This dissertation typologyzes innovative firms into four types -- hard innovators, soft innovators, dual innovators, low innovators -- categorized by the relative focus of two kinds of innovative activities in a firm : technical innovation and administrative innovation, and attempts to identify the characteristics of these four types of firms at the organizational level. For conceptualzation, the following approach is taken. By reviewing the previous research, some categories of variables -- organizational, strategic, environmental, and performance variables that are frequently posited as being associated with organization innovation -- are identified. Each variable's relationship to innovation is reviewed and a propositional statement relating the variable is offered. Innovative firms are categorized by the technical innovativeness and administrative innovativeness into four types as follows: -- Hard innovators are the ones which have a high rate of adoption of technical innovation and a low rate of administrative innovation. -- Soft innovators are the ones which have a high rate of adoption of administrative innovation and a low rate of technical innovation. -- Dual innovator are the ones which have a high rate of adoption of both types of innovation. -- Low innovators are the ones which have a high rate of adoption of both types of innovation. The research model of the relationships between the above variables and the types of innovative firms is reasoned, and research hypotheses are suggested. The empirical data for this research are collected from 49 small and medium-sized manufacturing firms on the basis of a purposive and matched sampling methods. The major findings of this thesis are as follows: 1) Four types of innovative firms exhibit differences in organizational climates. Hard innovators (HI) show high innovation of organizational climate, but soft innovators (SI) show low autonomy and low innovation of organizational climate. Dual innovators (DI) show high autonomy,high cohesiveness and high innovation of organizational climate. 2) Four types of innovative firms exhibit different structual forms. HI and DI show low structural centralization, but low innovators (LI) show high structual centralization. SI show high structual formalization, though HI show low structual formalization. HI and DI show higher professionalism than SI and NI. 3) Four types of innovative firms show differences in some aspects of organizational intention. SI and DI possess more identified organizational intention than HI and LI. DI exhibit high communication of organizational intention, but HI shows low communication of organizational intention. SI and DI show high commom ownership of organizational intention. Reflection on organizational objectives of organizational intention shows high in innovative groups (HI,SI,and DI), but shows low in LI groups. 4) Four types of innovative firms show different patterns of interorganizational interdependence. HI apply technical linkage high, but SI and LI low. SI and LI utilize the production linkage in terms of OEM production higher than HI and DI. 5) Four types of innovative firms exhibit different information processing behaviors. HI and DI show high environmental scanning activities, but LI show low environmental scanning activities. SI and DI show high control activities, but HI and LI show low control activities. 6) Four types of innovative firms perceive the environmental characteristics in terms of dynamism, complexity,and hostility differently. HI and DI tend to perceive environmental dynamism higher than SI and LI do. DI perceive high environmental complexity and hostility, but LI perceive low environmental complexity and hostility. 7) Four types of innovative firms show differences in some aspects of organizational performance. SI and DI exhibit lower percent defective of product and turnover rate than LI do. HI and DI exhibit higher growth rate than SI and LI do. DI show highest profitability, but LI show lowest profitability. In conclusion, this study is the first attempt to categorize the types of innovative firms and to explore the characteristics of them empirically in terms of some categories of variables : organizational, strategic, environmental, and performance variables. The empirical findings of this study have some implications for researchers and practitioners. Finally, limitations of this study and future research directions are suggested.
