Moderating Effects of Leadership and Innovation Activities on the Technological Innovation, Market Orientation and Corporate Performance Model

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the relations between market orientation, technological innovation and corporate performance with the moderating roles of leadership, exploitation and exploration by an empirical study targeting 414 Korean responses in diverse industries. The results of the analysis reveal that technological innovation partially mediates the relationship between market orientation and the perceived financial and non-financial performance of a company. Additionally, when technological innovation affects corporate performance, transformational leadership and transactional leadership have a moderating effect on both the perceived financial and non-financial performance, but the exploitation and exploration of innovation activity had a moderating effect only on non-financial performance. Finally, when market orientation affects corporate performance, transformational leadership and exploration of innovative activities have a moderating effect only on non-financial performance. The novelty of this study lies in that it is more effective to carry out market-oriented activities with a focus on the customers rather than to pursue technological innovation alone in order to improve corporate performance. The contribution of this research is to expand the scope of research related to the results of technological innovation academically and to support how to apply corporate management elements in order to improve corporate performance in the field of business.