Unravelling Firm Innovativeness: Insights From An Empirical Investigation

Although innovation is a major field of research, contributions on the concept of firm innovativeness are still limited. Specifically, there is no accordance on cultural and behavioural factors stimulating the propensity to innovate and enabling the development successful new products. Our paper suggests that higher firm innovativeness is achieved through making appropriate decisions across multiple innovation variables, which should be mutually reinforcing in producing success. According to our framework, including new product development decisions, which capture the effects of product characteristics, organizational structure, strategic approach to new product development and environmental turbulence, is essential for an overall assessment of firm innovativeness. Structural equation modeling has been used for testing our hypotheses with a sample of Italian small-medium size firms. The results of this analysis and the validation of the framework enable us to discuss managerial implications and avenues for future research.