The cognitive and the action-oriented elements of competence along the innovation process – evidence from R&D teams in the medical equipment sector
研究了研发团队中经验与知识两种能力要素对创新过程不同阶段绩效的影响，发现技术经验在创新实施和市场引入阶段尤为关键。
Organizations are constantly searching for ways to enhance their innovative capacity and to sustain their competitive advantage. Much of the literature focuses on knowledge as the key driver for this pursuit. Unlike other studies, we define experience and knowledge as two basic elements of competence by borrowing from the experiential and cognitive learning theories and contrast their impact on the innovativeness of R&D teams. Building on the competence based perspective, we posit that the differences in competence inputs explain variations in team innovation performance along the innovation process. To test our assumptions, we analyzed the aggregated knowledge and experience levels for different technology competences of 868 employees in 49 R&D teams in a large contract-engineering corporation in the medical equipment sector. The findings reveal that technology experience is particularly fruitful within innovation implementation and is a driver for successful market introduction. The research contributes to the understanding when competence elements are especially important.