Foreign Competition and Innovation: The Mediating Role of Imitation

Tianjiao Xia, Xiaohui Liu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which foreign competition affects the innovation performance of domestic firms through imitation, given firms’ absorptive capacity. In analysing longitudinal firm‐level data from the UK, we find a mediating effect of imitation on the relationship between foreign competition and local firms’ innovation performance, and an inverted U‐shaped relationship between imitation and the innovation performance of local firms. Our findings further reveal that absorptive capacity moderates the mediating effect of imitation, diminishing innovation gains at moderate levels of imitation and mitigating the diminishing innovation performance at high levels of imitation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)464-482
JournalBritish Journal of Management
Volume29
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Jul 2017

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