Innovation at the project-level: the role of organisational innovation capabilities

Strategic management research shows that firm innovation capabilities enable innovation at the firm-level. Extending and enhancing this research, we theorise and hypothesise that firms' innovation capabilities manifest as project-level innovation capabilities and enable the creation of innovation at the project-level. Drawing on a repeated cross-section of innovation projects and regression analysis, we find that internal and external innovation capabilities have a positive influence on technological and non-technological innovation at the project-level. A key theoretical implication is that innovation capabilities enable organisations to manage the uncertainties and complexities of the innovation journey as it manifests at the project-level. This is another testimony to the importance of innovation capabilities for organisations searching for innovation.