Research On The Influence Of External Knowledge Acquisition On Innovation Capability And Performance In Different Stages Of New Product Development

With the rapid growth of global economy,the rapid changes of technology market environment,and the prominent diversified characteristics of customer demand,the product life cycle has been shortened.T he development of new products has become the key for enterprises to cope with the fierce market competition.In this fierce competitive environment,enterprises can not meet the requirements of new product development only by relying on their own resources.Enterprises also need to acquire external knowledge to supplement and update the existing knowledge storage in enterprises,timely and quickly understand the market development trend,master the latest production technology,optimize the production process,improve the production efficiency of enterprises,and effectively reduce the number of new products uncertainty in product development,reduce the risk of R&D,and improve the innovation capability and performance of enterprises.Considering that new product development is a continuous process in stages,the resources needed and activities carried out by enterprises in each stage are different.In each stage,the information,knowledge and other resources provided by suppliers,customers,university and research institutions and competitors is often different,resulted in different roles.Therefore,this paper divides the new product development process into three stages:concept development stage,product development stage and commercialization stage to specifically study the impact of four external knowledge sources(suppliers,customers,university research institutions,competitors)on the innovation capability and performance of enterprises.The purpose of this paper is to find out whether knowledge acquisition from different external knowledge sources can promote the innovation ability and innovation performance of enterprises in different stages of new product development,and which type of external knowledge acquisition is more conducive to improving the innovation ability and innovation performance of enterprises.Based on the empirical analysis of 440 valid sample data collected,the following conclusions are drawn:in the conceptual development stage and product development stage,knowledge acquisition from suppliers,customers,universities and research institutions,competitors has a positive impact on the innovation ability and performance of enterprises.However,knowledge acquisition from suppliers,universities and research institutions is more conducive to improving the innovation ability of enterprises,knowledge acquisition by suppliers and customers is more conducive to improving the innovation performance of enterprises.In the stage of commercialization,knowledge acquisition from suppliers,universities and research institutions,and competitors has no positive impact on innovation ability and performance.However,acquiring knowledge from customers is more conducive to improving the innovation performance of enterprises,and has no significant impact on the innovation ability of enterprises This research helps enterprises to accurately select external knowledge sources in new product development,and then improve the innovation ability and performance of enterprises.Through a deeper understanding of the above issues,it further enriches the research results of external knowledge acquisition,and provides a theoretical reference for those enterprises that rely largely on external technology and knowledge to develop new products.