Configuring Technology Resources and Organizational Practices for Innovation Success

Overview: As novel technologies and organizational practices become available, innovation managers must identify and invest in those best suiting their needs. To ensure their firm's innovativeness, innovation managers must integrate these new technologies and organizational practices into their resource portfolio and deploy them in combination with existing resources. In this article, we demonstrate the orchestration of technologies and practices that set the most innovative firms apart from less innovative. Using the fsQCA method, we found that high-performing firms configure their technological resources and organizational capabilities in bundles, whereas their less innovative counterparts are preoccupied with investing in technologies alone. Resource orchestration management is therefore a novel innovation management capability, which may accelerate a firm's innovative capabilities. We offer practitioners managerial implications that emphasize the development of innovation managers' resource orchestration capabilities. Practitioner Takeaways: Innovation managers should learn how to do resource orchestration effectively, which requires developing deep insights into emerging technologies and understanding the varieties and nuances in organizational practices. The most innovative firms not only invest in new technologies but also in organizational practices that promote employee creativity, engagement, and task-specific skills. Various combinations of technological and organizational innovations can lead a company to achieve product innovations with high degrees of novelty.