Combinative Effects of Innovation Types and Organizational Performance-A Longitudinal Study of Servi

Combinative Effects of Innovation Types and

Organizational Performance:A Longitudinal Study of Service Organizations

Fariborz Damanpour,Richard M.Walker and Claudia N.Avellaneda

Rutgers University;University of Hong Kong;University of North Carolina at Charlotte

abstract Innovation research suggests that innovation types have different attributes,determinants,and effects.This study focuses on consequences of adoption of three types of innovation (service,technological process,and administrative process)in service organizations.Its main thesis is that the impact of innovation on organizational performance depends on compositions of innovation types over time.We examine this proposition by analysing

innovative activity in a panel of 428public service organizations in the UK over four years.Our ?ndings suggest that focus on adopting a speci?c type of innovation every year is

detrimental,consistency in adopting the same composition of innovation types over the years has no effect,and divergence from the industry norm in adopting innovation types could possibly be bene?cial to organizational performance.We discuss the implications of these ?ndings for theory and research on innovation types.

INTRODUCTION

The study of innovation hardly needs justi?cation as scholars,policy makers,business executives,and public administrators maintain that innovation is a primary source of economic growth,industrial change,competitive advantage,and public service (Borins,1998;Boyne et al.,2006;Christensen et al.,2004;Tidd et al.,2001).Organizations adopt innovation in response to changes in technological and managerial knowledge,industry competition,constituents’expectation,or top executives’aspiration to gain distinctive competencies and improve the level of performance.The adoption of inno-vation is a means for organizational adaptation and change to facilitate achieving the ?rm’s performance goals,especially under the conditions of intense competition,rapidly changing market,scarce resources,and customer and public demand for higher quality and better products and services (Boyne et al.,2003;Jansen et al.,2006;Roberts and Address for reprints :Fariborz Damanpour,Rutgers University,Department of Management and Global Business,111Washington Street,Newark,NJ 07102-3027,USA (damanpour@https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1b10123678.html,).?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009.Published by Blackwell Publishing,9600Garsington Road,Oxford,OX42DQ,UK and 350Main Street,Malden,MA 02148,USA.

Journal of Management Studies 46:4June 2009

doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2008.00814.x

Innovation Types and Performance651 Amit,2003).This study focuses on the consequences of the adoption of innovation in organizations and examines the innovation-performance relationship by recognizing four research needs in this body of work.

First,we distinguish between types of innovation and examine the combinative effect of adoption of innovation types on organizational performance.To help maintain and improve their performance,organizations offer new products and services to existing or new customers or clients,and introduce innovations in the organization’s production or operating systems and administrative or managerial processes(Camison-Zornoza et al., 2004;Edquist et al.,2001;Hipp et al.,2000).Theory development and empirical studies of innovation types have thus far focused on their antecedents;namely,environmental and organizational conditions that enhance or hamper the process of generation or adoption of each type(Jansen et al.,2006;Kimberly and Evanisko,1981;Tornatzky and Fleischer,1990).This study adds by developing theory and examining empirically the combinative outcomes of innovation types for organizational effectiveness or performance.

Second,historically research on innovation types has followed a technological impera-tive.It assumes that?rms mainly organize their innovation efforts through R&D activi-ties and has thus focused on a narrow de?nition of product and process innovations associated with the R&D function in manufacturing organizations(Gallouj and Weinstein,1997;Miles,2001).Studies of organizational or administrative innovations have been relatively scarce(Daft,1978;Lam,2005).The socio-technical system theory challenged the technological imperative and argued that changes in the technical(oper-ating)system of the organization should be coupled with changes in the social(admin-istrative)system in order to optimize organizational outcome(Cummings and Srivastva, 1977;Damanpour and Evan,1984;Trist and Murray,1993).We build on this perspec-tive and contribute by comparing performance consequences of innovation activity in organizations that focus primarily on introducing one innovation type or seek balance among different types.

Third,theories of innovation have been developed mainly by studying?rms in the goods industries.More recently innovation researchers have emphasized the differences in the nature of activities of manufacturing and service organizations and the importance of developing innovation models for the service industries(Barras,1990;Gallouj and Weinstein,1997;Miles,2001).Whereas innovations in the manufacturing sector follow a technological trajectory,innovations in the service sector do not;therefore,the pre-vailing logic of the generation of innovations in manufacturing organizations cannot be used to explain the adoption of innovations in service organizations.We develop hypoth-eses on the impact of innovation activity on organizational performance for service organizations and test them with a sample of public service organizations,a category of service organizations that has experienced fundamental changes over recent decades. The global New Public Management(NPM)movement questioned public organizations’functioning and performance and championed the belief that they had become too costly and self-serving and should be transformed based on market mechanisms and private-sector techniques in order to become effective(Boyne et al.,2003;Osborne and Gaebler, 1992;Pollitt and Bouckeart,2004).Consequently,public service organizations sought to develop innovative capacity and use innovation to achieve higher levels of organizational

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

performance (Borins,1998;Light,1998;Walker,2006),making them a fertile setting for the study of in?uence of innovation on performance.

Fourth,the majority of the studies of innovation in organizations are cross-sectional.Scholars emphasize the importance of longitudinal studies in understanding the man-agement of innovation in organizations (Pettigrew,1990;Van de Ven and Huber,1990).This view is particularly applicable to this study because the innovation–performance relationship is path dependent and takes place over time.An organization’s success relates more to its history of innovation activity than to the introduction of certain new products or processes (Roberts and Amit,2003).Thus,the adoption of an innovation at a point in time,or multiple innovations of the same type over time,will not suf?ciently explain the expected impact of innovation on ?rm performance over time.We address this issue by conducting a ?ne grain longitudinal examination of the success or failure of the adoption of compositions of different types of innovation over time in public service organizations.

In summary,considering organizations as adaptive systems,and innovation as a means to facilitate adaptive changes to the environment,this study departs from prior research by proposing that:(1)innovations in service organizations do not follow a technological imperative;(2)impact of innovation on organizational performance depends on co-adoption of different innovation types rather the adoption of a single type;and (3)combinative effects of innovation types on performance can best be examined over time,not at one point in time.We develop hypotheses on compositions of adoption of three types of innovation (service,technological process,and administrative process)and organizational performance and test them by analysing innovative activity in a panel of 428public service organizations in the UK over four years.Our ?ndings vary from existing research and suggest that focus on adopting a speci?c type of innovation every year is detrimental,consistency in adopting the same composition of innovation types over the years has no effect,and divergence from the industry or organizational popu-lation norm in adopting innovation types could possibly be bene?cial to organizational performance.

THEORY

Adoption of Innovation

This study focuses on innovation at the organizational level.In this context,innovation has generally been de?ned as the development and/or use of new ideas or behaviours (Daft,1978;Walker,2006;Zaltman et al.,1973).A new idea can pertain to a new product,service,market,operational and administrative structures,processes and systems.An innovation can be considered new to the individual adopter,to an orga-nizational subunit,to the organization as a whole,or to the entire sector,industry,or organizational population.Like the majority of the studies of the adoption of innova-tion at the ?rm level,we de?ne innovation as new to the adopting organization (Bantel and Jackson,1989;Damanpour and Evan,1984;Walker,2006).Organizations inno-vate because of pressure from the external environment,such as competition,deregu-lation,isomorphism,resource scarcity,and customer demands,or because of an F.Damanpour et al.

652?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance653 internal organizational choice,such as gaining distinctive competencies,reaching a higher level of aspiration,and increasing the extent and quality of services.Either way, the adoption of innovation is intended to ensure adaptive behaviour,changing the organization to maintain or improve its performance.

This view of innovation adoption was mainly in?uenced by the perspective of orga-nizations as open systems.From this perspective,performance is the ability of the organization to cope with all systematic processes relative to its goal-seeking behaviour and carry out its organization-adapting and organization-maintaining functions effec-tively(Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan,2001;Scott,1992).Thus,organizations are viewed as adaptive systems that introduce change in order to function effectively.Many theories of organizations are grounded on the open system perspective.For example,the resource dependence theory(Pfeffer and Salancik,2003)emphasizes‘managerial choice’in the organization–environment interactions in responding to the key environmental constraints such as scarcity of resources,and demands of clients,suppliers and creditors. To manage environmental dependencies and gain critical resources,organizational leaders would be motivated to change internal processes and offer new products or services to establish and maintain linkages with customers or the government that provide these resources.The resource-based view(RBV)of organizations,on the other hand,focuses on the heterogeneity of resources and capabilities across the organization and points out the importance of rare,valuable,non-substitutable and inimitable orga-nizational resources in developing distinctive competencies for organizational effective-ness(Barney,1991;Bryson et al.,2007).It suggests that complementary resources and capabilities would help an organization capitalize on innovation(Christmann,2000), increasing the positive in?uence of innovation on organizational conduct and outcome. The implication of these theories for this study is that combinative adoption of different types of innovations in different parts of the organization would increase the organiza-tion’s capacity for adaptive change.We therefore assume that organizations adapt to the competitive and/or institutional pressures from the external environment by adopting compositions of new services and internal practices to attain and maintain distinctive competencies that help them to perform continuously well.

