UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series

Crafting Firm Competencies to Improve Innovative Performance

Boris Lokshin, Anita van Gils & Eva Bauer #2008-009

Recent interdisciplinary research suggests that customer and technological competencies have a direct, unconditional effect on firms' innovative performance. This study extends this stream of literature by considering the effect of organizational competencies. Results from a survey-research executed in the fast moving consumer goods industry suggest that firms that craft organizational competencies - such as improving team cohesiveness and providing slack time to foster creativity - do not directly improve their innovative performance. However, those firms that successfully combine customer, technological and organizational competencies will create more innovations that are new to the market.

Keywords: Firm competencies; radical and incremental product innovation, team cohesiveness

UNU-MERIT Working Papers ISSN 1871-9872

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