Innovation novelty and performance of humanitarian organisations: boundary roles of innovation intensity and external communication
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Date
2019-05
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KNUST
Abstract
ABSTRACT
In an increasingly precarious and uncertain operating environment, organisations boost their operational performance on the basis of their ability to innovate to introduce new strategies, processes and products in the marketplace. However, the organisational innovation literature suggests that the performance outcomes of a strategy based on increasing the proportion of novel innovations may not be straightforward, and may be dependent upon organisation-specific and external environment factors. Evidence from the empirical literature also suggests inconsistencies in empirical findings regarding the performance outcomes of novelty of organisational innovations. Thus, the extant literature points to the possibility that organisational innovation novelty may offer only conditional benefit for performance. To resolve these knowledge gaps, this study integrates the literature on organisational innovation, resource-based view and diffusion of innovation theory to examine the extent to which the operational performance benefit of organisational innovation novelty is limited to an optimal point and is conditioned by increases in the resource requirements for novelty, intensity of innovation and extensiveness of external communication efforts. Using primary data from not-for-profit humanitarian organisations in Ghana and analysing the data with LISTREL 8.5 using SEM , organisational innovation novelty is found to have a J-shaped relationship with operational performance. The relationship is enhanced when levels of intensity of innovation are high. In addition, findings reveal that the operational performance outcome of organisational innovation novelty is enhanced when levels of external communication are low to moderate. A key theoretical implication is that increases in novelty levels of an organisation’s innovations do not always produce a superior operational performance outcome, rather the operational performance benefits that humanitarian organisations generate from novel innovations may be limited by funding requirements of seeking novelty, and conditioned by the extent to which firms invest in external communications. A major managerial implication is that innovation novelty levels need to be managed with the goal of maintaining an optimal point of novelty that enhances humanitarian organisation’s operational performance. The findings also provide important lessons for public policy-makers: in developing economies such as Ghana, low to moderate levels of external communication efforts are ideal for innovation success in not-for-profit sector. While low to moderate external communication between business leaders and public officeholders may produce some benefits for innovation success, too much engagement between business leaders and public officeholders can depress the effectiveness of an organisation’s novel innovation outputs.
Description
A Doctoral Thesis Submitted to the Department Of Supply Chain and Information Systems, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, School of Business, in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Logistics and Supply Chain Management