Types of Innovation

Innovation research has distinguished between innovation types because they have different characteristics and their adoptions are not affected identically by environmental and organizational factors(Jansen et al.,2006;Kimberly and Evanisko,1981;Light, 1998).Prior research also suggests that the process of generation of different innovation types at the industry level,and their adoption at the organizational level,is not similar (Abernathy and Utterback,1978;Daft,1978;Tornatzky and Fleischer,1990). Innovation researchers have introduced many conceptual typologies of innovation. For instance,Zaltman et al.(1973,p.31)identi?ed approximately20innovation types grouped in terms of the state of the organization,and the focus and outcome of innovation.The variety of innovation types notwithstanding,the best known and most widely studied typology of innovation is the distinction between product and process innovations(Abernathy and Utterback,1978;Kotabe and Murray,1990;Light,1998).

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

Another widely recognized but less researched typology is the distinction between tech-nological (also called ‘technical’)and administrative (also called ‘organizational’and ‘management’)innovations (Birkinshaw et al.,2008;Kimberly and Evanisko,1981;Lam,2005).

Edquist and colleagues (Edquist et al.,2001;Meeus and Edquist,2006,p.24)juxta-posed these two established typologies and offered a taxonomy that distinguishes between two types of product innovations (‘in goods’and ‘in services’)and two types of process innovations (‘technological’and ‘organizational’).Hamel (2006)distinguished between two types of process innovation that resemble Meeus and Edquist’s distinction:innovations in operational processes (such as customer services,logistics,and procure-ment)and innovations in management processes (such as strategic planning,project management,and employee assessment).From Meeus and Edquist’s (2006)four inno-vation types,we employ three that are applicable to service organizations:service innovations,technological process innovations,and administrative process innovations.Service innovations.Barras (1986)de?nes a product as a good or service offered to the customer or client.Innovation research has not generally distinguished between product and service innovations;that is,services offered by organizations in the service sector are conceptualized to be similar to products introduced by organizations in the manufac-turing sector (Miles,2001;Sirilli and Evangelista,1998).This view has been prevalent because product and service innovations have external focus,are primarily market driven,and their introduction results in differentiation of the organization’s output for its customers or clients (Abernathy and Utterback,1978;Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan,2001).Hence,like product innovations,the drivers of service innovations are mainly clients’demand for new services and executives’desire to create new services for existing markets or ?nd new market niches for exiting services (Matthews and Shulman,2005;Osborne,1998).Given the focus on meeting client needs in the service sector,the nature of service innovation is best understood through its relationship to service user.Thus,we de?ne service innovations as the introduction of new services to the existing or new clients and offer of existing services to new clients.

Process innovations.Contrary to product or service innovations,process innovations have an internal focus and aim to increase ef?ciency and effectiveness of the internal organi-zational processes to facilitate the production and delivery of goods or services to the customers (Abernathy and Utterback,1978;Boer and During,2001).The new processes can be associated with the ‘technological core’or the ‘technical system’of the organi-zation (technological process innovations)or to the ‘administrative core’or the ‘social system’of the organization (administrative process innovations)(Daft,1978;Damanpour and Evan,1984;Meeus and Edquist,2006).

Technological process innovations are new elements introduced into an organization’s production system or service operation for producing its products or rendering its services to the clients (Abernathy and Utterback,1978;Damanpour and Gopalakrish-nan,2001).The drivers of these innovations are primarily reduction in delivery time,increase in operational ?exibility,and lowering of production costs (Boer and During,2001).Technological process innovations,therefore,modify the organization’s operating F.Damanpour et al.

654?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance655 processes and systems(Meeus and Edquist,2006).In service organizations,these inno-vations are primarily innovations associated with information technology(Barras,1990; Miles,2001;Uchupalanan,2000).For parsimony,from now on we refer to this inno-vation type as‘technological innovation’.

Administrative process innovations are new approaches and practices to motivate and reward organizational members,devise strategy and structure of tasks and units,and modify the organization’s management processes(Birkinshaw et al.,2008;Daft,1978; Light,1998).Whereas technological innovations are directly related to the primary work activity of the organization and mainly produce changes in its operating systems,admin-istrative innovations are indirectly related to the organization’s basic work activity and mainly affect its management systems(Damanpour and Evan,1984).Administrative process innovations pertain to changes in the organization’s structure and processes, administrative systems,knowledge used in performing the work of management,and managerial skills that enable an organization to function and succeed by using its resources effectively.From now on we refer to this innovation type as‘administrative innovation’.

Innovation and Performance

As stated earlier,the adoption of innovation is a means towards organizational change. Opportunities,threats,and changes in the environment motivate organizations seek adaptive change.Hence,by adopting innovations over time organizations intend to adjust their external and internal functions so that they could respond to environmental demands,operate ef?ciently and effectively,and maintain or improve their performance. Although innovation is risky,and its success is not guaranteed,innovation researchers have posited that it affects?rm’s performance positively based on two theoretical argu-ments.First,organizations innovate to gain?rst or early mover advantage that would deliver superior performance(Lieberman and Montgomery,1988;Roberts and Amit, 2003).For example,Zajac et al.(2000)found that performance implications of insuf?-cient change are worse than those of excessive change.Jansen et al.(2006)found that exploratory innovations in dynamic environments,and exploitative innovations in com-petitive environments,are bene?cial to the innovative unit’s?nancial performance.In general,engaging in innovation activity enables?rst and early mover organizations to be aware of the latest developments,absorb new and related knowledge,and increases their chances of bene?ting from innovation activities over time(Cohen and Levinthal,1990; Roberts and Amit,2003).

Second,performance gap–the difference between what an organization is actually accomplishing and what it can potentially accomplish–creates a need for change in the organization which would in turn provide motivation to adopt innovations in order to reduce the perceived gap(Zaltman et al.,1973).Contrary to the?rst mover advantage that has mainly been applied to for-pro?t organizations,the performance gap theory of innovation is applicable to all organizations whether for-pro?t,public,service or manu-facturing.Its logic does not only encompass introducing change in low-performance organizations;senior managers or administrators of high-performance organizations may also introduce major changes when they foresee impending environmental

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

pressures that may compromise their organization’s ability to be effective,or perceive attractive new opportunities that can be seized or new products and services that can contribute to performance (Wischnevsky and Damanpour,2006).

A quantitative review of the ?ndings of 30empirical studies from 1984to 2003showed that innovation in?uences performance positively (Walker,2004).The studies used in this review,however,were predominately cross-sectional and did not examine cumula-tive consequences of the adoption of different types of innovation over time.We propose that when the external resources are limited yet organizations face constantly changing environmental conditions to improve the quality and delivery of their services,they would rely on their internal resources to innovate (Pablo et al.,2007).The internal focus requires that different parts of the organization innovate,resulting in the adoption of different types of innovation.The adoption of each type may contribute to a certain aspect of the organization’s sustained performance;however,when cumulated over time,the overall adoption of different types across the organization would more fully change the organization towards achieving its performance goals.Similar to RBV that empha-sizes the role of bundles of rare and unique resources to reduce cost,create differentiation and gain competitive advantage (Barney,1991),the adoption of sets of innovation types over time would provide the organization with required capabilities and distinctive competencies to continually outperform other organizations in its population.

Hypothesis 1:The greater the cumulative adoption of innovation types over time,the better an organization’s performance.

Combinative Effects of Innovation Types on Performance

Scholars have advanced that superior and sustained organizational performance root in a ?rm’s ability to introduce streams of innovations (He and Wong,2004;Tushman and O’Reilly,1996).As stated earlier,however,most empirical studies of the innovation–performance relationship have been cross sectional,based on a single innovation type.Moreover,because the primarily goal of research on innovation types has been to address the problem of inconsistent results in determining characteristics of innovative organizations,most empirical studies have focused on developing contingency theories to differentiate the factors that predict each type (Bantel and Jackson,1989;Fritsch and Meschede,2001).To the best of our knowledge,with one exception (Roberts and Amit,2003),combinative effects of the adoption of different innovation types over time on ?rm performance has not been examined.

Roberts and Amit (2003)argued that performance does not result from stand-alone innovations,but from composition of effects of several types.They examined three compositions (focus,commitment,and divergence)of three innovation types (product,process,and distribution)in Australian retail banking organizations.In this study,the type of organizations (public service),the types of innovation (service,technological,and administrative),and theoretical justi?cations of the innovation–performance relationship (details below)differ from Roberts and Amit’s pioneering study.However,on the assumption that similarity in terms of de?nition of constructs and their operationaliza-tion would help the advancement of knowledge and theoretical progress of the ?eld (Bell F.Damanpour et al.

