CEO characteristics and the Doing-Using-Interacting mode of innovation: a new upper echelons perspective

ABSTRACT

Little is known about how, and through which characteristics, CEO effects DUI mode innovation activities in SMEs. Thus, we connect the DUI mode concept with business management research and use data from 40 qualitative interviews in German non-R&D-based, but innovative SMEs. Applying the upper echelon concept as an analytical framework our results show that the CEO acts as an important moderator and mediator between DUI learning mechanism and innovation performance. In particular CEO’s values and cognitive base may help to increase innovation activities of the employees. Our paper is the first that empirically applies CEO’s psychological attributes of the upper-echelons concept to DUI innovations in non-R&D SMEs. We have developed a new version of the upper echelons model as well as hypotheses gained from the qualitative data analysis that are ready to be tested with quantitative procedures to improve the upper echelons theory concerning DUI-led innovation processes in SMEs.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovation mode
• doing-using-interacting (DUI)
• upper echelons
• innovation culture
• CEO
• Germany

Acknowledgments

Our special thanks goes to the research team of the InDUI project, as well as the interviewees, for taking their time for our interviews. Furthermore, we would like to thank all colleagues from the Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13662716.2022.2090319

Notes

¹ Interview sample: Goettingen 15 SMEs; Hanover 13 SMEs; East-Thuringia 12 SMEs.

² Functional division of analytical grids in Germany based on districts and, mainly, on their population density.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) under Grant 16IFI005.The qualitative data are not publicly available due to restrictions. They contain information that could compromise the privacy of the research participants.