A Study of the Relationship between the Knowledge Base and the Innovation Performance

This paper examines how the knowledge breadth and depth and the balance of the two affect various dimensions of the innovation performance under the consideration of the organizational slack as a moderating factor of the analysis framework. A survey sample of 320 Chinese companies evidently demonstrates that the knowledge base is a critical foundation for improving the innovation performance of an enterprise. A more detailed analysis indicates that first knowledge breadth benefits more towards the radical innovation performance but knowledge depth is more advantageous to the incremental innovation performance; second, the organizational slack can positively facilitate the improvement of knowledge depth to radical innovation performance while an optimal balance of knowledge breadth and depth can significantly enhance the incremental innovation performance.