1 Introduction

Management’s capability to integrate fragmented information and knowledge across business units facilitates new product and process development successful (Mitchell, 2006). This integrative capability provides important implications for businesses with large-scale information technology projects. Managing the integrative capability of information, technology and knowledge within/across organizations is a formidable challenge, because integration involves a complex process. As Carlile (2002, 2004) mentioned, integration is a series of specific organizational resource transfer, translation and transformation among providers and recipients across business boundaries. Especially, with the dynamic changes occurring in the macro-business environment, firms no longer operate individually in the context of new product development (NPD) (Ryall, 2013). It is necessary for firms to cooperate with partners to share information collected from a dynamic environment and also to consolidate own technology and knowledge in order to exploit new products that can meet market needs. To construct capabilities related to knowledge absorption, firms need to fully utilize shared information, technology and knowledge. When firms recognize and apply the value of new information and technology to their business activities, they are considered to possess a higher level of absorptive capacity (AC) for dealing with collected knowledge (Cachon & Swinney, 2011). However, AC is not generated inherently in firms, but via some integration mechanisms that enhance this capacity (Vega-Jurado et al., 2008). Such integration mechanisms stimulate organization learning, and are regulated by the firm’s competitive settings (Vega-Jurado et al., 2007). Firms depending on these settings may adopt different technologies and emphasize different mechanisms to create, retain, transfer and apply knowledge internally. While Van den Bosch et al. (1999) claimed that prior knowledge was the main antecedent of AC, Tsou and Chen (2012) and Tsou (2012) further indicated that technology integration mechanisms (TIM) and knowledge integration mechanisms (KIM) can lead to more rapid resource exchanges, transformations, and opportunities for the digitalization of innovation, management, and interfaces. Therefore, in this study, TIM and KIM are assumed to be key factors by which firms can facilitate AC, so the first research question examined in this work is as follows: can TIM and KIM enhance a firm’s AC in the context of NPD?

Lai and Lin (2012) indicated that process of technology/knowledge integration in a learning organization is an effective strategy that can help achieve superior NPD performance. Technology integration mechanisms depend on a great deal of data consistency and cross-functional applications that are free of both time and space boundaries (Rai et al., 2006), while knowledge integration mechanisms depend on a firm’s competences to mediate resources (e.g., ideas, information, and knowledge) efficiently (Tsou & Chen, 2012). In the context of NPD, it is essential for firms to cooperate with their partners to share technology and knowledge, therefore the tightness of relationships between partners is one of the core elements for sharing external knowledge with other firms. In addition, if external knowledge is completely shared, these firms are able to consolidate and absorb external and internal knowledge into new product exploitation activities. Based on this perspective, the second research question examined in this work is as follows: what are the external and internal factors that will affect a firm’s integration mechanisms?

According to Hamzah and Isa (2010), social and intellectual capitals activate the mechanisms of technology and knowledge, enabling the exchange of specific resources and knowledge among members of an organization. Social capital is a resource embedded within, available through, and derived from social networks that can enhance the social relationships that exist between both parties (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). Social capital at the firm level, termed corporate social capital in this study, is established through the connections or linkages that exist across firms. Adler and Kwon (2002) argued that the intensity of corporate social capital can explain the differences in how successful firms are, because such linkages are the mechanism by which companies can activate tacit knowledgeFootnote 1 and accelerate the learning process. Therefore, social capital can be used to explain inter-organizational interaction in the NPD context (Parra-Requena et al., 2010; Yli‐Renko et al., 2001). In addition, intellectual capital has been used to examine organizational knowledge absorption, learning and technology innovation (Daghfous, 2004). Discussions of intellectual capital (Hsu & Sabherwal, 2011) have pointed out that the internal capital of firms, including both human and organizational capital, is an important resource that can help learning organizations related to achieving sustainable competitive advantages. Therefore, this study views corporate social and intellectual capital as external and internal antecedent factors related to TIM and KIM implementation in the context of NPD.

