The Research On The Influence Of Firm Knowledge Base Evolution On Technology Innovation Performance

In the era of knowledge-based economy,a firm's ability of acquiring,accumulating and using the knowledge is a key factor for seizing market opportunities,maintaining its competitive advantage and achieve innovative purpose.Heterogeneous perforrmance exists widely between enterprises,especially the innovative performance differences,which is largely from the differences of enterprise knowledge management capability.According to the knowledge-based view of the firm,a firm is a collection of knowledge elements and the relationships between knowledge elements.Moreover,the essence of innovation is to optimize firm knowledge base,in the form of managing prior knowledge and new knowledge of firm knowledge base.A firm improves the quality of its knowledge base by finding valuable knowledge elements and relationships between knowledge elements,which further helps the firm gain innovation revenues.Most of the studies capture the effect which the static characteristics of firm knowledge base have on technology innovation performance,but neglect dynamic change characteristics of firm knowledge base and its impact on technology innovation performance.Based on the idea,this paper argues that firm knowledge base is constantly changing and comprehensively describes the firm knowledge base evolution from the knowledge stock changes of firm knowledge base and the knowledge relationship changes of firm knowledge base.This paper defines knowledge stock changes of firm knowledge base as the increase or decrease in the number of knowledge,which is knowledge stock change for short.Likewise,We define the knowledge relationship changes of firm knowledge base as connection strength changes between knowledge elements in firm knowledge base.According to the knowledge type(existing knowledge,old knowledge and new knowledge)of the two-stage change in relationship between knowledge elements,we classify firm knowledge base evolution.Whats more,this article explores influence of knowledge stock change and knowledge relationship changes of firm knowledge base on technology innovation performance.The research sample is 284 companies patent data and characteristics data in automotive industry from 1985 to 2011.According to technology innovation theory,knowledge management theory and dynamic capability theory as the theoretical basis,we use descriptive statistics analysis,correlation analysis and negative binomial random effect regression model for empirical analysis.This paper empirically analyzes the effect of firm knowledge base evolution,which is including knowledge stock change,knowledge tie changes between existing knowledge,knowledge tie between new knowledge and existing knowledge and knowledge tie between new knowledge and new knowledge,on technology innovation performance.The results show that knowledge stock change have a positive impact on firm innovation performance.Two changes of firm knowledge base relationship changes,which are knowledge tie changes between existing knowledge and knowledge tie between new knowledge and existing knowledge,have a positive impact on firm innovation performance.Knowledge tie between new knowledge and new have a negative impact on firm innovation performance.The research conclusions are useful for companies to optimize internal knowledge base and promote technology innovation ability.