Knowledge sources and innovative performance: evidence from Nigerian manufacturing firms

Using data from the 2008 innovation survey of Nigerian manufacturing firms, this paper assesses firms' search strategies and their relationship with innovative performance. Tobit regression was used to test the hypotheses regarding the relationships between breadth, depth, probable over-search of knowledge sources and innovative performance. The results reveal that firms depend more on information from market sources such as clients and suppliers for their innovation activities. It also shows that search depth, but not breadth is positively related to innovative performance. Beyond a certain threshold this relationship turns negative. We therefore suggest that Nigerian firms pursue a 'tunnel vision' approach to utilisation of information from external sources due largely to resource constraints. Hence, they must carefully select a few that will yield optimal performance; exploiting too many sources deeply is counter-productive.