Building an innovation base: exploring the role of acquisition behavior

Innovation serves as a foundation for sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is no surprise that firms seek to build an innovation base—a reservoir of inventions, ideas, and discoveries that serve as a platform for their innovation efforts. One approach for building an innovation base is a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 2013-11, Vol.41 (6), p.705-721
Main Authors: Mishra, Saurabh, Slotegraaf, Rebecca J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acquisitions & mergers
Acquisitions and mergers
Analysis
Business and Management
Business enterprises
Competition
Competitive advantage
Forecasts and trends
Influence
Innovations
Inventions
Inventors
Knowledge
Management
Marketing
Marketing management
Mergers, acquisitions and divestments
Original Empirical Research
Product development
Product lines
R&D
Research & development
Social Sciences
Statistics
Studies
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Summary:Innovation serves as a foundation for sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, it is no surprise that firms seek to build an innovation base—a reservoir of inventions, ideas, and discoveries that serve as a platform for their innovation efforts. One approach for building an innovation base is acquisitions, though extant research reveals an equivocal verdict on whether acquisitions influence post-acquisition inventions. In this research, the authors focus on type of acquisition, acquisition behavior over time, and invention characteristics to investigate how acquisition behavior influences post-acquisition inventions. Analysis of 352 firms across five industries and 17 years reveals that firms who make acquisitions produce a stronger innovation base than those who make no acquisitions. Moreover, comparing effects across vertical and horizontal acquisitions, results indicate that the acquiring firm’s knowledge breadth plays an important role in determining which type of acquisition behavior generates the strongest influence on a firm’s innovation base.
ISSN:0092-0703
1552-7824
DOI:10.1007/s11747-013-0329-6