Origins of Knowledge, Recombinant Search, and Innovation. An Econometric Study at the Interorganizational Level of Analysis

Innovative performance is influenced by the origins of the existing knowledge that is combined to generate innovation and by how economic actors search for new knowledge. Focusing on R&D alliances, we investigate the impact exerted on innovative performance at the alliance level by both (a) the geographic and organizational origins of the knowledge resources that allied organizations integrate across their boundaries, and (b) the extent to which allied organizations jointly search for new knowledge across different knowledge domains (i.e., search span). Drawing on a sample of 1,515 R&D alliances we found that, whereas the integration of geographically distant knowledge and of organizationally proximate knowledge in R&D alliances are negatively related to the alliance innovative performance, search span positively moderates either relationships. We conclude that, in order to make the most of broad-span searching, firms participating in R&D alliances should integrate geographically distant but organizationally proximate knowledge. By doing so, firms take advantage of the diversity and novelty that characterizes geographically distant knowledge, while preserving considerable levels of relative absorptive capacity that are needed for them to understand, internalize, and effectively use partners’ knowledge from different domains.