Impact of Political and Cultural Configuration on Enterprises’ Innovation: A Study Based on fsQCA Approach

Abstract

This study starts from the perspective of organizational culture and combines the characteristics of the policy environment based on the background of China’s institutional transition. First, it integrates the external policy factors for enterprises with the internal innovation culture factors to build an integrated analysis framework to understand the differences in enterprise innovation performance. Second, 42 enterprises in Chongqing City and Jiangsu Province are analyzed by using configuration thinking and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, while the multiple concurrent factors and causal complex mechanisms affecting enterprise innovation are discussed. The results are as follows: （1） Single policy environment factor or organizational innovation culture factor cannot effectively stimulate enterprise innovation, so it is necessary to jointly influence innovation performance in interactive matching. （2） The innovation model with the interaction between the policy environment and the organizational innovation culture is the best choice for enterprises to achieve innovation incentives, and there are two types of innovation models that produce high innovation performance, namely the value-oriented model and the internal and external collaborative model. Among them, the internal and external collaborative model plays a more important role in the improvement of enterprise innovation performance than the other. （3） There is one type of model that produces non-high innovative performance, and it is not in opposition to the two types of innovation models that produce highly innovative performance. In other words, the non-high innovative performance model cannot be used to derive the reasons for high innovation performance in a reverse way. This study contributes to the extant literature in three aspects: First of all, the conclusion expands the innovation perspective of the policy environment and organizational culture matching, opens the “black box” of the process of policy incentive transmission to the organization, helps to solve the dilemma of failure of innovation policy incentive from the micro-level, and also enriches the discovery of organizational culture theory at the environmental level. Secondly, from the perspective of configuration, various modes to improve innovation performance are found, as well as the interdependence among various antecedent conditions. Finally, the asymmetry between configuration and condition enhances the explanatory power of innovation phenomenon, and makes up for the defect of the extant literature that cannot be applied to the explanation of innovation failure. Generally speaking, while revealing the linkage and matching relationships between policy conditions and organizational innovation culture on the circumstance of China’s economical transitions, it not only helps researchers to fully understand the interdependence and causal complexity of enterprise innovation, but also provides ideas and solutions for managers to effectively use internal and external resources to stimulate innovation.