Knowledge sharing, knowledge leaking and relative innovation performance: An empirical study

By Paavo Ritala, Heidi Olander, Snejina Michailova, Kenneth Husted. 2015

535 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract External knowledge sharing and knowledge leakage often pose a strategic dilemma when firms conduct innovation activities. In this study, we focus on the positive and negative effects of this phenomenon. In particular, we empirically examine the effects of a firm׳s external knowledge sharing on its relative innovation performance under the contingencies of accidental and intentional leakage of business-critical knowledge. Results based on a survey of 150 Finnish technology-intensive firms show that external knowledge sharing has a positive effect on innovation performance, but high levels of accidental and intentional knowledge leakage by a firm׳s employees negatively moderate this relationship. These results contribute to the understanding of the potentially positive and negative issues related to external knowledge sharing and knowledge leakage, which have thus far remained empirically under-researched.

Subfields: Communication, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/94f5fab90273541678f3de0a46e97002b0e67b83

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Citations in the corpus

How knowledge links with universities may foster innovation: The case of a science park (2016, background): “…accepted that, among the different institutions that exist inside science parks, universities and other higher education institutions can provide valuable knowledge and promote innovation among their co-located firms (Lambooy, 2004; Löfsten and Lindelöf, 2005; Mian, 1996; Ritala et al., 2015).”
Transformational leadership and innovation: the mediating role of knowledge sharing amongst higher education faculty (2019, unknown): “…Weng, Huang, Chen, & Chang, 2015), between transformational leadership and knowledge sharing (Li, Shang, Liu, & Xi, 2014; Shao, Feng, & Liu, 2012) and between knowledge sharing and innovation (Leonardi, 2014; Ritala, Olander, Michailova, & Husted, 2015; Wang & Wang, 2012) have been widely studied.”
How entrepreneurial SMEs compete through digital platforms: The roles of digital platform capability, network capability and ambidexterity (2019, background): “Network capability in digitalized firms is based on a common architecture that firms use internally and externally to share knowledge (Ritala, Olander, Michailova, & Husted, 2015; Wang & Hu, 2017).”
A conceptual model of knowledge sharing (2018, background): “A number of studies have been conducted to study the impact of knowledge sharing on business performance (Vij and Farooq, 2014a; 2014b; Ritala et al., 2015).”
Knowledge management and coopetition: How do cooperating competitors balance the needs to share and protect their knowledge? (2019, background): “The functions of interorganizational knowledge management are to allow firms to share sufficient knowledge to facilitate the creation of competitive advantage and to protect knowledge against involuntary spill-overs and leakages (Ritala, Olander, Michailova, & Husted, 2015).”
Top management knowledge value, knowledge sharing practices, open innovation and organizational performance (2019, result): “Similarly, several other studies suggest knowledge sharing enhances firms' innovation performance (Ritala et al., 2015; Wang & Wang, 2012) and that, in turn, augments organizational performance (Wang & Wang, 2012).”