Greasing the wheels or blocking the path? Organizational structure, product innovativeness, and new product success

•Firm-level product innovativeness is positively related to new product performance.•Organizational structure is an important factor in this commercialization phase.•Resistances within and outside the firm impede new product commercialization.•Low centralization and formalization help overcome resistances to new products.•Research context also helps to uncover drivers of effective export organizations. Research on firm-level innovativeness indicates that internal resistances in the innovating organization and external resistances in the marketplace act as critical hindrances to successful commercialization of innovations. We suggest that the translation of firm-level product innovativeness into successful commercialization of new products is facilitated when firms’ organizational structures are designed to unleash their abilities to overcome these resistances. We examine the relationship between firm-level product innovativeness and perceived new product performance, and analyze how organizational structure in the form of centralization and formalization moderates (enlarges or eliminates) the focal relationship. Testing hypotheses on a sample of 137 German exporters reveals support for our theoretical predictions. Our research contributes to the literature by contextualizing the relationship between firm-level product innovativeness and perceived new product performance. Moreover, we contribute to a better understanding of effective export sales organizations.