Driving new product development performance: Intellectual capital antecedents and the moderating role of innovation culture

Abstract

As the expenses associated with new product development (NPD) continue to rise, intellectual capital (IC) plays a critical yet understudied role in influencing NPD performance (NPDP). To address this, we present a comprehensive theoretical framework to empirically analyze how IC provides pharmaceutical companies with essential capabilities to enhance NPDP through the perspective of organizational learning (OL). This study employs a multi-source, time-lagged, and survey-based approach to gather relevant data from pharmaceutical companies. The findings reveal positive relationships between IC components—human, structural, and relational capital— and OL. Moreover, OL emerges as a pivotal predictor of the link between IC components and NPDP. Notably, we uncover that the association between OL and NPDP is moderated by the presence of an innovation culture within organizations. This research significantly contributes to the existing literature by providing new empirical insights into the strategic role of IC in promoting the creation and dissemination of new knowledge within organizations. These insights have substantial implications for practitioners and academics by bolstering firms' capacity for NPDP in knowledge-based sectors.