Viable theoretical forms of synchronous production innovation

Knowing what theoretical forms might best describe the relationships among administrative innovation, technological innovation and organizational performance can help production managers improve performance. Managers may adopt either administrative or technological innovation depending on how they perceive the form of these relationships. Alternatively, managers can plan for and implement synchronous innovation aiming at its synergistic effects on organizational performance. Defined as the coincident‐in‐time adoption of compatible technological and administrative innovations, “synchronous” innovation is emerging as a response to the increased rivalry from offshore competitors. Prevailing theoretical forms of synchronous innovation emerge from the administrative and technological research perspectives of organizational innovation. Yet, it is the perceived form of synchronous innovation which determines where in its causal network of relationships production managers intervene to improve performance. Assuredly, performance improvements may require a detailed inquiry into a firm's specific situation. Depending on the situation, the relationships among administrative innovation, technological innovation and organizational performance can yield alternative or complementary forms of synchronous innovation. Production managers and researchers encounter such forms in various organizational settings. Exploring several perceived forms of synchronous innovation is therefore pertinent to production research and practice. To examine production managers' perceptions of synchronous innovation, this paper combines the administrative and technological perspectives of organizational innovation into four descriptive models of synchronous innovation. Drawing upon a diverse sample from the organizational innovation literature, each model incorporates both administrative and technological innovation dimensions, organizational performance dimensions and the causal interconnections among these three constructs. Thirty‐five plant managers' perceptions of the relationships underlying synchronous innovation provide data suitable for testing the viability of the four models. The data show how administrative and technological innovation dimensions interact with, intervene among or moderate the contributions of each other on organizational performance, rendering their independent effects negligible without synchronous innovation. Firms may improve performance significantly by emphasizing either administrative or technological innovation alone. Yet, our results support the necessity of adopting a fine‐grained approach to organizational innovation research and practice. Understanding the effects of innovation on organizational performance requires scrutinizing the effects of administrative innovation when predicting the effects of technological innovation, and vice versa.