656?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance657 et al.,2006;Tsang and Kwan,1999),we have adopted Roberts and Amit’s conceptu-alization and operationalization of three composite innovation variables.As variations in the industry or organizational populations are likely to suggest different conclusions,we expect that using the same measures facilitate comparison of the results of the two studies,contributing to a more general understanding of the association between inno-vation activity and performance over time.

Focus in adopting a speci?c innovation type.Two views can be offered on how focus on adopting a speci?c type of innovation over time would in?uence?rm performance.The ?rst view is driven from the literature on absorptive capacity.Cohen and Levinthal (1990)argue that organizations add new knowledge by building upon their previous knowledge.Prior experience with a speci?c innovation type will support further appli-cation of the same body of knowledge,as organizations tend to rely on knowledge in areas where they had success(Cohen and Levinthal,1990).Therefore,organizations tend to focus on adopting one innovation type because they possess knowledge in that type and can thus more easily integrate new knowledge and create new opportunities to gain performance advantage from it(Roberts and Amit,2003).

We adopt an alternative view for several reasons.First,the logic that focus on a speci?c innovation type positively in?uences?rm performance has been derived from the evolutionary models of technological change at the industry or product class level (Abernathy and Utterback,1978;Anderson and Tushman,1991)and applies to the production of goods that embody a new technology(Barras,1990;Gallouj and Weinstein,1997;Miles,2001).The patterns of adoption of innovation types in the service industries differ.The most prominent model re?ecting the evolution of innova-tion types in the service or user industries is known as‘reverse product cycle’model (Barras,1986).It advances that in the?rst phase,service organizations use the adopted technology to increase the ef?ciency of existing services(incremental process innova-tions);in the second phase,the technology is applied to improving the quality and effectiveness of the services(radical process innovations);and in the third phase,it assists in generating wholly transformed or new services(Barras,1986,1990).Second,the evolutionary models of technological change focus on the process of generation of technological innovations at the industry level,which is different from the process of adoption of service or administrative innovations at the organizational level.Third, innovations in service organizations are primarily incremental because services are often consumed at their point of production,making major departure from existing services unlikely(Miles,2001;Normann,1991).Radical innovations require reliance on more external knowledge and recombination of more specialized information than incremen-tal innovations;hence,transformation and assimilation barriers that may motivate the organization to focus on a speci?c type of radical innovation are not central to decisions to adopt incremental innovations.

According to this alternative view,therefore,the rationale that because of time and resource limitations organizations bene?t from focusing their innovation activity on one type(Roberts and Amit,2003)is not applicable to service organizations.Because inno-vations are mainly incremental,organizations rely primarily on their internal expertise and coordinated actions of different parts and functions to innovate(Pablo et al.,2007).

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

Organizations may bene?t more from learning to innovate in all areas than focusing on acquiring knowledge in one because innovating across organizational units could in?u-ence exchanges with clients,customers and other key constituencies,enable managers to choose strategies to manage resource dependencies with the external units,and maintain the ?ow of resources to the organization to ensure adaptive behaviour (Pfeffer and Salancik,2003;Scott,1992).Therefore,instead of focusing on a speci?c type of inno-vation,service organizations have incentive to introduce different types of innovation with a more balanced rate simultaneously (Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan,2001;Light,1998;Walker,2006).The synergy from innovating across types affects the orga-nization’s ability to introduce and deliver services to its clients and meet its multiple goals more than focus in adopting one type.This view of the adoption of innovation types assumes that strong interdependencies among internal organizational attributes are fundamental to achieving organizational effectiveness over time (Wischnevsky and Damanpour,2006).As RBV in general and combinative capabilities and internal dynamic capabilities in particular imply (Eisenhardt and Martin,2000;Van den Bosch et al.,1999),adopting innovations of different types across the organization would ensure that the organization renews its ability to build,recon?gure,and integrate internal and external competencies to cope with environmental change and remain effective over time.

Hypothesis 2:Focus on adopting a speci?c type of innovation over time will negatively affect organizational performance.

Consistency in adopting a similar composition of different types.Innovation types have often been conceived as distinct phenomena that contribute to organizational competitiveness,growth,and performance in different ways (Damanpour and Aravind,2006).This view re?ects the dominance of the industrial organization perspective in the studies of tech-nological product and process innovations,where the homogeneity of ?rms within the industry and the role of industry characteristics in determining ?rm performance are emphasized (Cohen and Levin,1989;Tidd et al.,2001).It also associates with the evolutionary theories of technological innovations at the product class level,which suggest a lead–lag relationship in introducing product and process innovations over time (Anderson and Tushman,1991;Utterback,1994).

The RBV offers an alternative view by emphasizing the role of internal resources and the organization’s capability in integrating them for gaining distinctive competencies and sustained high performance.The application of RBV to innovation activity at the ?rm level emphasizes the complementary role of innovation types and their joint in?uence on organizational https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1b10123678.html,anizational performance is induced by the synergistic use of the organization’s internal resources (e.g.product,technological process and adminis-trative knowledge resources)leading to continuous adoption of multiple types of innovation (MacDuf?e,1995;Pablo et al.,2007;Walker,2004).This perspective of innovation types,as stated earlier,is also supported by the socio-technical systems (STS)theory.The STS theory advances that the relationship between the technical and social systems is not strictly a one-to-one relationship;rather it is a correlative relationship representing a ‘coupling of dissimilarities’(Damanpour and Evan,1984;Scott,1992).F.Damanpour et al.

658?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance659 However,any change in one organizational sub-system(e.g.as a result of adopting an innovation)sets certain constraints and requirements and necessitates a corresponding change in the other sub-system to produce positive outcomes(Cummings and Srivastva, 1977;Damanpour and Evan,1984).Overall,the view adopted in this study assumes the magnitude of performance effect is greater when the organization adopts multiple innovations to introduce system-wide rather than local changes(MacDuf?e,1995; Walker,2004).

Studies of the adoption of innovation types at the organization level provide partial evidence for balance in adopting different types of innovation.For example,a study of public libraries in the United States reported that the association between technical and administrative innovations is stronger in high-performance than in low-performance organizations(Damanpour and Evan,1984).Ettlie(1988)also found that successful manufacturing?rms adopt technological and administrative innovations simultaneously, and the congruency between the two types is especially important in hostile and com-petitive conditions.Similarly,research on the adoption of product and(technological) process innovations suggests that these innovation types are intertwined such that con-tinual improvement in one would lead to the other(Fritsch and Meschede,2001;Kotabe and Murray,1990).Product and process innovations are complementary and organiza-tions that pursue both simultaneously would derive full bene?ts and better performance (Damanpour and Aravind,2006).Roberts and Amit(2003)argued that the commitment to the same composition of innovative activity over time has a positive effect on a?rm’s ?nancial performance because‘at different times,different innovation categories may be associated with more pro?table opportunities for improvement’(p.114).Overall,as Rosenberg(1982)stated,innovation types are interdependent and can be viewed as related sets,where the introduction of one type could enhance the value of another type. Hypothesis3:Consistency in adopting a similar composition of innovation types over time will positively affect organizational performance.

Divergence from industry norm in adopting innovation types.Theoretical perspectives differ in their portrayal of the extent to which divergence from industry or organizational popu-lation norm would affect organizational transformation and performance(Wischnevsky and Damanpour,2006).For example,the institutional theory depicts that organizations mainly change to conform to industry,professional,and societal patterns(Scott,1992). From an institutional perspective,public service organizations adopt new practices in their strategy,structure and services that are associated with the New Public Manage-ment(NPM)movement in order to comply with the functional and political pressures from the external environment(Ashworth et al.,2009).The imitative nature of organi-zational change,hence,makes it unlikely that divergence from norms in adopting innovations would lead to the attainment of distinctive competencies that result in better performance(Wischnevsky and Damanpour,2006).Alternatively,rational models of organization in general,and the?rst/early mover advantage view in particular,consider innovation and change as deliberate organizational choices that seek the explicit goal of seizing an attractive opportunity,gaining new knowledge,and closing the performance gap leading to performance improvements(Lieberman and Montgomery,1988;

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

Wischnevsky and Damanpour,2006).We assume that in the context of limited external resources and environmental pressure for change,senior executives and administrators regard innovation necessary for improving organizational effectiveness.Therefore,the adoption of every type of innovation would be encouraged and enhanced as innovation is perceived to be essential for achieving the performance goals (Roberts and Amit,2003;Wischnevsky and Damanpour,2006).

