Identifying the configurational paths to innovation in SMEs: A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study investigates the conditions leading to a higher level of innovation. More specifically, the study explores the impact of inter-organisational knowledge transfer networks and organisations' internal capabilities on different types of innovation in Small to Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) in the high-tech sector. A survey instrument was used to collect data from a sample of UK SMEs. The findings show that although individual factors are important, there is no need for a company to perform well in all the areas. The fsQCA, which enables the examination of the impacts of different combinations of factors, reveals that there are a number of paths to achieve better incremental and radical innovation performance. Companies need to choose the one that is closest to their abilities and fits best with their resources.

[1]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning , 2007 .

[2]  W. Baker Market Networks and Corporate Behavior , 1990, American Journal of Sociology.

[3]  J. Pennings,et al.  Technological Networking and Innovation Implementation , 1992 .

[4]  Bart Nooteboom,et al.  Network Embeddedness and the Exploration of Novel Technologies: Technological Distance, Betweenness Centrality and Density , 2006 .

[5]  Toby E. Stuart Interorganizational alliances and the performance of firms: A study of growth and innovation rates i , 2000 .

[6]  R. Gulati Network location and learning: the influence of network resources and firm capabilities on alliance formation , 1999 .

[7]  Bruce R. Barringer,et al.  Walking a Tightrope: Creating Value Through Interorganizational Relationships , 2000 .

[8]  Nabil Amara,et al.  Learning and novelty of innovation in established manufacturing SMEs , 2008 .

[9]  Rolph E. Anderson,et al.  Multivariate Data Analysis (7th ed. , 2009 .

[10]  C. Anthony Di Benedetto,et al.  Pioneering advantages in manufacturing and service industries: empirical evidence from nine countries , 1999 .

[11]  Gregory P. Prastacos,et al.  The Resource Based View of the Firm and Innovation: Identification of Critical Linkages , 2003 .

[12]  Pamela R. Haunschild,et al.  Network Learning: The Effects of Partners' Heterogeneity of Experience on Corporate Acquisitions , 2002 .

[13]  G. O'Connor,et al.  Managing radical innovation: an overview of emergent strategy issues , 2002 .

[14]  Adegoke Oke,et al.  Making it happen: How to improve innovative capability in a service company , 2001 .

[15]  A. Woodside Moving beyond multiple regression analysis to algorithms: Calling for adoption of a paradigm shift from symmetric to asymmetric thinking in data analysis and crafting theory , 2013 .

[16]  Mark S. Granovetter The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[17]  Helena Forsman,et al.  Innovation capacity and innovation development in small enterprises. A comparison between the manufacturing and service sectors , 2011 .

[18]  K. Provan,et al.  Interorganizational Networks at the Network Level: A Review of the Empirical Literature on Whole Networks , 2007 .

[19]  E. von Hippel,et al.  Sources of Innovation , 2016 .

[20]  Mohan Subramaniam,et al.  The Influence of Intellectual Capital on the Types of Innovative Capabilities , 2005 .

[21]  Marko Sarstedt,et al.  PLS-SEM: Indeed a Silver Bullet , 2011 .

[22]  Cheng-Feng Cheng,et al.  Configural paths to successful product innovation , 2013 .

[23]  Wynne W. Chin How to Write Up and Report PLS Analyses , 2010 .

[24]  Bojana Lobe,et al.  The Case for Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) : Adding Leverage for Thick Cross-Case Comparison , 2010 .

[25]  Sandra Lowe,et al.  Redesigning Social Inquiry Fuzzy Sets And Beyond , 2016 .

[26]  K. Goffin,et al.  Innovation Management: Strategy and Implementation using the Pentathlon Framework , 2005 .

[27]  P. Schoemaker,et al.  Strategic assets and organizational rent , 1993 .

[28]  L. Argote,et al.  KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER: A BASIS FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN FIRMS , 2000 .

[29]  R. H. Waterman,et al.  In search of excellence : lessons from America's best-run companies , 1983 .

[30]  Patrick A. Mello Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis , 2014 .

[31]  R. Gulati,et al.  STRATEGIC NETWORKS , 2000 .

[32]  Martin Everett,et al.  Ego network betweenness , 2005, Soc. Networks.

[33]  Michael A. Stanko,et al.  Industry Growth and the Knowledge Spillover Regime: Does Outsourcing Harm Innovativeness but Help Profit? , 2013 .

[34]  L. Freeman Centrality in social networks conceptual clarification , 1978 .

[35]  Tritos Laosirihongthong,et al.  The relationships between firm’s strategy, resources and innovation performance: resources-based view perspective , 2014 .

[36]  Alois Ganter,et al.  Configurational paths to organizational innovation: qualitative comparative analyses of antecedents and contingencies , 2014 .

[37]  S. Piereson,et al.  In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. By Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. New York: Harper & Row, 1982 , 1983 .

[38]  RANJAY GULATI,et al.  Organizational Networks , 2014, Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining.

[39]  Ammon Salter,et al.  Investigating the sources of process innovation among UK manufacturing firms , 2006 .

