EXTERNAL KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION: FIRM'S ACTIVITIES AND PERFORMANCE

How do firms acquire new knowledge to improve their innovation performance? To answer this important research question, we focus on two aspects of knowledge acquisition: employees training and stakeholder management. From one side, we are interested in providing insights on internal practices that may enhance the benefits from the relationship and acquisition of external knowledge sources, focusing on training. From the other side, we investigate whether different firms' stakeholder engagement practices influence employees' relations and commitment and external knowledge sources. This thesis explores macro and micro-level factors that may increase or hamper innovation and job performance. Accordingly, we will use distinct methodologies that provide adequate data levels and measures to test our theories. The first part of this thesis examines how strategic human capital practices interact with external knowledge. Specifically, I examine how adopting training practices interacts with how much firm benefits from external knowledge. I argue that firms that adopt training practices should be more able to extract value from new knowledge, including the knowledge gained from external sources. In turn, investments in human capital may amplify external knowledge's benefits to enable firms to be more likely to develop new products. I examine how training influences innovation performance using an updated sample of multi-country, multi-year, and multi-industry data from the European Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Granting access to the CIS microdata across European countries requires an application process at Eurostat. Typically, researchers obtain single or few countries' microdata. We have been granted access to microdata of multiple European countries that have participated in the survey in the last four available waves (2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014). I focus this study on small firms because small firms cannot implement costly high investments in R&D strategies but should benefit from even some investments in their human capital. The second part examines whether a firm's stakeholder engagement may positively or negatively affect individuals' job performance. Informing individuals about a firm's CSR initiatives towards distinct external stakeholders induces individuals to react accordingly. I want to investigate whether CSR initiatives through employees' organizational identity may limit the negative attitude of NIH and limit the negative consequences of this attitude on individual performance. The common belief is that individuals within firms are reluctant to use knowledge from external sources since they prefer to develop the knowledge they need internally. Limiting the benefits coming from the cooperation with external knowledge sources. Employees in successful firms show greater NIH attitudes since they feel more attached to the organization and value their internal resources more than external ones. This paper explores individuals' responsiveness to firms' corporate social responsibility initiatives using external knowledge and the effect on individual performance. I use randomized online experiments to provide causal evidence that receiving information about a firm's CSR initiatives may influence NIH and individual performance.