Abstract We demonstrate that suppliers as external partners act as promising information sources for incremental process innovations, while internal knowledge is more likely to provoke radical process innovations. However, this relation changes if suppliers are come from a distant geographic or a distance industry sector. Our paper contributes to the ongoing discussion surrounding operation innovations by highlighting that the distance between the industry sector of supplier and manufacturer accounts for the degree to which manufacturers are able to benefit from external information. Our findings add to an improved understanding of how internal knowledge stocks can be effectively combined with external knowledge.

中文翻译：

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对流程创新的出现有更深入的了解：组织间学习和内部知识开发扮演什么角色？

摘要 我们证明，作为外部合作伙伴的供应商充当渐进式流程创新的有希望的信息源，而内部知识更有可能激发激进的流程创新。但是，如果供应商来自遥远的地理区域或相距遥远的行业部门，则这种关系会发生变化。我们的论文通过强调供应商和制造商的行业部门之间的距离解释了制造商能够从外部信息中受益的程度，从而有助于围绕运营创新的持续讨论。我们的发现加深了对内部知识储备如何与外部知识有效结合的理解。