. Knowing the innovation strengths of the Polish economy, such as trademark protection and human capital, allows for their further strengthening. In turn, the identification of weaknesses and barriers to innovation growth (including significant underinvestment in research and innovation activities, little cooperation between R&D and business, and an unfavourable climate for innovation) allows them to be reduced and transformed from barriers into growth drivers, resulting in a significant improvement in Poland's innovativeness, the consequence of which will be closing the gap dividing it from the EU average.
The current global economy demands synergies between ecological responsiveness and business models. To analyse this dynamic, this study investigates the relationship between green innovation and ...corporate financial performance for German HDAX companies from 2008 to 2019 by constructing an green innovation measure. A two-step GMM system and penalised-spline estimation are used to test the linear relationship between green innovation and financial proxies (return on assets, return on invested capital, and the market-to-book ratio). The results indicate a linear positive effect of green innovation on different financial performance measures. This suggests that green innovation drives resource efficiency and enhances corporate reputation, which, in turn, boosts financial performance.
•It is possible to simultaneously achieve ecological and financial sustainability.•Corporate reputation is sensitive to ecological issues, especially for German firms.•Green innovation and corporate financial performance have a linear relationship.•Green innovation has a positive linear effect on large German firms' profitability.•Eco-innovation drives resource efficiency and improves firms' financial performance.
Co-creation can generate a multitude of organizational advantages, including improved innovation performance. While some studies have found that co-creating with several types of external ...stakeholders influences innovation performance positively, others have shown a negative effect. This contradictory empirical evidence highlights the need to unpack this relationship and examine which mediating variables can ensure that co-creating with various types of external stakeholders results in improved innovation performance. Accordingly, this article investigates the impact of breadth of external stakeholder co-creation on innovation performance, considering the mediating roles of knowledge sharing and product innovation. The paper draws on a cross-industrial sample of 1516 Spanish firms. Data are analyzed using a set of ordinary-least-squares regression models. Results show that breadth of external stakeholder co-creation is not directly related to innovation performance. Instead, this relationship is either fully mediated by product innovation, or follows the path through knowledge sharing and then product innovation.
•Breadth of stakeholder co-creation alone does not improve innovation performance.•Successful co-creation initiatives need to boost product innovation.•Internal and external knowledge sharing is key to successful co-creation processes.•Knowledge sharing alone does not improve innovation performance.•Knowledge sharing first needs to result in product innovation.
This research examines the integrated effects of external network ties and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on innovation performance. It also investigates how environmental dynamism affects the ...network ties-EO-innovation performance relationship. Drawing on the dynamic capability perspective of EO and the contingency view of network ties, we posit that business ties influence innovation performance through EO, while political ties affect innovation performance through business ties and EO. Moreover, we hypothesize that the indirect effects of business ties (through EO) and political ties (through business ties and EO) on innovation performance are stronger in more dynamic environments. Using a sample of 218 industrial firms from China, the findings support our arguments. Our in-depth examination of the relationship between network ties, EO and innovation performance results in some theoretical and managerial implications for discussion.
This study examines the role of knowledge management capacity in the relationship between strategic human resource practices and innovation performance from the knowledge-based view. This study uses ...regression analysis to test the hypotheses in a sample of 146 firms. The results indicate that strategic human resource practices are positively related to knowledge management capacity which, in turn, has a positive effect on innovation performance. The findings provide evidence that knowledge management capacity plays a mediating role between strategic human resource practices and innovation performance. Finally, this study discusses managerial implications and highlights future research directions.
This study aimed to understand whether the increased use of digital technologies improves innovation performance of firms. Previous studies reveal that the more the firms use digital technologies, ...the more they can be potentially innovative. However, this is a myth. In fact, one of the main limitations of such studies is their undifferentiated approach toward the vast ocean of digital technologies. Yet, given the increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies at all levels, business and society, a question emerges: how they impact the capability of firms to be innovative? Counter-intuitively, we argue that most frequently used digital technologies have very low impact on innovation performance of firms as innovation is the result of creativity and of constant R&D efforts. By contrast, excess use of digital technologies may even deplete the long-run innovation capability of firms, for instance, by impoverishing the relational capital.
