OPEN INNOVATION AND EXPORT PERFORMANCE: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION.
Abstract
Open innovation is one of the key factors for the competitiveness of organizations in international markets, providing them with external knowledge, technology and collaboration resources that contribute to their innovation capacity. One approach suggested to achieve better export performance from such innovation is business model innovation, but there is not yet enough evidence to support this. This research explores the connection between open innovation and export performance and the moderating effect of business model innovation. The study adopted a quantitative explanatory design with secondary cross-sectional survey data from 196 firms with 187 complete observations for the main analysis. Multiple analyses were used to establish the reliability and validity of the instrument. Hypotheses were tested with an ordinary least squares regression model using HC3 robust standard errors and mediation was tested using 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The results show that there is a positive relationship between open innovation and business model innovation (b = 0.354; p < 0.001) and export performance (b = 0.307; p < 0.001). Business model innovation, however, has no significant impact on export performance (b = 0.083, p = 0.235), and the indirect impact is not statistically significant, as the 95% bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence interval also contains zero (b = 0.114, p = 0.193). The results indicate that the export performance advantage of open innovation is mainly direct rather than through business model innovation, which means that sharing knowledge with the external world and collective innovation are crucial factors for businesses aiming at international markets.
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References
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