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This study aims at developing a better understanding of the relationship between network embeddedness and incremental innovation capability and further examines the moderating effect of open innovation.

This paper adopts hierarchical regressions to validate the theoretical model and collect the patent data of the top 54 firm patentees in the smartphone industry as empirical sample. Using patent citation network data, this paper estimates the relationship between open innovation, network embeddedness and incremental innovation capability.

This paper empirically shows that structural embeddedness exerts a negative effect on incremental innovation capability, while relational embeddedness is positively related to incremental innovation capability. And open innovation strengthens the relationship between network embeddedness and incremental innovation capability.

This paper shifts the focus of the determinants of incremental innovation capability from internal factors to the external network features by exploring the linkage between network embeddedness and incremental innovation capability. A counterintuitive conclusion is that structural embeddedness shows a negative effect on firm's incremental innovation capability. Furthermore, in contrast to most previous studies, which only focus on the direct effect of open innovation on the firm's incremental innovation capability, our study examines the moderating effect of open innovation on the relationships between network embeddedness and incremental innovation capability. At last, the results provide practical guidance for firms to occupy the beneficial network positions and adopt appropriate open innovation strategies to improve their incremental innovation capability.

This paper aims to analyze the extent to which the influence of external knowledge search activities on firms’ incremental innovation capability, and the moderating roles of the relatedness between the partners’ technological bases and a firm’s network embeddedness in the innovation network.

In this empirical research, the authors collected a sample of patents in the UAV industry over the period of 2004–2018. Then the authors examined the direct role of external knowledge search on firms’ incremental innovation capability and the joint moderating effects of technological proximity and network embeddedness.

We found that external knowledge search in innovation networks positively affects firms’ incremental innovation capability. Moreover, we discovered that high technological proximity to other peers positively strengthens the impact of firms’ external knowledge search on their incremental innovation capability. Finally, the findings suggested that the relationship between a firm’s external knowledge search activities and its incremental innovation capability is stronger for high technological proximity coupled with high network centrality or poor structural holes in innovation networks.

This study adds value to open innovation literature by pointing out a positive relationship between external knowledge search and firm incremental innovation capability. Furthermore, this study reinforces the key joint contingent roles of technological proximity and network embeddedness. This study provides a valuable theoretical framework of incremental innovation capability determinants by connecting the different perspectives.

This paper aims to propose the following questions: How do structural network embeddedness influence firms’ incremental innovation capability? Does technology cluster moderate the relationships between them?

In this empirical research, the authors collected a sample of patent data in the smartphone industry over the period of 2000-2018. Then, the authors examined the direct roles of structural network embeddedness on firms’ incremental innovation capability and the moderating role of technology cluster by using ordinary linear squares regression.

The empirical results show that occupying the central position positively affects firms’ incremental innovation capability, and clustering strengthens this linear relationship. Furthermore, bridging structural holes has an inverted U-shaped effect on incremental innovation capability, and clustering positively moderated this nonlinear relationship, while bridging ties across different clusters plays a negative moderation role in this relationship.

This empirical research provides new insights into whether and how firms can grasp the benefits of structural network embeddedness to conduct incremental innovations and the moderation effects of technology cluster contingencies. It further contributes to the structural network embeddedness–incremental innovation capability issue by extending its research context to the smartphone industry.

The purpose of this paper is to enrich the explanation of the interplay between internal and external – or district shared – exploration and exploitation capabilities as antecedents of a firm’s radical and incremental innovation. Previous studies do not differentiate between exploration and exploitation in district shared capabilities and how they interact with internal capabilities.

The paper uses hierarchical regression analysis to test the quadratic and moderating effects in a sample of 1,019 Spanish firms.

Results show an increasingly positive effect on radical innovation of exploration capabilities, enhanced by shared capabilities in exploration. In the case of incremental innovation, the study finds evidence of an increasingly positive influence of exploitation capabilities and a concave relationship of exploration capabilities. Moreover, shared exploitation capabilities weaken the effect of internal exploitation capabilities and also have a direct effect on incremental innovation. Therefore, the two capabilities are interchangeable in the effect they have on incremental innovation.

