Purpose The combination of different knowledge sources has been considered conducive for innovation performance. While the literature has advanced regarding the combination of knowledge inputs as in internal and external research and development (R&D), the evolvement of knowledge blend from customers and competitors has also received substantial attention. The purpose of this paper is to delineate the sources of information from the customers into private and public and examine their direct effect on firm-level innovation. While the extant literature is mixed regarding this, no clear-cut results have emerged yet on the effect of knowledge combination from the private and public customers with internal R&D and human capital on innovation activities. This study, however, shed more lights on the inconclusiveness of the effect of knowledge diversity on firm-level innovation. Design/methodology/approach Using the microdata from the German Community Innovation Survey 2013, the authors employ a binary instrumental variable treatment model with Heckman selection, a suitable strategy to estimate binary variables to cope with a possible endogeneity issue. Findings The paper demonstrates that knowledge from customers in the private and public sector, and competitors are positively and significantly associated with innovation. The authors find evidence of a positive and significant effect of the combination of firm internal knowledge competencies with information from the public sector. In contrary, the blend of knowledge competencies with information from customers in the private sector and information from the competitors results in decline to innovation. The results also show that the blend of internal R&D with knowledge source from the customers in the public sector appears to have a stronger influence in the manufacturing sector than services. The results offer strong evidence of the positive link between knowledge diversity and firm-level innovation performance. Practical implications The results have significant managerial implications on the role of the blend of different sources of information in supporting a compelling internal knowledge development to optimise innovation performance. Originality/value This study is foremost to focus on knowledge sources from the customers in the public and private sector and its relationship with R&D and human capital in supporting a successful introduction of innovation.

Background: To enhance the innovation activities at the firm level, government subsidies plays an important role. Objectives: The objective of the study is to explore whether firms in service sector that receive government subsidies engage more in marketing and organizational innovation activities than their counterparts. Second, focusing on the subsidized firms in the service sector, the impact of innovations (marketing as well as organizational) on firm performance—measured as the probability of submitted copyright applications by firms, has been analyzed. Methods/Approach: The propensity score matching approach and probit model have been used to analyze the innovation activities of subsidized and non-subsidized firms. The empirical analysis is based on the micro level data from Mannheim Innovation Panel, covering the Community Innovation Survey of 2011. Results: Empirical results show that public subsidy has a significant positive effect on marketing and organizational innovation. In addition, within the firms that have received government subsidy, the impact of only marketing innovation is found to be significant on firm performance. Conclusions: These findings employ that subsidized firms are more likely to perform better than their counterparts. Furthermore, public subsidy programs increase the probability of applying for a copyright in small and medium firms.

Background: Firms increasingly depend on external actors for the process of generating innovation. Interaction with these actors might occur through an official collaboration agreement or via external actors as the source of information. Objectives: Although open innovation has received more attention, still less is known about its effect on organizational innovation. To fill this gap, this study investigates the impact of various external knowledge sources on the willingness of small and mediumsized enterprises to introduce organizational innovation. Methods/Approach: To achieve the proposed objective, the German Community Innovation Survey conducted in 2017 is used for the econometric analysis. Results: Different external sources of knowledge are relevant for the introduction of organizational innovation in small firms (customers in the private sector, competitors, conferences, and crowdsourcing) compared to medium-sized firms (customers in the private sector and industry associations). Conclusions: External knowledge sources are more important for small firms compared to medium firms, and those small firms are more likely to use various sets of external knowledge.

Purpose -Knowledge competencies and (R&D) activities are one of the most important sources of innovation and have been widely discussed in the literature. In comparison, the role of the competitive environment for the innovation activities of firms is still open to debate and has not been fully understood yet. Therefore, this paper intends to provide new evidence on the interaction between knowledge competencies and R&D activities of firms on the one side and their competitiveness in the market environment on the other. In particular, the moderating function of market competition is explored. In this respect, the analysis covers the main innovation types as well as both sectors, manufacturing and services. Design/methodology/approach -The empirical analysis is based on a three years panel dataset of German manufacturing and service firms obtained from Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP) and Community Innovation Surveys (CISs: 2011(CISs: , 2013(CISs: and 2015. For the estimation, a binary instrumental variable treatment model with Heckman selection method is used. Also, it provides a suitable approach to estimating the binary variables in order to cope with endogeneity concerns. Findings -The estimation results show that R&D activities and knowledge competencies are positively related to innovation activities of different types conditioned on firms' specific perception of their competitive environment, in terms of outdated products/services as well as strong competition from abroad. Most importantly, the results from the moderation estimation reveal that there is a significant difference between the manufacturing and service sector. Service firms engage more in internal R&D activities on generating product innovations while the manufacturing firms conduct more external R&D on specific types of innovation. Further, the authors find that strong competition from abroad positively and significantly reinforces the effect of knowledge competencies on innovation activities for more types in services than in manufacturing. In contrast, outdated products and services tend to decline the effect of knowledge competencies for some innovation types in both sectors. The authors also observe a positive and significant reinforcement effect on knowledge competencies. However, it is found more beneficial for service firms since they can employ more innovation strategies. Originality/value -The focus of the study is mainly on the impact of firms' competitive environment on innovation activities in various types through its interaction with knowledge competencies and R&D activities, across manufacturing and service firms.

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