Managing Organizational Innovation
A Multilevel Examination of Antecedents and Performance Implications.
Exploring how innovation emerges from individuals and teams, develops within organizations, and is shaped by strategic alliances to foster sustainable growth and superior performance.
Innovation as a Driving Force for Organizational Growth
Innovation is widely recognized as a key driver of organizational growth and a critical source of sustainable competitive advantage in an ever-changing business environment.
However, research on organizational innovation remains fragmented, with existing theories and empirical studies offering limited explanations of how different types of innovation emerge and develop across multiple levels of analysis.
MANINN — Managing Organizational Innovation aims to address this important research gap by providing a novel theoretical and empirical account of the multilevel nature of innovation management and its implications for organizational performance.
The project focuses particularly on innovation ambidexterity: the ability of organizations to simultaneously develop exploratory innovations that create new opportunities and exploitative innovations that improve existing products, services and processes.
Individual Level
Examining how cognitive abilities, creative behavior, proactive thinking and individual characteristics contribute to the emergence of innovative ideas and practices.
Group Level
Exploring how collaboration, knowledge sharing, social interactions and team learning processes amplify individual capabilities and strengthen collective innovation.
Organizational Level
Investigating how organizational practices and strategic alliances influence innovation ambidexterity and contribute to superior organizational performance.
Our mission is to advance a holistic understanding of how organizational innovation emerges, develops and contributes to performance, generating valuable insights for researchers, practitioners and policymakers.
Understanding Innovation Across Multiple Levels
Organizational innovation does not occur in isolation. It emerges through complex interactions between individuals, teams, organizational structures and inter-organizational relationships.
MANINN adopts a comprehensive multilevel research perspective, combining theoretical approaches and empirical methods to examine the emergence of innovation ambidexterity and its consequences for organizational performance.
Two Complementary Research Perspectives
From Individuals to Organizations
The first research perspective investigates how innovation ambidexterity originates from individual-level characteristics, including cognitive abilities and creative behavior.
Particular emphasis is placed on team learning and social interaction processes through which individual capabilities are amplified within a collective context and emerge as organizational-level outcomes.
From Strategic Alliances to Performance
The second research perspective examines how inter-organizational factors influence innovation ambidexterity and related performance consequences.
The analysis focuses on strategic alliance portfolios, including partners’ resource scope, portfolio size, diversification and governance mechanisms.
Four Levels of Analysis
The research framework connects four analytical levels, providing a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying organizational innovation.
- 01 Individual
- 02 Group
- 03 Organization
- 04 Strategic Alliances
Research Design and Methodology
The proposed research model involves three empirical studies, combining experimental research and field investigations.
The research design incorporates longitudinal data collected across three countries and five different sources: individual employees, group managers, senior executives, organizational records and external databases.
The primary analytical method is Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM), enabling the investigation of relationships across multiple levels of analysis.
Core Research Themes
Exploratory Innovation
Developing new knowledge, capabilities, products and services to enter existing markets in new ways or create entirely new markets.
Exploitative Innovation
Improving and leveraging existing products, services, technologies and processes to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
Innovation Ambidexterity
Balancing the exploration of new opportunities with the exploitation of existing capabilities to support organizational adaptability and performance.
Research Team
MANINN brings together researchers and academics with expertise in strategic management, organizational behavior, innovation management and entrepreneurship.
The project benefits from academic collaboration involving institutions in Greece, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Principal Investigator
Konstantinos Kostopoulos
Associate Professor of Corporate Strategy
University of Piraeus, Greece
Co-Investigator
Alexandros Papalexandris
Associate Professor of Management
Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
External Scientific Experts
Thomas Keil
Professor of International Management
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Constantine Andriopoulos
Associate Dean for Entrepreneurship
Bayes Business School, City, University of London, United Kingdom
Postdoctoral Researcher
Constantinos Mammassis
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Piraeus, Greece
PhD Researchers
Konstantina Nakou
PhD Candidate
MANINN Research Team
Despoina Papageorgiou
PhD Candidate
MANINN Research Team
George Panagopoulos
PhD Candidate
MANINN Research Team
Vasilios Raftopoulos
PhD Candidate
MANINN Research Team
Participating Academic Institutions
MANINN brings together academic expertise associated with four universities across Greece, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
- University of Piraeus, Greece
- Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
- University of Zurich, Switzerland
- City, University of London, United Kingdom
Research Output & Publications
The academic work of MANINN’s research team includes publications in international peer-reviewed journals, conference contributions and working papers.
These publications reflect the team’s broader research interests in strategic management, organizational behavior, innovation and performance.
Journal Publications
Kostopoulos, K., Syrigos, E., & Kuusela, P. (In press). Responding to Inconsistent Performance Feedback on Multiple Goals: The Contingency Role of Decision Maker’s Status in Introducing Changes. Long Range Planning, 102269.
View Publication ↗Bozionelos, N., Mukhuty, S., Kostopoulos, K. C., Bozionelos, G., & Blenkinsopp, J. (2022). Civilian volunteers in United Nations hot spots: what makes them intend to apply for yet another mission? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1–30.
