PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the performance effects of pure innovation strategies (creative and imitative) versus the combination of the two innovation strategies (combination innovation strategy) and to determine whether implementing the combination innovation strategy produces an incremental performance benefit over the pure innovation strategies.Design/methodology/approachWe used archival data from the Korea Innovation Survey (KIS) completed by a large sample of South Korea manufacturing firms and some financial data provided by the South Korea Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI). We used hierarchical multiple regression analysis to analyze the data from 486 firms.FindingsThe findings indicated that firms implementing any of the three innovation strategies of creative innovation, imitative innovation and combination innovation outperforms noninnovators. Results also show that while firms implementing the combination innovation strategy perform better than those implementing imitative innovation strategies, they do not significantly differ in performance from firms implementing the creative innovation strategy. Moreover, we find no performance difference between creative innovation and imitative innovation strategies.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the importance of combination innovation strategies for manufacturing firms that rely on imitative innovation strategies to gain competitive advantage in the market. However, it demonstrates that firms that are successful in using creative innovation strategies must use their resources in exploiting that advantage.Originality/valueAlthough extant studies have demonstrated the importance of both creative innovation and imitative innovation strategies in enhancing performance, it is not clear whether implementing both strategies at the same time has incremental value for firms. This study focusses on empirically examining the performance implications of creative innovation and imitative innovation strategies, and whether the pursuit of a combination innovation strategy (simultaneous pursuit of both innovation strategies) provides any incremental benefit is unique.
A B S T R A C TThe major purpose of this research is to provide a refined understanding of the effects of a CEO's technically oriented functional background and cross-functional coordination on the firm's technological innovation performance by including as a mediating variable in the research model the construct of technological innovation orientation which has been recently identified as an important factor affecting the firm's technological innovation performance. Strategic management and innovation research has suggested managerial functional background as a crucial factor affecting the successful innovation outcomes. Nevertheless, no empirical analysis has been conducted on the relationship between CEOs' or top managers' functional backgrounds and the organizational innovation performance. One plausible reason for the absence of prior research empirically examining the relationship between managerial functional background and innovation performance may be that the research has failed to identify some intervening mechanism through which managers' relevant functional backgrounds influence the firm's innovation outcomes. Cross-functional coordination has been frequently recognized as a crucial driver for the firm's successful technological or product innovation performance. Yet, previous empirical research has provided a limited support for the direct positive impact of cross-functional coordination on such innovation performance. Research has shown that that cross-functional coordination may not be sufficient on its own to generate the firm's superior technological or product innovation performance due to some inherent adverse effects it brings about. Given lack of extant empirical research exploring relevant mediating mechanisms that may link cross-functional coordination with firm innovation performance, the controversy regarding the direct impact of cross-functional coordination on innovation performance remains unsettled. In an effort to fill up the aforementioned gaps or deficiencies in previous studies, the present research proposed and empirically tested a conceptual research model and hypotheses in which a CEO's technically oriented functional background and cross-functional coordination affect the firm's technological innovation performance, directly and indirectly, via technological innovation orientation. Technological innovation orientation represents an organizational culture conceptualized as an organization-wide direction of thinking toward creating or adopting new ideas, products, services, or processes. Analysis of a sample of 87 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Korean IT industry revealed that technological innovation orientation fully and positively mediated the relationship between the firm's technological innovation performance and a CEO's technically oriented functional background and cross-functional coordination, respectively. Both a CEO's technically oriented functional background and cross-functional coordination did not have significant direct effects on the firm's t...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.