Process innovation objectives and management complementarities: patterns, drivers, co-adoption and performance effects

Jose-Luis Hervas-Oliver (), Francisca Sempere-Ripoll and Carles Boronat-Moll
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Jose-Luis Hervas-Oliver: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia,and Florida State University
Francisca Sempere-Ripoll: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Carles Boronat-Moll: Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

No 2012-051, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: The excessive concentration of the innovation literature on product development, its drivers and effects, has almost neglected an important strategy which develops and sustains a firm's competitive advantage: process development or innovation. This is an examination of process innovation as more than a mere dependent variable for predicting innovators. It provides insights into the poor attention that process innovation variable has received as an indicator of a firm's performance. In addition, the paper relates this process with the management innovation phenomenon. Using 8,977 firms from Spain through CIS data, findings suggest: (1) most process innovation performance is explained without R&D variables; (2) process innovation process innovation was observed to have a strong dependence on external sources of knowledge, mainly via the acquisition of embodied knowledge; (3) an important "implementation" effect or "learning by trying" effect is observed in which the acquisition of embodied knowledge requires the organization to couple the new technology with existing processes; (4) the simultaneous co-adoption of management innovation positively moderates and improves process performance (5) product innovation is not related to process innovation performance. The latter result is unrelated to consideration of co-adoption of product and process innovation. Two-step Heckman procedures control for the selection process. The paper presents important implications for policymakers and scholars.

Keywords: process innovation; process innovation performance; management innovation; embodied knowledge acquisition; product innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L25 Q31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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