The external pressure due to environmental change strengthens arguments offered by the performance gap and ?rst/early mover advantage views in support of perceived positive in?uence of innovation on organizational performance.The environmental pressure alleviates legitimacy concerns,which ‘provide an incentive to engage in a pattern of innovative activity that tracks the overall industry norm’(Roberts and Amit,2003,p.114).Although consequences of innovation are dif?cult to predict and can be the result of desirable and undesirable,direct and indirect,and anticipated and unan-ticipated outcomes (Rogers,1995),the environmental pressure for organizational change,especially when external resources are limited,encourages top executives and administrators to view innovation based on its direct,desirable and anticipated outcomes and focus on its positive impact on performance.In this context,divergence from the norm by engaging in a range of innovation activities is perceived to transform the organization,enabling it to improve its services and produce desirable performance outcomes.

Hypothesis 4:Divergence from industry norm in adopting innovation types over time will positively affect organizational performance.

METHODS

Sample and Data

Local governments in England are the public service organizations we examine in this study.Following the election of the Blair Labour Government in 1997,expectations for them to do things in different ways were increased,and robust methods to measure their performance were https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1b10123678.html,ernmental expectations and the NPM movement together make the English local authorities suited for an examination of the innovation–performance relationship over time.Local authorities are elected bodies,operate in speci?c geographical areas,employ professional career staff,and receive approximately two-thirds of their income from the central government.They are multi-purpose orga-nizations and deliver services including education,social care,land-use planning,waste management,housing,leisure and culture,and welfare bene?ts.In urban areas,unitary authorities deliver all of these services;in predominately rural areas,a two-tier system prevails,with county councils administering education and social services,and district councils providing welfare and regulatory services.In this study,we do not include district councils because our dependent variable (organizational performance)is only available for the unitary and upper tier authorities.

The data come from multiple sources.For the dependent variable,the data are taken from a dataset created by the Audit Commission (2002)for the years 2002to 2005F.Damanpour et al.

660?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance661 (details below).The Audit Commission acts on behalf of central government and is therefore an important external stakeholder for local governments.For control variables, the data come from the2001UK census(details below).For independent variables (innovation types),the data are from a survey of the management reform regime called ‘Best Value’,conducted annually from2001to2004.In each year a representative sample of100English local authorities were surveyed and in2001and2004a census was undertaken.Hence,the data set consists of unbalanced panels as not all the authorities returned surveys in each year.The numbers of local authorities in our sample in the years2001,2002,2003,and2004are121,76,73,and136respectively.Over the four-year period,the survey provides428local authority observations with168unique cross-sectional units.

The survey was pre-tested in17local authorities(and378respondents)and conducted electronically(Enticott,2003).Questionnaires were delivered as Excel?les attached to email.They were https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1b10123678.html,rmants had eight weeks to return the?le by email. Three reminders were sent to informants who had not responded.There were no statistically signi?cant differences between late and early respondents.The survey was a multiple information survey(MIS).MIS aims to capture internal organizational variety in a compatible format(Phillips,1981;Walker and Enticott,2004)collecting data from informants from several managerial levels or‘echelons’.Aiken and Hage de?ne an echelon,or social position in an organization,as‘the level of stratum in the organization, the department or type of professional activity’(1968,p.918).Hence,in each local authority questionnaires were sent to two echelons–three corporate of?cers and seven of?cers in each of the seven service areas mentioned above.Corporate of?cers include the chief executive of?cer and corporate policy of?cers with cross-organizational responsi-bilities for service delivery and improvement.Service of?cers include chief of?cers,who are the most senior of?cer with speci?c service delivery responsibility,and service managers or front-line supervisory of?cers.For the years2001,2002,2003,and2004,the total number of corporate respondents were,respectively,312,139,156,and196,and the total number of service respondents were,respectively,1190,825,991,and860.All survey questions were in the form of a seven-point Likert scale and informants were asked to rate their authority(for corporate of?cers)or service area(for service area of?cers).[1]To calculate an organizational mean we?rst calculated a mean of corporate of?cers and a mean of service of?cers,giving equal weight to each tier;the organizational score is then derived from these two means(Aiken and Hage,1968).This procedure maintains variations across organizations and categorical data is converted to continuous data. Furthermore,data from two tiers help overcome the sample bias problem faced in surveying informants from one organizational level only(Bowman and Ambrosini,1997). Measures

Dependent variable.We measured organizational performance by the core service perfor-mance(CSP)score constructed by the Audit Commission(2002).For each of the seven service areas,the CSP score is based largely on archival performance indicators,supple-mented by the results of inspection and assessment of statuary plans(Andrews et al., 2005).The archival performance indicators cover six aspects of organizational perfor-

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

mance:quantity of outputs (e.g.number of home helps for the elderly),quality of outputs (e.g.number of serious injuries on highways),ef?ciency (e.g.cost per bene?t claimed),formal effectiveness (e.g.average school passes at 16),equity (e.g.equal access to public housing),and consumer satisfaction (e.g.satisfaction with waste collection).Inspection of services draws upon internal improvement plans,?eld visits and other documentation.Statutory plans are assessed against the criteria of the service’s relevant central govern-ment department.All assessments are conducted by evaluators external to the local authority.Each service area is given a performance score by the Audit Commission from 1(lowest)to 4(highest).

After calculating the CSP score for each service area,the Audit Commission derives a score for the whole organization by weighting services to re?ect their relative impor-tance by budget (the weight for education and social services is 4,for environment health and housing is 2,and for libraries and leisure,bene?ts,and management of resources is

1).The Commission then combines these weights with the performance score (1–4)for each service area to calculate the CSP.The resulting scores range from a minimum of 15(12in the case of county councils that do not provide either housing or bene?ts)to a maximum of 60(48for county councils).To make the CSP scores comparable across all authorities we calculated the percentage of the maximum possible CSP score for the given local government.Therefore,the measure of organizational performance in this study is an aggregate measure across the key services areas of local governments and includes multiple indicators of performance for each service area.

Independent variables.The three types of innovation were measured by perceptual data from the surveys.Service innovation scale has three items (Osborne,1998),rating the extent to which the organization is providing ‘new services to new users’,‘new services to existing users’and ‘existing services to new users’(a =0.87).Technological innovation is measured by two items re?ecting the adoption of the ‘new information technology’and ‘new management information systems’(a =0.67).Administrative innovation is a three-item measure re?ecting the organization’s new approaches to ‘service planning and budget-ing’,‘improvement’(via quality management,re-engineering)and ‘management processes’(e.g.new job description,establishing new teams)(a =0.66).[2]To test mea-surement validity of the three innovation types,we conducted principal component analysis including the eight items constituting their measures.The results with varimax rotation showed three components,each one grouping the items as we expected:three items for service,two items for technological,and the three items for administrative innovations.Total innovation ,which re?ects the cumulative adoption of all innovation types,was measured by adding measures of service,technological and administrative innovations (a =0.79).

The three composite measures of innovation types over time were computed using the same mathematical formula employed by Roberts and Amit (2003,pp.115–16);however,while Roberts and Amit’s measures are accumulative over the previous ?ve years,our measures are annual.Nevertheless,the interpretation of these measures are the same as offered by Roberts and Amit (2003,p.116).When the organization’s innovative activity is evenly distributed across the three innovation types,its annual innovative focus will be 33,but as an authority’s innovative activity concentrates on a F.Damanpour et al.

662?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance663 single type the value of focus will increase towards100.If a local authority’s innovative activity has been constant across the three types,the value of consistency will be zero; however,as an organization’s devotion to each innovation type becomes instable,this variable will show larger negative values.The formula for measuring consistency requires innovations adopted in the previous year;hence,for this variable we lose the year2001cases,as there are no values for the year2000innovation,leaving us with a span of three years’data.When a local authority’s innovation activity equals the total authorities’average,divergence will be zero,but as the authority’s innovative activity increases above average,this variable will have a larger positive number.

Control variables.We controlled for four variables,two of which are expected to enhance organizational performance(organizational size and urbanization)and two to constrain performance(service need and service diversity).These variables re?ect both internal and external controls and have been used in past studies of public organizations (Andrews et al.,2005;Pettigrew et al.,1992).These four control measures were logged to reduce the problem of skewed distribution.We also included three dummies for the years2001–03(2004is the baseline)in all the models to adjust for potentially signi?cant year effects and obviate biased estimation.

Organizational size was operationalized by the size of the population of the local author-ity.This measure was selected because data on the number of employees,the commonly used measure of organizational size,vary with the level of contracting out the services and also because larger populations require larger organizations to deliver the requisite level of service.Urban authorities are likely to achieve higher levels of organizational performance because they are not operating across large geographical areas,their citizens and users are more readily accessible and communication is easier(Aiken and Alford,1970).We measured urbanization by the average population density within each local authority.This captures the differences between highly urban city authorities,from those with mixed urban and rural areas to those with predominately rural authorities. Both measures were derived from the2001UK census(UK Of?ce for National Statistics, 2003).

