Collective reputation cognition, network competence and enterprise innovation performance
ISSN: 0025-1747
Article publication date: 21 January 2022
Issue publication date: 22 February 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Collective reputation cognition is an enterprise's perception of the general rules of reputation evaluation, jointly formed by a network's collective members. It affects the choice of enterprises' innovation behavior and guides enterprises to occupy a dominant position in the innovation network, thus achieving high innovation performance. In this process, it is inseparable from the enterprise's good network competence. This study attempts to bring collective reputation cognition, network competence and innovation performance into the same framework and aims to explore the relationship among them and determine the influential roles of collective reputation perception and network capability on innovation performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses 227 Chinese enterprises in the innovation network as samples and applies partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the questions mentioned above.
Findings
The results verify the relationship among collective reputation cognition, network competence and innovation performance. Furthermore, the results yield five paths that lead to high innovation performance, such as “putting ability first” and “both fame and competence”, which are different combinations of collective reputation cognition and network competence.
Originality/value
Based on institutional theory, this study considers the network context and identifies “collective reputation cognition” as a key variable. Meanwhile, it opens the “black box” of the mechanism of reputation's influence on innovation performance and finds that the combined paths of collective reputation cognition and network competence achieve high performance in terms of innovation.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 71571126; 71602132), Sichuan University Special Research Project under “Double First-Class” Initiative (Philosophy and Social Sciences)-National Leading Academics Project, Post-Modern Management: Reconstructing of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management (Grant No. SKSYL201703). The authors are very grateful for the valuable comments and suggestions from Editor Brandon Randolph-Seng, Alejandra Marin, Md. Kamrul Hasan and anonymous reviewers, which significantly improved the quality of the paper.
Citation
Yu, C., Wang, T. and Gu, X. (2022), "Collective reputation cognition, network competence and enterprise innovation performance", Management Decision, Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 567-588. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-10-2019-1420
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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