Although the constructs of social/intellectual capital, technology/knowledge integration, AC and NPD performance have been discussed extensively in the literature, some issues remain unresolved. In particular, most previous studies evaluated social capital from the perspectives of individual knowledge sharing (Wasko & Faraj, 2005) or inter-organizational interactions (Parra-Requena et al., 2010; Yli‐Renko et al., 2001), and intellectual capital from the perspectives of organizational knowledge integration and innovation performance (Hsu & Sabherwal, 2011), rather than as the external and internal antecedents of TIM and KIM. Moreover, TIM and KIM have been examined as mediators in supply chain performance and product innovation (De Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007; Rai et al., 2006), rather than both being discussed in the context of AC. In short, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no studies integrated the potential antecedents of TIM and KIM, and the mediators of AC and superior NPD performance, into a more comprehensive framework, and empirically tested its viability. In order to answer the aforementioned research question and address certain gaps in the literature, this study aims to provide a complete picture with regard to the relationships among corporate social capital, intellectual capital, KIM, TIM, AC and NPD performance. Corporate social capital, as an antecedent of TIM and KIM, is divided into three dimensions in this work (structural, relational, and cognitive), and these are used to characterize the B2B relationships and collective resources among firms. Intellectual capital is represented as an internal knowledge asset, which reduces communication costs during cooperation and strengthens the knowledge integration process. TIM and KIM act as the preliminary functions of an organization to collect and filter specific resources from the outside, with useful technology and knowledge then being absorbed and applied within the organization on a continuous basis. Consistent with the key concept of organizational learning theory, the organization will take the knowledge it absorbs and use it to select appropriate actions in response to highly competitive and dynamic environmental conditions. Through the process of repetitive adaptation to such conditions (e.g., internal, external, competitive, political, state of technology and innovation conditions), the organization will continuously aggregate its dynamic competences and experiences to enhance its NPD performance. The main objectives of this study are as follows: (1) To develop a comprehensive elaborate model to examine the antecedents of enhancing firm AC in the context of NPD performance; (2) To examine the effects of corporate social capital and intellectual capital as external and internal antecedent factors on TIM and KIM in business to business (B2B) relationships; (3) To examine the relationships among TIM, KIM and AC; and (4) To examine the effect of a firm’s AC on NPD performance.

2 Literature review

2.1 Social capital and corporate social capital

The concept of social capital was initially used to discuss network relationships among individuals or groups, but in recent years it has also been applied to study inter-organizational cooperation (Bartsch et al., 2013; Koka & Prescott, 2002; Krause et al., 2007). Lin and Dumin (1986) defined social capital as the “resources embedded in a social structure of relationships which are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive actions”. Based on this, the underlying idea of social capital is that the resources embedded in a social structure of inter-organizational relationships can be utilized easily by the actors involved in/across different units of the organization to achieve their own goals (Pirolo and Presutti 2010; Cao et al., 2015). Therefore, it can be concluded that social capital is a resource which helps such interactions to occur smoothly within an organization.

In order to distinguish the difference between the original concept of social capital (at the individual or team level) and inter-organizational social capital (at the B2B level), this study uses the term “corporate social capital” to represent inter-organizational level social capital and adopts the definition of Leenders and Gabbay (1999, p.3) and sees corporate social capital as “the set of resources, tangible or virtual, that accrue to a corporate player through the player’s social relationships, facilitating the attainment of goals”. In this study, corporate social capital is based upon Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998) three dimensions of social capital: structural, relational, and cognitive.