[40]  Robert G. Cooper,et al.  Product Leadership: Creating And Launching Superior New Products , 1998 .

[41]  R. Gulati,et al.  Guest editors’ introduction to the special issue: strategic networks , 2000 .

[42]  C. A. Moser,et al.  Survey Methods in Social Investigation , 1958 .

[43]  Simon Rodan,et al.  More than Network Structure: How Knowledge Heterogeneity Influences Managerial Performance and Innovativeness , 2004 .

[44]  B. Loasby The External Control of Organizations. A Resource Dependence Perspective , 1979 .

[45]  M. Tushman,et al.  The ambidextrous organization. , 2004, Harvard business review.

[46]  Steven B. Andrews,et al.  Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition , 1995, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[47]  Geoffrey G. Bell,et al.  Benefiting from network position: firm capabilities, structural holes, and performance , 2005 .

[48]  R. Katila,et al.  Technological acquisitions and the innovation performance of acquiring firms: a longitudinal study , 2001 .

[49]  A. Oke Innovation types and innovation management practices in service companies , 2007 .

[50]  Benoît Rihoux,et al.  Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) As an Approach , 2009 .

[51]  L. Biggiero,et al.  Heterogeneity and Specificity of Inter-Firm Knowledge Flows in Innovation Networks , 2008 .

[52]  Manish Kumar Srivastava,et al.  Friends or Neighbors? The Effects of Inter-firm Networks and Clusters on Technological Innovations in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry , 2007 .

[53]  Pierre-André Julien,et al.  Networks, weak signals and technological innovations among SMEs in the land-based transportation equipment sector , 2004 .

[54]  Lisa De Propris,et al.  Types of innovation and inter-firm co-operation , 2002 .

[55]  Anne L. J. Ter Wal,et al.  Knowledge Networks and Innovative Performance in an Industrial District: The Case of a Footwear District in the South of Italy , 2007 .

[56]  Edward O. Laumann,et al.  Community Structure as Interorganizational Linkages , 1978 .

[57]  J. Hair Multivariate data analysis , 1972 .

[58]  Risto Rajala,et al.  Fostering innovations in the SME context: a network perspective , 2007 .

[59]  W. Powell,et al.  Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology. , 1996 .

[60]  Rita Gunther McGrath Exploratory Learning, Innovative Capacity, and Managerial Oversight , 2001 .

[61]  A. Oke,et al.  Innovation types and performance in growing UK SMEs , 2007 .

[62]  Dean M. Behrens,et al.  Redundant governance structures: an analysis of structural and relational embeddedness in the steel and semiconductor industries , 2000 .

[63]  G. Ahuja Collaboration Networks, Structural Holes, and Innovation: A Longitudinal Study , 1998 .

[64]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[65]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of , 1990 .

[66]  Kurt A. Heppard,et al.  An empirical test of environmental, organizational, and process factors affecting incremental and radical innovation , 2003 .

[67]  Stephen A.W. Drew,et al.  Strategic benchmarking:: innovation practices in financial institutions , 1995 .

[68]  Peter V. Marsden,et al.  Egocentric and sociocentric measures of network centrality , 2002, Soc. Networks.

[69]  W. Abernathy Innovation : Mapping the winds of creative destruction * , 2003 .

[70]  R. Cooper,et al.  New Product Portfolio Management : Practices and Performance , 1999 .

[71]  Peer C. Fiss Building Better Causal Theories: A Fuzzy Set Approach to Typologies in Organization Research , 2011 .

[72]  Ken G. Smith,et al.  Intra-and Interorganizational Cooperation : Toward a Research Agenda , 2007 .

[73]  R. Gulati,et al.  Where Do Interorganizational Networks Come From?1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[74]  Robert E. Hoskisson,et al.  BOARD OF DIRECTOR INVOLVEMENT IN RESTRUCTURING: THE EFFECTS OF BOARD VERSUS MANAGERIAL CONTROLS , 1993 .

[75]  A. Salter,et al.  Open for innovation: the role of openness in explaining innovation performance among U.K. manufacturing firms , 2006 .

[76]  Marius T.H. Meeus,et al.  Interorganizational relations and innovation. A review and a theoretical extension , 2006 .

[77]  K. Clark,et al.  Innovation: Mapping the winds of creative destruction☆ , 1993 .

[78]  Alexander Leischnig,et al.  On the role of alliance management capability, organizational compatibility, and interaction quality in interorganizational technology transfer , 2014 .

[79]  A. Griffin PDMA Research on New Product Development Practices: Updating Trends and Benchmarking Best Practices , 1997 .

[80]  Mark S. Granovetter Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness , 1985, American Journal of Sociology.

[81]  J. Dutton,et al.  The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations: An Empirical Analysis , 1986 .

[82]  Alexander Kaufmann,et al.  Science–industry interaction in the process of innovation: the importance of boundary-crossing between systems , 2001 .

[83]  Håkan Håkansson,et al.  Corporate Technological Behaviour: Co-Operation and Networks , 1989 .

[84]  D. Mowery,et al.  Strategic alliances and interfirm knowledge transfer , 1996 .