The impact of networking on competitiveness via organizational learning, employee innovativeness, and innovation process: A mediation model

Abstract

Despite an extensive body of literature on the role of organizational networking in enhancing a firm's innovativeness and competitiveness, to the best of our knowledge the multivariate influences of organizational learning, employee innovativeness and innovation process, as well as the interplay among these three in the prediction of the organizational networking-competitiveness relationship, have not been integratively explored in the context of information technology-based new product and service development. This research attempts to fill this gap by presenting and testing a new mediation model showing the relationships among organizational networking, employee-innovativeness, innovation process, competitiveness and the effectiveness of the technology-innovation-strategy. We then derive hypotheses about these relationships, testing the hypotheses using data from 110 firms operating in India. The results show that organizational networking leads to competitiveness through organizational learning and innovation process; however, it leads to competitiveness through employee innovativeness only if an effective technology strategy is implemented. The results also show that innovation process does not only mediate the organizational networking-competitiveness relationship but also the employee innovativeness-competitiveness relationship. In particular, our results provide evidence of the importance of organizational learning and innovation process as mediating variables between organizational networking and competitiveness.