Driving Product Innovative Performance Through Network Connections: A Study Based on the fsQCA Approach

To explore how firms’ network connections improve product innovative performance (PIP) for sustainable development, this study takes 230 firms involved in product innovation as the research object, and uses the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to explore how strong ties, bridging ties, technology exchange, technology transfer, and innovation resource interaction can stimulate product innovative performance. This study has found that firms have three configurations to achieve high product innovative performance and two configurations to achieve non-high product innovative performance. Only appropriately matched types of strong ties, bridging ties, technological exchange, technological transfer, and innovation resource interaction can promote product innovative performance. The findings enrich the theoretical understanding of the relationships among network connections, knowledge flow, innovation resource interaction, and product innovative performance.