Purpose

This study aims to examine the effects of external knowledge sourcing breadth and depth and explore whether there exists a complementary effect of breadth (or depth) and knowledge management (KM) capacity on firms’ innovation performance. Specifically, this study investigates the direct effects of breadth, depth and KM capacity on product and process innovation outcomes and tests whether complementary effects exist between breadth and KM capacity and between depth and KM capacity.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses the survey data of 302 manufacturing firms in Thailand and uses ordinal regression analysis to test the hypotheses empirically.

Findings

Regression results reveal that breadth and KM capacity are essential for enhancing firms' innovation performance, while depth is not significant. However, the authors do not find a significance of complementary effects between breadth and KM capacity and depth and KM capacity on firms’ innovation performance.

Originality/value

This study provides additional evidence to contribute to an ongoing debate on what knowledge sourcing strategies (breadth or depth) are significant for enhancing firms’ innovations. Moreover, it explores whether complementary effects between KM capacity and breadth/depth exist in determining firms' innovation performance, which is a neglected issue in the existing literature.

中文翻译：

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外部知识来源、知识管理能力和企业创新绩效：来自泰国制造企业的证据

目的

本研究旨在检验外部知识来源广度和深度的影响，并探讨广度（或深度）和知识管理（KM）能力对企业创新绩效是否存在互补效应。具体而言，本研究调查了广度、深度和知识管理能力对产品和流程创新成果的直接影响，并检验了广度和知识管理能力之间以及深度和知识管理能力之间是否存在互补效应。

设计/方法/途径

本研究使用泰国 302 家制造企业的调查数据，并使用顺序回归分析对假设进行实证检验。

发现

回归结果表明，广度和知识管理能力对于提高企业创新绩效至关重要，而深度则不显着。然而，作者没有发现广度和知识管理能力以及深度和知识管理能力之间的互补效应对企业创新绩效的显着影响。

原创性/价值

这项研究提供了额外的证据，有助于正在进行的关于哪些知识采购策略（广度或深度）对增强公司创新具有重要意义的辩论。此外，它探讨了知识管理能力和广度/深度之间是否存在互补效应来决定企业的创新绩效，这是现有文献中被忽视的问题。