In a dynamic world,innovation has become a necessary choice for enterprise development. Internal R&D and external technology acquisition are two main ways for enterprises to improve innovation performance. However,enterprises are confronted with the practical problem of how to choose between internal R&D and external technology acquisition in the process of technological innovation. Different enterprises may choose various innovation paths. Internal R&D and external technology acquisition can be coordinated to achieve innovation. Most enterprises in China and other emerging markets are in the initial stage of development,with limited scale and relatively weak resources and technical foundations. Enterprises need to figure out how to allocate limited resources between two innovation activities,and make reasonable arrangements in terms of time between internal R&D and external technology acquisition.#br#Research on internal R&D and external technology acquisition focuses more on the complementary or alternative relationship and the difference in their impact on innovation performance,but there is inadequate attention paid to the sequential selection between the two kinds of innovation activities from a dynamic perspective. As open innovation has been widely recognized,the separate importance of internal R&D and external technology acquisition has been reflected. Yet simultaneous or time-paced strategic arrangements from a time perspective should be the focus of research. In addition,research based on the resource-based view mostly focuses on the positive impact of resources,but it lacks reflection on the burden or constraints of resources on decision-making and executives′ attention. What′s more,in the existing literature,the research on knowledge reorganization ability is mostly carried out using qualitative research methods and a few questionnaire survey methods.#br#This study selects the Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2021 as research samples. Their enterprise patent applications,internal research and development,and financial data are sourced from the CSMAR database,while external technology acquisition data is sourced from the Zephyr database. After data screening,the annual panel data of 15 479 enterprises in 1424 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2021 is obtained. It takes the innovation performance of enterprises as the explained variable,and the patent application volume of the enterprises is selected to measure the innovation performance of the enterprise;the explanatory variables are sequential innovation strategy,including both simultaneous innovation strategy and time-paced innovation strategy. Then the study dynamically explores the impact of simultaneous innovation strategy and time-paced innovation strategy on firm innovation performance from the perspective of knowledge reorganization ability.#br#The results show that simultaneous innovation strategy is not conducive to improving innovation performance,while time-paced innovation strategy significantly promotes innovation performance;the time-paced innovation strategy of internal R&D before external technology acquisition has a more significant role in improving innovation performance;knowledge reorganization ability slows down the positive effect between time-paced innovation strategy and innovation performance.#br#Compared with previous studies,the theoretical contributions and innovations of this study are mainly reflected in three aspects. At first,this study fills a theoretical gap in the research on the dynamic relationship between internal R&D and external technology acquisition in enterprises. By extending the time dimension from the previous static relationship discussion,it analyzes the problem of simultaneous or time-paced selection between the two kinds of activities,and expands the time boundary of related research. Second,this study expands the application of knowledge reorganization theory in the field of innovation strategy selection. It is a dynamic process from acquisition to utilization of resources. No matter whether it is for the knowledge accumulated inside the enterprise or the new knowledge acquired outside,enterprises need to carry out internal transformation. This study focuses on the transformation of firm resources into innovation performance and discusses the role of knowledge reorganization ability in this process. Third,this study complements the empirical research of firms on the strategic choice between internal R&D and external technology acquisition and knowledge reorganization ability.#br#
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