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EXAMINING SLACK - INNOVATION RELATIONSHIP: LONGITUDINAL EVIDENCE FROM THE US FARM EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY (1996-2000)

Ever since Cyert and March (1963) introduced the notion of organizational slack, its relationship to technological innovation has been a frequent topic of speculation yet an infrequent subject of empirical scrutiny. Here I argue that the relationship should be seen in a contingency perspective that not only discriminates between various types of innovations based upon boundary behavior in search processes and competence effects but also accounts for the effects of satisficing principle, models of aspiration, environmental contingencies and agency behavior. Using longitudinal data from farm equipment industry, I examine slack’s relationship to two types of patent inventions that are both technological boundary spanning but organizationally may or may not be so. Overall results prove support to the baseline prediction that slack’s relationship is not positive and linear for patents that cross both organizational and technological boundaries but of one that is inverted U-shaped and the tipping point is mediated through performance-aspiration interaction, environmental dynamism and the discipline imposed by institutional ownership. I also find that as the slack levels increase, these patents become more and more interdependent – they are being founded upon similar (if not identical) knowledge bases. Results concerning patents that are only technological boundary spanning lend weaker support to the predictions, though the very same conclusion indicates the utility of treating innovations (inventions) heterogeneously in studies of an organizational phenomenon’s association with innovations (inventions).