The importance of external knowledge sources for the newness of innovations of South African firms Online publication date: Wed, 02-Jun-2010
by J. Knoben, L.A.G. Oerlemans
International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development (IJIRD), Vol. 2, No. 3, 2010
Abstract: Relatively little is known about the importance of different types of external knowledge sources for the innovation outcomes of firms. Recently, several studies have been published that have started to fill this gap by studying the effects of different types of external knowledge sources on the innovativeness of firms. We add to this literature by taking a wider range of different external knowledge sources into account, by focusing on more different levels of novelty of innovations and by studying firms in an emerging economy (i.e., South Africa). The findings indicate that there are significant differences between the effects of different types of external knowledge sources. Furthermore, it is found that there is an inverted U-shaped relation between the level of diversity of utilised external knowledge sources and innovation outcomes. The findings strongly support to idea that it is useful to distinguish many different types of external knowledge sources as well as different levels of novelty of innovations.
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