Insights to technological alliances and financial resources as antecedents of high-tech firms' innovative performance

High-tech firms are triggered to externally acquire and combine additional supplementary and complementary resources to develop innovative capabilities and generate new knowledge, products, and business ideas. Firms may rely on cooperation, alliances, and other interfirm ties as well as on the external acquisition of the stock of resources and capabilities to foster their innovativeness and support their patent activity. This contribution develops and tests a conceptual framework for assessing external sources of a firm’s innovative performance in high-tech industries. By simultaneously evaluating the explanatory power of technological alliances and financial resources in shaping a firm’s innovative performance, measured as new patents registered, the paper provides some original outcomes from both conceptual and methodological perspectives. Research hypotheses are tested performing ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models on 90 European-listed firms operating in the aerospace and defence industry, engaging over 1,300 technological alliances within the 2007–2011 timeframe. The findings demonstrate that high-tech firms leverage on technological supplementary alliances to innovate and to create new knowledge embodied in artifacts such as patents. In addition, financial slack is proved to be a prerequisite for a successful patent activity in high-tech industries. Empirical outcomes, discriminating between small and large firms, bring valuable insights both for academics and practitioners.