Service need was measured by the Average Ward Score from the Index of Multiple Deprivation(UK Department of the Environment,Transport and the Regions,2000), which provides an overview of the different domains of deprivation(e.g.income,employ-ment and health)and is the standard population-weighted measure of deprivation employed by the central government in England.Service diversity was measured by a Her?ndahl–Hirschman Index,squaring the proportion of each ethnic group(taken from the2001census,UK Of?ce for National Statistics,2003)within a local authority and then subtracting the sum of the squares of these proportions from10,000.This measure gives a proxy for‘fractionalization’within a local authority area,with a high level of ethnic diversity re?ected in a high score on the index.Higher levels of service need and service delivery make the task of achieving higher levels of organizational performance more demanding because opportunities for co-production of services are reduced.More-over,as the range of service users becomes more varied it becomes harder to determine the relative needs of different groups and to provide standardized services that meet their requirements(Andrews et al.,2005).

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

Analysis We analysed cross-organizations pooled time series data,which holds the potential for three methodological problems (Beck and Katz,1995;Harrinvirta and Mattila,2001).First,the error terms may differ from organization to organization,generating panel heteroscedasticity.Second,the errors across panels might be time correlated;that is,an organization’s errors at a year might be correlated with another organization’s errors at the same year.Finally,there may be within panel autocorrelation,as there is in any time series (Harrinvirta and Mattila,2001).Therefore,we report random effects estimations with Huber–White standard errors for several reasons.First,random-effects estimation ?ts cross-sectional time-series regression models by using the GLS estimator.Second,by using this estimation (STATA’s xtreg command with the ‘robust’option),we correct for heteroscedasticity across panels.Third,the random-effects estimation assumes that inter-cepts and/or slopes vary randomly across units (local authorities in our case)while the ?xed-effects estimator takes account of the fact that intercepts and/or slopes vary across units.Plots of the dependent variable for each local authority over time,however,suggest relatively parallel intercepts across them,justifying the selection of the random-effects estimation.Fourth,unlike the ?xed-effects regression,the random-effects estimation allows the inclusion of time invariant variables,thus permitting us to include our four control variables,which do not vary across time but whose inclusion is theoretically justi?able.Fifth,the inclusion of year dummies in each model reduces the potential problems for within panel autocorrelation.Finally,when we calculated panel-corrected standard error estimates (STATA’s xtpcse command),which assume that the distur-bances are heteroscedastic and contemporaneously correlated across panels,we found similar results.

RESULTS

Descriptive statistics and correlations for all variables are shown in Table I.Two pairwise correlations report high values (r >0.70)and statistical signi?cance at the 0.05level.The composite measures of focus and divergence are correlated (r =0.71),which theoretically makes sense because as a local authority’s innovative activity becomes more focused on a single innovation type,the more divergent it is going to be from all authorities’annual proportion average.In addition,urbanization is correlated with service diversity (r =0.71).Service diversity is operationalized with ethnic diversity;therefore,the larger the population density,the more ethnic diversity.Although high correlations usually point to potential multicollinearity problems,this is not a concern here because the mean variance in?ation factors (VIF)for regression models range between 1.80and 2.01,showing no signi?cant multicollinearity.

Table II reports the random-effects estimates for the in?uences of innovation on organizational performance for three accumulative models.Model 1includes only the control variables,Model 2adds the total innovation variable,and Model 3adds the three composite innovation variables.For each model,we ran the in?uence and leverage diagnostics to ensure no single authority in?uenced the estimations.Whereas few obser-vations were in?uential,they were isolated (not accumulated over years);therefore,we F.Damanpour et al.

664

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

T a b l e I .D e s c r i p t i v e s t a t i s t i c s a n d c o r r e l a t i o n V a r i a b l e s M e a n s .d .123456789101112

1.

O r g a n i z a t i o n a l p e r f o r m a n c e 68.059.122.

T o t a l i n n o v a t i o n 14.381.720.13*3.F o c u s 34.040.93-0.09-0.38*4.C o n s i s t e n c y -43.8950.770.080.23*-0.26*5.D i v e r g e n c e 35.9559.880.09-0.31*0.71*-0.37*6.O r g a n i z a t i o n a l s i z e 12.080.760.10*0.27*-0.18*0.10-0.19*7.U r b a n i z a t i o n 6.511.47-0.020.18*-0.14*0.25*-0.12*0.19*8.S e r v i c e n e e d 3.060.50-0.11*0.12*-0.14*0.17*-0.12*0.10*0.38*9.

S e r v i c e d i v e r s i t y 7.150.88-0.080.11*-0.09*0.13*-0.09*0.25*0.71*0.08*10.Y e a r 20010.460.49-0.16*-0.21*0.43*–0.22*-0.30*-0.16*-0.17*-0.16*11.

Y e a r 20020.150.35-0.02-0.01-0.17*-0.26*-0.10*0.10*0.040.060.05-0.39*12.Y e a r 20030.140.350.210.10*-0.14*0.12*-0.070.09*0.030.050.04-0.38*-0.17*13.Y e a r 20040.240.420.000.17*-0.24*0.13*-0.12*0.18*0.120.10*0.10*-0.52*-0.23*-0.23**p <0.05.Innovation Types and Performance

665

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

included all observations.Model 3includes only 246observations from 102panels because,as stated earlier,in computing the composite measure of consistency we lose the year 2001observations.However,we reran analysis on Models 1and 2with the 246observations from the 102panels included in Model 3,and the results report no signi?cant changes.

Model 3,the fully speci?ed model,returned a within panel R-square of 0.24,which is considerably greater than the 0.16and 0.18values reported for Models 1and 2(Table II).Model 3also reported an overall R-square of 0.12,which is slightly greater than the 0.10and 0.11values returned from Models 1and 2.The value of the between panels R-square,however,is almost similar across all the three models (0.11,0.10,0.11).We ran the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)test to compare model speci?cations.The AIC score for Model 3(1759.54)is considerably smaller than those for Model 1(3074.11)and Model 2(3065.15),suggesting a better ?t for the data.

Model 1’s results justify the inclusion of our four control variables,as they are statistically signi?cant at the 0.05level and although not predicted,they are in the expected direction.That is,the greater the organizational size and urbanization,the better the local authority’s performance,and the greater the service need and service diversity,the lower the local authority’s performance.Results from Model 1also suggest that performances for the years 2001and 2003are statistically different from year 2004–the baseline or comparison category.

Table II.The random-effects estimates for the in?uence of innovation types on organizational performance a Variable

Model 1Model 2Model 3Constant

62.86(11.82)**57.72(12.09)**195.77(72.72)**Total innovation

0.59(0.25)*0.99(0.38)**Focus

-4.32(2.13)*Consistency

-0.00(0.01)Divergence

0.05(0.03)?Organizational size

1.92(0.86)* 1.62(0.88)? 1.22(1.01)Urbanization

1.74(0.75)* 1.53(0.76)* 1.73(0.93)?Service need

-3.96(1.46)**-3.95(1.48)**-3.76(1.81)*Service diversity

-2.50(1.08)*-2.29(1.08)*-1.94(1.41)Year 2001

-2.11(0.78)** 1.78(0.78)*–Year 2002

0.07(0.82)0.31(0.83) 1.11(1.02)Year 2003

4.09(0.80)** 4.05(0.79)** 4.71(0.89)**R-sq within

0.160.180.24R-sq between

0.110.100.11R-sq overall

0.100.110.12Number of observations

428427246Number of panels 168168

102b Notes:

a Huber–White standard errors are in parentheses.

b In computing the composite measure of consistency,we lose the year 2001observations.

?p <0.10;*p <0.05;**p <0.01.

F.Damanpour et al.

666?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance667 Hypothesis1,which suggested that cumulative adoption of innovation types over time positively in?uences organizational performance,is supported as the coef?cient for total innovation is signi?cant and positive in both Model2(p<0.05)and Model3 (p<0.01).[3]This suggests that the adoption of innovation is a route to higher levels of organizational performance,irrespective of combinative effects that arise from the adop-tion of certain compositions of innovation types.Hypothesis2,which stated that focusing on a speci?c type of innovation over time has negative impact on organizational perfor-mance,was also supported(p<0.05,Model3).This result con?rms our contention that service organizations innovate incrementally and gain the greatest performance bene?ts from a balanced approach to the adoption of innovation types rather than emphasizing the adoption of a speci?c type over time.Hypothesis3was not supported as the coef?cient for consistency is not statistically signi?cant(p>0.05).Thus,our data do not ?nd evidence that the adoption of the same composition of innovation types over time positively affects organizational performance.Hypothesis4,which proposed that diver-gence from industry norm in adopting innovation types positively impacts performance, was supported albeit weakly.Results from Model3reveal that the coef?cient for divergence is positive and statistically signi?cant at the0.10level.

