How does digital transformation affect innovation in knowledge-intensive business services firms? The moderating effect of R&D collaboration portfolio
Journal of Knowledge Management
ISSN: 1367-3270
Article publication date: 5 September 2023
Issue publication date: 29 April 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Firms are driven to ride on the digital wave in today’s open innovation ecosystem. This study aims to explore the effect of digital transformation (DT) on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms’ innovation ambidexterity, namely, radical versus incremental innovation, respectively. Meanwhile, the authors evaluated the moderating role of the complexity of R&D collaboration portfolio (i.e. organizational diversity and geographic diversity) in the above relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a panel data set of 171 Chinese listed firms in the information and communications technology services industry from 2010 to 2018, the proposed hypotheses were empirically attested.
Findings
It is found that DT has a positive relationship with radical innovation and an inverted U-shaped relationship with incremental innovation. In terms of the R&D collaboration portfolio, organizational diversity positively moderates the relationships between DT and innovation ambidexterity, respectively. The geographic diversity weakens the inverted U-shaped effect of DT on incremental innovation; however, its moderating role in the link between DT and radical innovation is not empirically verified.
Originality/value
Extant scholars mainly addressed the interplay between KIBS firms and their manufacturing clients, while this study reveals the different consequences of DT on KIBS firms’ innovation ambidexterity to highlight the role of KIBS firms is an independent and essential innovator in a knowledge-driven economy. Notably, the findings contribute to knowledge management (KM) and R&D literature by confirming the diversity of the R&D collaboration portfolio is a critical KM strategy for KIBS firms to develop and promote external knowledge resources.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation Project of China (Grant Number: 72274165; 72272136), and Applied Basic Research Key Project of Yunnan (Grant Number 202301AS070072). The authors thank them wholeheartedly for funding the research.
Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Citation
Duan, Y., Yang, M., Liu, H. and Chin, T. (2024), "How does digital transformation affect innovation in knowledge-intensive business services firms? The moderating effect of R&D collaboration portfolio", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 994-1019. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-02-2023-0161
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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