Sources of Dependence and Strategies to Innovate: Evidence from Video Game SMEs
研究了视频游戏中小企业依赖的来源如何影响其创新战略选择，发现资源与技能匮乏是主要依赖来源，且依赖来源的层级结构引导企业选择合作或整合策略。
Recent studies call for reconsideration of the predictions of resource dependence theory, in light of contemporary industrial and economic environments. This study accordingly investigates the influence of dependence on the strategic choice to innovate by focusing on a rarely studied topic, namely, the sources of dependence. In studying small and medium-sized video game enterprises, this paper provides empirical validation of dependence phenomena. These companies have limited resources, which inevitably creates dependence, exacerbated in innovative contexts because of the prevalence of negative effects, such as opportunism, abuse of power, limited innovation, or inequitable distributions of economic value. To deal with these negative effects, some enterprises use cooperation or integration strategies to try to minimize their dependence. The strategic choice then might be conditioned. The results of a comparative and qualitative study of five video game developers show that a lack of resources and skills is the primary source of dependence. In addition, a hierarchy of sources of dependence seems to guide the strategic choices of developers to innovate.