Does innovative effort matter for corporate performance in Spanish companies in a context of financial crisis? A fuzzy-set QCA approach

Carmen González-Velasco (), Marcos González-Fernández and José-Luis Fanjul-Suárez ()
Additional contact information
Carmen González-Velasco: University of León
José-Luis Fanjul-Suárez: University of León

Empirical Economics, 2019, vol. 56, issue 5, No 11, 1707-1727

Abstract: Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine whether innovative effort is a key driver of the financial performance of a set of 3860 Spanish companies in a context of financial crisis. For this purpose, we use contrarian case analysis and configural analysis using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to test the main tenets of complexity theory: (1) innovative effort, as a single antecedent condition, is not a sufficient or necessary factor of a high score in corporate performance; (2) a few possible configurations lead to high corporate performance (equifinality principle); (3) contrarian cases occur; and (4) causal configurations for high scores for corporate performance are not the mirror opposites of causal configurations for low scores for corporate performance (causal asymmetry principle). The findings suggest that innovative effort, as a single antecedent condition, is not a sufficient or necessary factor for a high score in corporate performance.

Keywords: Innovation; Corporate performance; fsQCA; Contrarian case analysis; Configural analysis; Complexity theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G39 L25 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-017-1407-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:empeco:v:56:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1007_s00181-017-1407-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... rics/journal/181/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00181-017-1407-2

Access Statistics for this article

Empirical Economics is currently edited by Robert M. Kunst, Arthur H.O. van Soest, Bertrand Candelon, Subal C. Kumbhakar and Joakim Westerlund

More articles in Empirical Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().