Non-technological innovation activities mediate the impacts of the intra- and extra-organizational contexts on technological innovation outputs

Abstract

The increasing interest on innovation studies and, particularly, on technological innovation has been attributed to innovation’s social and economic relevance. Still, organizational and marketing innovation activities, which are critical for firms’ economic performance, have been far less studied. This paper will specifically characterize these non-technological innovation processes, their firm and environmental underpinnings, as well as their impacts on technological innovation outputs (i.e., goods and services). For this purpose, it focuses on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services sector in Portugal between 2010 and 2012. This period is characterized by a socio-economic crisis context that is concomitant to decreases in firms’ innovation activities and economic performance. Under this challenging scenario, our data shows that organizational and/or marketing innovation activities mediate the impacts of firms’ 1) assets; 2) research activities and empowerment strategies; and 3) structure and climate of decision-making processes, on technological innovation outputs. This study reveals that decreases in innovative performance during the socio-economic crisis could be attributed not only to unfavourable firm and environmental contexts, but also to the absence of non-technological innovation activities. As such, it is suggested that support of non-technological innovation by firms’ managers and, at a broader level, by public policies is critical for launching of new products and services to the markets.