The Impact of Agility on Innovation Productivity. An empirical study

Abstract

Abstract Purpose – Agility has been recognised as essential for firms operating in turbulent, uncertain and complex environments, in order to preserve a competitive advantage and ensure survival. However, not many organisations have considered the role of agility with respect to their innovation activities. Agility has been recently recognised as a way of dealing with innovation activities in turbulent times. Currently, there is little empirical evidence in the existing literature that links agility to innovation. Because of its critical implications for the existence and success of a business, the main purpose of this study is to gain new insights into the impact of agility on the innovation productivity of large organisations in the European Union (EU). Approach – The concept of agility is fragmented into several agility attributes based on previous empirical works. A generally positive relationship is expected between these agility attributes and innovation productivity. This relationship is tested by considering large organisations in the EU, by using a survey methodology, by implementing a structured questionnaire as the research instrument to obtain information, and by performing three independent Negative Binomial regressions in order to analyse the data. Findings – Different agility factors depict a significant and positive impact on the productivity of the three types of innovation. Research limitations – It is difficult to generalise the results, due to the use of a non-probability sampling method and the final sample size. Originality – Most of the literature on agility is concerned with agile manufacturing. Scholars have only recently started to recognise the importance of applying agility to innovation. This gap presents an interesting area of research. The study tests the effects of agility on innovation productivity in large organisations in the EU for the first time, and opens up to challenging future researches. It also seeks to address the problem of innovation processes being slow and unproductive.