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In order to investigate empirically the effects of technology management on firm innovation, this paper considers the antecedents and multidimensional views of technology management mechanisms on innovation performance in medium- and large-scale manufacturing firms in a developing country, namely Ethiopia. Using simple random sampling, a total of 2...
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Citations
... Kalko et al. [75] indicate that TMPs enhance organizational performance through higher productivity and promoting innovation culture. Similar results were reported by Xu et al. [76], who suggested that by applying TMP practices, the organization's overall performance increased in the shape of higher profit. ...
... Hussain and Li [5] indicate that EL and ES positively correlate through a mediating knowledge management mechanism. In contrast, Kalko et al. [75] suggest that TMPs enhance innovation among Ethiopian firms. Marei et al. [77] stated that technological and entrepreneurial skills improve organizational performance. ...
... The questionnaire is an objective-oriented system that uses standardized responses, ensuring that the collected data are identical and can be analyzed effectively [82,83]. Adopted scales from the studies of [5,75] were used to measure the study variables. ...
Individual leadership styles, including entrepreneurial leadership (EL), vary and encompass creative urges, risk-taking, decision-making, and a proactive mindset. This research explores how entrepreneurial leadership (EL) can positively impact entrepreneurial success (ES). It also highlights the positive influence that EL has on ES and investigates how technology management processes (TMPs) can play a mediating role. For this purpose, data were collected from employees in the SMEs sector in KP, Pakistan. The results indicate that EL has a significant relationship with ES and TMPs. Findings also reveal that TMPs partially mediate the relationship between EL and ES. Based on the findings, policy-makers and regulators can use the results of this study to design policies that encourage entrepreneurial activity and foster an environment favorable to SMEs in KP. This study’s findings can help KP officials understand the elements that influence the success of SMEs and devise policies that encourage the growth of technology management systems and diverse teams in SMEs.
... Effective technology management is essential due to rapid technological advancements, requiring a multidisciplinary approach involving shortening product life cycles, reducing development time, and creating a more flexible organization to stay competitive through responsiveness to technological changes [26]. State that technology management entails strategies set up to ensure consistent development of knowledge through research and development and application of the knowledge generated to address current issues in the diverse fields [27]. Technology management is a continuous process and leads to the discovery and development of new technologies, improvement of the understanding of technology in existing products, and better understanding of the manufacturing processes. ...
... Sub-theme extracted from research and development reported that the level of technology assists in implementing strategies. In [27] reported that technology management guides the consistent development of knowledge through research and development and the application of the generated knowledge to address current issues in diverse fields. ...
The object of the study is the performance of the furniture manufacturing sector in Kenya. The paper utilized descriptive and explanatory research design. The study targeted a population of 686 managerial staff and 195 CEOs in the furniture manufacturing sector. Structured questionnaires were distributed to the senior managers and a factor analysis was used to reduce the number of variables and establish the underlying constructs while analysis of moments of structures was applied to develop the theory. Technology capability was found to explain 49 % of the variance in the firm performance. The fit indices suggested that the data was an adequate fit of the hypothesized model relating to technology capability and firm performance NFI=0.604, RFI=0.501, IFI=0.639, TLI=0.539 and CFI=0.634 with a p-value>0.05. In addition, the study found out that technology capability and firm performance had a positive and statistically significant contribution at 0.05 level of significance. This was depicted by the significance of the standardized regression coefficient of technology capability hypothesized path (β=0.878, S.E.=0.75, C.R.=11.743, and p-value<0.05). The findings also revealed that the size and age of the firm do not moderate technology capability in strategy implementation on firm performance. This was depicted by the significance of the standardized regression coefficient of firm size and firm age hypothesized path (β=-0.171, S.E.=2.015, C.R.=-0.085 and p-value>0.05). Therefore, the alternative hypothesis that size and age have a negative moderating contribution on firm performance was rejected at 0.05 level of significance. To enhance a firm's performance in terms of profitability and growth, it is crucial to manage and sustain technology capabilities through an effective strategy implementation process. The study not only adds value to the existing body of knowledge in strategic management practice but points out that when implementing strategy, CEOs and senior managers should consider technology capability factors to improve the firm performance.
... In this regard, there is observable evidence that several studies confirm that Ethiopia's manufacturing sector lacks technological knowhow, skilled labor, industry expertise, technological goods and innovation, inter-and intra-sectoral linkages, and links with universities and research organizations (Mehari and Ababa, no date;te Velde, 2019;Gebremariam, Malimo and Hussen, 2021;Kalko, Erena and Debele, 2022). According to the World Economic Forum's 2022 study, Ethiopia must invest in and implement upgrades to its digital infrastructure and innovative technological approaches to achieve its goal of accelerating economic growth through increased production and efficiency in all sectors. ...
