Title: The relationship between innovation and knowledge strategies: its impact on business performance

Authors: Mario Donate-Manzanares, Fatima Guadamillas-Gomez

Addresses: Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, Department of Business Administration, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Ronda de Toledo, s/n, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain. ' Facultad de CC. Juridicas y Sociales, Department of Business Administration, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Cobertizo de San Pedro Martir, s/n, 45071 Toledo, Spain

Abstract: This paper studies, from a Knowledge-Based View (KBV) of the firm, the relationship between innovation strategy, Knowledge Strategy (KS) and firm performance. After collecting data from a sample of Spanish industrial companies, an empirical study was carried out. First, we found that innovation strategy has a positive, significant impact on firm performance. Second, different groups of firms are set up according to a particular KS adopted. Four types of knowledge strategies are established: proactive, moderate, passive and inconsistent. Third, a multiple regression analysis with interaction effects was applied and we found that KS moderates the relationship between innovation strategy and firm performance. More important still, we detected that this effect is more accurate when some dimensions of innovation strategy and some specific types of knowledge strategies interact with each other.

Keywords: firm performance; innovation strategy; knowledge strategy; moderator effect; business performance; knowledge management; knowledge-based view; KBV; Spain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKMS.2007.012532

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, 2007 Vol.1 No.3/4, pp.388 - 422

Published online: 20 Feb 2007 *

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