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    Structural Capital

Structural capital has been defined as “the overall pattern of connections, communications, interactions, and relationship between the network actors” (Inkpen & Tsang, 2005). The prior literature has used social interaction as a dimension to study structural capital at an individual level (Chang & Chuang, 2011), while density, connectivity, and hierarchy have been used to examine the linkages occurring at an inner-organizational level (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998), as well as direct involvement at an inter-organizational level (Krause et al., 2007). Casanueva et al. (2013) further claimed that structural capital refers to the social ties possessed by each actor within their own respective networks. Ties exist between actors acting as a bridge to pass resources and information (Autry & Griffis, 2008). If the tie strength between actors is stable and strong enough, the actors will exchange their resources mutually for both individual and joint interests (Gulati et al. 2000; Kim & Inkpen, 2005; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998). Therefore, the presence or absence of social interaction ties between actors is the most important facets of structural capital (Chiu et al., 2006). In this study, interaction ties are defined as the strength of the relationships, amount of time spent, and communication frequency among members of a business group working together.

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    Relational Capital

Relational capital represents the reasons why actors are linked with each other, and interaction history provides a method by which to develop with others (Casanueva et al. 2013). In the context of long-term oriented B2B relationships, mutual trust and reciprocity are widely used to measure relational capital (Lu & Yang 2011). Mutual trust is seen enabling better partnerships that rely on interdependence and task coordination (Chang & Chuang, 2011; Gulati et al., 2000; Myhr & Spekman, 2005; Cai et al., 2013). It can be developed through repeated social interactions (Bierly et al. 2009), so trust also can be viewed as relationships extending through actors’ own networks into a rich pool of shared ties and obligations, and thus a transitive relation also exists with regard to trust (Gu et al., 2008). A relationship based on reciprocity is different from more formal relationships. Lee et al. (2012) described reciprocity as a situation in which the contingency of partner response sets behavioral patterns in motion within the relationship. Each social system has its own institution(s) to maintain efficiency optimization via the bilateral exchange of resources. The mutually reciprocal information that is related to B2B behavior is usually confidential, so corporations have difficulty obtaining sensitive information from other firms (e.g., the reserve price).

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    Cognitive Capital

Cognitive capital is referred to as resources providing shared representation, interpretation, and systems of meaning among actors, which include shared languages and code, and shared narratives (Cummings et al., 2006). In the B2B collaboration relationship, network members usually share common and consistent concepts such as objectives, processes and routines, which can be seen as mechanisms that helps members interchange and combine resources and can be used to create new knowledge in order to enhance mutual understanding of innovations and products (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). Shared language and shared culture are two important ingredients for inter-organizational collaboration, especially in the context of B2B cooperation (Rothberg & Erickson, 2011). Shared language is considered as a unique code that is used between individuals or organizations in which is only embedded and existing in special network relationships. It provides a strong sense of social identity and a rule of communication that converge tacit knowledge with cooperation and result in outsiders who may not exactly understand what is being talked about (Mu et al., 2008; Bolino et al., 2002; Lu & Yang, 2011). Shared culture refers to the intrinsic degree of fitness between partners and focal firms. Organizational culture is a set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business (Büschgens et al., 2013). In this study, a shared language is defined as a distinctive vocabulary set of terms or jargon which participants understand so as to facilitate communication and knowledge exchanges in a professional context, while shared culture is defined as shared values and understandings of the principles that are institutionalized as rules and norms, and which govern behaviors among business collaboration partners.

2.2 Intellectual capital

Intellectual capital is defined as both human capital and non-human storehouses of information, also known as organizational knowledge (Bontis, 2002; Colomo-Palacios et al. 2014). Knowledge is a key intangible asset of a firm, and assumed to be heterogeneous and specific, and this can be used to create a firm’s own competitive advantage, thus differentiating it from rivals (Hargadon & Sutton, 1997; Hsu & Sabherwal, 2011). In knowledge-based literature, the intellectual capital derived from the intangible asset can be viewed as the sum of all its knowledge resources, within or out of the organization for sustainable competitive advantages (Hsu & Sabherwal, 2011; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). Restated, intellectual capital implies a notion that regards organizations as containers of knowledge, while business value is created from these intangible assets (e.g., knowledge, experience and information). This study thus uses human and organizational capital as two important ingredients of intellectual capital to represent the internal knowledge base that helps people to verify the usefulness of information and avoid risk, as well as inspire more innovative behaviors within organizations.