In today’s interconnected global scene, the importance of technology management in defining the modern economy, especially within industrial businesses, cannot be overemphasized. These companies continually invest in and incorporate new technology, encouraging innovation in both product creation and manufacturing processes. This deliberate use of technology is a tried-and-true technique for increasing operational efficiency and effectiveness while also strengthening global competitiveness by managing the risks associated with changing market demands. This study delves deeply into the complex elements that influence innovation and technology management practices in manufacturing businesses, with a particular emphasis on the Ethiopian setting. Despite the global demand for innovation, Ethiopian manufacturing enterprises have struggled to build a notable reputation in their field for pioneering inventions. This paper includes the perspectives of scholars, industry experts, consultants, and direct involvement from manufacturing firms. A cross-sectional methodology is used to collect data from several stakeholders at a certain point in time. The Pareto chart’s analytical capabilities are used to condense meaningful findings, allowing for the discovery and prioritization of impediments to manufacturing innovation. The study’s findings highlight formidable barriers to innovation in manufacturing firms, including a lack of well-defined innovation strategies, an absence of innovative leadership, a scarcity of qualified and creative talent, limited access to innovation funding, and a general lack of awareness about technological advancements and innovative best practices. These insights provide a substantial contribution to expanding the innovation environment within industrial enterprises, increasing resilience and global competitiveness.
... The study streamed focus to further explore the firm level management practices in specific context, as there are little theoretical advances and implications for firms in other economical and geographical settings. It is also not clear how the various aspects of management practices contribute to the firm's innovation (Ode and Ayavoo, 2020;Kalko et al., 2022). Moreover, Romano (2019) also observed that so far, the management practices and innovation strategies have been analyzed in separate ways and need to examine the role of management practices into firms' innovation and economic performance. ...
... In this scenario, Law et al. (2021) have examined the impacts of knowledge management practices on innovation activities in high-and-low-tech firms in China and noted that knowledge management practices have positive relationship with innovation activities and innovation sources. Likewise, Kalko et al. (2022) have empirically investigated the impacts of technology management practices on innovation in medium and large-scale manufacturing firms and noted that technology transfer and technology acquisition have significant positive effects on process innovation, product innovation and method innovation. Further, technology process has a significant positive effect on process and method innovation, while technology absorption has a significant positive effect on product innovation. ...
Purpose
The study aims to examine the impacts of management practices on innovation along with the mediating and moderating role of degree of competition, business environment and environmental policies.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were derived from the World Bank Enterprise Survey 2019 for Greece, Italy, Turkey, Portugal and Jordan and analyzed by using PLS-SEM to find results.
Findings
Findings revealed that management practices have positive significant relationship with the innovation among firms for Greece, Turkey, Portugal and Jordan but surprisingly insignificant relationship in Italy. Further, management practices have positive significant relationship with the environmental policies, business environment and degree of competition among firms in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Portugal and Jordan. In addition, environmental policies, business environment and degree of competition have positive significant relationship with innovation among firms in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Portugal and Jordan.
Practical implications
These useful insights would enable practitioners and policy makers to develop and apply more influential management practices to boost up the level of innovation among firms.
Originality/value
Although the topics of management practices and innovation have received a great concern of academia, but this is the first study that offers a comprehensive model of the relationship in these domains.
Innovation management is an organizational iterative process of seeking and selecting new opportunities and ideas, implementing them, and capturing value from the results obtained. In the defense sector, due to the increasing interdependence between military capabilities and technology, countries have adopted innovation management approaches to drive the modernization of their defense industrial bases, promoting the development and integration of advanced technologies. This study presents an original systematic literature review on innovation management approaches applied to defense in developing countries. After the phases of identification and screening, 62 documents both from academic and gray literature were analyzed and categorized into 22 distinct approaches. The advantages, disadvantages, contexts, and potential applications of each approach were discussed. The findings show that the appropriate use of these approaches can strengthen the innovation capacity and technological independence of late-industrializing countries, consolidating their position in the global defense landscape and ensuring their sovereignty and continuous technological progress.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges and potential improvement mechanisms for the development of technology and innovation in the Ethiopian construction industry.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were adopted. While a structured questionnaire was used for the quantitative data collection, semi-structured interview was used for qualitative data collection. In analyzing the quantitative data, mean score was used to rank the variables and factor analysis was conducted to identify the underlying dimensions of the research constructs. The qualitative data was analyzed thematically focusing on specific objectives of the study; the challenges and improvement mechanisms of technology and innovation development.
Findings
The findings indicate that the major challenges are nature of the industry and lack of awareness, weak capacity of companies and the regulatory instruments, inadequate tender duration and poor monitoring and controlling practice. The suggested improvement mechanisms are effective coordination of the process and awareness creation, promoting technology and innovation in the procurement process and technology and innovation consideration in construction project registration.
