Combining Technological and Management Innovations: Empirical Evidence of a Premium Effect

Abstract

This paper determines the performance consequences of the joint adoption of organizational and technological innovations. Using CIS data to analyse 2,837 technological innovators, it is empirically demonstrated that a firm’s co-adoption strategy leads to a premium technological performance thanks to the extra synergistic effects, or the generation of complementarities. Firms co-adopting outperform those adopting solely technological innovations. Therefore, the combination of technical and non-technical competencies, and the integration of a socio-technical system, creates exceptional innovation capabilities. The strategic adoption of solely technological innovation is not enough: in order to leverage the performance of technological innovation it should be integrated into the organization.