The Impact Of External Innovative Search On Firm Product Innovation

As the shift from "closed" innovation to "open" innovation, external knowledge is more and more important for innovation performance of enterprises. This dissertation examines how firms can better obtain and make use of external knowledge that is essential to innovations from the theoretical perspective of innovative search. The empirical evidence of 133 Chinese firms confirmed that different external search strategies of innovation have different effects on firms' product innovation performance and the moderating role of environmental dynamism. This study helps to expand and deepen existing study of innovation and innovative search.First of all, on the basis of the existing research, this dissertation deepens and expands the conceptual framework of innovative search. By distinguishing external new knowledge and external old knowledge and combining these types of knowledge with search breadth and search depth, this dissertation builds four basic concepts: search breadth of external new knowledge, search breadth of external old knowledge, search depth of external new knowledge and search depth of external old knowledge. The different influences on firms'product innovation are further revealed. The empirical results show that search breadth of external new knowledge and search depth of external new knowledge have a positive impact on firms'product innovation, while search breadth of external old knowledge and search depth of external old knowledge play no significant role in promoting firms'product innovation. The data also exhibit the interaction of search breadth and depth for external old knowledge has a positive effect on firms'product innovation, while the interaction of search breadth and depth for external new knowledge has no significant influence on firms'product innovation.Secondly, this dissertation further examines how environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between these four external search strategies and firms' product innovation, such that, all else being the same, the relationship is positive at higher levels and negative at lower levels of dynamism. The empirical results show that search depth of external new knowledge is found to be negatively associated with product innovation in more-dynamic environments, while search depth of external old knowledge is found to be positively associated with product innovation. In addition, environmental dynamism plays no significant moderating role in the relationship between search breadth of external knowledge (including new knowledge and old knowledge) and product innovation of firms.