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    Human Capital

Human capital refers to “activities that influence future monetary and psychic income by increasing the resources in people” (Becker 1964, p.11), and is a fundamental source of knowledge within organizations where employees contribute their skills, experience and knowledge to solve problems at work. Compared to other fixed capitals such as land or facilities, the advantage of human capital is that a firm can hire people depending on the requirement of customer flexibility (Skaggs & Youndt, 2004) and can utilize their intelligence for business performance. Referring to Skaggs and Youndt (2004), this study defines human capital as the knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise utilized to create the personal value by individuals. In this study, the primary focuses of human capital are on knowledge integration and absorption and its contribution to NPD.

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    Organizational Capital

Organizational capital is a codified set of knowledge by virtue of its nature and creation, and the preservation and enhancement of this capital occur via repetitive activities (Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005), which can be seen as a process to externalize and preserve individual’s tacit knowledge in documents, records, IT systems, and other forms of knowledge within organizations (Kankanhalli et al., 2005). Compared to the flexibility of human capital, organizational capital is more objective and rigorous, because all the data and documents gathered from customers, suppliers, and competitors either within or outside of the industry, will be preserved until the correctness of data is ensured (Sher & Lee, 2004). Therefore, capabilities such as knowledge institution or codification become important for organizations so that they can retain their energy with regard to the acquisition, integration and absorption of new knowledge and information. Cohendet and Meyer-Krahmer (2001) further indicated that codification is regarded as a process of knowledge creation, transforming both codified and the tacit forms of knowledge. Clearly, “the goal of codifying and storing knowledge is to turn tacit knowledge into information” (Kimble 2013). Referring to Hsu and Sabherwal (2011) and Youndt et al. (2004), this study defines organizational capital as the institutionalized knowledge and codified and accumulated experience within organizations that is utilized through databases, patents, manuals, culture, norms, systems, structures, and processes for collective current and future use.

2.3 Technology integration mechanisms

Automation, coordination, integration, and synchronization can synchronize the flow of physical goods, information, and finances (Rai et al., 2012). Fayard et al. (2012) indicated that inter-organizational performance can be enhanced via internal electronic integration and management improving. Business partner information changes constantly (Du et al., 2012), and inter-organizational system (IOS) building is seen as a traditional way to monitor and acquire information from partners. However, earlier management information systems usually provided a fragmented and incomplete view of the resource pool owing to limited technology (Grant, 1996).

A technology integration mechanisms (TIM) has a wider interpretation which embraces structural institutions and infrastructure rather than simple IT/ IS, thus this study referred to and used TIM as a substitute for the previous concept of IOS. In this study, TIM can be viewed as the structural institutions and infrastructure that enable a focal firm to routinely transfer and acquire consistent and high-velocity electronic data from its partner firms within and across its own boundaries via data consistency and cross-functional application integration, or that help the firm to combine its existing organizational IT/IS with newly acquired and assimilated information and technology from partner firms in an effective and efficient manner (Rai et al., 2006; Tsou & Chen, 2012).

According to Sinkovics et al. (2011), B2B technologies and the Internet offer IT integration among firms. In order to facilitate IT integration, data consistency and cross-functional application integration are two important factors that affect the outcome of collective activities. Data consistency enables the integration of information, financial, and physical flows; cross-functional application integration is concerned with the mutual dependencies among firms which generate supply chain-wide visibility and affect innovation performance (De Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007; Rai et al., 2006; Mishra & Shah, 2009). Referring to Rai et al. (2006), data consistency in this study can be viewed as the degree to which common data definitions and consistency in stored data have been established across partner firms in a business collaboration, while cross-functional application integration can be defined as the degree of real-time communication that partner firms’ function-specific management applications engage in with each other.

