본 논문은 새로운 시장에 진출하거나 새로운 자원을 도입하는 것과 같은 혁신전략이 조직사멸이라는 위험에 미치는 영향 과 그 인과관계를 조절하는 요인을 대표적 고위험 산업인 영화산업에 대한 종단연구를 통해 분석한다. 최근 전략경영 분 야에서는 새로운 시장이나 자원의 개발을 통해 경쟁우위의 창출을 추구하는 혁신전략의 중요성이 강조되어 왔다. 그러나 조직생태학의 구조적 관성이론과 조직학습의 근시안적 학습이론은 기존 시장이나 자원 등에 대한 효율적 활용에 치중하는 전략을 탈피하여 급진적으로 새로운 시장에 진출하거나 새로운 자원을 도입하는 혁신전략이 높은 위험을 발생시킬 것이라 고 예측한다. 조직학습이론에서는 심지어 대부분의 조직들은 혁신적 변화의 위험을 회피하기 위해 기존 시장이나 자원의 활용에 치중하는 근시안적 학습의 경향을 가지게 되나, 결과적으로는 장기 생존에 실패하게 되는 또 다른 위험을 초래하 게 된다고 까지 주장한다. 만일 조직학습이론의 예측이 옳다면 이런 활용치중 전략과 근시안적 학습 경향은 특히 창조적 혁신이 경쟁우위의 핵심 요건인 문화산업 기업들에게 치명적 위험을 초래할 가능성이 있으며, 따라서 영화사와 같은 문화 산업 기업들은 장기 생존을 위한 혁신을 실행하면서 동시에 혁신의 위험을 피해야 하는 전략적 딜레마에 빠지게 된다. 이 런 관점에서 본 연구는 실제로 새로운 시장이나 자원을 창출하려는 혁신전략이 과연 조직 생존에 부정적인 위험을 발생시 키는지 여부와 또 혁신의 위험을 조절하는 요인의 효과를 실증연구를 통해 분석한다. 1919년부터 2004년까지 존재하였 던 한국 영화사의 전수인 891개의 기업들을 대상으로 한 실증연구의 결과, 새로운 시장과 자원에 대한 혁신전략은 조직 생태학과 조직학습이론에서 예측했던 대로 조직사멸률을 높이는 위험이 있었으나, 혁신전략이 조직사멸률에 미치는 이런 영향은 전략경영 분야에서 강조하였듯이 환경역동성이 높아짐에 따라 약해지는 것으로 나타났다.
This study empirically analyzes how the exploration of new niches, such as new product markets or new input resources, affects organizational mortality, and also how environmental characteristics may moderate this causal relationship, through a longitudinal study of Korean film-makers’ new niche explorations, 1919-2004. Innovation is currently the single most popular concept frequently mentioned among both academicians and practitioners in the early 21st century. Academically, innovations recently have been a central research agenda in a variety of literatures in business studies, such as strategic management, organization studies, marketing, operations management, and technology management. In this regard, the recent strategic management literature of sustainable competitive advantage has emphasized the crucial importance of innovation geared to creating new competitive advantages based on the exploration of new market or resource niches. However, the organization theory literatures of organizational ecology and organizational learning suggest that explorative innovations incur serious risk and hazard, and consequently raise firm mortality rates. For instance, the structural inertia argument of organizational ecology submits that structural inertia is a consequence of selection, since radical organizational changes raise mortality rates. The learning myopia argument of organizational learning even suggests that organizations often suffer from myopia of learning due to exploitation bias stemming from organizations’ efforts to avoid risk of explorative innovations. If the suggestions by strategic management are right, those static organizations which are resistant to environmental pressures toward innovations will incur serious survival risks. However, at the same time, if the predictions by organizational learning and organizational ecology are correct, those organizations which often implement innovations conforming to the environmental pressure, such as culture industry firms, will be put to another serious danger stemming from attempts for risky innovations. Therefore, culture industry firms, such as film makers, often come to be faced with a strategic dilemma in which they should implement innovations to guarantee long-term survival, and at the same time, also should avoid critical risks of innovations. In this regard, the current study empirically examines whether innovations pose risks to firm survival, and whether there are conditions that moderate the causal relations between innovations and organizational mortality. In the theory part, the current paper first discusses the conflicting perspectives on innovations between strategic management and organization theory. Then, we posit a theoretical framework in which the predictions by the organization theory literature are viewed as main effects, whereas the arguments by the strategic management literature are regarded as a moderator. The current paper focuses especially on the effects of environmental dynamics as a moderating variable. That is, we argue that while innovations generally raise firm mortality rates, the effects of innovations on mortality rates decrease as environmental dynamism increases. We propose four hypotheses. We suggest a hypothesis regarding the positive main effect of innovation on mortality rate and an interaction hypothesis concerning environmental dynamism’s negative moderating of the causal relationship between innovation and mortality rate. Then, we apply these two hypotheses to two types of innovations - i.e. innovations in product markets and innovations in input resources. According to our event history analysis of all 871 Korean film-makers that have existed throughout the entire history of the industry, 1919-2004, we have found that both types of niche innovations geared to exploring new product markets and new input resources positively affect organizational mortality rates as predicted by the organizational ecology and organizational learning literatures. However, the positive effects of innovations on organizational mortality rates turned out to be lower in dynamic environments than in static environments as we also predicted. That is, all four hypotheses were strongly supported. The findings of the current study may have several important implications for the literatures of strategic management, organization theory, and culture industries. For instance, the current paper is the very first empirical longitudinal study that covers the entire history of the Korean film industry spanning more than eighty years. However, above all, the findings of the current study may contribute both theoretically and practically to the understanding and management of 21st century firms facing multiple contradictory pressures surrounding change and innovation by suggesting a new way to strike a balance between the contradicting perspectives on effects of innovations. In other words, by showing the way to balance the seemingly contradictory predictions by the strategic management and organization theory literatures, the current study may contribute to the formulation of so-called ambidextrous thinking in management studies.