Corporate mindset of innovating firms: Influences on new product performance

There is little conceptual and empirical research dealing with the fundamental orientation of firms. Drawing on the resource based view and findings from cognitive psychology on character traits, the author presents the corporate mindset as an inherent element of a firm's disposition towards innovating activities. Building on the seminal work of Venkatraman [Venkatraman, N., 1989. Strategic orientation of business enterprises: the construct, dimensionality, and measurement. Management Science 35, 942–962] the author suggests both a definition and a measurement model for the corporate mindset from a market and a technology perspective. In addition, the impact of the corporate mindset on new product performance is analyzed, while controlling for the moderating effect of product innovativeness. The results support the measurement model and indicate that a pronounced analytical, proactive and aggressive but risk-averse posture towards the market and technology is positively related to new product performance. This relationship becomes even more critical when firms deal with radical innovations.