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This conceptual paper aims to explain the unidirectional cross-level impact of five “organizational-level” factors on “team-level” innovation capability through two “team-level” mediating factors. This multivariate model consists of five organizational-level factors (higher-level) factors – leadership, culture, structure, networks and knowledge – and team-level (lower-level) factors – “innovation capability”, “team-level focus” and “team-level intensity” towards innovation. Understanding the top-down influence of higher-level factors on lower-level ones gives this study a cross-level and unidirectional nature.

A keyword-based approach was used to select “relevant” articles from major journals to collect evidences and develop a conceptual model. All factors in the conceptual model were chosen from the organizational- and the team-level literature. Theoretical background for each of the chosen “factors” has been presented under relevant headings.

First is the conceptualization of team-level mediators – intensity and focus – towards innovation. Second is the conceptualization of innovation capability as a team-level factor, characterized by two sub-dimensions: customer orientation and manifestation.

This conceptual paper does not contain any empirical data analysis. The authors have not considered individual-level factors like individual excellence, personalities, etc., which may impact team-level innovation. They are specifically looking at the top-down “unidirectional” cross-level impact of “higher-level” (organizational-level) factors on “lower-level” (team-level) factor, not the other way around.

Innovation-driven organizations can use this model to build long-term “innovation capabilities” by developing the right kind of “intensity” and “focus” of their R&D teams towards innovation. R&D teams can be encouraged to work closely with their “target” customers and manifest their innovation capabilities (to them) to ensure market success.

Top management can design organizational-level policies to improve their leadership, culture, structure, networks and knowledge to encourage better innovation. Future researchers who wish to study the “cross-level” influence of organizational-level factors on team-level innovation capability may find this paper useful.

This study’s original contributions include: first, the conceptualization of a multivariate “cross-level” model to understand team-level innovation capability. Second is proposing the mediating role of “team-level” factors like focus and intensity while building innovation capability. Third is conceptualizing innovation capability as a team-level construct, with sub-dimensions: customer orientation and manifestation.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate three streams of literature – organizational capabilities based in resource‐based view (RBV) and the team‐ and organization‐level innovation – to provide a theoretical framework of how firms invest in developing innovative capabilities for entrepreneurship and change management.

This is a conceptual paper based on the RBV and the team‐ and organization‐level innovation literatures.

Linking the three bodies of literature, two main models for developing innovative capabilities are proposed: organization and project team models. The “organization model” requires firms to invest at the organization level to generate the supporting organization‐level processes, i.e. communication routines, independent of when they organize for innovation, and the “project team model” calls for just‐in‐time investment as needed in the process of innovation. The paper discusses other potential models and provides directions for future research on this important and timely topic.

The paper expands the RBV of the firm by providing a theoretical framework of how firms develop the capabilities to mobilize and create knowledge for innovation as an entrepreneurial activity and for managing the changes in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model that explains how learning processes at the team level connect with individual and organizational levels of learning in technology-based ventures, thereby influencing the evolution of innovation capabilities in the entrepreneurial process.

The 4I organizational learning framework is used as an overarching theoretical structure to acknowledge entrepreneurial learning as a dynamic process that operate on multiple levels in technology-based ventures. Embedded in this logic, research on team learning is integrated into this theorizing to examine how learning processes at the team level bridge and connect with learning processes operating at individual and organizational levels.

The conceptual model identifies different sets of team learning processes critical for the routinization and evolution of innovation capabilities in technology-based ventures. In this respect, the conceptual model advances the scholarly understanding of entrepreneurial learning as a dynamic process operating across multiple levels in technology-based ventures.

By conceptualizing how individual streams of experiences over time become institutionalized via interaction, conversation and dialogue, the paper provides novel insights into the critical role of team learning for bridging individual and organizational levels of learning in the entrepreneurial learning process.

The current study, which is based on social learning theory and social cognitive theory, intends to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on employee creativity at both the individual and team levels. In particular, the authors predict a mediating mechanism at both levels: employees’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Further, the authors consider whether the climate of support for innovation is a contextual element affecting the relationship between employees’ perceptions of entrepreneurial leadership and their own entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

The research hypotheses were tested using multilevel structural equation modeling on 191 employees nested in 49 entrepreneurial ventures in China.

