The importance of innovation in leading economic development and promoting industrial transformation is increasingly prominent. It is difficult for enterprises to ensure continuous management innovation activities by relying on their limited resources, so boundary-spanning search activities to obtain external knowledge and information are increasingly valued by enterprises. This paper studies the management innovation activities of enterprises from the perspective of boundary-spanning search, clarifies the role mechanism of boundary-spanning search to management innovation, and provides new solutions for enterprises to carry out management innovation activities. #br#Boundary-spanning search plays an important role in management innovation activities, but it is not a direct factor in management innovation. Social cognitive theory suggests that innovation behavior is influenced by cognitive factors, and companies with high cognitive flexibility will make adjustment after receiving external knowledge and information, which in turn will have an impact on management innovation activities of the company. Therefore, this paper argues that cognitive flexibility, as an important factor to promote enterprise growth, plays a "top-down" role in the process of boundary-spanning search for management innovation. In addition, higher absorptive capacity has a beneficial effect on knowledge application and technology transformation, and the resources such as knowledge and information obtained through boundary-spanning search can be better utilized and integrated in practice. Therefore, through the integration, absorption and utilization of resources such as knowledge and information, the absorptive capacity of enterprises can be improved to better catalyze boundary-spanning search to generate new strategies and solutions for cognitive flexibility in response to environmental changes and lay the foundation for enterprise management innovation activities. Based on this, this paper incorporates absorptive capacity into the research framework, which helps to explain the mechanism underlying the process of boundary-spanning search to cognitive flexibility. As shown above, this paper explores the influence mechanism of cognitive flexibility and management innovation from the perspective of boundary-spanning search based on open innovation theory, and collects 287 sample data for empirical study.#br#The results show that technology-driven boundary-spanning search and market-driven boundary-spanning search have positive effects on both exploratory and exploitative management innovation; cognitive flexibility has a mediating effect between boundary-spanning search and management innovation; and absorptive capacity positively moderates the relationship between technology-driven boundary-spanning search and market-driven boundary-spanning search and cognitive flexibility. In addition, we further examine the similarities and differences between large enterprises and small enterprises in terms of boundary-spanning search and absorptive capacity by grouping enterprises according to their size. Through grouping regressions, we find that technology-driven boundary-spanning search is relatively stronger in large and medium-sized firms, and market-driven boundary-spanning search is relatively stronger in small and medium-sized firms. Absorptive capacity has a moderating effect between technology-driven boundary-spanning search and cognitive flexibility in large and medium-sized enterprises, but no moderating effect is found in micro and small enterprises.#br#Based on the logic of knowledge-cognition-innovation, this paper investigates the influence mechanism on cognitive flexibility and managerial innovation from the perspective of boundary-spanning search and draws some contributions. Firstly, management innovation is a relatively new concept in the field of innovation. This study introduces dual theory into the field of management innovation, describes the characteristics of management innovation more systematically, and studies the dual innovation activities of enterprises from the perspective of boundary-spanning search, which provides a new way of thinking for the research of management innovation. Secondly, based on open innovation theory, this paper investigates the influence mechanism on management innovation from the perspective of boundary-spanning search based on the theoretical framework of "boundary-spanning search-cognitive flexibility-management innovation". Specifically, this paper classifies the dimensions of boundary-spanning search based on the difference of knowledge specialization, and verifies the positive influence of boundary-spanning search on management innovation from two aspects of technology-driven and market-driven boundary-spanning search, which enriches the research on the driving factors of management innovation. This study introduces dual theory into the field of management innovation, and studies the dual innovation activities of enterprises from the perspective of boundary-spanning search, which provides a new way of thinking for the research of management innovation. It verifies the positive influence of boundary-spanning search on management innovation from two aspects of technology-driven and market-driven boundary-spanning search and enriches the research on the driving factors of management innovation. Lastly this study introduces absorptive capacity as a moderating variable, and empirically tests that absorptive capacity can optimize the output effect of boundary-spanning search. Therefore it breaks the original thinking stereotypes and clarifies the specific mechanism of boundary-spanning search to promote cognitive flexibility.#br#