Examining the Complementary Effect of Political Networking Capability With Absorptive Capacity on the Innovative Performance of Emerging-Market Firms
研究新兴市场企业通过政治网络获取资源的能力如何与吸收能力互补，提升渐进式和突破式创新，发现对突破式创新效果更强，且在激烈竞争下互补效应更显著。
By incorporating institutional theory with the dynamic capability perspective, we investigate how emerging-market firms’ organizational capability to acquire resources through political networking with government officials complements their absorptive capacity in enhancing incremental and radical innovations. We further investigate the conditions under which the complementary effect matters. On the basis of a survey of 108 senior executives in China, we find that political networking capability complements absorptive capacity in overcoming resource constraints and organizational disadvantages in enhancing firms’ innovations, and the result is more effective in improving radical rather than incremental innovations. Furthermore, the complementary effect becomes stronger for emerging-market firms’ radical innovations when facing intense competition. We provide theoretical and practical implications of these findings.