Goal Multiplicity and Innovation: How Social and Economic Goals Affect Open Innovation and Innovation Performance

Abstract

Integrating insights from the strategic goal literature and the knowledge-based view of the firm, this article proposes that the pursuit of social and economic strategic goals by commercial firms affects their innovation performance through different knowledge sourcing activities. The strategic goals, knowledge sourcing practices, and innovation performance of 1257 Belgian firms are investigated. Results show that both social and economic strategic goals are associated with the use of external information sources, but only the pursuit of social goals inspires firms to engage in external collaboration. No evidence is found of an inherent conflict between social and economic strategic goals. Instead, the two types of goals are independent of each other, that is, an emphasis on social goals does not preclude an emphasis on economic goals and vice versa. Moreover, firms' external knowledge sourcing and innovation performance benefit most when strongly held social goals align with strongly held economic goals. These findings offer new insight into the nature and the effects of goal multiplicity among commercial firms. They open up a new perspective on the potential positive effects of the joint pursuit of social and economic strategic goals instead of seeing them as inherently conflicting, as past research has typically done. We illustrate how social strategic goals can deliver unique benefits to a firm, independently of and in addition to economic strategic goals. Our findings also contribute to the open innovation literature by revealing strategic goals as a driver of firms' knowledge sourcing practices. Our findings suggest that solely emphasizing economic goals may be one reason why firms struggle to implement open innovation practices and do not reap their full benefits. The practical implications of our research are discussed.

Implementation of sustainability management tools: The contribution of awareness, external pressures, and stakeholder consultation

“…Indeed, stakeholders, including alliances and support networks—which are organizations or individuals that offer assistance, advice, or any other type of support on issues such as trade associations, governmental agencies, and employees—can help the organization implement its sustainable development policy (Collins et al, 2007). Stephan, Andries, and Daou (2019) demonstrate that SMEs work cooperatively in groups to identify more innovative solutions to address resource‐gaps and adopt environmental management systems. For example, SME clusters can facilitate access to information and reduce transaction costs (Biondi, Frey, & Iraldo, 2000), while social capital and network learning can represent an avenue for SME development (Jämsä, Tähtinen, Ryan, & Pallari, 2011).…”

Social Innovation in an Interconnected World: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Stephan, Andries, and Daou () represent the instrumental view of social innovation, examining a panel of Belgian firms and how their pursuit of economic and social strategic goals shape knowledge seeking and innovation performance. In their article “Goal Multiplicity and Innovation: How Social and Economic Goals Affect Open Innovation and Innovation Performance,” these authors suggest based on their findings that trade‐offs (often perceived by managers) between social and economic goals do not exist in terms of innovation performance.…”

“…Exemplary research questions might be: ‐How do we measure the performance of social innovation? Stephan et al (), for example, assess the impact of social strategic goals on overall firm innovation performance. What would be a measure of social contribution from the social goals pursued in a firm’s innovation output?…”

Purchasing skills leading to success: how to succeed in innovation sourcing

“…Polynomial regression analyses are used in many fields, such as innovation management (e.g. Chen, Reilly, & Lynn, 2012; K. Lee et al, 2017;Stephan, Andries, & Daou, 2019); psychology (e.g. Caniëls & Veld, 2016;De Stobbeleir et al, 2018); personnel psychology research (e.g.…”