Bridging the gaps or fecklessness? A moderated mediating examination of intermediaries’ effects on corporate innovation

Han Lin, Saixing Zeng, Haijian Liu and Chao Li

Technovation, 2020, vol. 94-95

Abstract: Intermediaries are frequently used as external institutions to bridge knowledge gaps and enlarge innovation search. Although there is a consensus that ties with intermediaries have a significantly positive impact on firms’ innovation performance since external knowledge sources are important to firms’ innovative activities, far less is known about how these intermediaries become effective drivers of corporate innovation. From the capacity-based view, this study proposes that intermediaries facilitate the development of dynamic capability which further causes remarkable innovation. A firm's dynamic capability acts as a mediator in the relationship between intermediaries and innovation performance. It is also observed that organizational structure formalization and strategic conformity negatively moderate the mediation effect. This proposed theoretical framework is proven by empirical results from a moderated mediation analysis using a sample of Chinese manufacturing firms.

Keywords: Innovation; Intermediary; Dynamic capability; Strategic conformity; Structure formalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497218301226
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:techno:v:94-95:y:2020:i::s0166497218301226

DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2018.02.006

Access Statistics for this article

Technovation is currently edited by Jonathan Linton

More articles in Technovation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().