Investigating the mediating role of innovation capabilities in relationship between strategic orientation and market performance: a case study of Tabriz State Hospitals

Introduction:Innovation is the creation of new products,services,processes or systems that first begin with a thought and is put into operation after successful implementation.This research aims to investigate the mediating role of innovation capabilities in relationship between strategic orientation and market performance in Tabriz state hospitals.Methods:This study is an applied research in terms of the purpose and it is a descriptive-correlative research in terms of methodology.The statistical population involves the staff of Tabriz state hospitals consisting 362 individuals who were selected randomly.A questionnaire was used to collect data from statistical sample.The strategic orientation was operationally defined based on Laek Cannon et al.’s(2011)model,innovation capabilities were defined based on Jimens-Jimens and Sanz Vale’s(2010)model and market performance was defined based on Hajipour et al.’s model(2012).Results:The results showed that the value of CHI SQUAR/DF for the estimated model is 0.817 which indicates the proper fitness of the model.Considering the standardized factor loads and meaningfulness coefficient it can be suggested that strategic orientation affects market performance with the mediating role of innovation capabilities.Meanwhile,the effect of strategic orientation and innovation capabilities on the market performance was confirmed based on the linear regression results.Conclusion:Innovation capabilities play an active role in the relationship between strategic orientation and market performance.Therefore,senior management of organizations needs to work to improve their performance by supporting the ability to innovate and formulating and implementing strategic orientations.

How beneficial are relational capital and technology orientation for innovation?Evidence from Mexican SMEs

Globally,small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs)are engines of economic growth and job creation.After the pandemic,innovation activities have become more critical than ever as a generator of competitiveness.Therefore,we need to better understand the factors that lead to innovation in SMEs.This study aims to analyze the role of relational capital and technology orientation in innovation to appreciate its final impact on firm performance.The main results reveal a strong positive effect of relational capital on innovation,but the effect is not so strong as firm performance.We also found a strong positive effect of relational capital on technology orientation.Finally,we offer some clues in the debate on technology as a source of innovation and how relational capital and technology orientation are related to a firm’s performance.The results reveal significant implications for innovation policies and relational capital strategies for SMEs.

Integrative Evaluation of the Current Postal Services by Employing the Evaluation Method of GE Corporation

The paper makes an integrative evaluation of the current main ten categoriesof postal services by using the Evaluation Method of GE Corporation on the basis of the integrativeevaluation by some managers of postal enterprises concerned and some experts in the fields of postalservices on the defined eight indexes, which cover the main 4 indexes that model the postalenterprise's strength and the other main 4 indexes that reflect the future development prospect ofpostal services. And further, according to the marks given by the managers and experts to allcategories of postal services, the paper defines the quadrants of all categories of services to makecertain the orientation and measures for the development of all these categories of postalservices.