How do polychronicity and interfunctional coordination affect the relationship between exploratory innovation and the quality of new product development?

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of exploratory innovation on the quality of new product development (NPD), and how do polychronicity of the top management team (TMT) and interfunctional coordination (IFC) moderate the above relationship. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses were tested by the survey data of 210 Chinese enterprises. Hierarchical regression analyzes were used to test the hypotheses in this research. Findings The results indicate that exploratory innovation facilitates NPD quality. TMT polychronicity weakens the effect of exploratory innovation on NPD quality. IFC strengthens the effect of exploratory innovation on NPD quality. Practical implications This study provides managers with insight on the relationship between exploratory innovation and NPD quality. To improve NPD quality, managers should be paying more attention to exploratory innovation. Furthermore, this study helps managers to understand how the relationship changes with the increases of TMT polychronicity and IFC. Originality/value This study highlights the value of exploratory innovation in increasing NPD quality based on the knowledge-based view. By incorporating TMT polychronicity and IFC based on the attention-based view, it offers much richer understandings of how exploratory innovation affects NPD quality.

The Impact of Digital Orientation on New Product Development Performance: Does Knowledge Intensity Matter?

“…This is especially important in a dynamic market environment where customers are constantly seeking new products. Therefore, consistent with prior research, we concur that exploration capability is positively related to NPD performance [63,64]. Meanwhile, based on our arguments for Hypotheses 1 and 3, both NPD performance and exploration capability are influenced by digital orientation.…”

How and when does founder polychronicity affect new venture performance? The roles of entrepreneurial orientation and firm age

“…Following tenets of UET, the founder often has characteristics that lead to important implications for strategic decision-making and firm performance (Hambrick & Mason, 1984;Jayaraman et al, 2000). As primary developers and directors of early firm orientation and strategy, founders can utilize their preference for undertaking multiple tasks or projects and their ability to switch between multiple, simultaneously occurring tasks as foundation for entrepreneurial behaviors (Chen, 2022) and allocating their attention across multiple tasks (Yi et al, 2021). In this way, the polychronicity of new venture founders enhances EO by allowing for several proactive searches for new, risky innovations to occur at once.…”

“…Additionally, mature organizations can leverage their experiences and expertise by honing their capabilities with a stronger sense of what affects performance. Younger firms can struggle with strategic development (Herhausen et al, 2021) because they do not always have the skills or knowledge needed for EO (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2003) and their exploitative learning may overshadow EO benefits (Hughes et al, , 2018 as they struggle to integrate knowledge from one project to the next (Yi et al, 2021). Finally, established organizations can retain knowledge over long time spans, increasing organizational effectiveness (Leonard & Sensiper, 1998).…”

Digital Transformation and Corporate Sustainability: The Moderating Effect of Ambidextrous Innovation

“…A high level of exploratory innovation illustrates the expansion of a firm's knowledge base, which means that firms have sufficient potential to apply new technologies and develop new routes, have greater opportunities to enter emerging markets, and seize new opportunities [55], while offering great possibilities for the application of digital technologies in firms. Developing new markets, products, and services through exploratory innovation has been a major step for enterprises to break out of the existing technological orbit and gain a competitive advantage and sustainability [56], which serves to provide a strong guarantee for successful and effective DT by applying new digital technologies. A higher level of exploratory innovation indicates that enterprises have the ability to learn and integrate information to enter a new field [57], which can improve the ability of enterprises to learn and apply new digital technologies to accomplish TDT and enhance the ability of enterprises to adjust in order to refine their business models in response to market changes, promote MDT, and ultimately achieve enterprise development goals.…”