Research On The Relationship Between Quality Management Practice, Knowledge Transfer And Enterprise Innovation Performance

In order to form an increasingly powerful competitive edge,China proposed a strategy to build an "innovation-oriented country" in 2006,and plans to enter the ranks of innovation-oriented countries by 2020.The level of manufacturing is one of the most important in the evaluation benchmarks of innovation-oriented countries.In recent years,China's manufacturing industry has greatly improved.However,compared with developed countries,there is still a wide gap.It is indispensable to attach importance to manufacturing innovation.The automobile manufacturing industry,with characteristic of highly technology-intensive,converging new materials,equipment,processes and technologies in many scientific fields,is one of the pillar industries of the manufacturing industry.The accurate identification of the elements that drive innovation can help automobile manufacturing enterprises improve their innovation performance.Since the introduction of total quality management,quality management practices have made great contributions to the high performance and competitiveness in China's manufacturing industry.Innovation performance is one of the key indicators of organizational performance,so it is reasonable to suggest that quality management practices may promote the enterprises innovation performance.Thus,for automobile manufacturing enterprises,how to improve their innovation performance through quality management practices has become an urgent problem to solve.This study takes domestic automobile manufacturing enterprises as the research object,aims to study the influence of quality management practices on enterprise innovation performance,and attempts to analyze the specific mechanism between them.Firstly,on the basis of combing the previous relevant theories and research results,the concepts of quality management practice,knowledge transfer and enterprise innovation performance are defined.Furthermore,quality management practice is divided into two dimensions: infrastructure practice and core practice,and enterprise innovation performance is divided into two dimensions: product innovation performance and process innovation performance.Secondly,based on Knowledge-based view(KBV),the knowledge transfer is introduced as a mediator variable,to establish the conceptual model of “quality management practice—knowledge transfer—enterprise innovation performance”,and propose research hypotheses.Then,therelevant variables are measured by the design process of the questionnaire,and are revised by expert advice and pre-investigation to form a formal questionnaire.Finally,the empirical analysis is carried out via questionnaire data of 434 automobile manufacturing enterprises.The structural equation model(SEM)is used to test the conceptual model and research hypothesis,and the empirical analysis results are obtained.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)Strengthening the quality management practice level has a positive influence in enterprise innovation performance,that is,enhancing the infrastructure practice and core practice level is conducive to improving the product innovation performance and process innovation performance of enterprises.(2)Improving quality management practice level is an important means to promote knowledge transfer,that is,enhancing the infrastructure practice and core practice level is conducive to improving the ability of knowledge transfer.(3)Knowledge transfer has a significant positive affect on enterprise innovation performance,that is,enhancing knowledge transfer level is conducive to improving the product innovation performance and process innovation performance of enterprises.(4)Knowledge transfer has a mediating effect between quality management practices and enterprise innovation performance,that is,infrastructure practice and core practice can enhance product innovation performance and process innovation performance by facilitating knowledge transfer.According to the research conclusions,this paper puts forward several specific suggestions for the effective implementation of quality management practice and the key improvement of knowledge transfer ability,which provide some management solution for the innovation development of Chinese automobile manufacturing enterprises.