Organizational wisdom practices and firm product innovation

Abstract

The manner in which organizational wisdom-related variables or practices (e.g., reasoning, intuition, virtue, prudence, and aesthetics) are related to firm product innovativeness, and financial performance is rarely addressed empirically in the management literature. By studying 202 Turkish firms and employing both structural equation modeling analysis and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, this study demonstrates that (a) aesthetic practice is a core antecedent of firm product innovativeness, (b) intuitive practice has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm product innovativeness, and (c) different combinations of organizational wisdom practices are indeed related to firm product innovativeness. This study also shows the mediating role of product innovativeness partially based on the relationship between wisdom practices and firm financial performance. In addition, this study demonstrates that environmental uncertainty is positively associated with virtuous and prudent practices.