View Publication ↗Mammassis C.S., Schmid P.C. (2022). Individuals’ power persistence in teams: A study examining the effects of individuals’ competence, uncooperative behavior and team performance in the National Basketball Association. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 813346.
View Publication ↗Conference Papers
Papalexandris A., Kostopoulos K.C. (2022). Unraveling the Relationship Between High Performance Work Systems and Team Performance. 82nd Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 5–9 August, Hybrid Conference.
View Paper ↗Mammassis C.S., Panagopoulos G., Kostopoulos K.C., Papalexandris A. (2022). The emergence of team ambidexterity: Individual characteristics and the moderating role of social integration in achieving team performance. 36th British Academy of Management Annual Conference, 31 August–2 September, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Syrigos E.D., Kostopoulos K.C., Mammassis C.S. (2021). Corporate- and Functional-level Performance Feedback in New Product Development. 81st Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 30 July–3 August, Virtual Conference.
View Paper ↗Syrigos E.D., Mammassis C.S., Goutas L. (2021). Micro-entrepreneurs’ thinking style and decision-making performance in platforms: The role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. 24th Annual Cognition in the Rough Workshop at the 81st Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 30 July–3 August, Virtual Conference.
Syrigos E., Kostopoulos K., Meissner F., Audia P. (2020). (In)consistent Performance Feedback and the Locus of Search: Problem-solving and Self-enhancement. 80th Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 7–11 August, Vancouver, Canada.
View Paper ↗Working Papers
Kostopoulos K.C., Mammassis C.S., Papalexandris A. (2020). A Systematic Literature Review of Organizational Innovation: Exploration, Exploitation, and Ambidexterity through a Multilevel Lens. SSRN.
View Paper ↗Kostopoulos K.C., Mammassis C.S., Papalexandris A. (2021). A Multilevel Model of Organizational Ambidexterity: The Role of Individuals’ Paradoxical Thinking, Proactive Behavior, and Team Social Integration in the Development of Team- and Organizational-Level Ambidexterity and Performance. SSRN.
View Paper ↗Note: This bibliography is based on the available project documentation and includes publications and academic contributions by members of the research team. These works do not necessarily constitute exclusive outputs of the MANINN project.
News & Announcements
Scientific announcements, calls for papers and information about international conferences related to management, organizational innovation, strategic research and entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial Decisions in the Digital Age
The Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal announced a call for papers for a special issue examining entrepreneurial decision-making in the digital age.
Submission deadline:
Read Announcement ↗Strategic HRM in the Era of Algorithmic HRM
Human Resource Management announced a special issue exploring strategic human resource management in the context of algorithm-driven HRM systems and practices.
Submission deadline:
Read Announcement ↗Uncertainty and Competing Goals: Advancing Behavioral Theories
The Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal announced a special issue dedicated to uncertainty, competing goals and behavioral theories of entrepreneurial processes and outcomes.
Submission deadline:
Read Announcement ↗Strategic Management Society 43rd Annual Conference
The submission system for the Strategic Management Society’s 43rd Annual Conference in Toronto was announced as open.
The conference invited research contributions addressing strategy, governance and resource allocation in an era of significant environmental turbulence.
Read Announcement ↗Academy of Management 83rd Annual Meeting
The submission center for the 2023 Academy of Management Annual Meeting was announced as open.
The 83rd Annual Meeting took place in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, from 4–8 August 2023, under the theme Putting the Worker Front and Center.
Read Announcement ↗The Operations and Supply Chains of Pharmaceutical Products
The Journal of Operations Management announced a call for papers for a special issue focused on the operations and supply chains of pharmaceutical products.
Read Announcement ↗Announcement Archive: The announcements above are preserved from the research team’s available news archive for 2022–2023. Submission deadlines and event dates refer to their original publication periods.
Institutions & Funding
MANINN is hosted by the University of Piraeus, Greece, and contributes to advancing scientific knowledge in the field of organizational innovation and strategic management.
University of Piraeus
The University of Piraeus, through its Department of Industrial Management and Technology, serves as the host institution of the MANINN research project.
Official Website ↗
Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation
The Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) supports scientific research and knowledge creation through the funding of research activities and academic initiatives.
Official Website ↗MANINN — Managing Organizational Innovation: A Multilevel Examination of Antecedents and Performance Implications.
The project investigates the emergence and management of organizational innovation, with particular emphasis on innovation ambidexterity and its performance implications.
Contact
For further information about the MANINN research project, its scientific objectives and research activities, please contact the project’s Principal Investigator.
Host Institution
- University
- University of Piraeus
- Department
- Department of Industrial Management and Technology
- Address
-
80 Karaoli & Dimitriou Street
Piraeus, 18534
Greece
Office 313, 3rd Floor - University Website
- www.unipi.gr
Principal Investigator
- Name
- Konstantinos Kostopoulos
- Project Role
- Principal Investigator
- [email protected]
- Telephone
- +30 210 414 2152
For inquiries about the project’s research activities, please contact the Principal Investigator by email.
Send EmailResearch Funding
The MANINN research project is funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), according to the available project documentation.
The University of Piraeus serves as the host institution, with research participation from academics and collaborators associated with universities in Greece and abroad.