Abstract
Across industries, there is considerable variation in organizations' ability to realize the benefits of their innovation efforts. The health care industry, in particular, has struggled as evidenced by the value erosion in the pharmaceutical sector, as well as by sluggish quality improvement in the delivery sector despite investment in quality-improving innovations. This struggle surprises considering the rigorous processes and unique evidentiary standards for innovating in health care. Prior research indicates that whether an organization realizes the benefits of an innovation depends on innovation process effectiveness (IPE), defined as the capacity to proficiently coordinate organizational resources for idea development and implementation. Thus, understanding IPE, and specifically its determinants, is critical to reaping the benefits of innovation. Drawing on the knowledge–based view of the firm and on the organizational learning literature, this paper examines whether the use of knowledge repositories explains variation in IPE, and whether their use contributes differently to IPE in health care versus not. We focus on two types of repositories, knowledge embedded in workers (human capital) and in routines (organizational capital). A field study of 221 firms operating in health care and other innovation–intensive industries shows that human capital is positively associated with IPE across industries. However, organizational capital is only associated with IPE in non-health care industries; it is not associated with IPE in health care. Decomposing IPE into innovation process competency, efficiency, and output quality, we find that competency and efficiency mediate the effect of knowledge repositories on output quality in non-health care industries. In health care, we find that the effect of human capital on output quality is mediated by competency but not efficiency. These results have implications for research on innovation as well as practice.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
