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This study aims to examine the joint effect of internal quality integration and product innovation on financial performance by considering the mediating roles of incremental and radical product innovation.

A theoretical framework was developed using the organizational capability view. Based on empirical survey data collected from 209 Chinese manufacturing firms, this research uses structural equation modeling and the bootstrapping method to test hypotheses.

The results show that internal quality integration positively impacts incremental and radical product innovation and financial performance. Further, incremental product innovation can promote radical product innovation. Both incremental and radical product innovation partially mediate the relationship between internal quality integration and financial performance.

The findings provide practical guidance for manufacturing companies to engage in quality integration and product innovation. Managers should encourage the internal functional departments to coordinate quality integration while promoting incremental and radical product innovation to occupy a larger market and achieve higher performance.

This research contributes to the literature in two ways. First, this study expands the theoretical research framework of the joint effects of quality integration and product innovation on financial performance. Second, through testing the mediating role of product innovation, this study provides empirical evidence for the intermediate role of internal quality integration for improving financial performance.

This paper examines the effect of market knowledge on market success of product innovativeness and the moderating role of absorptive capacity. We separated market knowledge into market diversity and market significance components and examined their effects on radical product innovation performance.

This paper adopted the secondary database study. Excluding cases with missing values of main variables, a total of 1,219 Taiwanese manufacturing firms from the Third Taiwan Technology Innovation Survey (TTIS3) database were used to test the hypotheses. A moderated hierarchical regression approach was utilized to analyze the data.

The results revealed that the relationship between market diversity and radical product innovation performance is a predominantly positive concave downward curve. In contrast, the relationship between market significance and radical product innovation performance is a predominantly negative concave downward curve. Furthermore, the results also indicated that absorptive capacity has different moderating effects on the relationships between market diversity/significance and radical product innovation performance. Absorptive capacity enhances the negative effect of market significance but suppresses the positive effect of market diversity on radical product innovation performance.

This paper is the first research which contributes to examining the relationship between market knowledge and radical product innovation sale performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of market orientation and innovation orientation in new product performance as well as the potential moderating role of innovation orientation and environmental variables in the market orientation‐new product performance link among Chinese manufacturing firms.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 227 manufacturing firms in mainland China. A total of six hypotheses related to market orientation, innovation orientation, and new product success as well as moderating effects of innovation orientation and environmental variables are examined by structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression techniques.

The research results show that: first, the conceptual model is superior to the popular model in Western literature in terms of model fit goodness; second, market orientation and innovation orientation have significant and positive impact, which is higher than the average level in previous research, upon new product success; third, innovation orientation and technological turbulence have a positive moderating effect on market orientation‐new product performance link; and fourth, market turbulence and competitive intensity have no moderating effects. In addition, managerial implications as to how to improve product innovation performance are provided for Chinese manufacturers.

The paper contributes to the extant literature of market orientation and product innovation in the following three ways. First of all, the research empirically validates a modified conceptual model incorporating market orientation, innovation orientation and new product performance. Second, the facilitating impact of strategic orientations (including market orientation and innovation orientation) upon new product performance is higher than the average level in previous studies (primarily based on developed economies), indicating the greater effectiveness of two strategic orientations in transition economy and east‐Asian cultural context. Third, by examining the potential moderating roles of innovation orientation and environmental variables, we are able to better understand how to match market orientation strategy with those moderators in order to help enhance the product innovation performance results of manufacturing firms.

This study aims to examine the relationship between a firm's market orientation, product innovation success and market performance.

Data for the empirical research is obtained from a sample of innovative industrial enterprises based in Andalusia (Southern Spain), all of which were required to have introduced a new product in the preceding three years and to have more than 20 employees. Data collection was conducted by means of a postal survey of 294 firms. The respondents were either the director of the marketing department or the general manager. In all, 85 questionnaires were completed correctly by firms and included in the study, a response rate of 28.91 per cent.

The results support a positive relationship between market orientation and new product success, providing also partial confirmation of the moderating role of “product newness” in the relationship between market orientation and new product performance.

This work contributes to the literature as follows. First, it addresses the previously neglected question of the influence of MO on dimensions other than organisational performance (in the broad sense). The literature has suggested that MO improves the performance of innovations, but few studies have examined the relationship between MO and the characteristics of new products (such as degree of newness and success); nor have they examined the moderating role of degree of product newness. Second, the study provides empirical evidence that the relationship between MO and product innovation is influenced by the degree of product newness for the market (NM).

