Resumen

VEGA-JURADO, Jaider; GUTIERREZ-GRACIA, Antonio  y  FERNANDEZ-DE-LUCIO, Ignacio. La Relación entre las Estrategias de Innovación: Coexistencia o Complementariedad. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation [online]. 2009, vol.4, n.3, pp. 74-88. ISSN 0718-2724.  doi: 10.4067/S0718-27242009000300007.

This paper explores the relationships between internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition as business innovation strategies. Drawing on absorptive capacity framework (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), we distinguish and empirically evaluate two possible relationships: coexistence and complementarity. The analysis is based on a large sample of manufacturing firms taken from the Spanish Survey of Technological Innovation 2004. Our results show coexistence between internal R&D and external knowledge acquisition but they do not provide evidence that these activities are complementary with respect to influencing innovation performance. In other words, although our results suggest that internal R&D activities are associated with a greater use of external knowledge sourcing strategies, they do not seem to have synergistic effects to develop new products.

Palabras clave : External knowledge acquisition; internal R+D; complementarity; coexistence.