Abstract:    How companies realize value creation through technology acquisition activities is a very important issue that lacks in-depth exploration. Preliminary research believes that technology acquisition only provides opportunities for value creation, and acquired technological resources can be used reasonably in subsequent product or service innovation to create new value. However, scholars′ research shows that it is difficult for companies to use technological resources of acquired companies to create new value of post- acquisition.
    Value creation in technology acquisition is a multi-stage process based on systematic considerations. In addition to considering how to re-allocate and make full use of the acquired technological resources to make them more valuable, it is more worthy of acquiring company′s attentions to identify and screen value opportunities of external technological resources accurately. Technology selection is the source and trigger point of technology acquisition process, and different technology selection behaviors may have different impacts on technological knowledge leverage methods. Specifically, when using intra-boundary technology selection to improve and optimize existing processes and expand attributes and utility of products and services, acquiring companies may choose integrated technological knowledge leverage. Boundary-spanning technology selection means selecting technological resources on the track of new technologies, independent technological knowledge leverage is adopted to make new technological resources self-contained and use them as innovation input elements to fully tap their potential, thereby creating differentiated products and services for acquiring companies. However, existing research is limited to improving the efficiency of technological resource leverage of post-acquisition, and ignores the important role of technology selection behaviors of pre-acquisition, and separates the relationship between them. How effectively match between them, in turn, affects value creation has not been received full attention to scholars.
    This paper constructs a theoretical model about technology selection of pre-acquisition, knowledge leverage methods and value creation of post-acquisition, puts forward research hypotheses, and tests them with 257 questionnaires survey data of high-tech companies. The empirical results indicate that there is a matching relationship between technology selection behaviors and technological knowledge leverage methods. Technological knowledge leverage methods have been helpful to the creation of new value. Acquisition experiences have different moderating effects on the relationship between technology selection behaviors and technological knowledge leverage methods. The research results open the "black box" of how to create value for companies in technology acquisition, and answers the question of “how successful buyer can get the best value from technology acquisition”.
    The theoretical contributions and managerial implications are as follows: Firstly, the results show that the realization of value creation in technology acquisition not only depends on technological knowledge leverage methods of post- acquisition, but also closely related to technology selection behaviors of pre-acquisition. Preliminary research believes that value creation is the result of internal reforms of acquiring companies, reshaping their core capabilities, organization structure and resource systems by absorbing valuable technological resources to achieve technological innovation of post-acquisition. This view mainly emphasizes how companies can effectively use acquired technological resources, while ignoring the importance of technology selection behaviors. This paper links technology selection behaviors with technological knowledge leverage, not only examines the effect of technology selection on technological knowledge leverage of post-acquisition, but also points out that it is an important pre-requisite and basis for the realization of value creation. The results suggest that companies should consider comprehensively in the process of technology acquisition, especially in the process of technology selection, combining their own technological foundation, technological needs, and weighing two technology selection behaviors. As a result, the research summarizes the inherent laws of technology selection behaviors in acquisition, and enriches theories of technology selection and value creation in the field of technology acquisition.
    Secondly, the results reveal the objective fact that value creation can be achieved by matching technology selection behaviors and technological knowledge leverage methods. Specifically, when companies adopt intra-boundary technology selection, they will seek a method that can combine technological knowledge of acquired companies with their own existing technological knowledge base, thereby expanding and extending existing technological foundation. When companies use boundary-spanning technology selection, they tend to use new technological knowledge independently, rather than linking with existing technological knowledge, to promote their innovative activities in the direction of new technologies. The results enlighten managers that if external technological knowledge is selected in the existing technological field, integrated knowledge leverage can better create new value for companies, while independent knowledge leverage can better create new value of new external technological knowledge across existing technological fields. Therefore, the research answers the question of how technology selection behaviors of pre-acquisition match knowledge leverage methods of post-acquisition to create new value from the overall level, enriching and expanding the relationship between technology selection behaviors and technology leverage methods in technology acquisition theories.
    Finally, the results also show that acquisition experiences have different moderating effects on the relationship between technology selection behaviors and knowledge leverage methods. Preliminary research has ignored the fact that technology acquisition is dependent events, and there are obvious learning effects among multiple acquisition activities, which limits our understanding of the connotation of acquisition experiences to a certain extent. This paper empirically tests different moderating effects between intra-boundary technology selection and integrated knowledge leverage, as well as boundary-spanning technology selection and independent knowledge leverage, which is helpful to solve the problem that the preset acquisition experiences are the same in the existing research, which results in many contradictory research results. 
    The conclusions enlighten acquiring companies that when selecting similar technological knowledge, its explicit acquisition experiences can effectively promote mutual penetration and integration of new and old technological knowledge, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of integrated technology leverage. Tacit acquisition experiences can help them identify potential value of heterogeneous technological knowledge through boundary-spanning technology selection, and help companies reduce managerial rigidity and waste of innovation resources caused by excessive reliance on explicit acquisition experiences. Therefore, the research further clarifies complex relationship between technology acquisition experiences, technology selection behaviors and technology leverage methods, as well as expands and deepens theoretical boundary of existing acquisition experiences.

Key words:  technological selection behavior, integrated knowledge leverage, independent knowledge leverage, acquisition experience, value creation