The innovative performance of firms in heterogeneous environments : the interplay between external knowledge and internal absorptive capacities

; and Gagliardi, Luisa (2018) The innovative performance of firms in heterogeneous environments : the interplay between external knowledge and internal absorptive capacities Research Policy, 47 (4). pp. 782-795. ISSN 0048-7333

Copy

This paper investigates the link between firm-level innovative performance and innovation prone external environments where knowledgeable individuals tend to cluster. Organizational ambidexterity and absorptive capacities (potential and realized) make it possible for firms to leverage the availability of external knowledge and boost their innovation performance. The empirical analysis focuses on England and is based on a novel combination of Community Innovation Survey (CIS) firm-level data and patent data. The results show that only firms complementing potential and realized absorptive capacities are able to take advantage of favorable external environments by actively combining internal and external sources of knowledge.

Item Type	Article
Copyright holders	The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement No SSHsingle bondCT-2010-266959; Project PICK-ME. The authors would like to thank the participants to the DR
Keywords	Innovation; Geography of innovation; Absorptive capacities; Exploration and exploitation, Internal OA fund
Departments	Geography and Environment Urban and Spatial Programme
DOI	10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.006
Date Deposited	13 Mar 2018 10:47
Acceptance Date	2018-02-09
URI	https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/87144