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Does functional diversity in interfirm collaborations lead to innovation diversity? Firm-level evidence from the Australian food industry*
Azeem, Muhammad Masood Fazal-e-Hasan, Syed Gutiérrez, Leopoldo Baker, Derek
Azeem, Muhammad Masood
Fazal-e-Hasan, Syed
Gutiérrez, Leopoldo
Baker, Derek
Abstract
Research on the collaboration–innovation nexus emphasises that collaborations and innovation are multidimensional. Despite this emphasis, there is limited evidence on how firms' collaborative diversity affects their innovation diversity. This paper addresses this gap by examining the relationships between (i) a firm's functional diversity of collaboration (FDC) and innovation diversity, and (ii) innovation diversity and firm growth. We used longitudinal data from 738 Australian food firms, and our findings suggest that the positive relationship between FDC and innovation diversity reaches a point of saturation, beyond which additional collaboration negatively influences firms' innovation diversity. Moreover, innovation diversity depends on the motives behind alliance formation and the firm's focus on innovation. Finally, the association between innovation diversity and growth performance is heterogeneous across firms' conditional growth rate distribution.
Keywords
Australia, B2B collaborations, financial performance, innovation, panel data, poisson model
Date
2022
Type
Journal article
Journal
The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Book
Volume
66
Issue
3
Page Range
612-637
Article Number
ACU Department
Peter Faber Business School
Faculty of Law and Business
Faculty of Law and Business
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Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled