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Foreign Competition and Innovation: The Mediating Role of Imitation
Author(s) -
Xia Tianjiao,
Liu Xiaohui
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
british journal of management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.407
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1467-8551
pISSN - 1045-3172
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8551.12236
Subject(s) - imitation , absorptive capacity , competition (biology) , business , industrial organization , psychology , social psychology , ecology , biology
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.