Radical innovation

Strategic Management Journal
Strat. Mgmt. J., 33: 1090–1102 (2012)
Published online EarlyView in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/smj.1959
Received 29 May 2009; Final revision received 20 January 2012

RESEARCH NOTES AND COMMENTARIES
HOW KNOWLEDGE AFFECTS RADICAL INNOVATION:
KNOWLEDGE BASE, MARKET KNOWLEDGE
ACQUISITION, AND INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE
SHARING
KEVIN ZHENG ZHOU1 * and CAROLINE BINGXIN LI2
1
2

School of Business, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

This paper examines how existing knowledge base (i.e., knowledge breadth and depth) interacts with knowledge integration mechanisms (i.e., external market knowledge acquisition and internal knowledge sharing) to affect radical innovation. Survey data from high technology companies in China demonstrate that the effects of knowledge breadth and depth are contingent on market knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing in opposite ways. In particular, a firm with a broad knowledge base is more likely to achieve radical innovation in the presence of internal knowledge sharing rather than market knowledge acquisition. In contrast, a firm with a deep knowledge base is more capable of developing radical innovation through market knowledge acquisition rather than internal knowledge sharing. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION
Radical innovation is the novel, unique, or stateof-the-art technological advance in a product category that significantly alters the consumption patterns in a market (Abernathy and Utterback,
1978; Gatignon et al., 2002). As radical innovation reshapes the competitive landscape and creates new market opportunities, various approaches have been proposed to identify its drivers (e.g.,
Chandy and Tellis, 1998; Smith and Tushman,
2005), among which the knowledge-based view
Keywords: knowledge-based view; knowledge breadth; knowledge depth; radical

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