The study investigates how SMEs generate new product creativity through different means of innovation strategies and their antecedents. It examines the fundamental role of the CEO in directing a firm’s information seeking orientation, a firm’s absorptive capacities in facilitating the process of absorbing information and lastly the combination of exploitation and exploration innovations to achieve ambidexterity. To this end, to address the bottom line importance of the ambidextrous strategy, new product creativity is hypothesised to be positively related and acts as a vital bridge linking ambidexterity and financial performance. Existing literature shows limited empirical support for a firm’s ability to pursue both exploitative and explorative innovations for performance outcomes. In particular, very little is known of the ambidexterity consequence in new product creativity. Literature also lacks empirical evidence on leadership-based antecedents and understanding of how ambidexterity works in the context of SMEs. To examine the relationships, the study uses mixed methods of content analysis, econometrics and financial ratios to generate longitudinal and objective data for 148 SMEs. Seemingly Unrelated Regression is then employed to analyse and test the hypotheses. Findings show the importance of generating a high number of creative ideas by demonstrating a positive empirical link with future financial performance. It also found that given the resource impediments of SMEs, the most appropriate approach to successful new product creativity is to manage exploitation and exploration innovations sequentially. In addition, contrary to the popular view of external information driving firms’ innovation strategy, deep understanding of the firm internally may be most important. Lastly, the result proves that despite being generic in nature and having an insignificant effect in driving either exploration or exploitation separately, future focus becomes an important factor when it comes to the firm’s ability to balance innovation ambidextrously.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:646340 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Nguyen, Trung |
| Publisher | Cardiff University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://orca.cf.ac.uk/72668/ |
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