The Effects of Knowledge Management and Technology Innovation on New Product Development Performance An Empirical Study of Taiwanese Machine Tools Industry

Abstract

With the coming of the era of knowledge economy, research and innovation, the intangible assets, have mostly become the key source of enterprise's competitive advantage; this is especially important to the machine tool industry which generally lacks for research and development capabilities. Knowledge and technology have been gradually considered as a kind of strategic asset and the main source of creating competitive advantages. The reason is that enterprise develops distinct products and service with its innovative technology to create profits from markets, and successful technology innovation has to rely on the solid knowledge foundation. This research intends to investigate whether knowledge management could enhance technology innovation and how it affects the performance of new product development in machine tools industry. We use the questionnaire survey to collect firm's information and opinions that can verify the constructs of cause effect relations. The Socioeconomic variables are also used to find out the determinants that will affect the performance of knowledge management, technology innovation and new product development performance.