The Fit between Search Strategy and Absorptive Capability: Implications for Innovation Performance

Innovation search is an important perspective to study the "open innovation" model, and it win increasing attention from academic and practice field. This paper sort the search strategy into market-driven and technology-driven strategy based on the review of different types of external knowledge source. Then, we examine the moderating role of three kinds of absoptive capacity (i.e. exploratory, transformative and exploitative capacity) in the relationship between innovation search strategy and performance. Finally, we propose that firms' benefits can be maximized when the search strategy match the right kind of absorptive capacity.