Strategic posture and innovation behaviour in SMEs: The impact of industry and firm contingencies on type and relationship

This research,focused on strategy-innovation relationship in manufacturing SMEs,investigates whether industry and firm contingencies,generate specific strategy-innovation alignments.The scope of analysis of this relationship is enhanced to the technical,marketing and organizational dimensions of innovation but also to the source(market or technology-based)and nature(sustained or disruptive)of innovation behavior.To this aim,we use a hybrid model enabling the emergence of contingency-specific combinations of strategic attributes with differentiated innovation attributes.Results support first,the existence of differentiated strategy-innovation alignments,thus,supporting the predictive validity of competitive strategy on firms' innovation behavior.Second,results highlight the influence of distinct but complementary industry specific and firm-specific effects on strategy-innovation relationship,depending on innovation dimensions.Third,from a managerial standpoint,we provide contingencydependent guidance for effective strategic management of innovation in SMEs.