دانلود رایگان مقاله نوآوری در سراسر مرز دیدگاه نمونه کار در شراکت نوآوری شرکت چند ملیتی

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how and under what conditions alliance portfolio diversity influences a firm’s innovative performance, with special attention being given to potential performance differences between multinational corporations (MNCs) and domestic firms. Analyses of data from 1045 German firms, among which 598 MNCs, revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between alliance portfolio diversity and MNCs’ innovative performance. Findings also indicate MNCs to be better positioned than their domestic counterparts with regards to translating alliance portfolio diversity into superior innovative performance. Importantly though, this only holds for MNCs equipped with strong internal R&D capabilities and, to some extent, high human capital.

5. Discussion

In this study, we sought to understand how and under what conditions alliance portfolio diversity influences firms’ innovative performance. Several key findings emerged with regard to this question. First, we identified an inverted U-shaped effect of MNCs’ functional partnership portfolio diversity on their innovative performance. Second, differences between multinational and domestic firms in their ability to realize the benefits of functional alliance portfolio diversity were found to be contingent on the level of R&D intensity and, to some extent, human capital. Our primary theoretical contribution to alliance portfolio research lies in identifying important boundary conditions under which alliance portfolios enhance a firm’s innovative performance. With some exceptions (Lavie & Miller, 2008; Wuyts & Dutta, 2014), research examining how the focal firm’s attributes its alliance portfolio success is largely missing. In this study, we have specifically brought the multinational firm and its unique characteristics into the foreground. Our results underscore the need to simultaneously consider the characteristics of MNCs’ alliance portfolios and internal resources when seeking to understand alliance portfolio performance. Most notably,a nuanced picture emerges with regard to the expected differences between multinational and domestic firms in their alliance portfolio performance. While there are no such differences when viewed in isolation, especially under high levels of internal R&D, multinational firms benefit more from functionally diverse alliance portfolios than domestic firms5 . This can be interpreted not only as underlining the importance of a firm’s technological capabilities for absorbing external knowledge per se (e.g., Cohen & Levinthal, 1990), but also as supporting our assumption that MNCs need sufficient resources to deal with the complexity of simultaneously managing various internal and external network relationships, and thus to realize their structural advantages compared to domestic firms. It should be noted, however, that in light of our post-hoc tests these findings must be treated with some caution. The nonsignificant three-way interactions for geographical and temporal portfolio diversity suggest limits to the generalizability of our findings across different forms of alliance portfolio diversity and clearly point to the need for further research on this complex issue.