To read this content please select one of the options below:

Design management capability and product innovation in SMEs

Anabel Fernández‐Mesa (INGENIO (CSIC‐ Universitat Politècnica de València), Valencia, Spain and Department of Business Management, Faculty of Economics, Universitat de València, Spain)
Joaquín Alegre‐Vidal (Department of Business Management, Faculty of Economics, Universitat de València, Spain)
Ricardo Chiva‐Gómez (Department of Business Administration and Marketing, University Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)
Antonio Gutiérrez‐Gracia (INGENIO (CSIC‐ Universitat Politècnica de València), Valencia, Spain)

Management Decision

ISSN: 0025-1747

Article publication date: 22 March 2013

4408

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to present design management as a dynamic capability and to analyze its mediating role between organizational learning capability and product innovation performance in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Design/methodology/approach

Structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses based on data from the Italian and Spanish ceramic tile industries. The data are derived from the responses of 182 companies (50 percent of the target population) to a questionnaire addressed to Product Development Managers and Human Resource Managers.

Findings

The results suggest that organizational learning capability enhances product innovation through the mediation of design management capability. The authors find an interesting interplay between organizational learning, design management capability and product innovation that can be very useful to better understand how to improve innovation performance. This finding shows that design management, as a dynamic capability, emerges from learning and allows the firm to adapt to environmental changes.

Originality/value

Several works have studied dynamic capabilities but without specifying the nature of these capabilities. More recent empirically‐based studies conceptualize and refer to specific dynamic capabilities. In this paper, the authors present design management as a dynamic capability. This study aims also to develop a better understanding of how organizational learning capability impacts on the product innovation performance of SMEs and how this relationship is mediated by design management capability.

Keywords

Citation

Fernández‐Mesa, A., Alegre‐Vidal, J., Chiva‐Gómez, R. and Gutiérrez‐Gracia, A. (2013), "Design management capability and product innovation in SMEs", Management Decision, Vol. 51 No. 3, pp. 547-565. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251741311309652

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles