Abstract:

Based on the perspective of formal and informal search, it explores the impact of external search on product innovation performance by using data from a survey of 217 manufacturing SMEs in Zhejiang province. The empirical results show that both formal and informal search have significant positive effects on product innovation performance. Knowledge tacitness positively moderates the link of formal search and product innovation but negatively moderates the relationship between informal search and product innovation. Technological complexity negatively moderates the informal search – product innovation link. It contributes to the literature on innovation search in the following ways: it introduces the perspective of formal and informal search to analyze the relationship between external search and product innovation performance, and it also extends to include knowledge attributes as a crucial contingency of innovation search.