The results indicated that entrepreneurial leadership positively correlates with employee creativity at individual level. Moreover, this study found that individual followers’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy partially mediates the association between individual perceptions of entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity, whereas team members’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy fully mediates the association between team members’ perceptions of supervisors’ entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity. Further, this research demonstrates the role of team-level climate of support for innovation as a boundary condition that strengthens the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on individual entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Considering entrepreneurial self-efficacy to be a type of entrepreneurial context-specific self-efficacy, this study presents one of the first empirical examples of the mediating function of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the association between entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity. Additionally, this research demonstrates the role of team-level climate of support for innovation as a boundary condition that strengthens the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on individual entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Further, this study provides a methodological contribution by simultaneously assessing all three variables of the mediation process at the individual and team levels: entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and employee creativity.

The purpose of this research is to conceptualize, define and measure resource orchestration capabilities of R&D teams pursuing advanced scientific research and technological innovation at public-funded R&D organizations in India.

A series of five mutually exclusive studies were designed over two years to develop and validate the ROCI scale within public research and development (R&D) organizations pursuing advanced scientific research and technological development in India. The first three studies address the refinement, reduction and rationalization of items for measuring the ROCI construct. The next study explores the factor structure underlying the ROCI construct whereas the subsequent one confirms the three-factor structure within empirical settings.

The resource orchestration capability towards innovation (ROCI) construct reflected through three sub-dimensions namely – adaptive structuring capability (ASC), synergistic leveraging capability (SLC) and decentralized decision-making capability (DDC), each loaded with their respective items can be used for capability measurement in public-funded R&D organizations.

R&D managers can use this ROCI scale to measure, monitor and improve the innovation-oriented resource orchestration capabilities of their R&D teams and help them improve their innovation performance.

This research contributes to the extant literature on resource orchestration for innovation management in three unique and original ways – theoretically-grounded conceptualization, empirical measurement and rigorous validation through multiple studies conducted in public-funded R&D organizations in India.

This study aims to theoretically explore the relationship between potential antecedents of business model innovation (BMI) in multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the paths through which BMI unfolds in such contexts. This study theorizes how multiculturalism in top management teams (TMTs) influences team-level cultural intelligence (CQ), which enhances firm strategic agility and helps develop BMI in MNEs.

This study’s cross-level theoretical framework describes the mediating role of CQ of TMTs in the relationship between team multiculturalism and strategic agility, which subsequently influences BMI. This study discusses contributions, limitations and future directions.

MNEs’ capability of developing and recombining disruptive knowledge from globally dispersed sources and integrating them to innovate is subject to the knowledge-sourcing paradox. Despite the importance of intra-member diversity in the form of multicultural individuals in multicultural teams, inter-member diversity is more prominent in the literature. Regardless, the applicability of a comprehensive conceptualization of diversity in multicultural teams to BMI has yet to be examined. This study’s theoretical model links multiculturalism in TMTs with BMI in MNEs through a cross-level framework.

This study contributes to the International Business literature by proposing a novel conceptualization of team multiculturalism and leverage theoretical underpinnings of the Dynamic Managerial Capabilities perspective to develop a cross-level model of factors influencing BMI in MNEs.

Manufacturing companies are increasingly making efforts to combine products and services into integrated offerings. However, the companies’ success in such transformation is linked with the presence of structured routines and processes, which the authors conceptualize as product-service systems (PSS) innovation capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to address the important question of how manufacturing companies can systematically build PSS innovation capabilities and does its presence or absence significantly influence PSS innovation.

This study is based on longitudinal data from an aerospace company, which acts both as an OEM providing through-life services for aircraft engines, as well as a developer of innovative subsystem technologies. Data has been collected over three years (2009-2012) and constitutes 40 in-depth explorative and semi-structured interviews with diverse respondents. For analysis of the data, the authors have used constant comparison technique leading to identification of three high-order categories. In addition, the authors gain from observations and secondary data which enable to achieve data triangulation and data validity.

The results objectively depict an overview of how the case company developed PSS innovation capabilities, though progression of routines over three early PSS development stages. More specifically, the authors find evidence for development of formalized routines related to customer interaction and innovative organizational climate during need phase, cross-functionality, and network partnering during solution-seeking phase, and competence and business case development during solution development phase. As these routines become more structured within the case company, they forge a path for PSS innovation capabilities development.

