The mediating effect of the innovation process on the relationships among innovation components: an empirical study on Turkish companies

Firms must develop and improve their innovation capabilities to gain competitive advantage. There are many innovation models including components and their relationships in the literature. This study evaluates, based on a system approach, an innovation model with three basic components: innovation input, innovation process, and innovation output. The main objective of this study is to show the relationships among the innovation components. Structural equation modelling was performed to test the relationships by employing data from 309 companies in Turkey. Results show the innovation input components affect positively the innovation process. Moreover, the innovation process has a positive influence on the innovation output. It also mediates the relationship between the innovation input components and the innovation output. This model can be evaluated by innovation leaders to gain an overview of their firm’s innovation path and used by researchers to compare it with other innovation models.