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the degree to which employees’ proactive behavior contributes to innovation performance in firms operating in high-technology sectors. Despite the benefits of these behaviors for individuals and organizations, few studies have analyzed the contextual conditions that enable firms to capture their value in order to improve innovation performance. Drawing on the interactionist perspective, the authors also examine the extent to which informal and formal controls, such as perceived support for innovation and innovation process formalization, can facilitate the contribution of proactive behaviors to improve innovation performance (product and process innovation).

Based on an empirical study with a sample of 173 firms operating in chemical and information technology service sectors, hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the relationship between employees’ proactive behavior and innovation performance, and the moderating effects of informal and formal controls.

The results reveal a positive and significant association between proactive behaviors and product and process innovation performance. Both control mechanisms positively moderate the association between proactive behavior and product innovation, but no moderating role was found for process innovation. Moreover, rather than inhibiting innovation performance, innovation process formalization is positively associated with innovation. More specifically, a curvilinear relationship was found, which implies that when the level of formalization is high, it is able to improve product and process innovation.

The findings suggest that managers should consider proactive behavior in selection processes and performance management, and should cultivate a climate to support innovation and establish formal controls for innovation as a way to channel employees’ initiatives into product innovation.

This study contributes to the theoretical and managerial understanding of the extent to which proactive employees and organizational controls are able to enhance innovation in a technologically dynamic context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between product innovation and network and their export performance, particularly in trade fair context. Moreover, this paper conducts a comparative study among services/industrial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and considers the home-country context. Innovation and internationalization are stagnant themes in the recent literature on trade fairs, so they require to be renewed.

The empirical study includes a survey with 341 SMEs’ respondents separated into both industrial/producer and service/other. A conceptual model was developed and examined from three different perspectives: Model A encompasses all surveyed SMEs, Model B includes only industrial/producer SMEs and Model C comprises service/other SMEs. Data analysis happened in two steps. The first step included the structural equation model (SEM) and the assessment of hypotheses (from three different perspectives). Thus, it was possible to make a comparative analysis between the models. In the second step, the ordered logit model (OLM) is used to study relationships between control variables and the criteria variable export performance.

The SEM’s results confirm a conceptual model about a dynamic trajectory that SMEs, mainly industrial/producer, can take advantage of: innovate to networking and networking to export. The results allowed to verify when comparing services/industrial SMEs that the tangibility which characterizes the innovation of industrial SMEs' products contributed significantly to the performance of business networks and exports. The study also reveals, through the OLM, two catalysts for the success of the SME’s export performance: export experience and continued participation in trade fairs. The OLM results also reveal that the size of the companies is not relevant, so trade fairs are marketing tools accessible to any company, regardless of their size. Finally, the study considered home-country context of the surveyed SMEs, which allowed additional interpretations to be drawn.

The study does not reflect the individual's personality in his network capacity and the export performance was measured based on the level of satisfaction and not on real sales results. However, the study provides relevant practical implications and can support future studies.

The study offers important implications for SME. The results reveal that presenting product innovations at trade fairs is a useful tool for SMEs to create networks, which facilitates their export performance, especially for industrial SMEs residing in small economies such as Portugal. This study is also relevant for business associations of industrial SMEs and/or public or semi-public SME promotion agencies.

This paper contributes to the literature on trade fairs, suggesting a new innovation, networking, export (INE) framework to reflect on the participation in international trade fairs. So, this research especially combines product INE performance in a particular context – international trade fairs for SME. It also considers the home-country context of the SMEs, which adds depth to the study. Finally, the comparative study also provides insightful implications for industrial SMEs on how to improve the export performance from trade fairs by leveraging innovation and networking.

This paper is concerned with the management and organization of product innovation processes, and how innovation performance relates to business performance. The underlying rationale is that encouraging firms to innovate will lead to a better business performance.

This study leverages a data set of 99 medium-sized technology firms in Sweden. The first part of the analysis in this study aims at finding determinants of product innovation processes, and the second part is the analysis and trade-off between innovation performance and business performance. First, a research framework is developed in which the link between strategic dimensions, process dimensions and organizational dimensions of product innovation activity and product innovation performance is tested. Second, the research framework tests the relationship between innovation performance and business performance (sales and profitability).

Product innovation performance (patent) is affected by seven variables of the 14 variables that represent product innovation processes. Product innovation performance is not affected by firm size, firm age, branch and product life cycles and, in the regression model, all three innovation performance variables (patents, copyrights and licenses) have a positive effect on the firm's sales, but there were no connections to the firm's profitability.

