Internal innovation or external innovation? An organizational context-based analysis in China

The purpose of this paper is to explore how enterprises choose innovation pattern from the perspective of internal organization context. This article distinguishes between internal innovation and external innovation, such that human capital and information structure are the core factors affecting firm's choice decision for internal or external innovation. Based on a survey in China, this study analyzes the relationships among specific human capital, information structure and innovation pattern. Further we also examine the moderating effect of cooperative motivation including R&D motivation, technical learning motivation and strategy motivation. The results suggest that with the degree of specific human capital increase, enterprises tend to choose internal innovation pattern and with the information structure more dispersed/horizontal, enterprises more tend to choose internal innovation pattern. What's more, motives related to research and development, and technology learning are two relatively significant moderators in the relationships among specific human capital, information structure and innovation pattern.