Drawing on the lenses of the strategic intent perspective and the strategic fit paradigm, this study seeks to examine the contingent conditions under which emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) with strategic asset seeking (SAS) intent can achieve better innovation performance. We develop a contingency model of how the relationship between SAS intent and innovation performance is contingent on the moderating effects of the firm’s innovation capability and institution quality in the host country, as well as on the synergistic interaction of independent moderating effects from these two factors. We combined survey data of 320 Chinese MNEs with archival data to test our hypotheses. Our results show that SAS intent can lead to good innovation performance when: (1) the investing firm has developed a high level of innovation capability; and (2) there is synergistic interaction between institution quality and firm innovation capability in terms of their moderating effect on the SAS intent?innovation performance link.