Organization's core competencies and front-end decision-making in the apparel innovation.

Purpose -- Organization's core competencies are acknowledged as most valuable assets and skills which contribute to enhance the ability of innovation, the competitive advantage and commercial success of the business. Although several researchers have studied the effects of core competencies on the success of an organization, no enough work has been carried out to investigate the effect of core competencies onfront-end decision-making. Apparel-specific studies in the area of core competencies relating to front-end decision-making are rarely found. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the impact of organizational core competencies on front-end decision-making in the apparel innovation. Design/methodology/approach -- A conceptual framework was developed focusing four groups of competencies; technological/ technical, customer, network/ partnership and financial competences and hypothesis were derived. Sixty participants in different companies across Sri Lanka were randomly selected based on their involvement in the front-end of the apparel innovation for questionnaire survey. The data were analyzed using the SPSS version 20 statistical software package. Spearman's rho correlation and Linear regression analysis were used to quantify the impact of the competencies on front-end decisions. Findings -- The factors of network competencies are found to be the most influentialon effective frontend decision-making in apparel innovation in Sri Lanka. These results strongly suggests strengthening companies' ability to interact with partners who possess raw materials, machineries and technology know-how to facilitate efficient front-end decision-making. The next most influential are the factors of technological competencies. It highlights the importance of strengthening the companies' own technical/ technological competencies to facilitate effective front- end decision-making in apparel innovation. Originality/value -- The findings of this research are of main interest to extend the current understanding on how different factors of organization's core competencies influence on effective frontend decision-making in apparel innovation. Particularly, apparel domain practitioners will be motivated in implementing and nurturing these important/ and most influential competencies within their firms to facilitate front-end decision-making to achieve better results consistently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]