Resource Orchestration for Innovation: Structuring and Bundling Resources in Growth- and Maturity-Stage Firms

Innovation is an important outcome for firms across all life-cycle stages, though challenges to this goal vary by a firm’s stage of development. In this study, we integrate resource orchestration with contingency theory to theorize how managers differentially orchestrate their firm’s resource portfolio and capabilities to develop innovation based on the firm’s life-cycle stage. Empirical tests using primary data collected from 189 managers of U.S. and Italian firms based on the policy capturing method provide support for our hypotheses. Overall, this research contributes to our understanding of how firms manage their resources to create innovation over the firm’s life-cycle.