Founder resources and innovation investment: A configuration perspective

Based on the theory of resource bricolage, this study adopts the method of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the multiple interaction mechanisms of the founder’s internal powerful resources (knowledge resources, management rights resources, and control rights resources) and external relationship resources (political relations resources and social relations resources) on firm innovation investment. The main findings are as follows: (1) the five key resources of founders can’t contribute to the result of high firm innovation investment alone, but they can play a role together through arrangement and management, resulting in “resource synergy” effect; (2) the internal-external resource combination of founders can be divided into two paths: “internal-driven” and “internal-external matching”, and each path contains different ways of resource combination, however, the “external-driven” path does not exist; (3) according to the analysis of configuration, it is found that compared with the external relationship resources, the founders pay more attention into cultivating internal powerful resources is more conducive to the improvement of the level of firm innovation investment; (4) the external political relationship resources of the founder play a supplementary role in firm innovation decision-making with all paths. This study shows that the value of founder resources comes from the combination management of internal and external resources. From the perspective of configuration, this study studies the relationship between founders’ individual resources and firm innovation investment, which provides a new idea for the research of firm innovation field.