When does the diverse partnership of R&D alliances promote new product development? The contingent effect of the knowledge base*

Diverse R&D alliance partnerships not only provide access to broad external knowledge but also bring considerable expenses caused by transaction costs and absorption problems. The effective utilization of external knowledge in developing new products is closely related to the internal knowledge base. This study examines how firms' knowledge base properties influence the relationship between diverse R&D alliance partnerships and NPD performance. We empirically find that increases in firms' knowledge complementarity reinforce the positive impact of diverse alliance partners on NPD performance, but increases in firms' knowledge substitutability attenuate. These findings offer valuable managerial implications that firms should commit more seriously to their internal knowledge base so that they can achieve higher NPD performance when establishing R&D alliances with external actors.