This document discusses leadership practices and innovation adoption in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It introduces the concepts of closed innovation, open innovation, and absorptive capacity. The research aims to identify management practices that enable SMEs to adopt new innovations. It proposes three research questions around important adoption-enabling practices, how they differ by sector and size, and whether practices that enable exploration are the same as those that help exploitation. The document outlines plans to use existing datasets matched with performance data to analyze these questions over the project timeline.

1. Leadership and management
practices and the adoption of
innovations
Jane Bourke, Jim Love, Stephen
Roper, Halima Jibril

2. Starting points
• Recent evidence suggests the role of operational management
practices in raising productivity
• In the innovation literature ‘absorptive capacity’ (ACAP) has been
seen a key aspect of firms’ ability to access and absorb external
knowledge or engage in collaborative innovation
• ACAP is typically measured by naive measures of skills (e.g. %
graduates) and R&D
• Here aim to integrate these two literatures: ‘What role do
management practices play in enabling SMEs to adopt new
innovations’?

3. Closed and open innovation
’Closed innovation’ ‘Open innovation’
Source: Chesbrough, H. W. (2003). Open Innovation: Harvard University Press.

4. Conceptual approach
Innovation
Decision
Yes
No
Open
innovation
Closed
innovation
Explore Exploit
Growth,
Productivity
Explore Exploit

5. Conceptual approach
Innovation
Decision
Yes
No
Open
innovation
Closed
innovation
Explore Exploit
Growth,
Productivity
Explore Exploit
Innovation process

6. M&L requirements of open and
closed innovation
• Closed innovation may require an open culture, leadership,
teams, diversity in workforce, open communication
• Open innovation requires all of this and ACAP needing
boundary spanning competencies, collaboration, social
networking etc.
• Adoption (NTF innovation) is by definition ‘open’ so falls
into this second category
• This suggests our research questions…

7. Research questions
Aim: To identify those managerial practices which are most
strongly linked to effective adoption. This leads to:
• RQ1: What are the most important adoption enabling
management and leadership practices?
• RQ2: How do these adoption enabling practices differ by
size and sector?
• RQ3: Are the management and leadership practices which
enable exploration the same as those which help with
exploitation?

8. Building blocks
Key insights
Bourke, J., & Roper, S. (2017) Management routines matter for innovation, effects
can be both disruptive and enabling
Delre, S. A., Jager, W., Bijmolt, T.
H. A., & Janssen, M. A. (2010).
Social networks matter for diffusion and network
position can be influential
Roper, S., & Hewitt-Dundas, N.
(2017)
Collaboration is an important driver of innovation
success in micro-firms. Boundary spanning
capabilities matter.
Chowhan, J., Pries, F., & Mann, S.
(2017).
Management routines matter for persistent
innovation (theory)
Valentim, L., Lisboa, J. V., &
Franco, M. (2016).
Knowledge management practices influence ACAP in
smaller firms (small Portuguese sample)
Rosing, K., Frese, M., & Bausch,
A. (2011)
Transformational leadership enables exploration;
transactional leadership enables exploitation

9. Data sources
• Three (perhaps 4) existing datasets with new BSD match to provide
longitudinal performance data. Each data set covers innovation and
management practices as well as innovation, exploitation and exploration
• Professions data with BSD match – collected in 2016 as part of an ERC
project for UK CES covers c. 900 companies in 5 services sectors
• Legal services data with BSD match – collected in 2015 (and repeated in
2018) covers c. 1500 companies
• Innovation index data with BSD match – collected in 2009 covers 9 sectors
(manuf and services) c. 1500 firms
• Micro-business data also has timing of adoption and so may be useful
supporting analysis

10. Project timeline
Research question Timing
Data coding and matching, model development August – internal note
RQ1: What are the most important adoption enabling
management and leadership practices?
RQ3: Are the management and leadership practices which
enable exploration the same as those which help with
exploitation?
September to December
– Research paper 1
RQ2: How do these adoption enabling practices differ by
size and sector?
Jan/Feb – Research paper
2

11. References
Bourke, J., & Roper, S. (2017). Innovation, quality management and learning: Short-term and
longer-term effects. Research Policy, 46(8), 1505-1518. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2017.07.005
Roper, S., & Hewitt-Dundas, N. (2017). Investigating a neglected part of Schumpeter’s creative
army: what drives new-to-the-market innovation in micro-enterprises? Small Business
Economics, 49(3), 559-577. doi:10.1007/s11187-017-9844-z
Rosing, K., Frese, M., & Bausch, A. (2011). Explaining the heterogeneity of the leadership-
innovation relationship: Ambidextrous leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 22(5), 956-974.
doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.07.014
Delre, S. A., Jager, W., Bijmolt, T. H. A., & Janssen, M. A. (2010). Will It Spread or Not? The
Effects of Social Influences and Network Topology on Innovation Diffusion. Journal of Product
Innovation Management, 27(2), 267-282. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5885.2010.00714.x
Chowhan, J., Pries, F., & Mann, S. (2017). Persistent innovation and the role of human resource
management practices, work organization, and strategy. Journal of Management &
Organization, 23(3), 456-471. doi:10.1017/jmo.2016.8
Valentim, L., Lisboa, J. V., & Franco, M. (2016). Knowledge management practices
and absorptive capacity in small and medium-sized enterprises: is there really a
linkage? R & D Management, 46(4), 711-725. doi:10.1111/radm.12108