An approach to firm’s innovation from the explicit and tacit knowledge spiral

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the mediating and moderating roles played by tacit and explicit knowledge in the relationship between organizational capabilities and product innovation. On a sample of industrial organizations, SEM and multigroup analysis have been applied. The findings show that both explicit and tacit knowledge partially mediate the relationship between organizational capabilities and product innovation, being stronger the mediating role played by tacit knowledge. While high levels of tacit knowledge enhance the impact of organizational capabilities on explicit knowledge and product innovation, a moderate level of explicit knowledge maximizes the impact on the relationships between organizational capabilities, tacit knowledge and product innovation. The discussion of the results, the managerial implications and future research lines are included at the end of the paper.