Incremental and radical product innovation capabilities in a quality management context: Exploring the moderating effects of control mechanisms

Ana B. Escrig-Tena, Mercedes Segarra-Ciprés and Beatriz García-Juan

International Journal of Production Economics, 2021, vol. 232, issue C

Abstract: This paper addresses calls for understanding of the contextual conditions under which Quality Management (QM) may be effective in supporting radical and incremental innovation in a technologically dynamic sector. Particularly, formal and informal control mechanisms can play a role in such a knowledge intensive sector, where the degree of formalisation may be a constraint to explorative behaviours. This study focuses on the moderating role of support for creativity and formalisation of the innovation process as two types of control mechanisms entailing different levels of formalisation. The sample consists of 111 organisations from the information technology service sector featuring technological dynamism. The results evidence that QM is associated with incremental innovation capability, but not with radical innovation. A positive moderating role of formalisation of the innovation process was found in incremental innovation. The results indicate that these two types of innovation require different kinds of resources and enabling actions, which advises the adoption of a contingent perspective when analysing the QM–innovation link in future research. The existence and use of specified procedures are not a drawback in the innovation process within a firm. Thus, organisations should be aware that the effectiveness of QM to increase incremental innovation capability is likely to be enhanced by a formalisation of the innovation process. In contrast, for breakthrough innovation, QM was not evidenced to be a successful mechanism. The findings suggest that support for creativity is the mechanism that managers can best use to promote radical innovation.

Keywords: Quality management; Radical innovation capability; Incremental innovation capability; Moderation; Control mechanisms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527320303431
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:proeco:v:232:y:2021:i:c:s0925527320303431

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.107994

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Economics is currently edited by Stefan Minner

More articles in International Journal of Production Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().