Servant Leadership and Knowledge Management; What Leads to Frugal Innovation?

Abstract

Frugal innovation is an emerging term, and since the last decade, many studies have been focusing on this type of innovation. Therefore, this research has also directed attention towards frugal innovation. First of all, it studied the effect of servant leadership on knowledge management, and then the relationship between knowledge management and frugal innovation was measured. Moreover, the relationship described above was examined by moderating the role of innovation capabilities and technology turbulence. The data were collected from Sports equipment manufacturing companies in China, and to analyze the data, AMOS was used. The results highlighted a positive relationship between servant leadership and knowledge management, and this management has a significant and positive relation with frugal innovation. In addition, the technology turbulence and innovation capabilities can strengthen the relationship between knowledge management and frugal innovation. Despite highlighting the broad areas and developing a comprehensive model, this research has several limitations which are future directions for further studies. This research focused on sports equipment manufacturing companies, and future studies can highlight the perspective of other companies. In addition, entrepreneurial orientation can be considered as mediating variable as it can be affected by knowledge management and affect frugal innovation. The study is the first to link servant leadership with knowledge management which can lead to frugal innovation.