Technological innovation without R&D: unfolding the extra gains of management innovations on technological performance

This paper analyses how management (organisational and marketing) innovations influence non-R&D technological innovators’ performance. Drawing on Community of Innovation Survey data to examine 5878 non-R&D Spanish firms, results indicate that the joint introduction of management innovations with technological innovations improves technological innovative performance thanks to the creation of complex innovation capabilities. Thus, the joint adoption of management and technological innovations in tandem is linked to a premium effect on performance based on complementarities. Non-R&D technological innovators heavily use organisational and marketing activities in order to compensate for their lack of engagement in R&D activities. This is the first paper that brings the management innovation literature into the non-R&D technological innovators debate, using a resource-based view framework.