Open Workshop: The Relationship of Technological and Organizational Innovation with Firm Performance – Opening the Black Box of Dynamic Complementarities
The aim of the Open Workshop Series in Business and Management Studies is to promote top-quality academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences. This is a unique opportunity for sharing knowledge and networking with local and international community members.
This presentation will explore the dynamic nature of complementarities between technological and organizational innovation at firms. Using Spanish firm level panel data (PITEC) over period 2008-2016, it investigates how the formation, keeping and ending of the joint adoption of these two core types of innovation is associated with firm performance.
In the case of the general static test of complementarities we find no evidence of complementarities. However, once we focus on the analysis of within-firm changes in the complementarity bundle of innovation types, we observe clear evidence that some sequential as well as simultaneous strategy switches towards combining technological and organizational novelties are associated with significant performance premia at firms.
Our findings point out the key role of technological innovation in these complementarities. We find that full dissolution of the previous complementarity bundle of the two innovation types has a strong negative association with firm performance in next years. In the case of dissolving the complementarity bundle of innovation types, the key disadvantage for next periods’ firm performance is related to dropping the technological innovation. Giving up only organizational innovation while keeping the technological innovation appears to have no negative effect, on average, on firm performance. Firms with lesser capabilities allocate the managerial attention across different activities and objectives, clearly opt for less use of the potentially performance-enhancing complementary combinations of innovations. These firms are much more likely to give up the joint adoption of innovation types even if that configuration was reached in previous periods. For many firms, the retention of the joint adoption of technological and organizational innovation over time is an expensive choice.
Maaja Vadi is Professor of Management in the University of Tartu, Estonia. In addition to the role of a professor, she had worked as the head of chair, institute and dean of faculty. She has also conducted academic lectures in the USA, Australia, Japan, Iceland, France, Slovenia, and Sweden.
Her main areas of research and teaching are related to various problems of innovation, organizational behavior, organizational and national culture. She has published articles in journals (California Management Review, Technovation, Management International Review, International Journal of Manpower, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Journal of Health Organization and Management, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal etc.), edited books (i.e. by Emerald (Dis)honesty in Management: Manifestations and Consequences) and special issues of journals.
Maaja Vadi is a member of editorial board of several international academic journals. She has lead and work on various international projects financed by European Commission, and several Estonian institutions and the consultant for many companies and governmental organizations in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Finland. Maaja Vadi received a Ph.D in 2000 at University of Tartu.
Discussion moderated by Prof. Arnis Sauka.
Attendance is free of charge.
Please sign up for the seminar, writing to arnis.sauka@sseriga.edu by March 9, 2023.
The aim of the SSE Riga Open Workshop Series is to:
- Foster cooperation between business and management researchers, practitioners and policy makers, as well as
- To promote academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences, focusing on but not limited to entrepreneurship, marketing, management, public administration and strategy.
Organised by the Centre for Sustainable Business at SSE Riga and supported by ESI student innovation program. The program is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and supported by Printify, SEB Latvia, and Rimi Latvija. Project number: 1.1.1 .3/21/A/008.a.
