Abstract
Past research has consistently shown that companies, which have close
relationships with customers, suppliers, research institutions, and
competitors are more likely to have higher product and process innovation
success. But why and how are these firms able to build up and use
technology-oriented interorganizational relationships, which give
them a competitive advantage? The authors postulate that the underlying
reason is a company-specific ability to handle, use, and exploit
interorganizational relationships. We call this skill network competence.
Drawing upon a sample of 308 German mechanical and electrical engineering
companies, results of a LISREL analysis reveal that network competence
has a strong positive influence on the extent of interorganizational
technological collaborations and on a firm's product and process
innovation success. Furthermore, four organizational antecedents
have an impact on a company's network competence: access to resources,
network orientation of human resource management, integration of
intraorganizational communication, and openness of corporate culture.
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