The influence of open innovation on the synergistic innovation capability of Chinese manufacturing firms: the mediating role of tacit knowledge acquisition
Abstract
Purpose
China has climbed from 22nd in the Global Innovation Index Rankings in 2017 to 11th in the 2022 due to the transition of its manufacturing firms from assemblers to system integrators. This paper examines how firms can enhance their innovation capability through inbound and outbound open innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies both open innovation and a knowledge-based view and proposes a conceptual framework that encompasses innovation capability and the significance of tacit knowledge acquisition. A questionnaire was designed to collect relevant data from 139 Chinese manufacturing firms in six regions to test this framework.
Findings
The authors found that inbound open innovation has a stronger impact than outbound open innovation on synergistic innovation capability. The acquisition of skill-based tacit knowledge has a slightly stronger intermediary role between open innovation (no matter inbound or outbound) and synergistic innovation capability than cognitive tacit knowledge does.
Practical implications
Firms should improve external tacit knowledge acquisition efforts to generate new knowledge, inspire the innovation passion of employees and implement ambidextrous open innovation.
Originality/value
This paper makes a good first step to analyze the effect of ambidextrous open innovation on the synergistic innovation capability of Chinese manufacturing firms. It verifies the role of skill-based and cognitive tacit knowledge acquisition and provides new reflections on open innovation strategy in emerging economies, thus enriching open innovation and knowledge-based theories.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Sichuan Federation of Social Science Associations for funding this research project under Grant [number SC21ZD010].
Since acceptance of this article, the following author have updated the affiliations: Peng Xu is at the School of Business, Linyi University, Linyi, China.
Ethics statement: The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Academic Ethics Committee of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Erratum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article Xu, P., Tang, M., Chen, J. and Brem, A. (2023), “The influence of open innovation on the synergistic innovation capability of Chinese manufacturing firms: the mediating role of tacit knowledge acquisition”, Management Decision, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-07-2022-0997, omitted the correct text “concludes that acquiring cognitive tacit knowledge plays a stronger intermediary role between inbound open innovation and synergistic innovation capability than between outbound open innovation and synergistic innovation capability.” from the discussion section. This correction was missed in typesetting and has been corrected in the online version of the manuscript. The publisher sincerely apologises for this error and any inconvenience caused.
Citation
Xu, P., Tang, M., Chen, J. and Brem, A. (2023), "The influence of open innovation on the synergistic innovation capability of Chinese manufacturing firms: the mediating role of tacit knowledge acquisition", Management Decision, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-07-2022-0997
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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