A Chain Multiple Mediation Model Linking Strategic, Management, and Technological Innovations to Firm Competitiveness

Abstract

Purpose -This study attempts to build an integrated framework to discuss the influence of three types of innovations, i.e. strategic, management, and technological innovations, on firm competitiveness.Design/methodology/approach -Paired survey responses are collected from 303 firms located in China. A confirmatory factor analysis is implemented with SPSS AMOS software to check the reliability and validity of all measures through structural equation modeling. Four hypotheses are empirically examined with SPSS PROCESS Macro in combination with a bias-corrected bootstrapping technique to test the chain multiple mediation model linking strategic, management, and technological innovations to firm competitiveness.Findings -Although strategic, management, and technological innovations are carried out at different organizational levels, they formulate a holistic framework to jointly improve firm competitiveness. Strategic innovation strengthens firm competitiveness through three parallel routes, i.e. via management innovation, via technological innovation, and via the serial mediating mechanism of management and technological innovations. Also, the mediation effect of management innovation is significantly stronger than that of technological innovation.Originality/value -This study integrates strategic, management, and technological innovations into the process of improving firm competitiveness to account for their joint influences, challenging the conventional paradigm where different types of innovations are investigated separately. Cross-domain knowledge flow, exchange, and combination are realized within the broad innovation construct.

Product Innovation Strategy and Dynamic Environment Against the Improvement of Company Performance at MSME in Kulon Progo

“…Product innovation has attracted a large amount of attention in the literature (Carranza, 2010); (Corsino & Gabriele, 2010); (Fontana & Nesta, 2009); (Kusiak, 2009), and research have shown its direct effect on company performance. Research carried out by Han and Gao (2019), with empirical tests from survey data collected from 303 companies in China, supported a positive relationship between innovation strategies with company performance. It was because, specifically, the innovation strategy could improve competitiveness associated with company performance.…”

How and When Does Big Data Analytics Capability Boost Innovation Performance?

“…Strategic flexibility (10 items) was operationalized using the approach of Li et al [75]. Strategic innovation (4 items) was operationalized with reference to Han and Gao [69]. Environmental uncertainty (9 items) was measured based on Chen et al [76].…”

“…Some existing literature has identified the positive relationship between strategic flexibility and strategic innovation. Utilizing survey data from 303 Chinese manufacturing, Han and Gao [69] verified that strategic flexibility improves management innovation through the mediator of strategic innovation. Han and Gao [69] also proved that employee orientation positively influences strategic flexibility and strategic innovation orderly, which, in turn, improves original innovation.…”

“…Utilizing survey data from 303 Chinese manufacturing, Han and Gao [69] verified that strategic flexibility improves management innovation through the mediator of strategic innovation. Han and Gao [69] also proved that employee orientation positively influences strategic flexibility and strategic innovation orderly, which, in turn, improves original innovation. Furthermore, there is also some statistical evidence identifying that strategic flexibility is a promoter of business model innovation [28,70], which is a vital category of strategic innovation that has been explained above.…”

Do government subsidies and financing constraints play a dominant role in the effect of state ownership on corporate innovation? Evidence from China

“…After passing the joint significance and robustness tests, we further test the hypotheses using bootstrapping and Monte Carlo methods (Kenny et al, 2016). We set the sample size to 5000 (Han & Gao, 2019). Table 7 shows the total, direct and indirect effects and effect size.…”