ORGANISATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND THE MODERATING EFFECT OF OPEN INNOVATION STRATEGIES

Abstract

This paper distinguishes three types of organisational innovation — those in a firm’s knowledge management, workplace, and external relations — and studies their impact on firms’ technological innovation performance. Special attention is paid to the openness and external orientation of a firm’s R&D activities as factor moderating the relationship between organisational and technological innovation. Drawing on the fourth wave of the German part of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS IV), this study shows that organisational innovation acts as an important facilitator of new process (but not product) development. Organisational innovations furthermore prove to be complements (but in some cases also substitutes) to external knowledge sourcing and open innovation strategies.