Firms’ Innovative Performance: The Mediating Role of Innovative Collaborations

While existing studies have provided many insightful discussions on the antecedents to innovative collaborations and the benefits of collaborative behavior, few studies have focused on the mediating role of innovative collaborations in enhancing the firm’s technological innovative performance. In this paper, we investigate the mediating role of the firm’s innovative collaborations in the relation between government innovation support and the firm’s product and process innovation intensities. As a mediating factor in the innovation process, innovative collaborations form part of the innovative inputs that contribute to the firm’s product and process innovation intensities. Using arguments derived from the resource-based theory, we found that while receipts of government innovation support help increase the firm’s level of innovative inputs as observed in its collaboration intensity, it is equally important for firms to internalize management practices that encourage maximum leverage of government innovation support for pursuits of innovative collaborations. In a similar vein, while innovative collaborations are necessary for realizing innovative outputs including product and process innovations, it is not a sufficient condition for achieving strong innovative performance. The firm’s internal capabilities as observed in its learning, R&D, resource allocation, manufacturing, marketing, organizing, and strategic planning abilities have a positive influence on the relationship between innovative collaborations and innovative outputs.Innovative Performance; Innovative Collaboration; Firm’s Contextual Factors

The impact of an innovative human resource function on firm performance: the moderating role of financing strategy

The current study examined the impact of the human resource function and financing strategy on the financial performance of 104 UK manufacturing firms. Hypotheses are drawn from a resource-based perspective on human resource management and a financial theory perspective on capital structure. Results show that an innovative HR function is significantly related to economic performance. However, the relationship between an innovative HR function and economic performance was moderated by the firm¿s financing strategy. Firms obtained higher returns from an innovative HR function when pursuing a low leveraging (debt) financing strategy, a finding consistent with modern finance theory notions that firmspecific strategic assets provide greatest value when financed primarily through equity as opposed to debt

An innovative collaborative high-performance platform for simulation

This paper presents an innovative collaborative visualization platform for the simulation-based design applications. Following the scope and the main objectives, the general architecture based on the internet standard technologies is explained. Based on a multi-domain approach, several demonstrators are involved crossing interests of industrial and academic communities. Related to the field of process engineering, we adapt and deploy a web-based architecture research application on the targeted platform

IT Innovativeness and Environmental Consciousness on Organizational Performance

The purpose of our study is to investigate the impacts of Information Technology (IT) innovation and environmental consciousness on firm performance. We tested the robustness of innovation theory using the most recent Information Week (IW) 500 annual datasets. As expected, performance of IT innovators was better than their industry average performance. However, performance of environmentally conscious IT innovators is frequently no better than that of less conscious IT innovative firms. And, for some performance indicators, less environmentally conscious IT innovative firms out-performed more environmentally conscious IT innovative firms.Information technology (IT) innovation, firm performance, organizational innovation, IT role, environmental consciousness, and environmental performance

Innovation and firm performance

In this paper, the current state of knowledge regarding the relation between innovation and firm performance is reviewed. The relationship is empirically tested. There is a special focus on small and medium-sized firms. In the literature, there is a trend towards a system approach. Empirical studies using this approach distinguish four parts in the innovation-performance relationship. First of all, a company decides whether or not to innovate. Secondly, if a company decides to innovate, what is the level of input in innovation. The innovative input will be transformed into innovative output. And finally, the innovative output will result in a better firm performance. In the model several feedback loops are incorporated, for instance, from firm performance to innovative input.

Survey of the literature on innovation and economic performance

Despite very strong differences in their treatment of technological change in economic theory, both the neoclassical and the more Schumpetarian (and evolutionary) economic approaches often assume that market selection rewards the most innovative firms. However, despite such strong assumptions, empirical evidence on whether innovative firms perform better than non-innovative firms remains inconclusive. If innovators do not grow more, does this imply that market selection fails? And does the different impact of innovation on industrial performance (measured by firm growth and profitability) and financial performance (measured by market value and stock returns) signal differences in how industrial and financial markets react to firm level efforts around innovation? This discussion paper reviews the literature on the interaction between innovation and economic/financial performance, and outlines the way that work within FINNOV Work Package 2 (SELECTION), Co-Evolution of Industry Dynamics and Financial Dynamics, will contribute to better understanding this interaction

Performance measurement procedures that support innovativeness rather than hamper it

This paper addresses the contemporary challenges in increasing firm-level innovativeness and developing appropriate performance metrics. The authors discuss these challenges and provide a literature review on the innovation enhancing factors in service industries. They subsequently study the case of a multinational telecom company that tries to renew its innovative capabilities after a restructuring. An interpretative approach, based on employee focus group interviews and an extensive management workshop, is taken to co-develop context specific factors that enhance innovativeness. These factors include, amongst others, personal recognition and acknowledgement for an innovative achievement, available time, customer intimacy, and a clear innovation strategy. The identified factors will be used in a follow-up research aimed to develop performance measurement procedures that support the company to develop and exploit its innovative capabilities

Economic Crisis, Innovation Strategies and Firm Performance. Evidence from Italian Firm-level Data

Several empirical works have shown the robust and positive relation between growth and innovation at macroeconomic level and between firm economic performance and innovation at microeconomic level. However, the economists have had less opportunities to study such linkages during severe global downturns of the economic cycle. Moreover, the present disruptive economic downturn has forced the firms to implement survival strategies. One of such strategic behaviour regards the way of intervention on product and process areas through innovative actions. Focusing the attention on the micro level, the present work provides an empirical analysis on the basis of more than 500 Italian manufacturing firms located in Emilia-Romagna region, with the aim of disentangling the relations between pre-crisis innovation strategies and firm economic performance during the crisis as well as the linkages between the innovative actions taken to react to the recession's challenges and the economic performance in the recession. The results suggest the existence of strong relationships between past innovative activities and the capacity to react to the challenges brought by the crisis through innovative actions along product, process and organization/HRM dimensions, although the role of complementarities among past innovative activities does not emerge robustly. When the dependent variables are performance indicators the impact of pre-crisis innovation strategies emerges as robust for technological and organizational spheres, while intense innovative activities before the crisis on spheres like ICT, training and environment are detrimental for performances in the crisis. It seems that when the crisis hits those firms in a process of quite radical transformation and change, then the negative economic consequences of the recession are worse than in the case of firms on a more stable, less dynamic path.innovation strategies; economic crisis; firm performance

Innovation in SMEs: An Empirical Investigation of the Input-Throughput-Output-Performance Model

In this paper the relationships between innovative inputs, processes and outputs, as well as its consequences for firm performance�are investigated. Based on a survey among 1303 small and medium-sized firms, the authors conclude that investing in innovation is worth doing. Innovative inputs and processes are clearly related to new product introductions and process improvements. The effects on firm performance are less evident.