This paper examines one of the most important sources of competitiveness in dynamic industries-the capability of firms to introduce process innovations. While the management of product innovation has received considerable theoretical and empirical attention in the literature, our knowledge about how firms become process innovators-and why many firms fail to do so-remains underdeveloped. In order to provide novel insights into the configuration of firms' process innovation activities and their performance implications, this paper draws on the dynamic capabilities approach. More specifically, this study aims to shed light on the antecedents, contingencies, and performance consequences of interfirm differences in process innovation success, that is, firms' propensity and effectiveness of implementing new production, supply chain, or administrative processes. Particular emphasis is placed upon the analysis of potential complementarities or substitution effects between innovation activities such as internal and external research and development, prototyping, external knowledge acquisition, and employee training. Cross-sectional data from a large-scale survey of German manufacturing and service firms serves as the basis for testing the hypotheses advanced in this paper. Findings suggest that by engaging in a broad range of different innovation activities, firms can indeed increase the likelihood of achieving process innovation success, which is in turn positively related to firm financial performance. Yet decreasing marginal returns to innovation activities have to be considered as process innovation propensity was found to increase with the number of activities pursued simultaneously only up to a point, after which negative marginal returns set in (inverted U-shaped relationship). Furthermore, while environmental turbulence was found to have surprisingly little influence when it comes to translating process innovation success into firms' subsequent financial performance, industry membership as well as the nature of the innovation process (i.e., internal generation, external adoption, or cocreation of an innovation) emerged as key contingency factors. These findings have important theoretical as well as practical implications for managing new process introductions.

This study aims to shed light on the implementation of HR practices as a key piece of the human resource management (HRM)-performance puzzle. Although the literature suggests that discrepancies between the organization's intended and implemented HR practices are essential to understanding employees' perceptions of and reactions to HRM, little attention has been devoted to this issue. Drawing upon a multiple-case study of German health and social services organizations, we therefore explore the linkages (and potential gaps) between intended, implemented, and perceived HR practices. Our study provides new insights into the underlying mechanisms of this relationship, highlighting an organization's ability to leverage its resources as playing a crucial moderating role in implementing intended HR practices, while employees' expectations of HRM moderate the link between implemented and perceived HR practices. We advance a set of propositions that contributes to a more nuanced, multilevel understanding of the complex phenomenon of HRM implementation.

Given the limited understanding of temporal issues in extant theorizing about the link between human resource management (HRM) and performance, in this study we aim to shed light on how, when, and why HR interventions affect organizational performance. On the basis of longitudinal, multi-informant and multisource data from public hospital services in England, we provide new insights into the complex interplay between employees' perceptions of HR systems, job satisfaction, and performance outcomes over time. The dynamic panel data analyses provide support for changes in employees' experience of an HR system being related to subsequent changes in customer satisfaction, as mediated by changes in job satisfaction, albeit these effects decrease over time. Moreover, our longitudinal analyses highlight the importance of feedback effects in the HRM-performance chain, which otherwise appears to evolve in a cyclical manner.

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This paper adds to the emerging literature stream advocating a contingency view on open innovation. Drawing on the relational view of the firm, this study sheds light on the complex interplay among collaboration partner types (market‐ and science‐focused innovation partners), governance modes (informal, self‐enforcing and formal, contractual collaboration governance), and internal research and development(R&D). More specifically, it is proposed that the use of governance modes tailored to both the characteristics of each innovation partner type and the specific innovation objectives pursued by the focal firm (incremental and radical new product development) can increase the payoff from innovation collaboration. Moreover, appropriate collaboration governance is expected to reduce the focal firm's vulnerability to possible negative side effects often assumed to be associated with the simultaneous pursuit of external collaboration and internal R&D, among which most notably the not‐invented‐here (NIH) syndrome. Cross‐industry evidence from 2502 German firms underlines the critical role of collaboration governance—a contingency factor that is at the heart of the relational view, yet has remained surprisingly absent from the open innovation debate so far.