A Study of the Barriers to Technical Innovation and the Introduction of Management Innovation

The influence of management innovation (MI) on firms’ competitive advantages is not trivial. However, firms may find it challenging to introduce this innovation because it is accompanied by uncertain adoption processes, internal resistance, and high cost. Previous studies mainly focus on internal agents that tend to adopt management innovation to deal with organizational problems. However, they do not answer the following question: what are the organizational problems that internal agents attempt to solve through MI? Although a few studies show associations between barriers to technical innovation and the adoption of MI, they lack theoretical explanations for these relationships. The present study theoretically argues that firms are likely to introduce MI to overcome knowledge and motivational barriers to technical innovation. Based on the Korean Innovation Survey 2016 of manufacturing industries, the empirical analysis showed three findings. First, knowledge barrier is positively related to management practice introduction. Second, motivational barrier is positively associated with structural change. Finally, there is a negative relationship between knowledge barrier and structural change. Finally, there is the negative relationship between knowledge barrier and structural change. Based on these findings, this study makes two theoretical contributions. First, while earlier papers tend to focus on organizational factors facilitating the adoption of MI, this study suggests that MI is likely to be adopted for solving obstacles to technical innovation. Second, by suggesting the possibility that firms actively deal with innovation barriers, this study contributes research on innovation barriers that mainly focuses on their antecedents and effects on innovation performance. Furthermore, the results of this study may form the basis for creating more effective MI support policies by showing that MI can be adopted to solve technical innovation problems confronted by firms.