| This study examines the impact of technology strategy, firm-level absorptive capacity and slack resources, on technological innovation. Using quantitative methods on data obtained unobtrusively from archival sources, the impact of technology strategy, firm-level absorptive capacity, and slack resources, on technological innovation, is established for firms in the electronic computer and semi-conductor industries. Of special interest in this study, also, is the hypothesized moderating effect of industry type on the observed relationships between technology strategy, absorptive capacity, slack resources, and technological innovation.; Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between a firm's technology strategy and its innovativeness, whether measured as number of patents applied, number of patents awarded, or total patents. Specifically, firms that adopt proprietary strategies, on average, produce more technological innovations than those that adopt standards-based strategies.; Results also indicate that industry type has no moderating effect on the observed relationships. For example, irrespective of industry type, there was a strong, positive relationship between slack resources, absorptive capacity, and their interaction, on technological innovation. Also, the moderating effects of technology strategy were significantly higher with respect to proprietary-based technology strategists, compared with standards-based technology strategists, irrespective of industry type.; In other words, irrespective of industry type, slack resources by itself and the interaction of slack resources and absorptive capacity, have much stronger positive effects on technological innovation under proprietary technology strategists than they do under standards-based technology strategists. However, the interaction between slack resources and absorptive capacity is stronger for standards-based technology strategists versus proprietary based strategists. On the other hand, absorptive capacity by itself did not appear to be a strong predictor of firm technological innovativeness, irrespective of firm technology strategy or type of industry; whereas slack resources by itself was a very strong predictor of technological innovation, irrespective of firm technology strategy or type of industry. Implications and possible directions for future research are discussed. |
