Impact of knowledge search on product and process innovation: mediating role of absorptive capacity and moderating role of IT capability

Purpose More enterprises adopt open innovation by breaking technological or organizational boundaries to seek internal and external knowledge when they face a fiercely competitive environment, complex market demands, and increasingly rapid technological change. In this context, a knowledge search strategy is regarded as an effective means of obtaining inside and outside resources and an important way to break the innovation bottleneck. Moreover, information technology (IT) is deemed an important asset for sourcing knowledge, whereas absorptive capacity is seen as an indispensable ability for utilizing novel knowledge. Thus, this paper aims to test the role of knowledge search in open innovation and examine the mediating effect of absorptive capacity and the moderating effect of IT capability. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 1,088 Chinese firms’ data collected by the World Bank in 2012, this paper employs logistic regression to test the hypotheses. Findings This study finds that local and boundary-spanning search strategies positively influence both product and process innovation, and absorptive capacity has a mediating role in the relationships between knowledge search and product and process innovation. Moreover, IT capability has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between local search and innovation performance; however, IT capability strengthens the relationship between boundary-spanning search and process innovation while weakens that between boundary-spanning search and product innovation. Originality/value This study explores the impact of different knowledge search behaviors on different types of innovation and probes the role of absorptive capacity and IT capability in mediating and moderating the above relationships. By drawing on knowledge-based theory and cognitive-developmental theory, this paper provides a novel perspective to explain the mechanism between knowledge search and innovation performance.