Fostering innovation and knowledge creation: the role of management context

Purpose – At a time when many companies in the Spanish and Basque manufacturing industries are attempting to embark on delocation movements (also commonplace in other countries), the increase in innovatory capacity is becoming an essential element in counteracting such movements and the downsizing that these involve. The study presented here seeks to measure the explicit emphasis given by manufacturing companies from the Basque Region (Spain) in the field of innovation, and the degree of adaptation of their management context to features of the middle‐up‐down model as put forward by Nonaka et al. to promote an effective knowledge generation process. Design/methodology/approach – An ad hoc questionnaire has been addressed to Chief Executive Officers, within the framework of broader research into organizational learning and business performance started in 2002. This questionnaire is focused more on the “hard” elements of the management context than on the “soft” ones, which may limit its usefulness under certain circumstances. Findings – Conceptually‐speaking, the methodology used has the value of linking extremely abstract concepts from the middle‐up‐down model (knowledge vision, articulation of this vision by means of concepts and images, “BA”, “information redundancy,” etc.) with specific elements from the management context. Originality/value – The results of the study reveal that manufacturing companies from the Basque Region have improved their innovatory capacity to a great extent, adapting quite a lot of their management context to new requirements. However, a weak point is detected in them: the absence of an organizational structure that may favor the existence of areas in which knowledge is shared.