Industry does matter: Analysing innovation, firm performance and organisational learning heterogeneities on Brazilian manufacturing sectors

This paper analyses the influence of organisational learning capability (OLC) on the innovation and firm performance of 318 organisations - exporters and non-exporters -belonging to four industrial sectors: furniture & wood, chemicals & plastics, textile & clothing and metal-mechanical & metallurgy. For data analysis, partial least squares (PLS) path modelling was used, in addition to compositional invariance analysis. Results show that OLC influences innovation performance, which in turn impacts firm performance. The heterogeneities analysis found significant differences based on the industry type. However, the results remained unaltered for exporters and non-exporters. The study contributes to the literature when testing the mentioned relationships focusing on the differences across industries, a subject understudied in the innovation literature. Through compositional invariance analysis, results reveal that the studied industries perceive some learning dimensions - participative decision and dialogue - in a different way.