مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد قابلیت توسعه محصول شرکت از طریق نوآوری مدیریتی

مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله مدیریت مالی چند ملیتی – Journal of Multinational Financial Management

Markets have become progressively more competitive in recent years. To compete with the large players, small- and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) often try to assert themselves through new product developments (NPDs). However, innovative products cannot be taken for granted since they require the full commitment of the organisation and its employees (Simon, Elango, Savelli, & Hougton, 2002). A compounding factor is that SMEs struggle with different obstacles, namely, limited resources (Garengo, Biazzo, & Bititci, 2005; Laforet & Tann, 2006) or skills shortages (Freel, 1999; Scott, Jones, Bramley, & Bolton, 1996). These restrictions raise the question of how SMEs can improve their NPD capabilities.

There have been several attempts to support SMEs’ NPD capabilities by policy changes (Klomp & Roelandt, 2004; Massa & Testa, 2008) and public funding (Belitz & Lejpras, 2014; Wonglimpiyarat, 2013). Other studies scrutinised how far networks among SMEs can advance their NPDs (e.g. Soh, 2003). While these analyses eminently contributed to the understanding of how SMEs can enhance their NPD capabilities by external means, they neglected the question of whether the NPD capabilities could benefit from the implementation of internal changes. More recent studies introduced in this regard the term managerial innovation as a new subject of analysis that discusses changes in organisational structures, processes, and systems (Birkinshaw, Hamel, & Mol, 2008; Damanpour & Aravind, 2012). It has been emphasised that these changes are generally important to firms (Büschgens, Bausch, & Balkin, 2013; Hernández-Mogollon, Cepeda-Carrión, Cegarra-Navarro, & Leal-Millán, 2010) by being related to firm and innovation performance (Saunila, Pekkola, & Ukko, 2014). Although managerial innovations can be considered as a basis for NPDs (Damanpour, Szabat, & Evan, 1989), the number of studies dealing with the potentials of managerial innovations is still limited. What aggravates the situation is that managerial innovations are not without controversy. For example, Naveh, Meilich, and Marcus (2006) found that managerial innovations will not promote innovations under all circumstances. Boer and During (2001) examined that managerial innovations require longer lead times than NPDs and are related to higher complexity; Damanpour and Evan (1984) highlighted complex measurements and evaluations of managerial innovations in contrast to NPDs. It is therefore worth investigating whether or not the efforts to implement managerial innovations pay off for SMEs in terms of improved NPD capabilities. This leads us to the following research question: RQ: Do managerial innovations contribute to NPD capabilities of SMEs?

Our study aims to shed more light on this issue by investigating the effects of different managerial innovations on NPD capabilities of SMEs. The findings should make a contribution to the field of innovation management in general. What is more, it should enhance our knowledge on the relationship between NPD capabilities and managerial innovations in SMEs and support managers in their decision on whether or not managerial innovations should be implemented. We begin by developing a conceptual framework on managerial innovations and NPD capabilities. The paper will then go on to the method applied in this study. Part 4 interprets the results of the data analysis and discusses the findings with those from other studies. Finally, we draw a conclusion and implications in the final part of this paper.