مسیرهای استراتژیک برای قابلیت های نوآوری در محصول شرکت های کوچک و متوسط

The study articulates a two-dimensional typology of dynamic capabilities, grouping them by the life-cycle stage and the timing of expected returns. Using a cross-industry sample of manufacturing SMEs, we validate and map four distinct innovation strategies onto specific sets of product innovation capabilities. Results show that human capital development efforts catalyze both the external absorption and the internal emergence of novel capabilities. Stronger emphasis on product features and broader market access stimulate the effective replication of extant capabilities, yielding immediate payoffs. Process-focused strategies are a double-edged sword: they facilitate the acquisition and incorporation of external insights yet bound internal capability development.

Innovation captures the gist of entrepreneurial activity (Kirzner, 1979 and Schumpeter, 1934). Typically considered “the lifeblood” of small start-ups (Acs and Audretsch, 1990), innovation abilities constantly fuel and renew competitive advantage as firms grow and mature (Miller, 1983 and Zahra and Covin, 1993). Sustained innovativeness depends on each firm's set of dynamic capabilities, which helps it “integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address rapidly changing environments” (Teece et al., 1997: 516) by activating, copying, transferring, synthesizing, reconfiguring, and redeploying different skills and resources (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Dynamic capabilities are “routines through which managers alter their resource base—acquire and shed resources, integrate them together, and recombine them” (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000: 1107). They incorporate sets of specific, identifiable processes, or commonly accepted ‘best practices’ which can be observed, compared, and sometimes successfully transferred among firms. Idiosyncrasies in dynamic capabilities trigger and sustain interfirm performance differences (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000 and Henderson and Cockburn, 1994). Variance in dynamic capabilities stems in part from firms' accumulated experience, as prior choices support the development of distinct sets of resources and skills and/or may result in differential effectiveness at generating new value from extant endowments (Schulz, 2003). Recent theoretical developments within the dynamic capability perspective suggest that organizational capabilities evolve over time, and several organizational and environmental levers contribute to their founding, development, maturation, and alteration (Helfat and Peteraf, 2003). Managerial decisions are acknowledged as some of the most critical antecedents of capability transformation (Adner and Helfat, 2003): “unless the external selection environment is so constraining that it limits managers to only one possible option, different managers in different firms may make different choices” (Helfat and Peteraf, 2003: 1004). Suitable strategic choices help firms overcome the constraints of their existing resource endowments by guiding the development of extant skills and by facilitating the emergence of new capabilities. These strategic maneuvers can modify firms' current capability-development trajectories by influencing the range and depth of external cues noticed, the framing of these stimuli as threats or opportunities for action, firms' speed of reaction, and/or the specific actions taken in response. To our knowledge, this study represents one of the first attempts to examine how several innovation strategies fuel the development of specific product innovation capabilities in SMEs. Innovation strategies, defined as plans that guide firms' decisions regarding the development and use of technological capabilities (Zahra, 1996: 289), can shape a firm's technological effectiveness and competitive posture (Park et al., 2002) by specifying the content, sources of desired competencies, and their intended effects (Bierly and Chakrabarti, 1996 and Mitchell, 1990). We concentrate on the effects of innovation strategies on the set of dynamic capabilities directly related to firms' product innovation activities2 (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990 and Zahra and George, 2002)—i.e., collections of ‘best practices’ through which firms gradually access, assimilate, and utilize product-related knowledge generated by outside sources (Deeds et al., 1999: 214) and/or renew and reconfigure their scientific and technological skills (Kogut and Zander, 1992 and Peteraf, 1993). This study offers a theoretical framework for classifying firm-level product innovation capabilities and empirically maps the strategic routes that contribute to the development of specific types of capabilities for SMEs. The up-stream connection between strategies and capabilities remains largely understudied. However, recent theoretical studies conceptualize managerial decisions and discretionary strategic choices as essential stepping stones in the capability-building process (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000, Helfat and Peteraf, 2003 and Zahra and George, 2002). Empirical investigations have also uncovered a range of distinct and durable strategic profiles (Bierly and Chakrabarti, 1996, Ostgaard and Birley, 1994 and Zahra, 1996) and investigated the requisite collections of ex ante skills which enable or hamper their effective implementation (Chandler and Hanks, 1994 and Greene and Brown, 1997). The down-stream association between strategies and performance has attracted sustained research interest and yielded a consistent set of findings. Conditional on environmental and organizational characteristics (Covin et al., 1990, Covin and Slevin, 1990, Kelley and Rice, 2002, Kunkel and Hofer, 1993, McDougall et al., 1992 and Sandberg and Hofer, 1987), greater focus on specific strategic choices (Sandberg, 1986) as well as greater stability of these choices over time (Freeser and Willard, 1990) improve firms' survival chances (McCann, 1991 and Duchesneau and Gartner, 1990), stimulate new venture growth, and fuel superior market and financial performance (Keeley and Roure, 1990, Naffziger et al., 1994, Ng et al., 1992, Zahra et al., 1995, Schroeder et al., 2002 and Vickery et al., 1993). Several studies have also suggested that the observed association between strategies and performance depends on the “overall abundance of resource-based capabilities” (Chandler and Hanks, 1994: 331) and/or the fit between firms' strategies and their existing capabilities (Fingenbaum and Karnani, 1991). The question of whether or how firms select and maneuver bundles of strategic interventions to enhance their extant capabilities has remained unaddressed. This study examines which specific types of innovation strategies help trigger, augment, or modify SMEs' dynamic capabilities. We argue that, as a set, innovation strategies expose and fill significant gaps in firms' extant skills and resources. Innovation strategies may help firms acquire relevant information from external sources, absorb it into their existing operational routines, transform it into novel product ideas, and deploy it into marketable products (Zahra and George, 2002 and George et al., 2002). Our arguments and findings help highlight the direct and indirect effects of innovation strategies on dynamic capabilities, delineating alternate strategic pathways to successful product innovation in SMEs.

This study examines how SMEs' strategic choices impact their ability to conceptualize, develop, introduce, and commercialize new products. It introduces a parsimonious classification of SMEs' dynamic capabilities and empirically tests how different innovation strategies guide SMEs through the nested sequence of dynamic capabilities which underpin their product innovation efforts. The findings bring a twofold contribution to the literature. First, we articulate and test an integrative framework that helps delineate and assess specific types of product innovation capabilities. Second, we link specific innovation strategies with alternate routes for building acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and deployment capabilities. Taken together, the study identifies which innovation strategies are most beneficial for SMEs at different stages of capability building (Helfat and Peteraf, 2003) and suggests that alternate strategic pathways foster exploration vs. exploitation cycles (March, 1991).