Linking incremental and radical creativity to product and process innovation with organisational knowledge

Purpose This study examines the effects of incremental and radical creativity on both product and process innovation by considering the moderating roles of knowledge sharing in intensity and quality. Design/methodology/approach Primary research is conducted over 250 employees from service and manufacturing firms operating in Pakistan. Principal component analyses are conducted for the data reduction process, and multiple regression analyses are performed to test the research hypotheses. Findings Knowledge sharing intensity and the quality of knowledge sharing moderate the effects of radical creativity on product and process innovation that predicts firm performance. Besides, the research presents the differences in the impacts of incremental and radical creativity with the moderations of organisational knowledge on product and process innovations between the service and manufacturing firms and implications for practitioners and researchers. Research limitations/implications This work represents a sample from manufacturing and service firms operating in Pakistan. Still, caution is the generalising specific results to other organisations in either service or manufacturing domains or manufacturing. Practical implications While boosting creativity in organisations, knowledge sharing practices differ for sector domains. For service firms, knowledge intensity is essential, while knowledge quality is meaningful for manufacturing firms. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature at the crossroads of organisational creativity and innovation twofold; the first is to investigate the combined effects of incremental and radical creativity on product and process innovation separately. The second is to examine the moderator roles of knowledge sharing practices of knowledge quality and intensity while predicting product and process innovation with incremental and radical creativity.