Chief Executive Officer's traits and open innovation in small and medium enterprises: the mediating role of innovation climate
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
ISSN: 1462-6004
Article publication date: 28 July 2020
Issue publication date: 11 August 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the impact of Chief Executive Officer's (CEO's) personality traits on open innovation (OI) strategies and the mediating effect of innovation climate by mobilizing the upper echelons theory and the OI literature. In fact, CEO's role in OI promotion has been under-investigated in the literature especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and in developing economies.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the structural equation modeling, a survey is scheduled by administrating a questionnaire within 178 CEOs in Tunisian high-tech sector. The relevance of the empirical evidences is to disclose human levers to the success of OI strategies in the Tunisian context as a developing country.
Findings
The results show the importance of CEO's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and attitude in promoting innovation climate and so then OI strategies. The study offers a reading grid for managers of high-tech SMEs to better lead and identify key factors for OI adoption. Innovative climate is found to be a relevant driver of OI encompassing the key role of attitude and EO of top managers.
Practical implications
Results highlight the relevance of the recruitment of appropriate top managers with high levels of EO and with positive attitude toward OI in order to facilitate OI integration and to enhance SMEs' competitiveness. Entrepreneurially oriented CEOs should be required in order to overcome "Not Invented Here" and "Not Shared Here" syndromes, to support innovative climate and to encourage knowledge import and export in the Tunisian SMEs.
Originality/value
This paper sheds light on the micro-foundation of OI by emphasizing the relevance of human factors and namely EO and attitude of CEOs in OI issue. It provides conceptual and empirical clarification of the extent to which CEO's traits affect OI through innovative climate. This would value initiatives exploring key individual's characteristics influence on OI strategies within SMEs.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thorough revisions and insightful comments.Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research.Funding: The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Citation
Najar, T. and Dhaouadi, K. (2020), "Chief Executive Officer's traits and open innovation in small and medium enterprises: the mediating role of innovation climate", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 607-631. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-04-2020-0109
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited