There is a growing recognition that firms increase their collaboration breadth by opening their boundaries to more innovation partners, sourcing and integrating complementary knowledge, skills, and resources and, in turn, improving their innovation performance. However, not all firms benefit...

Using a sample of 893 SMEs over a ten year period, we test how firms may reduce the inefficiencies in their absorptive capacity (ACAP) due to path dependence. Our research shows that for frequent innovators, potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) has a greater effect than realized absorptive...