DOES STRONGER R&D CAPABILITY ALWAYS PROMOTE BETTER INNOVATION? THE MODERATING ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE BOUNDARY SPANNING OF R&D NETWORK.

Setting the research background in China, this study draws on absorptive capacity, knowledge inertia and prospect theory to show the relationship between R&D capability and innovation performance which comprises exploitation and exploration. We propose that stronger R&D capability promotes exploitation performance but inhibits exploration performance. As exploitation represents immediate interest and exploration represents long-term interest, we introduce the notion of knowledge boundary spanning of R&D network to balance short-term and long-term benefits. The empirical results show that R&D capability and knowledge boundary spanning of R&D network complement each other for explorative innovation while they present trade-offs for exploitative innovation. This study contributes to existing literature on R&D capability–innovation performance, and it further extends our understanding by investigating the impact of knowledge boundary spanning of R&D network on the R&D capacity–innovation performance relationships. In addition, this study provides references on resources configuration to achieve different innovation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]