Technological turbulence and innovation performance: mediating role of absorptive capacity in Industrial SMEs

This paper examines how firms can achieve an enhanced innovation performance from the absorptive capacity under technological turbulence. The proposed model was verified based on the data of 140 Canadian SMEs manufacturing, thus this paper found that technological turbulence was positively related to the firm innovation performance. Similarly, technological turbulence showed a positive effect on the firm absorptive capacity and absorptive capacity was significantly related to the firm innovation performance. Importantly, overall absorptive capacity was significantly mediating the relationship between technological turbulence and firm innovation performance. Therefore, this study shed light on the role of technological turbulence and absorptive capacity that firms should pay high attention to in order to be more innovative.