The purpose of this research is to look at the factors influencing a company’s choice of technological knowledge renovation sources in the Russian heavy engineering industry. The theoretical foundations of this research are the transaction cost theory of the firm, mainly continuing O. Williamson’s views on the boundaries of the firm problem, and the knowledge-based view of the firm as a part of the resource-based view. The problem addressed by the research is how a company chooses between different sources of technological knowledge renovation (where the term “knowledge” refers to technological know-how) when the knowledge used for developing the products of the company seems obsolete, thus creating a “knowledge gap” (or “knowledge absence”). Continuing the “make-buy-or-ally” stream of literature, such variants of technological knowledge renovation sources are considered as creation of necessary knowledge by own strength, focal firm’s acquisition of the necessary knowledge provider, long-term alliance relati