Does firm size matter? : the critical role of the attitude of top management in technological innovation

Research offers contradictory findings on the relation between firm size and innovation. The meta-analytic study of Camison-Zornoza et al. (2004) suggests that the inconsistency cannot be attributed to just the variance of methodological designs between studies, and that the existence of moderators in the relation must be noted. In this study, we examine the critical role of the attitude of top management in the adoption of technological innovation. Our results indicate that this attitude moderates the relation between firm size and the adoption of technological innovation. In particular, the size-innovation relation is absent for firms in which the attitude of top management is less positive, but the relation does exist for firms in which the attitude is more positive. The main effect of firm size on the adoption of technological innovation can be confounded, disregarding the moderating effect in the relation.