When is interorganizational learning beneficial for inbound open innovation of ventures? A contingent role of entrepreneurial orientation

Ribin Seo and Ji-Hoon Park

Technovation, 2022, vol. 116, issue C

Abstract: Inbound open innovation for purposive knowledge acquisition and generation is a viable strategy for new ventures to fill out internal knowledge gaps through external innovation networks. However, the smallness and newness liabilities to which the firms are subject can restrict their potential to take increased innovation returns of inbound-oriented activities. Against this practical issue, we test assumptions that employing interorganizational learning (IOL) is beneficial for ventures to achieve better inbound open innovation performance and that the performing-by-learning mechanism is contingent on their entrepreneurial posture for productive knowledge utilization, referring to entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Findings from an analysis of 218 inbound open innovation projects of ventures demonstrate that firms showing higher exploitative and exploratory IOL practices enjoy greater technological and business performance, corresponding to the value creation and capture of inbound open innovation. Furthermore, EO serves as a significant moderator to leverage the advantages of exploratory learning for technological performance and exploitative learning for business performance. This study contributes to the literature by adding original findings that the entrepreneurial mode of interactions at the external innovation networks is essential for ventures to orchestrate the distinctive yet reciprocal functions of exploitative and exploratory learning in capitalizing on network-available knowledge. In practice, institutionalizing the IOL–EO nexus in the firms’ inbound-oriented activities legitimizes the contingent rationality for increased innovation returns in technology and business.

Keywords: Inbound open innovation; Interorganizational learning; Knowledge exploitation; Knowledge exploration; Entrepreneurial orientation; Value creation; Value capture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016649722200061X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:techno:v:116:y:2022:i:c:s016649722200061x

DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102514

Access Statistics for this article

Technovation is currently edited by Jonathan Linton

More articles in Technovation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().