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Information technology plays a critical role in the open innovation process. The purpose of this study is to explore the inner mechanism of external information technology (IT) capability that affects open innovation performance.

In this paper, responses to 232 questionnaires from different firms were collected in China. Then, the proposed hypotheses were tested using regression analysis by statistical product and service solutions (SPSS).

The results indicate that external knowledge integration plays a mediating role in the relationship between external IT capability and open innovation performance, openness breadth positively moderates the influence of external IT capability on external knowledge integration and openness depth negatively moderates the relationship between external IT capability and external knowledge integration.

The results, which are based on Chinese responses, provide useful suggestions for firms in China. To use external IT capability to improve open innovation performance, firms should not only stress the role of external knowledge integration but also consider their search strategy.

Both researchers and practitioners are interested in the relationship between information technology and open innovation. However, the way in which the inner mechanism of external IT capability affects open innovation performance has not been thoroughly researched. Based on knowledge integration theory, the authors construct a model that includes external IT capability, external knowledge integration, search strategy and open innovation performance. The results of this paper confirm the mediating and moderating roles of external knowledge integration and search strategy, respectively.

The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge by exploring how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) search for external knowledge in their open innovation processes, and how the search can be advanced.

This exploratory research employs a qualitative multiple case study design. A literature review of open innovation in SMEs and external knowledge search is used to build the premises of this study. Semi-structured interviews with eight SMEs are employed to collect subsequent exploratory empirical data.

This exploratory study revealed that SMEs adopted a combination of cognitive and experiential search heuristics where cognitive search was practiced during the innovation research process when searching for external knowledge, whilst experiential search was practiced during the innovation development process. Concerning the search space, this study found that SMEs mainly explored local knowledge, and occasionally pursued distant knowledge when confronted with complex problems. The reason for the above behavior was explained to be related to the reduction of costs and risks associated with innovation activities.

External knowledge plays a pivotal role in open innovation. Although extant studies have shed some light on how large firms search for external knowledge, however, it is not clear how SMEs search for external knowledge. Moreover, this study focuses on learning about both the search space and the search heuristics at both the research and the development stages of the innovation process.

Open innovation and information systems have been key topics in the theoretical domain, but little empirical research thoroughly examines how information technology (IT) capability affects open innovation performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between IT capability and open innovation performance and to expose the inner mechanism at the firm level.

This paper collected firm-level data in China; 232 usable questionnaires from different firms were collected. Then, the study used a structural equation model by AMOS for hypothesis testing.

The results indicate that both internal IT capability and external IT capability have positive impacts on open innovation performance; potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity mediate the relationship between external IT capability and open innovation performance. Additionally, realized absorptive capacity plays a mediating role in the relationship between internal IT capability and open innovation performance.

These findings indicate that practitioners should pay attention to the important relationship between absorptive capacity and IT capability and open innovation performance in Chinese businesses.

Existing research has emphasized the influence of IT on open innovation, but empirical studies have not thoroughly focused on the inner mechanisms of the effect of IT capability on open innovation performance. Drawing on firm capability theory, this paper classifies IT capability as internal and external IT capability and absorptive capacity as potential and realized absorptive capacity. Then, this paper confirms the mediating role of absorptive capacity between IT capability and open innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and propose an integrated model of marketing knowledge from a tacit knowledge management perspective. This paper further aims at developing a linkage between explicit knowledge perspective (internal and external marketing) and tacit knowledge orientation of an organization, leading to improved business success.

This paper develops a conceptual model showing the integration of the internal, tacit and explicit knowledge perspectives that results in improved business success. The proposed model and associated propositions are drawn from the synthesis of relevant knowledge and marketing literature.

Five major associated propositions are offered in the paper, which inform both scholars and practitioners about what constitutes a holistic market orientation and how organizations can achieve business success by adopting both an internal and external orientation to tacit and explicit knowledge management.

The model makes an original contribution to theoretical and organizational marketing management knowledge. It does this by extending the conceptual and operational boundaries of existing models of internal and external marketing, aimed at helping organizations achieve competitive advantage and business success.

Besides applying knowledge in own products and services, firms increasingly exploit their knowledge assets externally, e.g. by means of licensing out technology. The aim of this paper is to help firms achieve strategic fit in the keep‐or‐sell issue, which results from potential external knowledge exploitation.

The keep‐or‐sell decision refers to the issue whether to commercialize knowledge assets externally in addition to exploiting them inside the organization. Because of the high opportunities and risks of externally leveraging knowledge, the keep‐or‐sell decision constitutes a major area of conflict between strategies at different levels, particularly knowledge vs product strategies, corporate vs business unit strategies and R&D vs marketing strategies. After detailing the keep‐or‐sell decision, the paper conceptually explores how firms may respond to potential conflicts in the keep‐or‐sell decision by achieving strategic fit.

The paper identifies, in particular, three major characteristics of a firm's strategic approach, i.e. coordination, centralization, and collaboration, which may help firms achieve strategic fit in the keep‐or‐sell issue.

The keep‐or‐sell decision is a unique arena for studying hierarchical strategies and strategic fit. As a result, this paper has major implications for research into strategic fit, hierarchical strategies, knowledge management and open innovation. Achieving fit across a firm's different strategies in the keep‐or‐sell issue is essential for firm performance in a knowledge‐based economy.

This paper aims to analyze the extent to which the influence of external knowledge search activities on firms’ incremental innovation capability, and the moderating roles of the relatedness between the partners’ technological bases and a firm’s network embeddedness in the innovation network.

In this empirical research, the authors collected a sample of patents in the UAV industry over the period of 2004–2018. Then the authors examined the direct role of external knowledge search on firms’ incremental innovation capability and the joint moderating effects of technological proximity and network embeddedness.

