Abstract

This study focuses on the impact of knowledge collaboration and knowledge spillovers on the innovative performance of Schumpeterian-type firms. Building on the innovation and entrepreneurship literatures, it first examines the innovation strategies used by highly-innovative firms, which can involve knowledge spillovers, knowledge collaborations or both. Secondly, it demonstrates how and why the relationship between knowledge flows and innovative performance changes with geographical proximity between knowledge-source and knowledge-recipient firms and across industries.

External collaboration may bestow a significant advantage for innovation, such as helping to leverage the lack of knowledge and technology and teaching skills, but at a cost – the involuntary knowledge outflows to external partners. The results have relevant implications for the academic community, national and European policy-makers, and managers in highly-innovative firms who may want to rethink their innovation strategy.

Disciplinary Perspectives on Innovation

While innovation has emerged as a crucial topic, it remains a phenomenon and not an academic discipline. Just as for the more general theme of entrepreneurship, scholarship draws on a broad spectrum of academic disciplines to shed light on innovation from the particular scholarly discipline. The purpose of this title in Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship is to provide a disciplinary perspective on the role of innovation. In particular, this issue offers several distinct disciplinary perspectives including from the academic discipline of finance (“Financing Innovation: Challenges, Opportunities, and Trends” by Davide Hahn, Tommaso Minola, Silvio Vismara and Vincenzo De Stasio), from the entrepreneurship discipline (“Innovation in Schumpeter-Type Firms: Knowledge Collaboration or Knowledge Spillover? by Maksim Belitski), from the management perspective (“Disciplinary Perspectives on Innovation: Management” by James Cunningham et al.) and from the marketing discipline (“A Marketing Perspective on Innovation” by Jakki J. Mohr). Taken together these individual contributions make it clear that the topic of innovation is enriched by drawing on the insights and perspectives of a broad spectrum of scholarly disciplines.