School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan U., Australia
Resource-taking, resource-giving, and resource-matching are the three main open innovation activities between firms seeking competitive advantage. Based on the resource-based view, open innovation scholars argue for resource-taking and protection strategies because resource-giving can dilute competitiveness. In contrast, the relational view researchers promote resource-giving because it expands the social network and elevates a firm’s position to gain preferential access to unique resources in the ecosystem. The middle lane between resource-based and relational views upholds resource-matching strategies to perpetuate tit-for-tat reciprocity. A common notion across these approaches to competitive advantage is the positive role of inter-firm trust. To integrate these different perspectives in an open innovation context, we develop and empirically test a model of three-way interaction among a firm’s strategic orientation, open innovation activities, and trust and analyze their impact on innovation performance. Preliminary interviews with 44 managers followed by a survey of 390 innovating firms in Australia reveal that the innovation performance of TAKERs, GIVERs, or MATCHERs (firms named according to dominant open innovation activity) varies across levels of trust. The GIVERs, owing to a higher level of trust, experienced the highest impact of strategic orientation on competitive advantage followed by TAKERs and MATCHERs (lowest). Our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting, and integrating various perspectives at the firm level. The implications for research and practice are discussed.