Originality/value
Effectiveness of construction industry improvement programmes is affected by inappropriateness of the adopted implementation mechanisms. Understanding the operating environment; the enablers and potential barriers, is important for the success of any envisioned improvement programme. The improvement framework proposed by this study indicates the potential intervention areas and improvement mechanisms to effectively induce and enhance technology and innovation development in the construction industry. Major pillars of the improvement framework are improving regulatory framework, raising awareness and stakeholder engagement and continual monitoring and controlling of the practice.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the mediating role of knowledge management (KM) in the linkage between organizational factors, namely, organizational culture (OGCUL) and leadership and management support (LMS) and innovation in medium- and large-scale manufacturing firms in Ethiopia.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 200 firms has been used to gather data using simple random sampling and to test the proposed hypotheses. Structural equation modeling and cross-sectional design were used to analyze the data using LISREL 8.80 SIMPLIS program software tool.
Findings
Organizational factors (i.e. OGCUL and LMS) are positively associated with KM and innovation. KM constructs, namely, knowledge sharing, knowledge conversion and knowledge storage, have a significant positive influence on innovation. Knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between organizational factors and innovation.
Research limitations/implications
This study has three potential limitations: first, this study is based on a cross-sectional research design. Future research should include longitudinal design to get in-depth insights into the causal inferences. Second, only a few Ethiopian medium- and large-scale manufacturing firms were included in the sample. As a suggestion for future research, other researchers can include small-scale enterprises using large sample sizes and should examine the effects of organizational factors, KM and innovation across different industries. Finally, this study has only focused on investigating the mediating role of knowledge sharing between organizational factors and innovation. Future research should test the mediating role of the KM process and its constituents (knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, knowledge sharing and knowledge storage) between organizational factors and specific aspects of innovation to gain a full understanding of the critical role of KM in organizational innovation.
Practical implications
The findings of this study would serve as a guide for policy-makers and managers of manufacturing firms in developing countries in the formulation of policies and long-term strategies. It may also provide a better understanding of the causal relationship between organizational factors, KM and innovation, which in turn has value to directors and managers in manufacturing firms in developing countries as a reference for building a good OGCUL, serving as practical guidance for effective leadership and providing organizational or management support. Specifically, the findings would have the following practical implications: first, firms need to have a combination of KM processes (such as acquisition, storage, sharing and conversion). In practice, developing countries such as Ethiopia have based their innovation strategy on knowledge and technology acquisition through encouraging foreign direct investment. It is not in doubt that Ethiopia has been benefiting from the strategy as a lot of foreign companies have opened their subsidiaries in the country. However, in the authors’ view, more emphasis on knowledge acquisition strategy would not take a firm a long time to sustain its innovative activity because it is likely available to firms operating in the same industry, as well as it may hurt a firm’s competitive advantage. In addition, by its nature, knowledge may not be retained for future use; it may expire soon. Second, the current highly impulsive and rapid change in the business environment changes the way firms have to operate and deliver products or services. Knowledge (both tacit and explicit) is a resource that can provide a competitive advantage if used well for the intended purpose. In real practice, firms often face challenges in determining where to get knowledge from and how to value or manage it. Besides, knowledge can be obtained from three sources: knowledge can exist in individuals’ minds (skills, experience, ideas and insight); knowledge can dwell in a group, which we can call collective knowledge (a team of scientists or researchers); and knowledge can be embodied in an organization's systems, tools, procedures, policies, etc. Knowledge cannot be a valuable resource unless it is obtained and used in designing or producing a product or service. To integrate knowledge with business strategies, there should be a platform or framework that helps to manage it properly. Firm managers, policy-makers and other concerned bodies would consider the three sources of knowledge to foster innovative activities and obtain a competitive advantage. In addition, the authors recommend more emphasis be placed on firm-specific factors (such as OGCUL, leadership, management support and KM) to enhance the innovative capacity of a firm. Finally, the most critical issue to be raised while designing an innovation strategy would be employees’ willingness and passion to collaborate with others to develop new ideas, share ideas or implement policies. As knowledge resides in individuals’ minds, the knowledge holder should have a passion to share it with those working with him or her. In practice, knowledge sharing depends extremely on the passion and voluntariness of the two parts: knowledge provider and receiver. Therefore, firm managers would design a platform on how to motivate individuals to share their skills, experience and ideas with others through providing incentive packages, punishment and commitment. In this regard, the authors believe that the results would help individuals who are in the position to manage or regulate the manufacturing sector in designing innovation policies, KM policies or technology management policies and business strategies.
Originality/value
This study provides new empirical insight into the relationships between organizational factors (such as OGCUL and LMS), KM and innovation in a large sample of firms. To date, the empirical research on these relationships has been mainly limited to descriptive case studies (Chen and Huang, 2009; Zack et al., 2009; Donate and Guadaumillas, 2011), and there is thus a lack of empirical evidence with large samples of firms. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of studies investigating the relationship between organizational factors, KM and innovation in developing countries, especially in Ethiopia. This paper intends to fill this gap and nurture future research studies in the area.
