Abstract: This study examines the effects of three forms of R&D - marketing relationships - cooperation, competition, and coopetition - on innovation performance. Based on an empirical study among Chinese IT firms, we found that R&D-marketing cooperation and coopetition exert positive effects on innovation performance, while the inter-sector competition has a negative effect on innovation performance. Besides, we also explored the moderating mechanism of political tie. Based on the regression analysis, we found the political tie plays a significantly negative moderating role between the cooperation and coopetition on innovation performance, while the political tie does not have a significant moderating effect between competition and innovation performance.