Together,
the results in exploratory innovation fulfill the conditions
(Preacher et al., 2007) to consider that INN mediates the
relationship between OC and PERF, but not in exploitative
innovation. More specifically, the results in exploratory
innovation support a pattern of partial mediation (Mathieu
and Taylor, 2006), as the effect of OC appears to still exist
after including INN. Thus, these results suggest that the
association between OC and PERF is partially accounted for
by INN, but that OC most likely also has a direct effect on
project performance in exploratory innovation