Research On The Effect Of Knowledge Acquisition Strategy On Corporate Performance

With the development of science and technology, the social economy is transferring from the agricultural economy and the industrial economy to the knowledge economy. Knowledge plays the crucial role of increasing enterprise value. Enterprise could better meet market needs and maintain its competitive advantage only if they continuously strengthen the ability of internal knowledge creation, or external knowledge acquisition. However, due to resource constraints, the enterprise is faced with the major issues of how to allocate limited resources to get the knowledge. According to the knowledge-based view, the enterprise's existing knowledge base determines the ability and the scope to understand and apply the new knowledge. With different body of knowledge, therefore, according to their knowledge base to choose internal or external knowledge acquisition is of fundamental importance in enterprise development.On the basis of the knowledge-based theory and organizational learning theory, combined with the situation of internal and external knowledge acquisition under the new situation of China, we discuss about the effects of external knowledge acquisition strategies (the inward technology licensing) and internal knowledge acquisition strategy (the internal R&D) on enterprise performance of Chinese listed manufacturing companies from the perspective of knowledge acquisition, and we reveal how knowledge depth and knowledge breath moderates the effects of knowledge acquisition strategy on enterprise performance from the perspective of the knowledge stock. On the basis of theoretical analysis, this paper constructs the relational model of knowledge acquisition strategy (the inward technology licensing, the internal R&D), knowledge base and enterprise performance, and carry out empirical study based on unbalanced panel data of Chinese listed manufacturing companies from 2008 to 2012.The research results indicate that both inward technology licensing and internal R&D have positive correlations with corporate performance. Knowledge depth positively moderates the relationship between inward technology licensing and corporate performance, while negatively moderates the relationship between internal R&D and corporate performance. Knowledge breath negatively moderates the relationship between inward technology licensing and corporate performance while positively moderates the relationship between internal R&D and corporate performance. In order to improve business performance, firms with a higher knowledge depth should reduce its internal R&D activities and shift their strategy to inward technology licensing for external knowledge. On the contrary, firms with a wide knowledge base should focus on internal R&D to accumulate knowledge in core technology areas, thus improve corporate performance.