مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد جستجوی دانش خارجی و نوآوری رادیکال در شرکت های با فن آوری بالا – الزویر 2018

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm’s radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.

Introduction

The concept of open innovation (OI) stresses the notion of leveraging external knowledge and has become increasingly popular both in academic research and industry practice (Chesbrough & Bogers, 2014). The basic premise of OI is opening up the innovation process (Huizingh, 2011). Nevertheless, the presence of valuable external sources of knowledge does not imply that the flow of external new ideas and knowledge into firms is an automatic or easy process (Vanhaverbeke & Cloodt, 2014). Implicitly, external knowledge is considered to be ‘out there’ ready to be harnessed by firms, but we have a limited understanding of the process of sourcing and bringing this into corporations (Dahlander & Gann, 2010). The ability to exploit external knowledge is, thus, a critical component of innovative capabilities (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Despite its popularity, many firms still struggle to manage OI properly, and the internal organization challenges perceived are the most difficult to manage (Vanhaverbeke, Chesbrough, & West, 2014). For instance, results of a survey among large firms in Europe and the United States suggest that it is not easy to implement an OI program and there are a range of challenges and constraints that limit firms’ ability to make use of OI, the management of external relationships being an important challenge (Chesbrough & Brunswicker, 2014). In this work, we suggest that the fact that the firm possesses absorptive capacity (AC) facilitates external knowledge identification and exploitation and can be helpful to attenuate some of the challenges posed by OI. AC has been defined as the capacity to learn and solve problems, allowing a firm to assimilate external knowledge and create new knowledge (Kim, 1998; Lane, Koka, & Pathak, 2006; Zahra & George, 2002). It is not only a matter of searching and accessing external ideas and knowledge, but also of being able to generate internally innovative outputs by combining external insights with the firm’s internal capabilities. Accordingly, external knowledge does not equally benefit all firms, as the firm’s own resources and actions determine the extent to which it will be able to take advantage of it (Fabrizio, 2009). As with OI, the notion of AC is based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally.