Anti-aging: How innovation is shaped by firm age and mutual knowledge creation in an alliance

Firms might operate in alliances and ‘vitalize’ themselves to achieve innovation. Still, the older and more mature firms might may not sufficiently utilize the innovation potentials in alliances because they have structural rigidities, and their managers continuously draw upon established sensemaking patterns. Our hypotheses testing on a sample of 296 firms in alliances finds that greater firm age decreases the possibilities for innovation value creation. While all firms across the age range can benefit from mutual knowledge creation in their alliances, the older firms can reduce their limitations for innovation value creation when they mutually create knowledge with their partners. Our study contributes explicitly to the dynamic relational view, combining it with a sensemaking theory.