Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/80823 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
KOF Working Papers No. 322
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, Zurich
Abstract: 
In a first step, we developed based on existing theoretical and empirical literature a series of hypotheses with respect to the relative importance of possible determinants of exploration and exploitation of knowledge in collaboration with universities and tested them on Swiss firm data. In a second step, we investigated the impact on innovation performance of knowledge exploration versus knowledge exploitation. We obtained a clear pattern of the differences between exploration-oriented and exploitation-oriented firms. We found that exploration-oriented firms have a greater knowledge absorptive capacity, are technologically more diverse, and they are less exposed to intensive price competition compared to exploitation-oriented firms. We further found a positive effect on innovation performance for exploration-oriented firms but not for those that were exploration-oriented.
Subjects: 
knowledge exploration
knowledge exploitation
innovation
JEL: 
O31
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
170.27 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.