Effects of Corporate Purpose on Organizational Innovation: An Explanatory Mixed-Methods Analysis
Marco Arrayaa
Orcid profile and Anabela Monteirob
Orcid profile 
Published Online: May 23, 2025
Page range: 175 - 195
Received: Nov 22, 2024
Accepted: Mar 03, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/orga-2025-0011
Keywords
© 2025 Marco Arrayaa et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Purpose
The current study has two primary goals: first, to examine the influence of corporate purpose on organizational innovation and second, to analyze the sequential mediation effect of both a people-centric approach and infrastructure between corporate purpose and organizational innovation.
Design/Methodology
A sequential explanatory mixed-method design was used in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and PROCESS macro were applied based on 188 online questionnaires completed by employees of a leading Portuguese publishing company, followed by a thematic analysis of 37 structured interviews.
Results
The quantitative findings indicate that corporate purpose has a positive impact on organizational innovation and that both the people-centric approach and organizational infrastructure serve as significant mediators in the relationship between corporate purpose and organizational innovation. Moreover, the people-centric approach and organizational infrastructure sequentially mediate the relationship between corporate purpose and organizational innovation. The qualitative data corroborate and deepen these findings, revealing the crucial role of a people-centric approach and organizational infrastructure as mediators in corporate purpose to cope with organizational innovation.
Conclusions
Our study provides theoretical and practical implications for practitioners, researchers, and business leaders to better understand the relationship between these concepts and opportunities for further research.