Extant research on external knowledge search and open innovation assumes that collaborators are aligned in their strategic interests towards solving innovation problems. However, disruptive innovation is known to threaten the competitive advantage of incumbent firms, thereby creating a potential conflict of interest between these firms and their collaborators. This paper explores the extent to which strategic interests influence joint problem solving in both complementary and disruptive technologies by analyzing the effects of incumbent collaboration. The analysis disentangles inability and strategic intent to find that non-incumbents experience suppression of problem solving likelihood within disruptive technologies when incumbent collaborators are not strategically committed. The paper contributes to extant theory by showing the influence of firms’ underlying strategic interests on their collaborators.
Anders Ørding Olsen (Thu,) studied this question.