Collaboration breadth and innovation performance: The role of organizational motives and constraints

Firms increase their collaboration breadth (they open their boundaries to more innovation partners) in their attempt to source and integrate complementary knowledge, skills and resources and, in turn, increase their innovation performance. However, the results of prior empirical research on the relationship between collaboration breadth and innovation performance are equivocal, thus implying that not all firms benefit from collaboration breadth. In this doctoral thesis, it is argued that the reason for such equivocal results is that the literature has not considered important contingency factors that affect how much firms can benefit from collaboration breadth. This thesis enhances understanding of the relationship between collaboration breadth and innovation performance by suggesting that the magnitude and direction of this relationship depend on the innovation motives of each firm as well as on the constraints that the firm faces. Drawing on organizational learning theory, a conceptual model is developed and tested, using longitudinal data from the European Community Innovation Survey administered by the UK government, in a sample of British manufacturing and services firms, over the period of 2006 – 2016. The empirical findings indicate that different innovation motives instigate positive moderation effects on the collaboration breadth – innovation performance association, based on the type of the innovation performance. On the other hand, it is found that innovation constraints negatively moderate the relationship between collaboration breadth and both radical and incremental innovation.