Search results

This paper aims to investigate the moderating role of innovation capability and strategic goals in the financial performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana.

Innovative capabilities and strategic goals in SMEs and their influence on financial performance were recognized and briefly debated according to the existing literature. Hypotheses were tested on research data on 340 SMEs in Ghana, which were conveniently selected. Finally, quantitative analysis was done, followed by a discussion of the research findings.

Results from the study have proved that strategic goals have a strong positive relationship with financial performance. Also, there is a strong, positive and highly significant impact innovative capacity has on financial performance. Finally, the study found that innovative capability moderates the relationship between strategic goals and financial performance. It showed that at high levels of innovative capacity, high levels of strategic goals boost financial performance massively.

The findings are limited to SMEs in Ghana. Researchers should study why SMEs may not pursue any innovation capability activities as they have positive impact on their financial performance. They may also focus on strategic goals and financial performance.

The study shows a necessity for longer-term innovation perspectives and a higher level of the importance of the application and assessment of strategic goals. Business owners and caretakers need greater awareness about the importance of innovation capability and strategic goals and their influence on the overall financial performance of SMEs. This will help them to adopt right innovate procedures for their businesses.

One of few research works to examine innovation capability and strategic goals on the financial performance of SMEs in a developing country.

In today’s Pakistan, the emergence of new forms of business in collaboration with the mobile service providers is bringing a big difference, not only in every walk of life but also in digital economy of the country. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore what are the factors that determine the success rate of new innovative services in cultural context of mobile service providers of Pakistan.

Data have been collected from 397 employees of cellular firms of Pakistan by using the simple random sampling strategy. The gathered data were analyzed by using the regression-based process approach of Hayes and Preacher (2014).

The results indicated that innovation capabilities and service innovation have significant positive effect on the short-term, long-term and indirect success of the service innovation. It was also found that the service innovation mediates the relationship among the capabilities to innovate and service innovation success rate. The findings of this research work are beneficial for the practitioners of cellular firms of Pakistan.

The value of this research work is evident from the fact that this research work attempts to address some identified gaps of existing body of literature. This research work provides some key insights for practitioners and also discusses the new avenues for future researches.

Despite the growing interest in blockchain technology (BCT) applications in the agri-food industry, evidence of their economic and strategic implications remains scarce. This study aims to contribute to filling this gap by jointly investigating how BCT adoption affects transactional relationships, and how it contributes to the firm’s strategic resources.

An explanatory case study is conducted based on a theoretical framework grounded on transaction cost economics and the resource-based-dynamic capabilities view. Six BCT implementations by agri-food firms are studied. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings reveal that BCT benefits depend on how companies integrate technology across their supply chains. In fact, the results suggest that overall transaction efficiency within the supply chain is enhanced only for those firms prioritising stakeholder engagement during technology implementation and leveraging existing trust relationships with economic agents. Moreover, the results suggest that BCT is not yet perceived as a strategic resource, but rather that it has the potential to enhance firms’ operational-adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities. When all supply chain actors clearly understand blockchain’s functionality and value, the development of these capabilities becomes more pronounced.

The study identifies two BCT adoption configurations. One primarily focuses on enhancing supply chain efficiency and transparency (dynamic BCT), while the other uses BCT mainly for marketing purposes (static BCT). These configurations lead to varied possibilities for leveraging BCT’s potential advantages. Furthermore, they show how a mismatch between a strategic approach and its chosen configuration could work against any positive impact and lead to disillusionment with the BCT. Thus, managers should assess carefully the impact of such different configuration choices on performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to attempt to analyse the economic implications of adopting BCT in the food sector from both a firm and supply chain perspective. Additionally, it shows how interpreting these impacts is contingent on the diverse modalities for embedding BCT into existing supply chains.

There is a need for research examining how governments and firms responded to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This study investigates the interdependence between governments and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the pandemic in relation to the dynamic capabilities and resource dependence theories.

We use World Bank survey data collected immediately before and after the COVID-19 outbreak and a generalized structural equation model to examine the mediating role of government support in the relationship between firm innovation, resilience and survival.

