Abstract:

Innovation orientation plays an important role in information transfer and knowledge creation. The implementation of innovation orientation in different types of business services seems to be under-researched. A literature review confirmed the lack of empirical research on innovation orientation in various types of knowledge-intensive business services and its impact on business performance.

We propose a six-dimensional construct of innovation orientation, including the dimensions of strategy, organizational culture, human resources, structural-process, market and technology. The empirical research was based on 1,500 questionnaires. To ensure a high level of scientific accuracy, the construct validity (convergent validity and discriminant validity) were assessed during the first step of the analyses.

The results confirm that the level of innovation orientation differs among the researched types of business services, so service type can be treated as a moderator of the impact of innovation orientation on business performance. The results indicated that some dimensions had a higher significance on this relationship.

Our study contributes to the current state of knowledge by introducing the six-dimensional construct of innovation orientation and deepens our understanding of the impact of business services type on the relationship between innovation orientation and business performance.