Unravelling the moderating effects of size and experience on product innovations and exports: a study in a medium knowledge-intensive industry

Abstract

This paper contributes to improve our knowledge on the important role of product innovation in export strategy by introducing the moderating effects of organizational variables. We argue that in a medium knowledge-intensive industry, these variables might strengthen the relationship between innovations and exports. Research on innovation and export strategy has addressed these issues increasingly during last decades; however, the divergence on the empirical approaches difficult the understanding of the linkages among variables, which are highly dependent on the industry technological characteristics. We carry out a time-lagged study using the literature-based innovation output (LBIO) method to account for product innovations and its degree of complexity during the period from 2000 to 2007. Our results evidence that, when considering the moderating role of size and experience, the influence of innovations on exports becomes stronger. Important implications for researchers, managers and policy makers arise from these findings.

Keywords:

• product innovation
• exports
• size
• experience
• LBIO

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Education and Science (Research Project ECO2010-18583) and the Ministry of Science and Innovation (SEJ2006-13889/ECON and ECO2008-00729) for their financial support for this research.

Notes

Albors (2002) provides a further explanation of the characteristics of the Spanish ceramic tile cluster, its manufacturing process and technological context.

Type of novelty is related to innovation radicalness. For further details on this conceptualisation, see Amara et al. (2008).

Analyses showed values of the VIF higher than the cut-off point of 10 (Hair et al. 1998). Thus multiple regression models might not give valid results under these conditions.