Depending on the firm’s innovation strategy, intra-district firms should develop specific capabilities and/or concentrate on adopting the shared capabilities in the destination.

The study furthers the understanding of the relationship between exploration and radical innovation, and between exploitation and incremental innovation, which is more complex than previously depicted. The study also differentiates between exploration and exploitation in shared capabilities, enriching understanding of the competitiveness of district firms.

Drawing on the literature on dynamic skills, this study builds upon and empirically tests a conceptual model that connects business and political ties, organizational unlearning, organizational learning and firm performance. Specifically, this study suggests that business ties enable and political ties inhibit organizational unlearning (i.e. regenerative dynamic capability), which may, in turn, affect exploratory (i.e. renewing dynamic capability) and exploitative (i.e. incremental dynamic capability) innovation behaviors of the firm. Thus, the purpose of this study is to offer a theoretical framework in which organizational unlearning and learning act as mediating mechanisms between business and political ties and firm performance.

Structural equation modeling and mediation analyzes were used on a sample of 302 small and medium-size enterprises in Turkey.

This study found that business ties enable organizational unlearning while political ties impede it. This study further demonstrates that business ties positively and political ties negatively relate to organizational learning through organizational unlearning. In addition, this study shows that political ties are mostly negatively and indirectly related to firm performance through organizational learning while business ties positively and indirectly relate to firm performance.

The findings demonstrate the critical role that personal networks play in organizational learning and firm performance. This study provides evidence to the need to recognize and evaluate the potential and undesirable impacts of political ties on cultivating innovation skills and firm performance. In addition, this study recommends managers to embrace the significance of organizational unlearning in strategic renewal, particularly as it applies to building renewing and incremental dynamic skills for enhanced firm performance.

This study offers a deeper perspective of the dissected relations of social ties in emerging economies to firm performance by considering organizational unlearning and learning behaviors as mediating mechanisms.

Because of importance of technological learning for less developed countries, the notion has received increasing attention of scholars. The purpose of this paper is to investigate technological learning systematically by assessing the effect of technology transfer actors on technological learning in less developed countries context.

The paper presents assessment model by adopting technological learning concept based on technology absorption and incremental innovation at firm level and identifying key roles of technology transfer actors (State – Scientific and technological infrastructure – Industry) that affect technological learning. The paper follows survey as research methodology. Thus, a questionnaire was addressed to 33 Syrian textile factories to examine the assessment model. Simple linear, multiple linear and ordinal regression analyses are preformed to examine relationships of model components.

The regression models show notable ability of technology transfer actors to explain technological behavior of firms to accumulate operative capability and consequently to generate passive incremental innovation. The findings indicate passive technical change system of Syrian textile industry. Therefore, goal-oriented evaluation of actual technology policy is preliminary step for achieving improvements, as well as activating scientific and technological infrastructure role by enabling strong relationships with industry and supporting interactions of domestic firms of textile industry and with foreign players.

The paper enriches technological learning literature by proposing systematic approach that sets the nature of technical change process of less developed countries in core of analysis. Moreover, it provides a guide for technological learning practices at firm level and for policymakers based on assessing actual status of Syrian textile industry.

This paper aims to focus on innovation development in enterprises with fewer than 50 employees. It explores differences in innovation capacity and in the diversity of developed innovations across the four enterprise size categories within the small manufacturing and service enterprises.

The empirical evidence is based on quantitative data gathered through an e‐mail questionnaire, which yielded 708 responses from the representatives of Finnish small enterprises. The analysis is based on non‐parametric tests.

The findings display a broad diversity of innovation patterns among small enterprises. The evidence identifies differences and similarities in innovation capacity and innovation development across the different size categories within the manufacturing and service sectors. Finally, a summary of the characteristics of small enterprises as innovators across size categories is provided.

This paper studies innovation patterns based on innovation capacity and developed innovations. There is a need to study how innovation capacity has been transformed into innovations; thus, the innovation process should be included in the examination.

