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Using a survey of 324 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the Yangtze River Delta in China, this study discusses the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, absorptive capacity, environmental dynamism, and corporate technological innovation performance. The results based on a moderated moderation model show that the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and innovation performance is significantly positive. The absorptive capacity can positively moderate this relationship. When the external environment is in high dynamism, the moderating effect of absorptive capacity will be stronger than when the environment is in low dynamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although user innovation has been regarded as an important source of firms' competitive advantage, the internal processes and mechanisms involved in the relationship between firms' user innovation activities and market performance are seldom studied. By applying moderated mediation analyses, we examine (1) whether firms' user innovation activities have a positive impact on market performance and (2) how and under what conditions user innovation activities can have a positive impact on a firm's market performance. The findings on a sample of Korean manufacturing firms indicate that user innovation activities significantly increase firms' innovation performance, which consequently leads to superior market performance (confirming the mediation effect of innovation performance). Additionally, we observe the positive mediation effect of innovation performance only in firms with higher levels of absorptive capacity (confirming the moderated mediation effect of absorptive capacity). Further analysis confirms that the positive interaction effects between user innovation activities and absorptive capacity on market performance through innovation performance were more pronounced for firms with higher Chief Executive Officer (CEO) shareholding levels (confirming the moderated mediation effect of CEO's shareholding). Our findings provide theoretical and practical implications on the successful implementation of user innovation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of our study is to examine the mechanisms that link environmental dynamism to firms' innovation performance. Although there have been extensive studies on the effect of environmental dynamism on innovation performance, they have focused primarily on its direct effect and have resulted in rather inconsistent research findings. Thus, to explain the relationship between environmental dynamism and innovation performance more clearly, we intend to investigate the mechanisms through which environmental dynamism influences innovation performance in this study. Specifically, we aim to examine the mediation effects of strategic prospecting, absorptive capacity, and combined strategic prospecting–absorptive capacity on the relationship between environmental dynamism and innovation performance. Based on data collected from 266 small and medium-sized firms in Korea, our study has found that, assuming a causal interdependence between the mediators, both strategic prospecting and combined strategic prospecting–absorptive capacity mediate the relationship between environmental dynamism and innovation performance. It has also been found, however, that absorptive capacity alone does not mediate the relationship between environmental dynamism and innovation performance, while absorptive capacity mediates the relationship when it is linked to strategic prospecting. The results of our study further reveal that no direct effect of environmental dynamism on innovation performance exists, implying that the significant effect of environmental dynamism on innovation performance demonstrated in previous studies may be spurious in nature. Based on the findings, we present conclusions, theoretical and practical implications, and limitations with future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]