Managerial Ties and Innovative Performance: An Open Innovation Perspective

The value of the open innovation is now widely recognized, previous studies highlighted the importance of external factors as innovation sources, however, a key issue is still little known in the open innovation model is how firms acquire ideas and knowledge from external actors. Integrating social network theory and open innovation perspective, this paper explores the relationship between the firms' external managerial ties and their innovative performance in an emerging economic context. This study attempts to measure that impact by analyzing a sample of 270 manufacturing firms located in China. The results show how business ties and R&D ties can contribute to the firm's innovative performance by facilitating external knowledge acquisition. It demonstrates ties are valuable as a conduit for knowledge. Moreover, the role of business ties and R&D ties are different, R&D ties contribute to innovative performance more than a channel for knowledge flow. Our findings suggest several theoretical and practical implications in the field of R&D and strategic management.