Absorptive capacity and openness of small biopharmaceutical firms – a E uropean U nion– U nited S tates comparison

Abstract

The complementarities between internal capabilities and external linkages have been widely acknowledged in the open innovation literature, yet little is known about the extent to which internal capabilities affect firms' openness within different institutional contexts. This paper therefore empirically explores the relationship between absorptive capacity (ACAP) and openness in theUnitedStates andEuropean biopharmaceutical sectors. Based on analysis of data from a large‐scale international survey of 349 biopharmaceutical firms in theUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,France andGermany, the results suggest that exploratory openness depends more strongly on the research and development (R&D) aspect of firms' potential absorptive capacity, whereas exploitative openness is more conditional on firms' realized absorptive capacity (RACAP). The results also highlight the major differences between firms' openness andACAPin theUnitedStates andEurope – in theUnitedStates, firms' skill levels prove more significant in contributing to firms' engagement with exploratory relationships, whereas inEurope, continuity ofR&Dproves more important. Engagement with exploitative relationships, however, is more conditional on firms'RACAPinEurope only.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 34 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.