A critical view of knowledge networks and innovation performance: The mediation role of firms’ knowledge integration capability

Employing knowledge-based theory, this study builds upon social network theory and investigates the influence of knowledge networks on firms’ innovation performance. This study incorporates the structural view of social networks and interorganizational interactions to develop the dimensions of knowledge networks, as well as to demonstrate the effects of firms’ knowledge integration capability between knowledge networks and innovation performance. Investigating high-tech firms in Taiwan science parks, this study employs the social network research method to establish the boundaries of knowledge networks. The results show that each dimension of knowledge networks improves firms’ innovation performance, and that firms’ knowledge integration capability has a fully mediating effect on the relationship between knowledge cognition and innovation performance, but only a partial mediating effect on the relationships among firms’ network centrality, knowledge heterogeneity, and innovation performance. Consequently, this study provides suggestions and comments for firms on how to engage in inter-organizational cooperative relationships.