The Role of Innovation Management Tools in Generating Innovation Success.

This paper is aimed at addressing the need for a more in-depth empirical investigation of exploring the link between the application of Innovation Management Tools (IMT) and Innovation Market Success (IMS) and what leverage is exerted by IMT in relation to other success factors of innovation such as Innovation Culture/Mindset, R&D-Budgeting, Goal Orientation, Cooperation. The central research question is: what is the importance and the role of IMT in relation to other antecedents of innovation market success? Based on Structural Equation Modelling and in the context of our sample (n = 354 medium-sized enterprises) the results of the present study reveal that the current understanding of the role of innovation management tools needs to be reconsidered. Their importance is overemphasized in existing studies as long as other important antecedents of innovation success - measured by the explained variance of the dependent variable IMS - are ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]