How shared vision moderates the effects of absorptive capacity and networking on clustered firms’ innovation

Abstract

This paper will contribute to the line of research that seeks to identify the determinants of firms' innovation performance. Focusing on the territorial dimension, we investigated the role played by shared vision in the effects of internal resources (absorptive capacity) and external resources (network positioning) on the innovation of firms. To address the research questions, the empirical study drew on a sample of firms belonging to the Valencian textile cluster in Spain. Our findings suggest that networking and firm resources affect performance independently. Furthermore, internal and relational resources are positively active thanks to shared vision. More generally, we aim to contribute to the discussion on the degree to which firms should be involved in the cluster network in order to gain competitive advantages.

In Search of Precision in Absorptive Capacity Research: A Synthesis of the Literature and Consolidation of Findings

“…Financial investment in R&D has been often operationalized as R&D intensity (Estrada, de la Fuente, & Martin-Cruz, 2010), the most commonly used measure of absorptive effort. Other commonly used empirical measures of commitments for technology development include having a large number of R&D employees (Huang, Lin, Wu, & Yu, 2015), a higher percentage of people with technological expertise (Estrada et al, 2010) and skills (Matusik & Heeley, 2005), and a broader resource commitment by the management toward R&D (Expósito-Langa, Molina-Morales, & Tomás-Miquel, 2015).…”

The cluster is not flat. Uneven impacts of brokerage roles on the innovative performance of firms

“…This joint effect increases the firm's knowledge and, consequently, its value creation and innovation. Some examples in this regard are Expósito-Langa et al (2015), Molina-Morales and Expósito-Langa (2012) or Escribano et al (2009). In spite of the above argumentation, some recent body of research remarks that it is also possible to find a partial substitution effect between internal R&D efforts and external information sources such as brokerage activities.…”

A data-driven analysis of the current debate on the linkages between performance and strategy studies

“…The innovation-performance relation is also a field of remarkable interest for scholars. Chenhall and Moers (2015) describe how the design of management control systems have evolved over the years in order to include innovation, while Expósito-Langa et al (2015) investigate the determinants of firm's innovation performance. It's worth noting that in several studies, innovation and organizational issues are considered as interrelated concepts affecting performance (Alegre et al, 2013;Choi et al, 2013;Ederer and Manso, 2013).…”