The current literature has investigated the direct link between a firm's external search strategy and performance. However there are limited studies about the role of industry context, innovation type and knowledge sources on this link. Our research aims to examine the mediating role of product and process innovation in the external search strategy-financial performance link of firms within process industries, and understand the effect of public and private knowledge sources on their financial performance. Studying 102 Singapore firms in process industries and 158 in other manufacturing industries, our firm-level results supported all hypotheses. First, we empirically establish positive search depth-financial performance relationship in process firms but not in other manufacturing firms. Second, we found the relationship is mediated by process and product innovation processes. Third, we demonstrate that public (private) institutional knowledge source has a significant positive (negative) relation with the financial performance of process firms, while there is no significant impact of knowledge from private market and other sources on financial performance. With these findings, we have linked the erstwhile disparate discussions on innovation between innovation management and production management, as well as demonstrated process firms can adopt deep search strategy to improve financial performance through product and process innovation.

当前的文献已经研究了公司外部搜索策略和绩效之间的直接联系。但是，关于行业背景，创新类型和知识来源在此链接上的作用的研究很少。我们的研究旨在检查产品和流程创新在流程行业内公司的外部搜索策略-财务绩效链接中的中介作用，并了解公共和私人知识来源对其财务绩效的影响。通过研究102家在加工行业中的新加坡公司和158家在其他制造业中的公司，我们的公司级结果支持了所有假设。首先，我们凭经验在加工企业中建立积极的搜索深度与财务绩效的关系，而在其他制造企业中则没有。第二，我们发现这种关系是由过程和产品创新过程所介导的。第三，我们证明公共（私人）机构知识源与流程公司的财务绩效具有显着的正（负）关系，而来自私人市场和其他来源的知识对财务绩效没有显着影响。利用这些发现，我们将创新管理和生产管理之间关于创新的讨论从前进行了漫长的讨论，同时证明了流程公司可以采用深度搜索策略来通过产品和流程创新来改善财务绩效。而来自私人市场和其他来源的知识对财务绩效没有重大影响。利用这些发现，我们将创新管理和生产管理之间关于创新的讨论从前进行了漫长的讨论，同时证明了流程公司可以采用深度搜索策略来通过产品和流程创新来改善财务绩效。而来自私人市场和其他来源的知识对财务绩效没有重大影响。利用这些发现，我们将创新管理和生产管理之间关于创新的讨论从前进行了漫长的讨论，同时证明了流程公司可以采用深度搜索策略来通过产品和流程创新来改善财务绩效。