Innovative SMEs exhibited higher resilience and a better chance of survival during the pandemic, partly due to attracting more government support.

This study offers a novel understanding of the government’s role in supporting innovative SMEs during the pandemic. The findings have implications for how government support policies can limit the deadweight effect and the substitution effect.

The purpose of this paper is to use a theoretical framework to investigate the relationships between different innovation-oriented dynamic capabilities, dynamic resilience and firm performance among logistics service providers (LSPs) and in-house logistics departments of industrial companies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The conceptual theoretical framework relies on the dynamic capabilities framework (DCF) and the relational view (RV), which are rooted in the resource-based view (RBV). It is hypothesized that the dynamic capability to innovate reinforces the dynamic capability to adapt and to recover in highly dynamic and vulnerable environments during the pandemic. This allows LSPs to successfully create new services and respond to the changing market circumstances in terms of logistics service quality (LSQ) and firm performance. Data were collected from 83 LSPs and 30 in-house logistics departments via an online survey. The study determined the general strength and direction of the relationships between latent variables. A correlation analysis was utilized to establish statistical significance of the results.

In this study, a range of innovation-oriented capabilities for achieving more dynamic resilience were bundled in a conceptual framework and were found to be statistically significant for LSQ and firm performance. They are the capability to distribute new knowledge, to train employees effectively, to develop cross-functional collaboration within the firm, to develop inter-firm relationships with business partners on a long-term basis as well as to learn from rivals, and to pursue a win-win relationship with them.

The results of the study do not imply that the identified capabilities are the only ones relevant to increasing dynamic resilience during the pandemic. In October 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was at different stages in different countries, so that the level to which firms were affected varied, and although the data were collected during one month only, due to the high dynamics of the pandemic, data were collected during different stages of disruptions, even among respondents in the same country. This study was set in the context of COVID-19, and it could not be proved whether the conceptual framework is generalizable to other crises or particular industries, but it would be worthwhile to examine this in the future. Finally, it was not tested whether LSQ mediates the relationship between innovative capabilities and firm performance during the pandemic.

The results help managers with regard to their strategic and operational decisions in relation with COVID-19. These findings are useful for executives and logistics managers to improve these capabilities to gain a competitive advantage during pandemic and to find their strengths and weaknesses to develop critical capabilities for situations with a high turbulence and dynamic in their environment, and therefore provide a path for improvement.

This paper operationalizes a multi-theoretical conceptual framework in the context of logistics management (LM) and supply chain management (SCM). This conceptual framework was empirically tested.

Extant research supports the importance of dynamic managerial capabilities in capturing managers’ individual roles in organisations’ adjustments to change. This paper develops a multidimensional scale for measuring dynamic managerial capabilities consisting of sensing, seizing and reconfiguration capacities that mediate between managers’ affective states and their firms’ performance.

The scale is validated in a survey-based study among 204 managers in companies in the United States of America (USA). We applied a multiple regression model (a triple mediation) using each of DMCs’ three dimensions to test the effects of managers’ affective states on their firms’ performance.

The multidimensional construct of DMCs adds about 15 % of variance explained to a firm’s performance, as perceived by its managers. So managers’ affective states do have an impact on DMCs and, later, on their firms’ performance.

We show the impact of negative and positive affect on DMCs. We also show that DMCs’ three dimensions should be treated in a formative manner that advances discussion on DMCs and their role in a firm’s performance.

Understanding managers’ affective states helps incorporate “hot cognition” into firms’ strategising processes. Although both positive and negative emotions can be helpful, depending on the situation, positive affect is generally more valuable than negative affect as it relates to a firm’s performance.

Our work proposes measuring DMCs based on Teece’s (2007) disaggregation of DMCs into sensing, seizing and reconfiguration capacities. We approach each of these dimensions separately and show that managers’ affective states influence each dimension differently.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the role of dynamic capabilities, specifically the sequence of sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities, in highly uncertain, emerging technology environments. Focusing on the extended reality industry, the study aims to understand the antecedents to these dynamic capabilities, their sequential nature, and their subsequent impact on innovation and company performance.

Based on a survey of 130 German companies in the extended reality sector, we built a structural equation model that explores the relationship between dynamic capabilities, their antecedents, and their effect on innovation and company performance.