DISCUSSION

This study examined the consequences of adoption of innovation types over time and found support for the positive effect of innovation on organizational performance(Model 2).The addition of the three composite measures of innovation types in Model3 increased the?t of the data markedly,indicating that the positive effect of innovation on performance can be enhanced by the compositions of innovation types.Despite using the same composite measures,our results differed from Roberts and Amit’s(2003)?ndings of innovation activity in the banking industry,illustrating inter-industry differences in the adoption of innovation types and their consequences for organizational performance. Below we?rst discuss the possible role of industry context and then discuss the implica-tions of our?ndings for research on the innovation–performance relationship in orga-nizations.

Adoption of Innovation Types in Service Organizations

Scholars have acknowledged that?rms in different industries differ in terms of the degree to which they engage in innovative activity(Cohen and Levin,1989;Tidd et al.,2001). However,studies of inter-industry differences of innovation have mainly focused on the development of technological innovations in manufacturing industries and have exam-ined differences in users’needs,sources of technology,and means of appropriating bene?ts that determine the technological trajectories(Cohen and Levin,1989;Pavitt, 1984).

The dominant model of innovation activity in the manufacturing industries is the product life cycle(PLC)model that theorizes the dynamics of product and process innovations at the industry level in three phases(Abernathy and Utterback,1978; Utterback,1994).In the PLC and other technology-driven models(e.g.technological

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

change cycle model,Anderson and Tushman,1991),the innovation process begins typically with a discontinuous (radical)technological change and ends with a period of stability and continuous (incremental)change.Neither theoretical arguments nor ?nd-ings from these models are necessarily applicable to innovation activity in the service or user industries (e.g.Barras,1990;Gallouj and Weinstein,1997).In these industries,organizations usually adopt products or technologies developed in goods industries and the innovation cycle operates in the opposite direction of the PLC (Barras,1986).Subsequent research on innovation in service industries,however,points out that like product and technology life cycle models,Barras’reverse product cycle (RPC)model focuses on technology-based innovations as the primary source of innovation activity in services (Miles,2001;Uchupalanan,2000).According to these authors,whereas RPC may apply to information-intensive services (e.g.banking,insurance,accounting)that are affected mostly by the adoption of information technologies (IT),it is not necessarily applicable to service organizations for which the evolution of IT is not central (e.g.retail,legal and lobbying services,local governments,consultancy).Therefore,more ?ne grain distinction between types of service organizations is necessary for a better understanding of innovation activity in the service industries.

Both PLC and RPC models mainly associate with the dynamics of innovation activity at the industry,sector,or product class level.Nevertheless,previous studies of innova-tion types at the organization level have used the logic of these models to examine the adoption of innovation types in organizations.For instance,Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan (2001)relied on the PLC and RPC models and tested the lead–lag associations between of the adoption of product and process innovations in US banks.Roberts and Amit (2003)used the logic of the PLC model and absorptive capacity for transformation and assimilation of external technological knowledge in examining the relationship between innovation activity and performance of Australian banks.

We differed from these previous studies in three ways.First,we posited that models of dynamics of the adoption of innovation types in the service sector are not identical to those in the goods sector.Second,the logic of the models based on technological imperative,technological trajectories,and absorptive capacity of technological knowledge are not applicable to innovation activity in service organizations.For example,whether the introduction of service innovations lead (PLC model)or lag (RPC model)technological or administrative innovations may not be as crucial as how a balance in the rate of introduction of both can produce desirable outcomes.Our ?nding regarding the negative impact of focus on adopting a speci?c type of innovation on organizational performance exempli?es this point.Third,contrary to prior research that emphasized change in the technical system of the organization and neglected change in the social system,we included administrative innovations in the portfolio of innovation types because in effective organizations the technical and social systems operate in balance;that is,the adoption of technological and administrative innovations are equally important.

Evangelista (2000,p.184)observed that innovation research has a ‘long way from having a satisfactory picture of the extent,role and nature of innovative activities in the service sector’.The distinction between innovation types in the service sector can be more problematic than the manufacturing sector because of certain peculiar features of service activities,such as intangibility,simultaneous production and consumption,F.Damanpour et al.

668?Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

Innovation Types and Performance669 limited appropriability,and variability in customization and outcome(Evangelista,2000; Sirilli and Evangelista,1998).Therefore,juxtaposing service industry differences and innovation types and exploring the interaction between them can be a promising area for future innovation research.More speci?cally,we recommend additional longitudinal analysis of compositions of innovation types and their combinative effects on organiza-tional outcome in various service industries,especially those that extend the product–process typology and include management innovations(Birkinshaw et al.,2008). Innovation Types and Organizational Performance

Roberts and Amit’s(2003)study of innovation in banking organizations was the?rst to show the impact of compositions of innovation types on organizational performance over time.We examined the combinative effects of a different set of innovation types on performance in another type of service organization.Our study differs from Roberts and Amit’s study as it derives its theoretical arguments in advancing the hypotheses from an alternative view more suitable to the adoption of innovation in service organizations and reports hierarchical models to distinguish the impact of combinative effects(Model3) from cumulative effects(Model2)of innovation types.By?nding that the addition of three composite measures of innovation substantially increases the?t of Model3over Model2,this study adds to the Roberts and Amit’s(2003)pioneering study by teasing out unique bene?cial effects of the composite measures of innovation types on organizational performance.

An important?nding of this study is the negative association between focus on adopting a speci?c type of innovation over time and performance.In attaining knowl-edge and developing innovative capabilities,organizations may choose between‘focus’in adopting one type or‘breath’in adopting several types.The majority of researchers have adopted the absorptive capacity argument assuming that because:(1)accumulating deep knowledge in multiple areas is unlikely and thin knowledge would not lead to developing distinctive competencies,and(2)prior experience in the technological knowl-edge and relatedness of the?rm’s existing knowledge to the new knowledge are neces-sary,organizations tend to focus their innovation activity on one type only(Cohen and Levinthal,1990;Grant and Baden-Fuller,2004;Van den Bosch et al.,1999).Roberts and Amit(2003,p.117)applied this logic in the banking industry but their data did not con?rm their hypothesis of positive association between focus and?rm performance as the regression coef?cient for focus was not statistically signi?cant(p>0.10).We pro-posed that this logic mainly applies to the generation of technological innovations in the R&D units of organizations and is not suitable to explain the adoption of incremental innovation in services organizations.In service organizations,therefore,adopting inno-vation of different types associated with different parts(e.g.IT innovations for back-of?ce operations and HR innovations in the administrative core)could have more positive consequences than continually focusing on one type.

Cross-sectional studies of pairs of innovation types have consistently shown statistically signi?cant correlations between adoption rates(Bantel and Jackson,1989;Jansen et al., 2006;Kimberly and Evanisko,1981).He and Wong(2004)found that while interactions between two types of innovation(exploratory and exploitative)positively affect?rm

?Blackwell Publishing Ltd2009

新东方英语六级作文万能模板和常用句型

英语六级作文万能模板和常用句型 段首句 1. 关于……人们有不同的观点。一些人认为…… There are different opinions among people as to ____ .Some people suggest that ____. 2. 俗话说（常言道）……，它是我们前辈的经历，但是，即使在今天，它在许多场合仍然适用。 There is an old saying______. It"s the experience of our forefathers，however，it is correct in many cases even today. 3. 现在，……，它们给我们的日常生活带来了许多危害。首先，……；其次，……。更为糟糕的是……。 Today, ____, which have brought a lot of harms in our daily life. First, ____ Second,____. What makes things worse is that______. 4. 现在，……很普遍，许多人喜欢……，因为……，另外（而且）……。

Nowadays，it is common to ______. Many people like ______ because ______. Besides，______. 5. 任何事物都是有两面性，……也不例外。它既有有利的一面，也有不利的一面。 Everything has two sides and ______ is not an exception，it has both advantages and disadvantages. 6. 关于……人们的观点各不相同，一些人认为（说）……，在他们看来，…… People’s opinions about ______ vary from person to person. Some people say that them,_____. 7. 人类正面临着一个严重的问题……，这个问题变得越来越严重。 Man is now facing a big problem ______ which is becoming more and more serious. 8. ……已成为人的关注的热门话题，特别是在年青人当中，将引发激烈的辩论。 ______ has become a hot topic among people，especially among the young

很经典的四六级英语作文万能句

英语作文万能句子精选 （一）段首句 1. 关于……人们有不同的观点。一些人认为…… There are different opinions among people as to ____ .Some people suggest that ____. 2. 俗话说（常言道）……，它是我们前辈的经历，但是，即使在今天，它在许多场合仍然适用。 There is an old saying______. It"s the experience of our forefathers，however，it is correc t in many cases even today. 3. 现在，……，它们给我们的日常生活带来了许多危害。首先，……；其次，……。更为糟糕的是……。 · 4. 现在，……很普遍，许多人喜欢……，因为……，另外（而且）……。 Nowadays，it is common to ______. Many people like ______ because ______. Besides，_ _____. 5. 任何事物都是有两面性，……也不例外。它既有有利的一面，也有不利的一面。 Everything has two sides and ______ is not an exception，it has both advantages and disa dvantages. 6. 关于……人们的观点各不相同，一些人认为（说）……，在他们看来，…… People’s opinions about ______ vary from person to person. Some people say that ______. To them,_____. 7. 人类正面临着一个严重的问题……，这个问题变得越来越严重。 Man is now facing a big problem ______ which is becoming more and more serious. 8. ……已成为人的关注的热门话题，特别是在年青人当中，将引发激烈的辩论。

