Management Innovation and Technological Innovation: Friends or Foes?

Abstract

Understanding of management innovation has been advanced in the last decade, but it is still a relatively under-researched topic, at least in comparison with that of technological innovation. This article introduces this volume on Management Innovation; it reviews critically, the multiple conceptual approaches to the topic, looks at the different research streams related to it, and considers the performance consequences or its occurrence. In the latter respect, the article analyzes the synergistic effects of co-adopting management and technological innovation. It also provides a robust theoretical foundation for addressing co-adoption, using a cross-disciplinary perspective. The article also notes that the literature on joint adoption has three blind spots: (i) the literature is fragmented into different, albeit complementary, frameworks and perspectives; (ii) the literature has mainly focused on technological performance, or other general performance, effects deriving from the introduction of management innovations, giving less attention to specific management innovation effects; and (iii) the literature so far has not looked at the joint adoption of specific pairs of technological and management innovations. Finally, as a general point, the article observes that it is surprising how little empirical research has so far gone into exploring the association between the adoption of management innovation and its performance outcomes.