How many to be different? The role of number and the partner type on innovation performance

Abstract

Collaboration with external partners for innovation is seen as a major driver of novel ideas. Previous studies have revealed the importance of collaboration with different partners on innovation performance; however, many questions regarding this association remain unresolved. This study aims to analyse the effects of collaboration with different types of partners on the innovation performance and how the cognitive distance affects this relationship. This study also distinguishes between incremental and radical innovations as outcomes of cooperation, and provides differing implications for the two innovations types. Based on empirical analyses performed on a sample of 12,000 Spanish firms, we found supportive evidence that both radical and incremental innovation require a distinct number of collaboration partners to optimise innovation performance. Further, relationship between the number of partners and innovation performance is moderated by the cognitive distance between the focal firm and the respective partner: positively for radical innovation and negatively for incremental innovation performance.