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Knowledge exploration and innovation: A review and an inverse S-curve proposition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2016

Ben Nanfeng Luo ,
Steven Lui ,
Chih-Hsing Liu  and
Rongrong Zhang
Ben Nanfeng Luo*
Affiliation:
School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Room 226, Qiushi Building, No. 59, Zhongguancun Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100872, China
Steven Lui
Affiliation:
School of Management, UNSW Business School, UNSW Australia, Sydney
Chih-Hsing Liu
Affiliation:
Department of Leisure and Recreation Administration, Ming Chuan University, Taiwan
Rongrong Zhang
Affiliation:
School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
*
Corresponding author: nanfeng.luo@ruc.edu.cn
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Abstract

Firms today thrive on innovation. Knowledge exploration, the nonlocal search for new knowledge beyond the firm’s current expertise, is posited to be critical for innovation. This paper seeks to contribute to the research on knowledge exploration in two ways. First, this paper provides a comprehensive review of key empirical studies on knowledge exploration and innovation. Second, this paper proposes a recombinatory search framework of innovation to reconceptualise extant understanding of knowledge exploration on innovation. This new framework focusses on the evolution of the benefits and costs of knowledge exploration, and puts forward an inverse S-curve proposition between knowledge exploration and innovation. Two company cases, IBM and Procter & Gamble, are then used to illustrate the new proposition.

Keywords

knowledge acquisition and sharingknowledge managementknowledge sourcingknowledge stocks and flowstechnology and innovation
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 24 , Issue 6 , November 2018 , pp. 870 - 892
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2016 

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