Abstract: This research draws on organizational learning theory to propose that R&D teams with greater absorptive capacity and improvisation capability create more radical innovations. I test this model with data from 100 R&D teams in multiple firms in computer technology industries. The results show that potential absorptive capacity, realized absorptive capacity, and improvisation capability are positively related to innovation radicalness and that the relationship between potential absorptive capacity and innovation radicalness is fully mediated by realized absorptive capacity.

Abstract: Licensing-in and the role of the licensee in the market for technology is under-investigated. This paper questions the extent to which licensees use licensed technology as an input into their internal R&D and how the licensed technology allows them to shorten the time-horizon of their further innovation activities. Studying 224 patent licenses, we find that the licensed technology to a large extent is used as an input by licensees striving to achieve new patent applications and that in fact it allows the firm to move more quickly across the innovation landscape. This effect is intensified if the licensed patent can be classified as being close to her in-house technological capabilities. Also, licensee´s experience with combining distant technologies seems to shorten the duration of the innovation processes involving complex combinations of technologies.

Abstract: The primary focus of this proposal is to propose and test a model of knowledge management (KM) practices as a key determinant of a firm’s innovation orientation and innovation behaviour, based on literature on both knowledge management as well as that of absorptive capacity. In the second part of the paper, based on 649 Dutch SMEs, using both hierarchical regression analysis and then structural equation modeling, this paper reports on results that support the proposition that innovation orientation acts as a mediating variable in the relationship between KM practices and innovation behaviour. Of the two KM practices examined, external acquisition and internal sharing, only external acquisition appears to have a significant effect on innovation orientation, and innovation behaviour, in turn.