An audit of innovation drivers: some empirical findings in Greek agri-food firms

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model and examine the relevance of a set of five dynamic drivers to building and sustaining the innovation capability of agri-food firms. Design/methodology/approach The empirical data were acquired through a recent study of 436 Greek agri-food firms. Regression analysis was employed to examine the correlation between innovation drivers and each of the four innovation capability dimensions, namely, product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation and marketing innovation. Findings The findings verify that quality orientation and process management are the two most important innovation drivers. However, the impact of learning orientation, collaborations and environmental dynamism on a firm’s agri-food innovation capability is yet to be investigated. Research limitations/implications This study has not investigated how firms’ characteristics form the drivers and barriers to innovation at the company. Moreover, a second limitation is related to the kind of innovation that drivers boost. This research does not separate between radical and incremental innovation. Practical implications In order to maintain their sustainable development and enhance their whole innovation capability, agri-food firms should closely relate their innovation capability dimensions to the formulation of a strategy and harmonization of innovation and innovation drivers’ activities. Originality/value The main contribution of this paper is that it develops an appropriate research framework (a proposed structural model) for examining the links among the five innovation drivers with each of the four innovation capability dimensions.

Innovation dimensions and business performance under environmental uncertainty

“…Thus, the innovation strategies which are effective in improving firm performance in certain environments may not be as effective as they are in other business environments (Tsai and Yang, 2013). Kafetzopoulos and Skalkos (2019) support the view that organizations may attempt to improve innovation capability by adopting appropriate strategies that enable them to manage environmental uncertainties. Implementing strategies to reduce critical internal and external contingencies may represent a response strategy by management to achieve innovation and business outcomes.…”

The role of foreign technologies and R&D in innovation processes within catching-up CEE countries

“…The main motivation of this study is therefore to propose a novel two-staged approach combining artificial neural networks (ANN) and random forests (RF), which overcome previous traditional regression models (see e.g. [20][21][22]), in terms of accuracy and ability to capture more complex relationships and to handle nonlinear and hierarchical behaviours [23]. It could help us to reveal not the effects of innovation determinants on firms´innovation performance but the importance of innovation determinants within innovation processes.…”

Innovative capacity in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: Review of international articles on empirical research

“…It is worth noting that the researchers and scholars in this article used the medium sample size from 436 samples (Kafetzopoulos & Skalkos, 2019); 340 samples (Donkor et al, 2018) in view of Hair et al (2006) to small sample size (115 samples) (Abdulai Mahmoud & Hinson, 2012) for factor analysis, linear regression analysis by SPSS software. In addition, causal/causal model analysis by partial least squares PLS (Latan & Ghozali, 2012) has been investigated by many researchers.…”

“…Production innovation capacity and process innovation capacity were also studied together (Wahyuni & Sara, 2020). Most studies have identified and recognized innovation capacities through a combination of innovation capacity including product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation, and marketing innovation (De Martino & Magnotti, 2018;Kafetzopoulos & Psomas, 2015;Kafetzopoulos & Skalkos, 2019;Rajapathirana & Hui, 2018). One study suggested that management innovation is the essential action and capability to implement innovation of any organization (Maldonado-Guzmán, Garza-Reyes, Pinzón-Castro, & Kumar, 2019); divided innovation capacity into radical and incremental (Al-Ansari, Pervan, & Xu, 2013; Lewrick, Chen, Raeside, & Omar, 2012).…”

“…On the other hand, empirical studies on innovation capacity in the manufacturing sector are also numerous (David et al, 2014;Kafetzopoulos & Psomas, 2015;Rajapathirana & Hui, 2018). The number of studies in each specific industry is also of considerable interest such as high-tech industry (Maldonado-Guzmán et al, 2019), food industry (De Martino & Magnotti, 2018;Kafetzopoulos & Skalkos, 2019), banking services (Baba, 2012), telecommunications industry (Abdulai Mahmoud & Hinson, 2012); textile industry (Wahyuni & Sara, 2020).…”