At a public policy level, the results of this study give ideas for encouraging innovation development in small enterprises. The evidence suggests that there are significant discrepancies between the enterprises as innovators. It should be acknowledged that small enterprises comprise several divergent target groups for policy making.

This study makes a contribution to academic literature by crystallizing the relationship between the size of an enterprise and innovation development. Applying these results will provide more specific questions for studying the nature of innovation development in small enterprises.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse social capital (SC) development oriented to innovation. The relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWSs) and total quality management (TQM) philosophy is considered in this paper as an enabling factor that allows firms to accumulate SC oriented to develop radical and incremental innovation capabilities (IIC).

This paper establishes hypotheses and a model based on partial and total mediating effects of SC to develop innovation capabilities, which are focused on previous unexplored connections between HPWS and TQM and their effects on SC. The model and hypotheses are statistically tested through a partial least squares approach to structural equations models in a multi-industry sample of Spanish companies.

The study results show a system of specific human resource practices connected to SC development. Moreover, SC is found to be a mediating factor in the relationship between TQM and IIC, although the effect is not significant when radical innovation capabilities (RIC) are considered in the model. Finally, it is shown that HPWS partially mediates the relationship between TQM and SC.

This paper mainly contributes to the study of organizational context enablers for intellectual capital (IC) development from a knowledge-based view, especially when firms are seeking to build or improve innovation capabilities. As a managerial approach, HPWSs and TQM are shown as powerful tools to establish prolific contexts for SC development, especially when TQM is rightly supported by a HPWS.

This is a quantitative study that analyses, for the first time, predictive relationships between popular tools such as TQM and HPWSs to create an organizational context for SC development, considering a multi-industry sample of firms. Important implications are also drawn to help managers to create IC assets related to social interaction and network relationships.

Traditionally, firms have been dependent on internal sources such as their own employees – and up to a certain extent, on some external sources, their customers – for innovation. However, in the current scenario of technological dynamism, firms are exploring multiple sources to generate ideas for innovation. Therefore, there is a need to understand the relative effect of various sources of innovations on a firm’s performance.

We offer a conceptual framework where we identify six distinct sources of innovations – firm, customers, external network, competition, macro-environment, and technology and how they create value for focal firms especially their brand equity. We introduce a taxonomy of various costs and benefits related to innovations. We then argue using our proposed taxonomy to understand the relative strengths of various sources of innovation affecting a firm’s brand equity.

We discuss and compare the relative effects of these sources of innovations on a firm’s brand equity by rank-ordering the sources. The customers and the technology as a source of innovation have the maximum impact on the firm’s brand equity followed by the marginal impact of macro-environment and external network of a firm. The firm itself has a moderate impact on its brand equity, while competition has the minimal impact. Further, we also discuss how the relationship is moderated by different innovation characteristics (nature and type of innovations).

The main practical implication is to create awareness among managers about various costs and benefits of the proposed six sources of innovations and their effects on brand equity. Managers would be able to prioritize their sources of innovation based on firms’ current needs, and whether to focus on lower costs or building higher brand equity in the scarce resource environment.

We offer a comprehensive list of six sources of innovation, build a conceptual framework wherein we discuss the relative strengths of these sources affecting brand equity.

Palliative care is a complex environment in which teams of healthcare professionals are constantly challenged to match the configuration of care delivery to suit the dynamics of the patient's bio‐medical, social and spiritual situations as they change during the end‐of‐life process. In such an environment these teams need to engage in ongoing interaction between different professional disciplines, incremental improvement in care delivery, learning and radical innovation. This is aimed at combining operational effectiveness, strategic flexibility, exploitation and exploration, in a way that ensures the best possible care for the patient. This paper examines previous research on the management competences and the organisational capabilities necessary for continuous innovation, and analyses evidence emerging from a study of palliative care. Work on the relationships between innovation capacities, organisational capabilities and team‐based competence is drawn together. Evidence is presented from research into the management of innovation in palliative care.