A Fuzzy Set Approach to Organizational cause-effect relationships that lead to high, very high and low innovation performance in the German and Spanish Biotechnology

This research shows configurations that lead to high, very high and low innovation performance of biotech firms, in terms of the number of patents. The configurational approach used in this research is the fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, introduced by Fiss (2011). The fsQCA method is quite new and gaining its popularity in organizational science. The fsQCA conceptualizes cases as combinations of attributes in configurations that leads to the outcome in question. The method differs from conventional quantitative research methods whereby independent variables are seen as analytically separable causes of the outcome under investigation. Therefore, the main research question is: ‘What organizational configurations, considering intellectual capital and R&D investments, lead to high, very high and low innovation performance in the Biotech industry?’