Influence of support leadership and teamwork cohesion on organizational learning, innovation and performance: an empirical examination

This paper examines the effects of organizational learning and teamwork cohesion have on organizations' capacity to use innovation (technical and administrative) to meet the changing needs of their environment. The paper verifies how certain characteristics of the firm (support leadership and teamwork cohesion) significantly affect both learning and innovation, as well as showing the implications of these in organizational performance. Using empirical data gathered from 202 Chief Executive Officers in Spanish firms, the findings support the hypotheses that (1) support leadership encourages teamwork cohesion, organizational learning, and technical and administrative innovation; (2) teamwork cohesion promotes organizational learning and this, in turn, encourages technical and administrative innovation; and (3) organizational performance is improved through teamwork cohesion, organizational learning and technical and administrative innovation.