The impact of organizational innovativeness on firm performance in Poland : the moderating role of innovation culture

Abstract

PURPOSE: The study aims to examine the relationship between organizational innovativeness and firm performance, considering the culture of innovation as a potential moderator of this relationship. The present work provides important managerial insights into drivers of firm performance.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A survey was conducted across 121 random manufacturing businesses in Poland. A regression analysis series was used to assess the relationships between organizational innovation, an innovation culture, and a firm’s performance.

FINDINGS: Organizational innovativeness and innovation culture both have a substantial and positive impact on firm performance. The innovation culture played a moderating role in the relationship between innovativeness and firm performance in both high- and low-innovation cultures and across all dimensions of innovation. The moderation itself was the strongest in strategic innovativeness, whereas the market innovativeness model produced the most significant variance attributable to the moderator.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The study speaks to the need to consider organizational innovativeness and drivers of the innovation culture when striving for good firm performance – a notion important for management practice.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The literature provides ample evidence to substantiate the thesis that innovation positively impacts a firm’s performance, though findings vary substantially across studies. Furthermore, a paucity of studies would model and empirically verify the relationship between organizational innovativeness and firm performance among industrial businesses operating in Central-Eastern Europe. There is also little research demonstrating the role of the innovation culture in moderating this relationship. This research makes an essential contribution to the existing literature by empirically examining the relationship between organizational innovativeness, innovation culture, and firm performance.