Conclusions
The findings reveal that the strategic flexibility configurations have a significant role in product innovation, as referred to in the first proposition. The results indicate that strategic flexibility configurations related to production and marketing flexibility have a significant role in product innovation. This result proves the second proposition. Each functional area has shown different performance in product innovation. Only HR flexibility produces no result in a comparison of functional contributions to product innovation. Solution terms for product innovation show that negation of marketing flexibility creates a little more change, in comparison to production flexibility. Findings also show functional areas contribute to strategic performance by advancing innovation related to the third proposition.
Nowadays, companies can provide both productive capacity and product diversity by means of freight production. This makes a considerable contribution to meeting production flexibility requirements, enabling companies to focus more on developing new products and their sales. Consequently, the results indicate that marketing flexibility plays a distinctive role in product innovation.
The capabilities of the production department also play a decisive role in the production of innovative products. The availability of a wide range of components and raw materials in the production process also encourages companies to innovate, and makes it easier to bring innovative products to production. For this reason, production flexibility is effective in product innovation. On the other hand, if companies have facilities for freight production to meet their requirements for production flexibility, flexibility of production system within the company has limited significance for product innovation.
