The phrase "external source of knowledge" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe any kind of information that is obtained from outside sources and not through personal experience or expertise. For example, "I researched the topic thoroughly using an external source of knowledge, the internet."
To cope with fast-changing business environments, firms are increasingly opening up their organizational boundaries to tap into external source of knowledge.
Variables on sources of knowledge were continuous (i.e., scales) and constructed by aggregating response items within each of the five dimensions: own experience, social interaction, internal source of knowledge, external source of knowledge, and research evidence.
Making use of external sources of knowledge, on the contrary, has a significant effect on productivity.
Text mining initiatives can get some advantage by using external sources of knowledge.
External sources of knowledge such as WordNet have been employed to help detect such cases.
For SMEs, the reasons for relying more on external sources of knowledge are the same as for larger companies.
This is influenced by particular features of firm ownership, organisational and management structure, internal mechanisms to diffuse knowledge and links to external sources of knowledge.
Overall, the use of specialist knowledge providers tends to complement firms' own internal innovation activities and to complement other external sources of knowledge.
The results show that only firms complementing potential and realized absorptive capacities are able to take advantage of favorable external environments by actively combining internal and external sources of knowledge.
Chesborough recognizes the need for external sources of knowledge in developing innovative ideas so that organisations do not become too inwardly focused in a process of open innovation [29].
In this sense, they need not only to legitimize their innovation in the market but also to complement their internal resources and competencies with external sources of knowledge and physical, human, and financial capital (Lee et al., 2001).