This study provides two distinctive contributions to emerging PSS literature. First, the authors propose and explain how PSS innovation capabilities are developed. Although prior studies acknowledge the importance of possessing specialized PSS innovation capabilities, limited studies have reported empirically how they are developed. Second, through adopting a longitudinal perspective, the authors reveal key routines and actions that drive PSS innovation during different development stages. To the knowledge, no prior study has combined insights from PSS literature and resource-based view to objectively explain capabilities development process.

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how the advice-giving affects innovative capability by involving knowledge exchange and combination as a mediator and contextual ambidexterity as an important contingency.

Based on a survey of 96 Chinese teams, a set of hypotheses was tested using regression analyzes.

The findings showed that contextual ambidexterity moderates the indirect effect of advice-giving on innovative capability through knowledge exchange and combination. When contextual ambidexterity is high, workers engage in more knowledge exchange and combination for the team at intermediate levels of advice-giving, the indirect effect of advice-giving at low levels and at high levels exist. When contextual ambidexterity is low, there is no indirect effect of advice-giving at any level.

Managers should be aware of the inverted U-shaped relationship between advice-giving and innovative capability and strengthen the construction of contextual ambidexterity.

This paper makes up for the theoretical gap between advice-giving and innovative capability. Furthermore, it provides a theoretical reference for practitioners to improve their innovative capability.

This paper makes a contribution to the discussion on micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities – actions and interactions in organizations that enable continuous organizational renewal. More specifically, we propose the idea that dynamic capabilities of an organization are a positive function of corresponding dynamic capabilities of individual and collective actors in the organization. Further, we develop the assumption that not only individual acts of managers but also those of individuals and teams without managerial responsibility relate to dynamic capabilities of the organization. Following a holistic view, we also take into consideration empowering working conditions as an enhancing factor of this function. To examine these roots of dynamic capabilities, we use a multi-level model of competence provided by Wilkens, Keller, and Schmette (2006) that operationalizes the concept of dynamic capabilities provided by Teece (2007) on a concisely behavioral base. We investigated our hypotheses with a standardized questionnaire in a case study of a German plant engineering company with 112 participants and found primary support for our assumptions. Our results show an impact of individual dynamic capabilities on dynamic capabilities of the organization that is mediated by team dynamic capabilities. Psychological and social–structural empowerment moderated this relationship. A case-specific interpretation and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the enablers and barriers influencing international knowledge transfer at the team-level in the context of product innovation within an emerging-market multinational enterprise (EMNE) in the insurance industry.

The research applies an exploratory case study design considering an emerging-market multinational insurance company headquartered in Colombia. Four subsidiaries (El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and Colombia) and the Corporate Office (headquarter) served as the research sites. It also adopts an interpretive research approach providing a grounded theory framework linking international knowledge transfer and product innovation.

The empirical findings emphasize the central role played by the enablers (i.e. shared vision, empathy and knowledge sources) in facilitating international knowledge transfer, which, in turn, enhances product innovation. More important, however, is the detailed explanation that the paper provides regarding the enablers’ microfoundational antecedents in terms of key activities that are performed at the team-level.

The grounded theory framework was constructed using data collected in a single firm associated with a particular industry and regional context. The study only considered a single aspect of knowledge management (i.e. knowledge transfer). Other aspects of knowledge management systems, such as knowledge creation and knowledge application, should be used for explaining product innovation in EMNEs more comprehensively.

The study suggests a set of enabling conditions and activities that should be adopted by managers of EMNEs to improve international knowledge transfer with the aim of triggering product innovation. This includes the design of strategies for strengthening empathy among geographically dispersed teams by providing opportunities for regular live videoconferences among team members aimed at building close bonds, fostering trust and creating a sense of belonging in which participants get to know each other better and to establish a shared vision and a set of guiding principles and commitments for how the team will work. These suggestions are particularly important today when several multinational enterprises (MNEs) have been forced to rearrange their workplace by replacing face-to-face interactions with virtual work dynamics due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Previous studies have confirmed that international knowledge transfer positively influences MNEs’ innovative performance. However, no studies have been conducted linking both variables in the context of EMNEs in Latin America in the service sector. The research tries to fill this gap. Besides, the paper introduces empathy as a novel enabler for international knowledge transfer and a moderator able to diminish the negative effect that cultural differences and geographical barriers have on the knowledge transfer process.