The Mediation Role of Knowledge Sharing Between Organizational Learning and Technological Innovation Practice

1. Introduction

The technological innovation practice currently represents one of the most important elements of organizational innovative practices and capabilities that supporting the competitiveness of an organization in a turbulent environment (Coccia, 2017; Haneda & Ito, 2018) and facilitating the superior organizational performance (Azar & Ciabuschi, 2017). However, priori research calls for more studies to investigate the issues that are compounded by the association of technological innovation practice with intangible organizational attributes and elements that encompassing the sources of knowledge, production techniques, routines, processes, and capabilities (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & Van de Ven, 2013).

Organizational learning will determine the success of technological innovation practice (e.g. Mandinach & Cline, 2013) because organizational learning is a part of the “intangible” resource that is difficult to be imitated and replicated and it does facilitate the firm to achieve competitive advantage. Due to the important of organizational learning in the study of the technological innovation practice, many studies have called for identifying the mediating factor between the relationship between organizational learning and the practice of technological innovation (e.g. Coccia, 2017; Wilden & Gudergan, 2015). A number of studies pointed out that knowledge management can be a key mechanism between learning and innovative practice (Burg, Berend & Raaij, 2014; Sanz-Valle, Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez, & Perez-Caballero, 2011) since the knowledge management is a valuable intangible resource generator which dynamically contributes to achievement of competitive advantages (Birkinshaw & Sheehan, 2002). The role of knowledge sharing has always been largely ignored in the field of knowledge management (Titi Amayah, 2013; Henttonen, Henttonen, Kianto, Kianto, Ritala, & Ritala, 2016). The different dimensions of knowledge sharing still remain in the ‘Pandora Box’ which calling for further research, especially in individual level constructs and act as mechanisms are limited (Lee, Leong, Hew, & Ooi, 2013; Schneckenberg, Truong & Mazloomi, 2015; Kim, Lee, Paek, & Lee, 2013). Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate how knowledge sharing among employees is enhanced by organizational learning and how it influences technological innovation practice based on the context of manufacturing industries in Malaysia.