Conclusions
This study analyses the influence of open external search strategies and AC on radical innovation in high-technology firms. Also, the moderating effect of AC is examined by focusing on the relationships between potential and realized AC and external breadth and depth strategies. Regarding the relationship between open breadth and depth and radical innovation, our findings did not find a significant direct effect and do not corroborate the results of previous research where a positive effect on radical innovation of external breadth (e.g., Chiang & Hung, 2010) and external depth (e.g. Ferreras-Mendez et al., 2015) has been found. These results can be justified in the context of the type of firms being analysed, i.e., high-technology firms. Thus, although searching widely and deeply across external sources can provide ideas and resources which help firms gain and exploit innovative opportunities, in these kinds of industries it can be considered a requirement to compete, but on its own, it is not sufficient to achieve a competitive advantage through radical innovation. We found that both potential and realized AC exert an influence on radical innovation. Our findings suggest the value of devoting resources and efforts to intensify awareness of potential partners and developing capabilities that facilitate the transformation and exploitation of external knowledge as the role of both components of AC, i.e. search-based capabilities related to knowledge acquisition and assimilation, and knowledgeapplication capabilities, are shown to foster innovation radicalness. Although there is previous empirical research that studied and verified the effect of AC, it mostly used proxy variables to represent AC, with no identification of the processes and abilities that form AC. Therefore, the way AC is conceptualized in this research should be highlighted, as the distinction between both components of AC, based on Zahra and George’s (2002), allows a deeper understanding of the role of AC.
