Exploring antecedents and effects of risk-taking in innovation

This paper deals with innovation development within firms, focusing on risk-taking, a factor recognized as an important driver for exploration and exploitation of new ideas. It investigates both the effects of risk propensity on innovation performance, and its antecedents. In this regard, we consider the central role of firms’ innovation activities and structures aimed at encouraging employees’ risk-taking, such as availability of organizational resources, innovation support activities, clear innovation goals, well-established innovation process, and collaboration. In order to address our research aims, we conducted an empirical study at the ASSA ABLOY Group, a multinational innovation-oriented firm, through a survey performed in seven organizational units within ASSA ABLOY. Survey data were analyzed using correlation analysis and linear regression analysis. The results of the study clearly show a strong significant effect of risk-taking on innovation performance. Moreover, they highlight that the availability of organizational resources, clear innovation goals, and collaboration all have a significant positive effect on risk-taking. For resources and clear innovation goals, a direct positive effect on innovation performance was also observed. Contrary to what was hypothesized, the use of well-structured innovation processes was found to have a significant negative effect on both risk-taking and innovation performance. This paper offers contributions to our knowledge on the role of risk-taking on innovation performance. It proposes a systematic analysis of a number of factors conditioning employees’ risk-taking, as well as their effects on innovation performance. Moreover, it provides insights to managers to define ways-of-working aimed at creating an innovative working context encouraging a suitable risk propensity.