The Impact of the Openness of Firms’ External Search Strategies on Exploratory Innovation and Exploitative Innovation

Mingfeng Tang, Peng Xu, Patrick Llerena and Asghar Afshar Jahanshahi
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Mingfeng Tang: School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, China
Peng Xu: School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, China
Asghar Afshar Jahanshahi: CENTRUM Católica Graduate Business School, Lima 15023, Peru

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 18, 1-20

Abstract: Innovation activities of private firms are crucial for sustainable economic growth in every society. Therefore, the majority of firms around the world spend large amounts of capital (money, time, and human resources) in searching for novel innovative opportunities in the marketplace. In our study, we sought to understand how the openness of firms’ external search strategies (external search breadth and external search depth) affects firms’ innovation capabilities as measured by awareness, decision-making, interpretation, and implementation capability. Furthermore, using survey data collected from 112 Chinese manufacturing firms over a six-month period, this study conducted an empirical analysis about the association between firms’ innovation capabilities on the type of innovation (exploratory innovation vs. exploitative innovation). This study also provides important managerial insights for manufacturing companies.

Keywords: external search; innovation capability; sustainable economic growth; exploratory innovation; exploitative innovation; sustainable competitive advantage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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