The moderating role of innovation culture in the relationship between knowledge assets and product innovation

Developing successful technological innovations is essential for creating and sustaining a firm's competitive advantage. This paper analyses the internal complexity that characterises technological innovation in firms. The innovation capability of a firm depends closely on its intellectual and/or organisational knowledge assets and on its ability to deploy these assets. This paper goes beyond the direct relationships between human and technological knowledge assets and product innovation, proposing a moderating role of innovation culture on these relationships. Using a questionnaire to survey 251 Spanish high and medium-high technological manufacturing firms, multiple regression models were developed. After analysing the relationship between human capital and product innovation developed by firms, the results reveal the existence of the moderating role of innovation culture in a knowledge-based product innovation model.

► We analyse the role of firms' intellectual capital on product innovation. ►We test our direct and moderating propositions on 251 Spanish high-tech firms. ►Human capital, technological knowledge assets and innovation culture have a direct effect. ►Innovation culture positively moderates the effect of human capital.