The main implication of the study is the idea supporting a multi-aspects approach to the product innovation processes and performance since product innovation process dimensions (variables used in the study) have only partial influence on innovation-/business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how specialised capabilities including absorptive capacity and marketing capabilities influence innovation commercialisation in manufacturing and service firms in Nigeria. The authors hypothesise that absorptive capacity measures including openness and formal training for innovation, and marketing capabilities encompassing new product marketing and marketing innovation are positively associated with innovation performance.

The authors examine commercialisation of innovation within the profiting from innovation (PFI) and dynamic capabilities (DC) framework and use data from the 2012 Nigeria Innovation Survey to test the hypothesis by means of a Heckman sample selection model.

The authors find that absorptive capacity measures comprising openness and formal training are positively associated with innovation performance. The authors also find that marketing capabilities as indicated by new product marketing and marketing innovation are positively associated with innovation performance.

The authors acknowledge that firms undergo continuous changes and that there may be the presence of unobserved or unmeasured heterogeneity. Taking into cognisance that Nigeria is a federal state, cultural diversity and economic factors are likely to differ widely between geographical regions. Also, while the proposed conceptual framework offers a deeper understanding of innovation performance, examining how integrating activities of the R&D department, human resource department and marketing department affect innovation commercialisation is likely to provide more meaningful insights.

The role that inter-organisational learning and intra-organisational learning play in driving innovation performance provide managers with a basis for incorporating absorptive capacity building programs that boost employees’ ability to recognise and apply valuable external knowledge to commercial ends. Similarly, firms may benefit from offering marketing capabilities development programs. Furthermore, innovation policies in Nigeria are generally designed to focus on fostering innovation activities aimed at developing innovative output. Accordingly, government support explicitly targeting new product marketing and marketing innovation is likely to play a vital role in the successful commercialisation of innovation in Nigeria.

This study fuses the PFI and DC framework to examine why innovating firms may not necessarily succeed. This area of study has received scant attention in sub-Saharan Africa given that extant literature focusses on value creation as opposed to value capture.

In the competitive global market, firms have to keep profit from innovation activities. A firm makes profits by offering products or services at a lower cost than its competitors or by offering differentiated products at premium prices that more than compensate for the extra cost of differentiation. The IC Package and Testing technology industries were the first high technological industry to build in Taiwan. The Package and Testing industries in Taiwan adopted competitive innovation activities to become stronger. In our study, we want to know how innovation activities influence a firm operating in the IC Package and Testing industries. Our study used a questionnaire and Likert five‐point scale to survey the innovation activities, customer and feedback in innovation performance in the IC Package and Testing industry. The wafer level chip size packing technology in our study indicates the innovation activities. Because we need to compare the difference between the wafer level chip size packing technology and wire bonding technology to recognize innovation and how the innovator and customer were influenced. Our conclusions are described below: (1) When the innovator adopts innovation activities that can be maintained using experiments and knowledge, using machine and decision variables more quickly will produce success; (2) Innovators should adopt innovation activities that focus on customers that use knowledge and experimentation, training time and cost. If an innovation forces customers to spend much time and cost to learn new technology or applications, the innovation will not be adopted; (3) Innovators that create innovation performance higher than his customers must also consider the impact upon their customers. We have to remind innovator to focus on why their customers have a different level of evolution in the same innovation activities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of market demand on innovation-firm performance relationship in service firms. The paper further analyzes the extent to which market demand influences the effect of product innovation on firm performance and how such effect could be managed by a specific type of cultural orientation that is critical to strategic management.

Data were collected from different service sub-sectors of an emerging economy with a fast-growing services sector. Causal modeling methods through different model comparisons are used in analyzing the relationship between innovation and service firm performance and environmental mediating and moderating effects.

The findings suggest that though product innovation has a positive effect on firm performance, high market demand dampens and negate this effect. However, a service firm’s ability to build an innovative culture, that supports strategy implementation, assuages this negative effect and restores the positive relationship between product innovation and firm performance, even in the face of environmental coercion.

This paper shows that market demand will dampen the effect of product innovation on performance and as such must be managed in a way that mitigates this negative effect. The building of an organizational culture that is innovative is therefore recommended to mitigate this negative effect to render product innovation still relevant even in periods where market conditions prevent favorable performance effects.