创新英语六级精选作文

创新英语六级精选作文 with the economic globalization becoming increasingly intensive, invention or innovation has become one of central topic around the world. many countries see it as the key to develop their economy. our government, with no eception, regard it as " the soul of our nation." what, however, can we benefit from it? first of all, invention or innovation can enhance overall national economy, which is important to heighten our nation status in the world. additionally, if factories have the abilities in invention, the factories will be booming. as a result, they can provide our people with more jobs and it will make our nation more stable. what is more, a majority of new products may be avaible through invention. therefore, it is also significant factor for improving our living standards. owing to such benefits, no wonder more and more countries focus on invention today. recognizing its importance is only the fist step to advocate invetion or innovation, and some effective measures should be taken for it. for one thing, our authority should continue to enlarge the recruit of graduate. for another, the conditions of scientists

英语六级作文常用句子及万能模板

英语六级作文高级句子及万能模板句式 1．随着经济的快速发展 with the rapid development of economy 2．人民生活水平的显著提高/ 稳步增长 the remarkable improvement/ steady growth of people’s living standard 3．先进的科学技术 advanced science and technology 4．面临新的机遇和挑战 be faced with new opportunities and challenges 5．人们普遍认为 It is commonly believed/ recognized that… 6．社会发展的必然结果 the inevitable result of social development 7．引起了广泛的公众关注 arouse wide public concern/ draw public attention 8．不可否认It is undeniable that…/ There is no denying that… 9．热烈的讨论/ 争论 a heated discussion/ debate 10. 有争议性的问题 a controversial issue 11．完全不同的观点 a totally different argument 12．一些人…而另外一些人…

Some people… while others… 13. 就我而言/ 就个人而言 As far as I am concerned, / Personally, 14．就…达到绝对的一致 reach an absolute consensus on… 15．有充分的理由支持 be supported by sound reasons 16．双方的论点 argument on both sides 17．发挥着日益重要的作用play an increasingly important role in…18．对…必不可少be indispensable to … 19．正如谚语所说As the proverb goes: 20．…也不例外…be no exceptio n 21．对…产生有利/不利的影响exert positive/ negative effects on…22．利远远大于弊the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. 23．导致，引起lead to/ give rise to/ contribute to/ result in 24．复杂的社会现象a complicated social phenomenon 25．责任感/ 成就感sense of responsibility/ sense of achievement 26. 竞争与合作精神 sense of competition and cooperation 27. 开阔眼界 widen one’s horizon/ broaden one’s vision 28．学习知识和技能 acquire knowledge and skills 29．经济/心理负担

创新引领未来InnovationCreatestheFuture

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1b10123678.html, Sponsor 主办单位承办单位Organizers CPCIF

关于 ICIF China 展品范围 基础化学品 基础化学品、基本有机、无机化工原料等 石油化工及新能源 原油、溶剂油、石蜡及石油产品添加剂等 精细与专用化学品 化工原料、汽车化学品、电子化学品、染料、防御性化学品、农用化学品、皮革和纺织化学品、塑料添加剂、纸浆和造纸化学品、表面活性剂复印化学品/油墨化学品、稳定剂等 化学品包装与储运 包装：金属包装、塑料包装、柔性包装、纸包装、 包装检测设备等 储运：化工物流公司、存储设备、储罐设计与工程等 化工安全生产技术、化工环境保护技术与设备、危险化学品存储及运输等 化工安全与环保 实验室分析仪器、工程仪器、流程机械、热处理装置、泵、压缩机、制药机械、阀门、工业和劳动安全、自动化控制技术、仪器仪表等 化工技术与装备 中国国际化工展览会（ICIF China）是亚洲化工行业顶级展会。展会规模约为90,000平方米，参展企业近2,000家，展品范围涵盖了基础化学品、精细与专用化学品、化学品包装与储运、石油化工及新能源、化工技术与装备和智慧化工创新产品等。展会将吸引超过90,000名的观众前来参观。自1992年以来，ICIF China已经成为政府机构以及企业决策者交流和贸易对接的首选平台。 ICIF China 2018(第十七届)中国国际化工展览会将于2018年9月19-21日在上海新国际博览中心举办，届时，展会将与第十三届中国国际橡胶技术展、第二十一届中国国际胶粘剂及密封剂展览会同期举办，期待您的加入！ 中国化工行业顶级贸易平台

精品2015年6月英语六级作文答案：知识与实践(新东方版)

2015年6月英语六级作文答案：知识与实践 （新东方版） 2015年6月英语六级作文答案：知识与实践（新东方版） 引语作文： Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.练习才有进步。 参考范文： There is a famous saying goes like that “Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.” This saying shows the relationship between knowledge and practice vividly. As far as we know, if we don’t have corresponding knowledge of some fields, we cannot do well in the fields. There are innumerable examples to illustrate this point. For instance, a singer can sing well only if he or she possesses musical knowledge; a dancer can dance well only if he or she knows how to dance; a worker can get the job well-done only if he or she is familiar with the basic principles of the job, and so on. But in turn, if we do not apply what we have known to practice, knowledge cannot play its role. For example, if we have learned different methods of cooking vegetables, but we do not cook, then the

六级英语作文开头结尾万能句子

六级英语作文开头结尾万 能句子 Prepared on 22 November 2020

六级英语作文开头结尾万能句子 英语作文若是想写好，学生不妨多积累一些优美的英语作文开头和结尾部分的美句，提高整体的写作水平。下面是整理的一些关于六级英语作文开头结尾万能句子的相关资料,供你参考。 1. Today, ____, which have brought a lot of harms in our daily life First, ____ Second,____ What makes things worse is that______ 2. Nowadays，it is common to ______ Many people like ______ because ______ Besides，______ 3. Everything has two sides and ______ is not an exception，it has both advantages and disadvantages 4. People’s opinions about ______ vary from person to person Some people say that ______To them,_____ 5. Man is now facing a big problem ______ which is becoming more and more serious 6. ______ has become a hot topic among people，especially among the young and heated debates are right on their way 7. ______ has been playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day lifeit has brought us a lot of benefits but has created some serious problems as well

英语_大学英语六级作文范文大全

AS 一)比较 1.The advantage far outweigh the disadvantages. 2.The advantages of A are much greater than those of B. 3.A may be preferable to B, but A suffers from the disadvantages that... 4.It is reasonable to maintain that ...but it would be foolish to claim that... 5.For all the disadvantages, it has its compensating advantages. 6.Like anything else, it has its faults. 7.A and B has several points in common. 8.A bears some resemblances to B. 9.However, the same is not applicable to B. 10. A and B differ in several ways. 11. Evidently, it has both negative and positive effects. 12. People used to think ..., but things are different now. 13. The same is true of B. 14. Wondering as A is ,it has its drawbacks. 15. It is true that A ... , but the chief faults (obvious defects )are ... 二)原因 1.A number of factors are accountable for this situation. A number of factors might contribute to (lead to )(account for ) the phenomenon(problem). 2. The answer to this problem involves many factors. 3. The phenomenon mainly stems from the fact that... 4. The factors that contribute to this situation include... 5. The change in https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1b10123678.html,rgely results from the fact that... 6. We may blame ...,but the real causes are... 7. Part of the explanations for it is that ... One of the most common factors (causes ) is that ... Another contributing factor (cause ) is ... Perhaps the primary factor is that… But the fundamental cause is that ...

新东方六级模拟题(1)作文听力原文及答案

听力原文及答案 Part I Writing With the development of the society, people now are more likely to assert their own rights. If their interests are harmed, they will get angry and violent. Is it wise to do this? No doubt, it is not. Admittedly, everyone has his right to defend his own interests. However, it is not wise to show your anger when someone does something wrong to you. There are numerous examples to illustrate this point. For instance, dormmates in college are supposed to share the responsibility of cleaning the dormitory. You shouldn’t get angry at your dormmate who occasionally doesn’t do his part in cleaning the dorm. Once or twice, you have to do the cleaning in his place. You may feel angry inside, but it’s wise not to pour your anger to him. It’s more sensible for you to talk it out with him and know reasons why he failed to do his duty. Maybe the reasons are understandable. Then you two can negotiate the best schedule to clean the dorm. All in all, it’s not wise to get mad at someone even if he seemingly harms you in some sense. It’s more desirable for you to know the reasons behind his behavior, and thus maintain a healthy friendship with him. Part II Listening Comprehension 听力原文 Section A 1. W: Some employers are protesting against being sacked by their employer. M: Yeah, the news is all over the Internet. But I think they deserve it for their inefficiency at work. Q: What does the man mean? 2. W: Sue will turn 19 this Friday. It seems that she hasn’t found herself in handling her life in college. M: You said it. She tends to act in an irresponsible way, playing online games nonstop, absent in class meetings, and failing to hand in homework on time. Q: What does the man say about Sue? 3. M: Hi, I’m Louis. I come to give back Susan’s school bag. I found it in the library. I take the liberty to find her address in her notebook in her bag. W: That’s very kind of you, Louis. Susan is out, and I’ll give it to her. Thanks again. Q: What do we learn about Susan from the conversation? 4. M: Too many ways of learning oral English are proposed by educators. I’m at a loss about which is the best method to perfect my spoken English. W: Forget those theoretical arguments. Just open your mouth and practice as much as possible. You will benefit from this. Q: What do we learn from the conversation? 5. M: How many more words should I write for the term paper. The word count says it’s almost 4,000 words.

