Unraveling the link between managerial risk-taking and innovation: The mediating role of a risk-taking climate

Abstract

International audienceScholars have proposed that taking risks in organizations is important for explaining innovation performance. Scholars traditionally have analyzed this link from two unconnected perspectives. From a managerial perspective, entrepreneurial orientation and leadership theories have been used to explain the positive relation between risk taking and innovation. From an employee perspective, creativity theory suggests that a risk-taking climate helps to explain innovative behaviors. However, there is little empirical research analyzing this link. This study examines the possibility of a connection between managers’ risk-taking propensities, employees’ risk-taking climate, and innovation performance. To do so, we test a quantitative model where the impact of the manager’ risk-taking propensity on innovation is mediated by its effect on employees’ risk-taking climate. Structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses on a data set of 182 firms from the Spanish and Italian ceramic tile industry

The Effects of a CEO’s Technical Background and Cross-functional Coordination on Technological Innovation Performance: The Mediating Role of Technological Innovation Orientation

“…The results of the present study set a middle tone between those two opposing views by suggesting a contingency perspective that the effect of a CEO's technical background is indirectly made on the firm's technological innovation performance fully through an intermediate mechanism of technological innovation orientation. In this regard, the results of this study are basically in line with prior studies contending that top managers influence innovation outcomes indirectly rather than directly García-Granero et al, 2015;Talke et al, 2010).…”

“…It is also in conflict with some other theoretical views suggesting little influence of top managers on organizational outcomes due to environmental and inertial forces (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1990;Hannan & Freeman, 1977Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977). In a related vein, some recent innovation studies García-Granero et al, 2015;Talke, Salomo, & Rost, 2010) pointed out that managerial characteristics such as leadership styles and personal traits are not sufficient on their own to lead to effective innovative performance or outcome. Those studies do not deny the impact of top managers on organizational outcomes or performance but contend that the impact is indirect rather than direct.…”

“…As such, the success of the firm's technological innovation should be a matter of not just the CEO or R&D department but the whole members in the organization. Innovation research has pointed out that real organizational change or innovation mainly emerges and diffuses at lower-levels in the organizational hierarchy (García-Granero et al, 2015).…”

“…The link between managerial functional backgrounds and innovation outcomes is grounded on the central premise of upper echelons perspective (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) that managerial background characteristics such as age, education, and functional track shape the cognitive bases and values of managers and have a significant effect on their strategic actions and resultant performance outcomes. Drawing on the upper echelons perspective, a considerable number of prior studies empirically examined the relationships between managerial characteristics such as leadership styles, personalities and education level and firm performance in the context of innovation (Camelo, Fernández-Alles, & Hernández, 2010;Chen et al, 2014;García-Granero et al, 2015;Nadkarni & Chen, 2014). Yet, to date no empirical investigation has been conducted on the relationship between managerial functional background and the organizational innovation performance.…”

Some Factors Hindering Acceptance of Three Gamification Solutions in Motivation Systems, in Small and Medium Enterprises

“…Manager/owner leadership style plays a vital role in SMEs (Franco & Matos, 2015), and some important connections have been discovered -e.g. with performance (Ling et al, 2008) or innovation creation (Gracia-Granero et al, 2015). Although the use of HRM practices in SMEs was found to be positively related to performance (Sheehan, 2014;Rauch & Hatak, 2016), the low formality of personnel processes characterizes all areas and functions in SMEs.…”