Stimulating Firm Innovativeness: Probing the Interrelations between Managerial and Organizational Determinants Defended on Monday, 4 June 2012

Innovation is the engine of sustained organizational performance and is central to organizations’ competitive advantage. This thesis aims to further the understanding of how firms can stimulate two types of innovation outcomes: i) product and service innovation, and ii) management innovation. To this end, this thesis analyzes how managerial and organizational factors and their interrelations inhibit or enable these two types of innovation. Reserach findings indicate that offshoring is an important mechanism that can stimulate the introduction of new products and services; however, over-offshoring poses the risk of reducing firms’ innovativeness. Furthermore, this research sugests that when members of the top management team (TMT) share the task of leadership firms can achieve higher levels of both exploratory and exploitative innovation. Also, findings indicate that TMT learning processes (i.e., processes that systematically challenge the status-quo) can stimulate firms’ management innovation.