六级英语作文万能

分析原因解决问题型 With the development of the society, with the advent of _____________ (相关事物或现象), we have to face a problem that ______________________ (主题问题). What are the reasons for it? In the following paragraphs, I’ll venture to explore the reasons. To start with, _____________________ (阐述原因1). Moreover, __________________ (阐述原因2). In addition, _______________________ (阐述原因3). In view of the seriousness of the problem, effective measures should be taken. For one thing, it is high time that people all over China realized the importance of __________________ (解决主题问题). For another, the government should issue strict laws and regulations in order to put the situation under control. 分析利弊题型 Nowadays many people prefer __________ (主题) because it plays a significant role in our daily life. Generally, its advantages can be seen as follows. On the one hand, ________________ (主题的优点1). On the other hand, ___________________ (主题的优点2). But everything can be divided into two. The negative aspects are also apparent. One of the important disadvantages is that ___________________ (主题的缺点1). To make matters worse, __________________________ (主题的缺点2). Through the above analysis, I believe that the positive aspects far outweigh its negative aspects. Whatever effects it has, one thing is certain, ________ (主题) itself is neither good nor bad. It is the uses to which it is put that determine its value to our society. 原因现象型 With the development of science and human civilization, many formerly unimaginable things come into reality. Some of them have positive effects on our life, but some are distasteful. The phenomenon of _______ (主题现象) is an example of the former / latter one. There are many factors that may account for it, and the following are the most conspicuous aspects. To start with, __________________ (原因1). Furthermore, ______________________ (原因2). Eventually,

[英语六级作文]英语六级写作高分范文：创新的重要性

英语六级写作的提升一定要多看一下六级写作范文。下面小编为大家整理了英语六级写作高分范文，供各位考生参考。 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled The Importance of Innovation by commenting on Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s famous remark ““Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.”You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. 范文：创新的重要性 The Importance of Innovation “Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation. ”I assume that you are familiar with Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s famous remark. It is obvious that a man who always stick to habit and experience can hardly create new things . Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s remark aims at informing us of the significance of innovation. Why does innovation play an indispensable role in our life ? innovation can promote the advancement of both individuals and society as a whole. only those who are innovative can make continuous progress and maintain a competitive edge. Quite a few examples can be given to prove the importance of A, and I can think of no better illustration than the following one: how could Steve Jobs, a genius who changed the way of modern communication, recreation and even our life, launch so many powerful electronic products constantly without creative spirit? We should always bear in mind that the consciousness of innovation is of great significance to us all. Hence, we need to develop a habit of discovering new things，using new methods and applying new thoughts in our work, study or simply everyday life. “Innovation is the spirit of human being’s progress.” A philosopher once said.? (202 words) 参考译文： “不用心思的习惯性行为是创新的敌人”我觉得你对Rosabeth Moss Kanter的这句名言很熟悉。很明显，一个总是遵循习惯和经验的人是很难创造出新事物的。 Rosabeth Moss Kanter 的这句名言目的在于告诉我们创新的重要性。为什么创新在我们的生活中扮演如此重要的角色呢? 创新可以促进个人和整个社会的进步。只有那些创新的人才能去的持续的进步并且保持竞争优势。相当多的例子可以用来证明创新的重要性，我想不出比一下这个例子更好的了：斯蒂夫.乔布斯，这个改变了我们的通讯方式、娱乐方式甚至是生活方式的天才，如果没有创新精神，他怎么可能持续地发布功能强大的电子产品呢? 我们应该牢记在心，创新对于我们每个人都非常重要。因此，在我们的工作、学习甚至是生活中，我们要养成发现新事物、使用新方法、运用新思维习惯。“创新是人类进步的灵魂”一位哲学家也曾这么说过。

【资格考试】2019最新整理-英语六级考试作文题目及范文(新东方版)

——参考范本—— 【资格考试】2019最新整理- 英语六级考试作文题目及范文（新东方版） ______年______月______日 ____________________部门

The digital age 1. 如今，数字化产品越来越多，如… 2. 使用数字化产品对于人们学习工作和生活的影响。 Living in the digital age, we are unavoidably exposed to all kinds of digital products, such as digital camera, digital computer, digital television, and so on, which seem to grow in an increasing categories and quantities. Believe it or not, look around yourself and you can, I bet, easily find one or two of these stuffs. Here is a question what kind of influence the digital products play on people’s life. Frankly speaking, these modern digital products offer us a more convenient life than that of before. For example, the digital camera makes it never an impossible thing to delete or correct the “unsuccessful” photo of ours, which was highly unlikely with the traditional camera. While, unfortunately, these fashionable digital things are unnoticeably pregnant with a generation more isolated from the real life. It is hard to imagine a man so accustomed to the digital mobile on-line chatting can also have a good ability in the practical communication with others. Finally, too much dependent on the

四六级英语作文常用句型

CET四六级英语作文常用句型 （一）段首句 对比选择类 1. 关于……人们有不同的观点。一些人认为…… There are different opinions among people as to ____ .Some people suggest that ___. 2．如今，…问题引起了广泛的讨论。有些人认为….但是其他人则对此有完全相反的观点。 There is general discussion nowadays on the problem of Some argue/ hold that…, but others set forth a totally different about the issue. 3. 如今在….问题引起了广泛的讨论。对于这个问题有两种观点，有些人认为，相反有些人认为….。 There is a heated debate over … There are mainly two kinds of opinions. It is commonly accepted that… in contrast , other . 4. 不同人在…有不同的观点。对于这个问题有两种观点，有些人认为，相反有些人认为….。 Different people will offer quite different ideas …。There are manly two kinds of opinions. Many people assert …. However , others believe…. 描述现象、背景、图表、事件 1.. 人类正面临着一个严重的问题……，这个问题变得越来越严重。 Man is now facing a big problem ______ which is becoming more and more serious. 2.. ……已成为人的关注的热门话题，特别是在年青人当中，将引发激烈的辩论。______ has become a hot topic among people，especially among the young and heated debates are right on their way. 3. 近来，….问题引起公众极大的关注。 Recently , the problem of … has be come focus of the picture concern. 4. ……在我们的日常生活中起着越来越重要的作用，它给我们带来了许多好处，但同时也引发一些严重的问题。 ______ has been playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day life. It has 的brought us a lot of benefits but has created some serious problems as well. 5. 近年，…在社会上流行（越来越遭） These years have witnessed a popularity of / worsening of … in our society. 6．. 根据图表/数字/统计数字/表格中的百分比/图表/条形图/成形图可以看出……。很显然……，但是为什么呢？ According to the figure/number/statistics/percentages in the /chart/bar graph/line/graph，it can be seen that______while. Obviously, ______, but why?

创新 Innovation

Topic of PresentationTitle of Presentation 八个关于在中国创新的迷思 8 innovation myths in China 马祺 尼尔森大中华区总裁 Mitch Barns The Nielsen Company

八个关于在中国创新的迷思 8 innovation myths in China 1) 中国≠创新1) China ≠Innovation 2) 在中国创新= 成功的保证2) Innovation in China = success guaranteed 3) 中国≠其他国家3) China ≠Other countries 4) 创新者> 追随者4) Innovator > Follower 5) 跨国企业= 创新者 5) Multinational company = Innovator 6) 本土企业= 追随者6) Local company = Follower 7) 本土品牌= 低端品牌7) Local brand = Mass 8) R&D研发花费= 成功8) R&D Spending = Success

迷思一：中国缺乏创新 Myth #1: China is not an innovator 2) 在中国创新= 成功的保证2) Innovation in China = success guaranteed 3) 中国≠其他国家3) China ≠Other countries 4) 创新者> 追随者4) Innovator > Follower 5) 跨国企业= 创新者5) Multinational company = Innovator 6) 本土企业= 追随 者 6) Local company = Follower 7) 本土品牌= 低端品牌7) Local brand = Mass 8) R&D研发花费= 成功8) R&D Spending = Success 1) 中国≠创新1) China ≠Innovation