The Moderating Role Of Innovation Culture In The Relationship Between Knowledge Assets And Product Innovation

TFS-17623; No of Pages 13
Technological Forecasting & Social Change xxx (2012) xxx–xxx

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Technological Forecasting & Social Change

The moderating role of innovation culture in the relationship between knowledge assets and product innovation
Gregorio Martín-de Castro a, Miriam Delgado-Verde a,⁎, José E. Navas-López b, Jorge Cruz-Gonzáleza
a

Business Administration Department and Ikujiro Nonaka Centre for Knowledge and Innovation, CUNEF, Complutense University of Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, s/n, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón-Madrid, Spain b Business Administration Department, Complutense University of Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, s/n, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón-Madrid, Spain

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a b s t r a c tDeveloping successful technological innovations is essential for creating and sustaining a firm's competitive advantage. This paper analyses the internal complexity that characterises technological innovation in firms. The innovation capability of a firm depends closely on its intellectual and/or organisational knowledge assets and on its ability to deploy these assets. This paper goes beyond the directrelationships between human and technological knowledge assets and product innovation, proposing a moderating role of innovation culture on these relationships. Using a questionnaire to survey 251 Spanish high and medium-high technological manufacturing firms, multiple regression models were developed. After analysing the relationship between human capital and product innovation developed by firms,the results reveal the existence of the moderating role of innovation culture in a knowledge-based product innovation model. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 7 April 2011 Received in revised form 2 July 2012 Accepted 19 August 2012 Available online xxxx Keywords: Intellectual capital Knowledge assets Moderating effects Technological innovations Spain

1.Introduction The evolution of economic activity in a knowledge economy [1] shows the importance of knowledge or intellectual assets as key production factors in a firm's survival and success. This environment is evolving towards a new competitive arena, whereby firms are engaged in the continuous renewal of their competitive advantages through continuous innovations and the development of newknowledge and capabilities [2–4]. In this sense, one of the best ways for a firm to achieve a competitive advantage comes directly from continuous technological innovation. Following de Brentani, Kleinschmidt and Salomo, a firm's new product development strategy is a primary determinant of the firm's performance [5]. Furthermore, the firm's ability to continuously innovate its products and knowledgeassets – as a dynamic capability – is essential for its future success [6,7]. Although numerous efforts have been undertaken to understand the technological innovation phenomenon from an external perspective [8,9], further efforts focused on internal analysis are needed to fully understand this complex business activity. As Nonaka and Takeuchi highlighted, the innovation phenomenon is aknowledge-intensive business process that includes the organisation's members and their relationships and other forms of collective organisational knowledge, context and information as well as their effective implementation, which form the basis of technological innovations [10]. Subramaniam and Youndt remarked that technological innovations are related to a firm's intellectual capital (human, structural, andsocial) endowments [11]. Empirical studies (e.g., [4,12,13]) have tested this argument. Although the basic linkage between firm knowledge and innovation is convincing on the whole, more remains to be understood about its complex nature [11]. Taking into account the previous arguments from an integrative view of ‘A Knowledge-Based View of the Firm’ [10,14] and ‘An Intellectual Capital-Based View...