Contextual variables, such as an organization's attitude toward an innovation and the innovation's compatibility with existing operating practices and value systems within the organization, may moderate the relationship between the need for strategic change, and the decision to implement an innovation and the ability to realize the benefits of success from the innovation. In attempting to investigate this relationship within the context of a special category of innovations for the manufacturing process—computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) systems—this large-scale empirical study finds fairly strong support for the moderating effects of both these variables on the form of relationship within the organizational innovation process. Adopting organizations already holding, or capable of generating, a favourable attitude toward CIM display a much stronger association between their need or pressures for strategic change and the extent to which they are able to exploit the performance potential of these innovations than do adopting units having a less favourable attitude. A somewhat counterintuitive finding (on the face of it) is the negative moderating influences of compatibility of CIM. The results suggest that incompatible CIM innovations appear to facilitate a stronger linkage within the stages of the innovation process, raising questions about the rationality involved in adoption and implementation of these CIM innovations.