External Knowledge Acquisition and Product Innovation Performance: The Moderating Effect of Internal R&D Level

• Main Authors: Kuei-Chen Tung , 童桂珍
• Other Authors: Kung-Hung Tsai
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/15135509024257036171

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 企業管理學系 === 95 === Along with the rapid technological change, the intensity of competition significantly increases. Combing external knowledge is rather important for a firm that aims to quickly respond to environmental competition and to achieve competitive advantage through product innovation. Previous research has paid much attention to the link between external knowledge acquisition and product innovation performance. Some of them indicate that the relationship between external knowledge acquisition and product innovation performance is positive, others are negative. Obviously, the relationships are moderated by other factors. In fact, past research argues that a firm with higher R&D level should have better absorptive capacity which can enhance the use of external knowledge acquisition. Therefore internal R&D effort may play the role of moderating the relationship between external knowledge acquisition and product innovation performance. However, such effect has not examined so far. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the use of external knowledge acquisition on product innovation performance and the moderating effect of R&D level on the relationships between external knowledge acquisition and product innovation performance. This analysis focuses on the 105 information electronics firms due to the convenience of data collection. The open data enables us easy to collect data about R&D in the past five years. In other words, this study, different from the past is a longitudinal examination. The R&D level variable is defined as R&D density and R&D capital for undertaking the sensitive analyses of the findings. This study use hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The results show that external knowledge acquisition has negative effect on product innovation performance; the negative effect of external knowledge acquisition on product innovation performance decreases with the degree of R&D level. A firm with higher R&D level has ability to use external knowledge, absorb and change this knowledge into and develop the products with commercial value. The result of study will help us to understand the relationships between external knowledge acquisition and product innovation performance detailed.