Linking environmental forces, absorptive capacity, information sharing and innovation performance
Industrial Management & Data Systems
ISSN: 0263-5577
Article publication date: 7 June 2022
Issue publication date: 21 June 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to understand how regulatory and competitive forces impact firms' actions and innovation performance. The study investigates how firms strategize internally and externally to address regulatory and competitive forces, and how such actions influence firms' innovation performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected via a survey of 217 managers of business organizations in Nigeria.
Findings
Regulatory forces have a positive relationship with both absorptive capacity (AC) and information sharing (IS). Competitive forces, on the other hand, only have a negative relationship with IS but not with AC. AC has a positive relationship with innovation performance, while IS, surprisingly, does not have a positive relationship with innovation performance.
Originality/value
The study contributes to knowledge by empirically validating the relationships between environmental forces and innovation performance; more importantly, the study uncovers the underlying factors, i.e. IS and AC that link environmental forces and firms' innovation performance.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the reviewers for their helpful comments on the earlier versions of our paper. Adegoke Oke was supported in part by the Dean's Award of Excellence Summer Research Grant, at the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. Cheng was supported in part by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University under the Fung Yiu King–Wing Hang Bank Endowed Professorship in Business Administration.
Citation
Oke, A., Prajogo, D., Idiagbon-Oke, M. and Cheng, T.C.E. (2022), "Linking environmental forces, absorptive capacity, information sharing and innovation performance", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 122 No. 7, pp. 1738-1755. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-12-2021-0732
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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