There is a growing recognition that firms increase their collaboration breadth by opening their boundaries to more innovation partners, sourcing and integrating complementary knowledge, skills, and resources and, in turn, improving their innovation performance. However, not all firms benefit equally from collaboration breadth. We argue that the literature has not considered important contingency factors that can mitigate such benefits. This paper enhances understanding of the relationship between collaboration breadth and innovation performance by contending, and empirically confirming, that the magnitude and direction of this association depend on the type of the firm faces. Drawing on organizational learning theory, it is argued that firms encountering financial, knowledge, and institutional innovation constraints will compromise the effects of their openness. The empirical findings suggest that innovative firms face challenges balancing trade-offs between a broad collaboration network and high financial, knowledge, and institutional constraints.

中文翻译：

---

合作创新：约束的抑制作用


人们越来越认识到，企业可以通过向更多创新合作伙伴开放边界、采购和整合互补的知识、技能和资源来扩大合作广度，从而提高其创新绩效。然而，并非所有公司都能从合作广度中平等受益。我们认为，文献没有考虑可以减轻这些好处的重要偶然因素。本文通过争论并实证证实这种关联的程度和方向取决于公司面临的类型，增强了对协作广度与创新绩效之间关系的理解。借鉴组织学习理论，有人认为，遇到财务、知识和制度创新约束的企业将损害其开放性的效果。实证研究结果表明，创新型企业面临着平衡广泛的协作网络与高度的财务、知识和制度约束之间的权衡的挑战。