Promote or inhibit? The influence of partner repeatedness in university-industry alliance portfolios on firm innovation performance

Constructing a portfolio of university-industry (UI) alliances with multiple academic institutions simultaneously has been pervasive for emerging market firms. However, whether repeated partnerships in focal firms’ UI alliance portfolios influence firm innovation performance remains unknown. Using the unbalanced panel data from Chinese manufacturing firms, we theorise and find that UI alliance portfolio partner repeatedness has a negative effect on focal firms’ innovation performance. Besides, we examine the boundary conditions under which UI alliance portfolio partner repeatedness influences firm innovation performance. We find that both institutional development and market competition weaken the negative effect of UI alliance portfolio partner repeatedness on firm innovation performance. This study contributes to previous studies and provides practical implications for both firm managers and policymakers.