Impact of external knowledge acquisition strategies on innovation - A comparative study based on Dutch and Swiss panel data
Spyros Arvanitis, Boris Lokshin, Pierre Mohnen & Martin Wörter
#2013-003
There is growing evidence that firms increasingly adopt open innovation
practices. In this paper we investigate the impact of two such external
knowledge acquisition strategies, 'buy' and 'cooperate', on firm's
product innovation performance. Taking a direct (productivity) approach,
we test for complementarity effects in the simultaneous use of the two
strategies, and in the intensity of their use. Our results based on
large panels of Dutch and Swiss innovating firms, suggest that while
both 'buy' and 'cooperate' have a positive effect on innovation, there
is little statistical evidence that using them simultaneously leads to
higher innovation performance. Results from the Dutch sample provide
some indication, that there are positive economies of scope in doing
external and cooperative R&D simultaneously conditional on doing
internal R&D.
JEL-codes: O31, O32
Keywords: Open innovation, R&D collaboration, make, buy strategies