نوآوری غیر فنی: حافظه و قابلیت یادگیری سازمانی به عنوان عوامل مقدم همراه با اثرات آن بر مزیت رقابتی پایدار

The aim of the present study is to analyze the role of organizational memory and learning capabilities as antecedents to non-technical innovation, comprising organizational and marketing innovation, and to examine their effect on sustained competitive advantage within a capabilities-based view (CBV) theoretical framework. For analysis of the proposed theoretical model, 159 industrial companies in Spain were sampled and a system of structural equations was modeled using partial least squares methodology. The results confirm that both organizational memory and learning capabilities favor the development of organizational innovation and marketing innovation. Furthermore, the paper shows that both types of non-technical innovation promote the achievement of sustained competitive advantage.

Historically, research on innovation types has followed a technical focus (Damanpour & Aravind, in press 4). Consideration of non-technical innovation, which includes organizational (or management) and marketing innovation, is an emerging approach, as this was not recognized until the third edition of the Oslo Manual (OECD, 2005). Non-technical innovation is playing an increasingly important role in a better understanding of innovation and its impact on the competitiveness of firms (Armbruster et al., 2006: 5). However, the literature on non-technical innovation is diverse and scattered (Armbruster, Bikfalvi, Kinkel, & Lay, 2008: 645) and recent studies have encouraged research on the development of models and theories of non-technical innovation in organizations to extend and expand existing models and theories, which are mainly drawn from research on technical innovation (Damanpour & Aravind, in press: 5). The objective of this study is to analyze both the antecedent role of two knowledge-based capabilities (organizational memory and organizational learning) in the development of non-technical innovation and its effect on achieving sustained competitive advantage (SCA) using a theoretical capabilities-based view (CBV) as a theoretical framework. Thus, this study extends previous knowledge on three fronts. First, both theoretical and empirical research on organizational capabilities that lead to non-technical innovation is limited. The literature has focused on studying the effects of organizational capabilities such as learning (Chen, Lin and Chang, 2009, Mavondo et al., 2005, Nasution and Mavondo, 2008, Weerawardena, 2003 and Weerawardena et al., 2006) and knowledge absorption (Chen, Lin, & Chang, 2009) on technical innovation or has considered different types of technical and non-technical innovation within the same latent variable (Weerawardena, 2003, Weerawardena and Sullivan-Mort, 2001 and Weerawardena et al., 2006). Although this research is valuable, extension of this line of reasoning requires an examination of the effects that different organizational capabilities have on individual types of non-technical innovation. In our case, we analyze the effects of organizational memory and learning capabilities on organizational and marketing innovation. In the CBV literature, these two knowledge-based capabilities have been considered central to the generation of innovation, but their theoretical and empirical links with non-technical innovation need to be studied in greater detail (Armbruster et al., 2008, Fiedler and Welpe, 2010 and Mol and Birkinshaw, 2009). The second contribution is to provide further empirical evidence of the relationship between non-technical innovation and SCA; such evidence has been limited to date. On one hand, debate regarding the impact of organizational and marketing innovation on SCA is ongoing given the ambiguous empirical evidence (e.g., Mol & Birkinshaw, 2009 vs. Walker, Damanpour, & Devece, 2010). On the other hand, the relationship between marketing innovation and SCA has not been studied in detail. Although the effects of many individual innovations in marketing (e.g., customer management relationship) on SCA have been examined, there has been little consideration of the global effect of marketing innovation on SCA. The third contribution of this study is to simultaneously consider antecedents and consequences of non-technical innovation. Previous studies focused on only one of these aspects. Although this is logical in preliminary analyses, it needs to be extended to a more complete model that captures the complexity of the relationship between variables involved in the non-technical innovation process. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 contains a literature review and presents theoretical foundations for the hypotheses proposed. The data and statistical methods used to test the hypotheses are described in Section 3. The results of the structural equation modeling are presented and discussed in 4 and 5, respectively. The final section summarizes and concludes the article

Building on CBV, this study demonstrates that organizational memory and learning capabilities are important antecedent factors in organizational and marketing innovation, both of which positively affect achievement of SCA. Additional efforts in strategic and marketing research are required to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of non-technical innovation, which can offer SCA, as technical innovation does. Such efforts are especially required for marketing innovation. Recent advances in the study of organizational innovation with regard to its conceptualization (Armbruster et al., 2008, Birkinshaw and Mol, 2006 and Hamel, 2006) and driving factors (Camisón and Villar-López, 2010 and Mol and Birkinshaw, 2009) need to be achieved for marketing innovation at the same level. There are many lines of research that could extend knowledge gained in this study about the relationship among knowledge-based capabilities, non-technical capabilities and SCA. First, it would be interesting to investigate if there are differences in model results depending on the type of industry in which a firm operates. For example, a multi-group analysis would help to reveal if non-technical innovation is more prevalent in service firms than in manufacturing firms. Second, future research should examine the moderating role of organizational age in the proposed conceptual model. Are younger firms more innovative in spite of being less developed than older firms in terms of organizational memory and learning capability? Third, it would be especially relevant to compare the potential of organizational memory and learning capability as drivers of both technical and non-technical innovation and to identify which leads to greater SCA. Finally, future studies should focus on the role of other important organizational capabilities that drive non-technical innovation, such as absorptive capacity and knowledge management capability.