Anecdotal evidence continues to suggest that many firms in emerging economies (EEs) lack innovation. To investigate how these firms might improve their innovation, the authors integrate resource dependence theory with network theory and the resource-based view to theorize that EE firms can advance their innovation by configuring their international joint venture (IJV) portfolio characteristics at the network and focal firm levels. The results indicate that an EE firm's innovation improves when structural hole positions in its IJV portfolio increase but decreases when network centrality increases. Such relationships are further contingent on two focal firm-level IJV portfolio characteristics: IJV portfolio size and IJV portfolio resource commitment.
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