The analysis suggests that sensing capabilities positively influence seizing and transforming capabilities, while seizing directly contributes to transforming. Transforming capabilities are linked to improved innovation performance, which in turn boosts company performance. Organizational ambidexterity, market orientation, and technology orientation are found to be crucial antecedents, accounting for 33.1% of the variance in sensing capabilities.

This research illuminates the interdependence of dynamic capabilities in highly uncertain business environments, such as emerging technology markets. It contributes original insights by elucidating the sequential nature of dynamic capabilities and identifying their vital antecedents. It also enlarges the understanding of how dynamic capabilities impact firms’ innovation performance.

When the management of an information technology (IT) manufacturing firm perceives a need for innovation due to any threat in the external environment, it will be prompted to use organizational resources to support innovation and improve organizational performance through the implementation of the innovation. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether an IT manufacturing firm’s budget slack, information quality of information system (IS), process innovation and product innovation would interact to collectively form an innovation capacity, which is termed “innovation capability configuration (ICC)”, and whether ICC mediates the relationship between perceived innovation requirement and organizational performance.

To answer these questions, a structural equation model was built and a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from research and development and production managers of IT manufacturing companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and Over-The-Counter markets.

The results showed that budget slack, IS information quality, process innovation and product innovation are all significantly related to ICC, in which high-quality information and low level of budget slack are the key factors that underpin the innovation capacity. In addition, ICC has a full mediation effect, that is, perceived innovation requirement positively influences ICC, which, in turn, improves organizational performance.

Because all items in a questionnaire were answered by a manager, the common method variance might exist in this study. In addition, the effective recovery rate of the questionnaire was not high due to which the non-response bias might occur. Following the research limitations, several future research recommendations are proposed.

This study offers managerial implications for the development of an IT manufacturing firm’s innovation strategy and structure to smooth the implementation of innovation in the severe environment.

The study is the first attempt to integrate the four elements clearly illustrating the ICC, which is a more complete innovation strategy, thus contributing to improve the past fragmental studies and clarify some controversial points existing in the extant innovation research.

Organizations increasingly use knowledge arbitrage to stimulate innovation and achieve competitive advantage. However, in knowledge management its use in startups is yet unexplored. This study aims to examine the utilization of knowledge arbitrage by startups, specifically during COVID-19.

This study employed an open-ended essay methodology to explore the drivers and barriers that startups face in utilizing knowledge arbitrage. We collected data from 40 participants to understand the role of knowledge arbitrage in startups’ knowledge management practices.

This study’s findings highlight the significance of knowledge arbitrage for startups. The benefits identified include organizational benefits such as building networks, innovating new products and achieving competitive advantage and financial benefits such as cost reduction and sales growth. The study also identifies several technological and organizational drivers and barriers that startups confront during knowledge arbitrage.

This study contributes to the existing literature on knowledge management by extending our understanding of knowledge arbitrage’s role in startups. Additionally, it sheds light on the importance of knowledge arbitrage for startups and the challenges they face, particularly in a disrupted environment reared by COVID-19. The study provides insights for the scholars and practitioners interested in effective knowledge management in startups.

This paper aims to examine the impacts of corporate entrepreneurship, national policies and supply chain collaboration on the innovativeness of manufacturers of light emitting diode (LED) in Malaysia.

The data were collected by using questionnaire survey from the manufacturers involved in the various echelon of the supply chain. The data collected were analyzed by using partial least square (PLS).

Corporate entrepreneurship plays a moderating role in the relationship between national policies, supply chain collaboration and innovativeness.

This study is only focusing on the supply chain of LED in Malaysia; hence, the results may not be suitable to be generalized to wider populations.

The findings of this study could help the local companies to understand on how, as entrepreneurs, they could expand from small scale to contract manufacturers through enhancing innovativeness. This is important as failure to do so may cause them to be excluded from the global supply chain.

This study expands the existing literature by providing empirical evidence from the perspective of an emerging country, namely, Malaysia. It also attempts to close the gaps by examining the role of corporate entrepreneurship as the moderating variable.