We performed two different statistical analysis to understand whether this intuition was grounded and hypotheses would be confirmed. First, we used a principal component analysis to identify the digital technologies that are salient for innovation performance. Second, we conducted a multivariate analysis of variance to understand if the identified technologies predicted innovation performance. All tests were conducted on a large-scale sample of firms operating the European Union. The findings confirmed that digital technologies have very low impact on innovation performance, whilst R&D expenses are the most reliable predictor of innovation. These results challenge the false belief that digital technologies improve innovation performance. At a practical level, the results suggest that decision makers should debias themselves from considering digital technologies as the ultimate ingredient for a successful innovative firm, as this may backfire eventually.
•Empirical study on Chinese government's financial incentives to innovation is rare.•Over 1000 firms were surveyed during China's initial economic transition period in the 1990s.•Government direct ...funding failed to enhance innovation performance.•The market driven reforms in the 1990s should be greatly strengthened in China.•This strengthened reform has helped the nation's economic success in the last two decades.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of Chinese government financial incentives on firms’ innovation performance during the nation's initial economic transition period in the mid-1990s. Through a large-scale empirical survey of more than 1000 Chinese manufacturing firms, the empirical evidences show that whereas the major government financial incentives such as Special Loans and Tax Credits were positively influential to innovative economic performance of firms, Direct Earmarks not only failed to enhance innovative economic performance, it sometimes negatively affected it. Surprisingly, the findings show that all financial incentives of governments were unrelated to the patents of either high-tech or general firms and Direct Earmarks affected the patents of these firms negatively, although not to a significant degree. This indicates that the centrally planned funding system of the 1990s was ineffective for enhancing technological progress for Chinese manufacturing firms. The study results imply that the Chinese government should further increase the role of market force in its reforms. A more market-driven model by developing more S&T initiatives to match the strategic directions of different enterprises, particularly SOEs, is recommended.
Although social media platforms hold immense potential for driving innovation within companies, there remains a lack of understanding regarding how companies can maximize the advantage of their ...social media engagement for innovation performance. Therefore, this research empirically explores how social media influences enterprise innovation performance and examines the mediating effect of CEO narcissism on this relationship. By analyzing 15,696 firm-year observations from A-share capital markets in China over 2012–2022, our findings show that higher social media presence led to better innovation performance for listed companies. We also find a greater degree of CEO narcissism is associated with lower quality of enterprise innovation performance; increased social media activity is related to a more potent suppression of CEO narcissistic behavior, resulting in improved enterprise innovation performance. This study provides important insights into a thorough understanding of the interplay between social media, CEO narcissism, and enterprise innovation performance. Furthermore, in practical terms, it offers valuable insights that can serve as a reference for enhancing the innovation performance of Chinese listed companies.
•While social media holds immense potential for driving innovation within companies, there is a lack of understanding of maximizing its advantage for innovation performance.•We explored the influence of social media on enterprise innovation performance and the mediating effect of CEO narcissism, analyzing 15,696 observations from China's A-share capital markets (2012−2022).•A higher social media presence led to better innovation performance for listed companies, while a greater degree of CEO narcissism is associated with lower-quality enterprise innovation performance.•Increased social media activity is related to a more potent suppression of CEO narcissistic behavior, resulting in improved enterprise innovation performance.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between SMEs’ R&D internationalization and their innovation outcomes. Most studies on the topic focused on large multinational companies (MNCs), ...leaving several gaps in the literature with regard to SMEs. Using data from 106 Italian SMEs we performed an OLS regression analysis to test and find evidence of a positive linear relationship between SME’s R&D internationalization and innovation performance. In addition, we found that this relationship is positively moderated by knowledge management (KM) orientation. Main contributions are directed to the empirical test of the aforementioned relationships in a specific under developed research area, i.e. non-high tech SMEs, thus highlighting the positive effect of foreign acquisition of diverse cross-cultural knowledge on innovation. Moreover, KM orientation has been found to amplify this effect in the context of SMEs, due to a better management and integration of key internal and external knowledge.
PDF
