Abstract
In the era of the knowledge economy, knowledge management is increasingly important. Knowledge management ability is one of the core factors influencing enterprise competitiveness, affecting innovation performance and sustainable development. To test the impact mechanism of the knowledge management of enterprises on innovation performance, a multilevel structural equation model was established using data from the automobile industry in China, with “knowledge management” (KM) as the independent variable, the three dimensions of absorptive capacity as the mediating variables, and “innovation performance” (IP) as the dependent variable at the firm level. At the cluster level, the innovation milieu of the cluster was introduced into the model. The results show that the three dimensions of absorptive capacity all significantly mediate the relationship between knowledge management and innovation performance. The innovation milieu of the cluster had a direct cross-level effect on the innovation performance of enterprises and a positive cross-level moderated effect on the relationship between explorative learning and innovation performance. These results support the promotion of enterprise innovation ability and the creation of an innovation milieu in the automobile industry in China.
Highlights
In the era of the knowledge economy, innovation ability is a key factor for enterprises thriving and withstanding the fierce market competition
We found that the three dimensions of absorptive capacity—explorative learning, transformational learning, and developmental learning—all significantly mediate the relationship between knowledge management and innovation performance
We found that the innovation performance of enterprises could be affected by the innovation milieu, which had a positive cross-level moderated effect on the relationship between explorative learning and innovation performance
Summary
In the era of the knowledge economy, innovation ability is a key factor for enterprises thriving and withstanding the fierce market competition. Enterprise innovation involves a series of reforms in products, technologies, management measures, and marketing strategies. The innovation ability of enterprises is closely related to their knowledge management (KM) level, absorption ability, and external innovation atmosphere [1,2,3]. The enterprises need to internalize external knowledge into their own innovative achievements via explorative learning (EL), transformational learning (TL), and developmental learning (DL) if they want to improve their innovation level. The vast majority of enterprises are embedded in industrial clusters. They can exchange knowledge and information by interacting with the cluster environment and other enterprises to improve their innovation ability
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