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1 – 8 of 8Ana Pérez-Luño, Ana Maria Bojica and Shanthi Golapakrishnan
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of a specific mechanism for cross-functional integration (CFI) in the relationship between product innovation and firm…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of a specific mechanism for cross-functional integration (CFI) in the relationship between product innovation and firm performance. It takes a contingency perspective, accounting for how these relationships vary depending on the degree of organizational knowledge complexity.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses are tested via regression analysis with interaction effects in a sample of 105 wineries from Spain, using both objective and subjective firm performance data.
Findings
The results obtained confirm the existence of significant triple interaction effect of CFI, knowledge complexity and product innovation on firm performance. CFI has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between product innovation and performance and this effect varies according to the degree of organizational knowledge complexity.
Research limitations/implications
This paper looks at variables that have been hitherto studied at the project or product level, at the firm level, in an attempt to untangle the relationship between innovation, CFI, knowledge complexity and firm performance. Study’s main limitations lie in the use of a cross-functional design and its focus on a single industry.
Practical implications
Firms dealing with complex organizational knowledge could use this CFI mechanism in the development of new products when their size and resources do not allow the creation of more formal temporal structures, such as cross-functional teams. However, unless the winery has to deal with a high degree of knowledge complexity, involving the oenologist in several functional areas for the purpose of coordination, may detract resources from product innovation effort and lead to a poorer performance.
Originality/value
This study showcases a mechanism of CFI not explored in previous research, but used in practice at many firms, i.e. the cross-pollination of ideas across different functional areas through the participation of the responsible for the product development, and tests its role in the relationship between product innovation and different types of firm performance.
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Ana Pérez-Luño, Rocio Aguilar-Caro and Maria F. Muñoz-Doyague
Given the general consensus that creativity is a crucial driving force for innovation and progress, understanding how to promote it would benefit individuals, companies, society…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the general consensus that creativity is a crucial driving force for innovation and progress, understanding how to promote it would benefit individuals, companies, society and academia. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the independent and contingent impact of individuals’ personality traits, team-member exchange (TMX) and gender on stimulating creativity.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a survey-sample of 639 university students (51.96% women) between the ages of 17 and 50. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated reliability and validity of its measures. To test hypotheses, using structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression analyses were performed.
Findings
Results show that four of the five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience) and TMX positively influence creativity. There are no significant differences between men’s and women’s creativity. High TMX reinforces the influence of extraversion on creativity, while low TMX harms this relationship. High extravert women are more creative than high extravert men, while low extravert men are more creative than low extravert women. Low emotionally stable women are more creative than low emotionally stable men, while high emotionally stable men are more creative than high emotionally stable women. There are differences in how women and men take advantage of their openness to experience when TMX is considered. That is, while women take advantage of openness to experience for any value of TMX, men only increase their creativity as openness to experience increases for low values of TMX.
Research limitations/implications
Like all studies, ours has some limitations that provide opportunities for future research. First, care should be taken when generalizing these findings to other contexts. We use data from Spanish individuals, specifically university students. While they are suitable for testing our hypotheses, future studies should establish whether the general tendencies that we observe hold true for other kinds of people from Spain and other countries. Even more, this paper’s perspective might be biased by the authors’ country of origin (south Europe) in terms of gender. According to Hofstede (2001) south European and South American countries are more masculine than other cultures (Mensa and Grow, 2022). Therefore, analyzing these questions in different cultures (countries and settings) would facilitate the generalization of the results. Second, the data we use is mainly cross-sectional so strict causality cannot be inferred. The theory we use assumes specific causal directions, but alternative causal relationships cannot be ruled out. Finally, ideally, we should have controlled for additional variables that might influence the relationships in our model.
Practical implications
This paper has practical implications, as it demonstrates that neither gender is more creative than the other. It goes a step further, explaining how men and women can leverage their personality traits to be more creative. Moreover, since TMX could reinforce the impact of personality traits on creativity, this paper could help managers better organize teams and companies that want to be more innovative by taking into account the personality traits of their employees and how to get the best out of women and men.
Social implications
Traditionally, women have considered creativity to be a man’s thing. The results of this work favor society, demonstrating that women are just as creative as men and that through personality traits and TMX, both men and women can be more creative. These results help to reduce the gender gap and may favor women’s place in today’s society.
Originality/value
This work offers academic and practical implications. The main contributions to the creativity and gender literatures are the following: (1) Women are as creative as men. (2) High extravert and low emotionally stable women are more creative than men. (3) High open to experience women with high TMX are more creative than men at any level of TMX. For practitioners, the understanding of what personality traits have higher impact on creativity depending on the levels of TMX for women and men could help companies and politicians in hiring the most suitable people, especially for those positions where creativity is needed. This would increase the quality of their human capital, allowing them to get the most out of their human resources, from the very beginning of the employment relationship.
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Fernando A. Martín-Hidalgo and Ana Pérez-Luño
The purpose of this paper is to explore the continuous identification of tangible and intangible strategic resources needed to achieve competitive advantages in uncertain times in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the continuous identification of tangible and intangible strategic resources needed to achieve competitive advantages in uncertain times in Spanish wineries, highlighting the critical value of human capital.
Design/methodology/approach
By means of a case study of a Spanish Sherry winery theoretically based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, the paper focuses on the influence of environmental uncertainty on firms’ strategic resources and the need for in-depth knowledge. Direct participation and experience in the business have allowed access to data for longitudinal exploratory analysis.
Findings
Human capital, especially managers’ knowledge and experience, has been the key to the survival and success of the company analysed, throughout its history.
Practical implications
The paper guides managers, especially in microenterprises and SMEs, on the inclusion among the firm’s strategic resources of a part of their own human capital that is generally not considered.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the RBV and self-reflection theory by demonstrating the value of human capital in a small family business under extremely uncertain times.
