Complementarities in organizational innovation practices: evidence from French industrial firms*

Organizational innovation favours technological innovation. Yet the question of which organizational practices should be combined – that is, their compatibility – remains unanswered. This empirical investigation of patterns of complementarity considers three organizational practices: business practices, workplace organization, and external relations. Firm-level data drawn from the 2008 French Community Innovation Survey and supermodularity tests confirm the crucial role of organizational innovation in increasing firms’ innovation. The pattern of complementarity among organizational practices differs according to the type of innovation (i.e. product or process), as well as the type of measure used to assess technological innovation performance. These results highlight the complexity of managing organizational practices to encourage firm innovation.