We found that external knowledge search in innovation networks positively affects firms’ incremental innovation capability. Moreover, we discovered that high technological proximity to other peers positively strengthens the impact of firms’ external knowledge search on their incremental innovation capability. Finally, the findings suggested that the relationship between a firm’s external knowledge search activities and its incremental innovation capability is stronger for high technological proximity coupled with high network centrality or poor structural holes in innovation networks.

This study adds value to open innovation literature by pointing out a positive relationship between external knowledge search and firm incremental innovation capability. Furthermore, this study reinforces the key joint contingent roles of technological proximity and network embeddedness. This study provides a valuable theoretical framework of incremental innovation capability determinants by connecting the different perspectives.

Building on the resource- and knowledge-based views, this paper aims to explore how coopetition affects radical innovation and the roles of knowledge structure and external knowledge integration in the relationship between coopetition and radical innovation.

This study proposes a research model to examine the mediating role of external knowledge integration on the coopetition-radical innovation link, where the mediation is moderated by the firm’s knowledge structure (including component knowledge and architectural knowledge). The authors use regression and bootstrapping to test the proposed model with survey data from 241 Chinese technology firms.

This study finds that coopetition positively affects radical innovation and the effect is fully mediated by external knowledge integration. Additionally, component knowledge negatively moderates the coopetition-external knowledge integration link and architectural knowledge positively moderates this relationship. Further, the mediating effect of external knowledge integration is also moderated by component knowledge and architectural knowledge.

Firms should engage in coopetition to promote radical innovation. Further, it is necessary for firms to appropriately manage coopetition according to their internal knowledge structure.

This study explains why scholars have different ideas about the relationship between coopetition and radical innovation by exploring the mediating role of external knowledge integration and the moderating effect of knowledge structure. Firms possess increased possibilities for knowledge leakage and partner opportunism with high levels of component knowledge, which will reduce the positive effect coopetition on external knowledge integration; thus, they are less likely to realize radical innovation. Instead, firms possess increased opportunities for resource sharing with high levels of architectural knowledge, thus improving the positive effect coopetition on external knowledge integration and they are more likely to achieve radical innovation.

We argue that a foreign-based R&D subsidiary of a multinational enterprise (MNE) can potentially source knowledge from three diverse knowledge networks, namely (i) external knowledge network of the home country, (ii) external knowledge network of the host country, and (iii) internal (MNE) knowledge network. Drawing on the relative costs and benefits associated with the process of synergistic knowledge, this study examines whether a substitutive or a complementary relationship exists when two of the aforementioned networks collaborate in order to generate new knowledge at the subsidiary level. Our study’s sample is based on a survey questionnaire addressed to foreign-based R&D subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies. We assess the existence of complementarity/substitutability using the “production function approach.” Our results indicate that a complementary relationship exists between external knowledge network of the host and the home country, as well as between external knowledge network of the host country and internal knowledge network. On the other hand, external knowledge network of the home country and internal knowledge network form a substitutive relationship. Our study offers a more comprehensive view of the diverse sources/knowledge networks that R&D subsidiaries are sourcing knowledge from when compared to existing research. We also specify and account for the costs/benefits involved in knowledge sourcing and thereby detect possible substitution/complementarity between different sources of knowledge. So far, there has been limited to nonexistent research into the diversity of knowledge networks of R&D subsidiaries and the examination of potential substitutabilities and complementarities. Hence our empirical study contributes to the development of this particular research stream.

This paper examines the extent to which different sources of ideas for innovation are associated with novelty of innovation outcomes. We measure the novelty of product innovation using three well-established categories, ranging from highly novel new-to-world products to new-to-firm products that are essentially imitative, with products that are new-to-country (but not the world) being an intermediary category. In turn we investigate how knowledge derived from different external and internal (within-firm) sources of ideas can help firms increase innovation with different degrees of novelty. Our empirical analyses are conducted on a large sample of manufacturing firms from the South American emerging market of Colombia and show that many of the same sources of knowledge – such as scientific sources, production departments and managers – are associated with higher innovation in all three categories of novelty. However, some sources – notably external clients and internal interdisciplinary groups – are more significantly associated with more novel innovation than imitation. The implications of these findings for the literatures on innovation and imitation, and innovation by emerging market firms are discussed.

This paper aims to provide a new perspective in investigating how internal research and development (R&D) and external knowledge acquisition interact regarding their influence on innovation performance in an emerging market context. Building on an attention-based view (ABV), it argues that internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition can be substitutes for each other in emerging markets. Its contingency factors are also discussed according to the principles of the ABV.

The proposed hypotheses were empirically tested using a Tobit model approach. The data used was from the enterprise survey and the follow-up innovation survey conducted by the World Bank in 10 emerging market countries.

The results indicate that internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition entails a substitute effect among emerging market firms (EMFs). A higher level of manager’s open-mindedness to external knowledge and firm performance and a lower level of firm administrative control help mitigate the substitute effect of internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition. While adequate financial resources may not necessarily mitigate the substitute effect, it is an essential condition for the external knowledge acquisition to play a role in enhancing innovation performance.

The research uses a set of cross-sectional data. A dynamic study will provide a deeper understanding of the long-term effects of innovation investments.

To better use innovation investments, EMFs need to assess their specific conditions and the possible substitute effect of internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition activities.

Previous research discussing the interactive effect of internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition has mostly focused on an absorptive capacity perspective, which represents a firm’s technical ability. This study argues that these investments not only involve in absorbing knowledge technically but also form a challenge for the limited firm resources and can cause cognitive problems in management, especially for EMFs.