Outbound Open Innovation for Enhanced Innovation Performance: An Empirical Study based on BTB Enterprises in China

Open Innovation gains a wide spread attention in technology management research in recent years. Because existing research about the relationship between outbound open innovation and innovation performance is limited and context factors are ignored in existing research and based on Chesbrough’s open innovation model and theory of enterprise competence, this study introduces enterprise competence and knowledge spillovers into the field of outbound open innovation, explores their moderated roles between open innovation and innovation performance. We use high-tech firms as research sample to test the hypothesis that we proposed and find that: (1) outbound open innovation has a positive effect on innovation performance; (2) both enterprise competence and knowledge spillovers moderate the relationship between outbound open innovation and innovation performance. These conclusions have important implications for the development and application of open innovation theory.