Knowledge sourcing strategy and radical innovative performance: A temporal approach

Prior research on open innovation has so far taken a static view, by focusing on stable patterns of external knowledge sourcing that only depict a snapshot of a firm's external search at a given point in time. Such a static view, however, ignores the fact that a firm's portfolio of external knowledge sources evolves over time. Our study attempts to address this gap by clarifying how temporal variations in a firm's knowledge sourcing activities (i.e., changes in external search breadth and external search depth) affect its radical innovative performance. We conceptualize temporal variations as encompassing simple change events (i.e., single transformative events captured through increases or decreases in breadth and depth) and multiple change events (i.e., repeated changes captured through increases and/or decreases in breadth and depth); and then develop theoretical arguments that draw on the organization learning theory. We find that asymmetries emerge when comparing simple and multiple change events in external breadth and external depth. Our findings contribute to prior research on open innovation by providing insights into the temporal dynamics and evolution of knowledge sourcing activities.