External technology acquisition and firm performance: A longitudinal study

Abstract External technology acquisition has been viewed as an important method used by firms to achieve higher economic returns. However, only a few studies have evaluated the contribution of external technology acquisition to firm performance. This lack of research is surprising because the benefits of external technology acquisition to innovation output have been emphasized extensively in the literature. This study therefore investigates the extent to which external technology acquisition effects a firm's performance, and how this effect is moderated by internal RD however, the positive impact of external technology acquisition on firm performance increases with the level of internal R&D efforts. Verifications for robustness and the split-sample analyses both validate the results in the setting of larger firms.

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