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Javier Martínez-del-Río, Ana Perez-Luño and Ana Maria Bojica
Taking a resource-based view, the authors analyse the effect of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under…
Abstract
Purpose
Taking a resource-based view, the authors analyse the effect of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on the performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under conditions of environmental hostility, and consider how this relationship is influenced by managers' embeddedness in social networks. The authors argue that high perceived levels of environmental hostility strengthen the strategic value of HPWPs in SMEs, whereas high levels of manager embeddedness in social networks weaken this contingent relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
These hypotheses were tested in a sample of 249 SMEs, from two Spanish industries related to food production, using linear regression with two- and three-way interaction effects.
Findings
The study results show that the implementation of HPWPs benefits SMEs' performance in hostile environments. However, the dark side of managers' social capital could undermine any such benefit, especially if there is a high degree of network closure. In hostile contexts, such closure appears to limit managers' willingness to depart from the common practice of reducing investment in human resources.
Practical implications
Contrary to predominant beliefs that managers facing economic adversity should reduce costs by cutting investment in personnel development, this study indicates that supporting HPWPs enhances a firm's objective financial performance.
Originality/value
This study advances our understanding of the specific conditions under which HPWPs sustain SME performance. It also introduces the dark side of managers' social capital into considerations of this relationship. The study findings provide new insights that are counterintuitive to business practice.
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María Carmen García-Cortijo, Juan Sebastián Castillo-Valero and Ana Pérez-Luño
This paper analyses the behaviour of wineries after an economic crisis depending on their interest in the environment.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyses the behaviour of wineries after an economic crisis depending on their interest in the environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire was drawn up to collect quantitative data on Spanish wineries; a total of 230 firms participated in the study. Subsequently, a detailed statistical analysis was performed using the Mann–Whitney U test and rank sum.
Findings
The results show that the wineries that were most interested in sustainability exhibited proactive behaviour during the post-crisis period, choosing to innovate in their different areas in order to deal with the situation.
Practical implications
The paper develops a simple and effective method for wineries to gain confidence that their sustainable behaviour will be compatible with innovating and overcoming a crisis.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature because, to the authors' knowledge, no other study has investigated the concepts of sustainability, crisis and innovation simultaneously. The model is also applicable to international wineries as well as companies in other sectors and would help them to define their strategic and sustainability plans.
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Ana Pérez‐Luño, Ramón Valle Cabrera and Johan Wiklund
The present study fills some of the void in the literature on the concept and phenomenon of innovation and imitation. Basing our arguments on features that the literature…
Abstract
The present study fills some of the void in the literature on the concept and phenomenon of innovation and imitation. Basing our arguments on features that the literature indicates are characteristics of innovation, we delimit the concepts of innovation and imitation. Using these features and considering a company’s degree of entrepreneurial and market orientation, we devise a typology of companies ranging from radical innovators to strict imitators. We also argue that some key factors and the choice of appropriate strategy determine whether innovative and imitative companies can obtain and maintain their sustainable competitive advantages.
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Tianyu Hou, Julie Juan Li and Jun Lin
Knowledge search is considered a broad concept and semi-intentional behavior. The path and boundary conditions through which search strategies affect intra-organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
Knowledge search is considered a broad concept and semi-intentional behavior. The path and boundary conditions through which search strategies affect intra-organizational knowledge creation remain elusive. Drawing on recombinant search theory and knowledge-based view, the authors seek to identify knowledge complexity as an important intermediate variable between knowledge search and innovation performance, such as research and development (R&D) output and R&D output quality. A second goal of this study is to examine the moderating roles of government support and technological turbulence.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a longitudinal panel of 609 global pharmaceutical firms and obtained the firms' patent records from 1980 to 2015 for the analysis. The authors used generalized estimating equations (GEE) to evaluate the models and tested the consistency via panel fixed-effects estimations.
Findings
The authors' findings show that organizational routine-guided search has a negative effect on knowledge complexity, while routine-changing search exerts a positive impact on knowledge complexity. Governmental support and technological turbulence moderate these relationships. Notably, knowledge complexity has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance.
Research limitations/implications
The authors' research context, the pharmaceutical industry, may constrain the generalizability of our findings. In addition, potential types of routine-guided and routine-changing search behaviors were not considered.
Practical implications
Despite these limitations, this study offers important implications. First, knowledge complexity transmits the effects of knowledge search on innovation performance. Practitioners should balance routine-guided and routine-changing search processes to build and manage complex knowledge. Second, a moderate level of knowledge complexity is the key to good R&D output and R&D output quality.
Originality/value
The study identifies knowledge complexity as one important intermediate variable between knowledge search behaviors and intra-organizational knowledge creation.
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Ana Clara Berndt, Giancarlo Gomes and Felipe Mendes Borini
This study aimed to analyze the role of organizational learning capability and entrepreneurial orientation on frugal innovation and, consequently, operational performance within…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to analyze the role of organizational learning capability and entrepreneurial orientation on frugal innovation and, consequently, operational performance within the Brazilian textile industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consisted of 257 valid questionnaires from the textile industry in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling using SmartPLS software.
Findings
The results showed that organizational learning capability is a strong driver of the operational performance when mediated by frugal innovation. Evidence also showed that relationships between entrepreneurial orientation, organizational learning capability, frugal innovation and operational performance are significant once the direct effect has more power than the indirect effect. Results elucidated different outcomes that are not in accordance with previously seen studies. Moreover, the latter shines a light on a possible interference caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
The study clarifies the relationship that entrepreneurial orientation and organizational learning capability unleash in frugal innovation and operational performance. It also shows a new situation when looking at the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, organizational learning capability and operational performance.
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