Our objective in this paper is to explore the impact of information technology (IT) on the performance of open innovation models. We study the effect of IT on the production of patents and product innovations. Our analysis of a large panel of Spanish manufacturing firms confirms that the effect of the proportion of external research and development (R&D) investments on the production of patents and new products has an inverted U-shape. The results also reveal that investments in IT positively moderate the consequences of open innovation on innovation performance by reducing identification, assimilation, and utilization costs. Our results provide evidence of the viability and benefit of a new strategic alternative to innovation that is different than the traditional process of vertically integrated R&D. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0705 .

In this paper we use a panel of manufacturing firms in Spain to examine the extent to which they use internal and external sources of information (customers, suppliers, competitors, consultants and universities) to generate product and process innovation. Our results show that, although internal sources are influential, external sources of information are key to achieve innovation performance. These results are in line with the open innovation literature because they show that firms that are opening up their innovation process and that use different information sources have a greater capacity to generate innovations. We also find that the importance of external sources of information varies depending on the type of innovation (product or process) considered. To generate process innovation, firms mainly rely on suppliers while, to generate product innovation, the main contribution is from customers. The potential simultaneity between product and process innovation is also taken into consideration. We find that the generation of both types of innovation is not independent.

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The evolution of industry has recently attracted the attention of scholars studying the relationships between exploration and exploitation strategies and innovation performance. Surprisingly, although extant research has already acknowledged its multidimensional character, it has only been analyzed in an aggregate fashion. In this paper, we distinguish two components of the evolution of industry, the pace of market evolution and the pace of technology evolution, and we elaborate on their different impacts in the context of exploration and exploitation strategies. More precisely, we argue that while a rapid pace of technology evolution has opposite impacts on the relationships between exploration (positive), exploitation (negative) and innovation performance, a rapid pace of market evolution positively affects both exploration and exploitation. Our findings provide substantial support for our prediction using a large panel of Spanish innovating firms for the period 2008-2012.

This paper extends previous analysis of the choice between internal and external R&D to consider the effect of this decision on productivity. Existing empirical research confirms that there is a positive relationship between technological assets and firm performance. However, few works have attempted to identify whether the technological sourcing decision taken by the firm affects productivity. The main finding of this paper is that the technological strategy developed by the firm does affect productivity. This issue is particularly novel as it incorporates the technological sourcing decision taken by the firm. The results we obtain indicate that the technological sourcing decision affects the relationship between technological capital and productivity. Thus, our findings suggest that the decision between internal and external R&D matters.

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