Trade-offs between external knowledge sources for firm innovation in a developing country
研究了发展中国家企业外部知识源的权衡关系，发现编码化知识源的关键作用，并解释了企业在获取和利用外部知识源时面临的替代与互补效应。
Abstract This paper studies the trade-off nature of the external knowledge-sourcing strategy of firms. Different combinations of external knowledge and information sources (KISs) on innovation performance are analyzed in the light of the existence of complementary and substitution effects between relational and codified sources. We assert that these effects are conditioned by the knowledge basis of the firm, which is associated with the firm’s relative cost of sourcing and internationalization. Our results shed new evidence on the specific features of sourcing knowledge for innovation in a less developed context, highlighting the critical role of codified sources and explaining the existence of the trade-offs that firms face in accessing and exploiting external KISs.