The facilitating factors of company's service innovation performance: empirical evidence from China multi-industries

Although the relationship between innovative activities and company's performance has been well studied, there are few studies to explore the internal and external factors simultaneously, especially in the Chinese context. In this research, an open innovation perspective is adopted to explore the relationships among external co‐production, internal innovation orientation, business relationships and service innovation performance in the Chinese context. Through an empirical survey of 161 samples in South China, the results indicate the following: (1) internal innovation orientation can promote external co‐production; (2) external co‐production is an important facilitating factor of company's service innovation performance, but internal orientation has no significant effect on it and (3) business relationships with partners moderate the relations between co‐production and innovation orientation. The finding enriches the theory of empirical research in service innovation in the Chinese context.