Relatedness in the adoption of different innovation types: product, process, organisational and commercial innovations

Abstract

The paper analyses the relatedness or interrelations in the joint adoption of different types of innovation (product, process, organisational, and commercial). We study the relatedness in the adoption of two innovation types and how it could be conditioned by the presence/absence of the remaining innovation types. In order to do this we develop a new methodological approach for testing conditional relatedness. The empirical study uses the Spanish Community Innovation Survey (2008?2014). Our results show that, contrary to the traditional approach that suggests a strong relatedness between product and process innovations, this is the less intense link found. Our empirical approach also allows us to confirm that product innovation emerges as a fundamental axis in the innovation strategy because the more intensively used innovation strategies are those combining product innovation with any other innovation type in absence of the rest and those combining any of the other three innovation types in presence of product innovation. These results provide implications for further research, top management and innovation strategy development.