2.4 Knowledge integration mechanisms (KIM)

KIM has been defined as the formal processes and structures that ensure the capture, analysis, interpretation, and integration of market and other types of knowledge among different functional units within a firm (De Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007). Explicit knowledge can be explained in codified knowledge, so information or knowledge can be spread in formal and systematic language and is an easier means by which to enhance the efficiency of knowledge transmission (Nonaka, 1994).

Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) suggested that all new resources including knowledge are generated through exchange and combination mechanisms. If the resource or material can be deployed properly, value will be created (Kim et al., 2015). Chen and Hung (2010) used knowledge contribution and collection behavior to explain knowledge sharing activities and indicated that a knowledge base has to be reformed and innovate; otherwise, its value is restricted by prior knowledge. Through continuous knowledge reformation and innovation, the mechanisms of knowledge integration can be deduced (Nonaka, 1994). Referring to Tsou and Chen (2012) and Jayaram and Pathak (2013), this study defines KIM as the formal structures and processes that routinely facilitate or evoke combining existing organizational knowledge with newly acquired and assimilated knowledge to analyze and assimilate useful external knowledge and combine it with the knowledge the organization already possess. Such knowledge-related integration processes can be viewed as routine capabilities to mediate resources effectively and efficiently. In general, organizational competences are assumed to be complex, structured and multidimensional (Hoopes & Madsen, 2008).

2.5 Absorptive capacity (AC)

Firms can utilize both internal and external knowledge to make their competences more dynamic. AC can be used to recognize the value of new information, assimilate, internalize and apply it to commercial ends (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Azadegan, 2011; Lawson & Potter, 2012), so it can be viewed as a set of routines comprised of the acquisition, dissemination, transformation, and exploitation of knowledge, which can be used to generate dynamic competences within organizations. Based on this perspective, the notion of AC in this study contains four ingredients: acquisition, dissemination, transformation and exploitation, as explained in more detail below.

Acquisition is a firm’s competence to assess, identify, and acquire the knowledge which is allocated within an organization (Camisón & Forés, 2010; Lane & Lubatkin, 1998; Zahra & George, 2002). When inner-organizational information processing is initiated, knowledge acquisition plays an important role which allows a firm to have the competence of obtaining knowledge from it various functions through both formal and informal activities. During this process, the collected information and cross-functional interactions that arise may stimulate innovative activities and a rethinking of knowledge use (Parra-Requena et al., 2010).

Dissemination refers to the process and extent to which the exchange of new information occurs both externally and within organizations (Van Der Bij et al., 2003). Liao et al. (2003) mentioned that the knowledge internalization process requires dissemination and assimilation for the knowledge to be used internally. Knowledge may be acquired from outside of organizations or created from the inside, but an organization cannot perform successfully if there is a lack of effective knowledge distribution channels within the organization.

Transformation mainly serves to push knowledge internalization, and valuable innovations and applications will be created through an internalized process which combines both newly acquired and existing knowledge (Camisón & Forés, 2010; Hirunyawipada et al., 2010; Van den Bosch et al., 1999; Zahra & George, 2002).

Exploitation is considered to be the use of knowledge to make substantive improvements to firm performance, such as through NPD or use of a practical technique to enhance internal management (Yli‐Renko, et al. 2001; Cegarra-Navarro et al., 2011). This can turn an invisible asset into an apparent assessment; in other words, the value of knowledge cannot be evaluated if the firm does not have the competence to exploit it. Therefore, knowledge exploitation is defined as a firm’s competence with regard harvesting and incorporating knowledge into commercial activities, such as NPD (Lane & Lubatkin, 1998; Van den Bosch et al., 1999).

2.6 New product development (NPD) performance

Resources and products are two sides of the same coin. Resources and competitive advantage are connected through core product and competence, and NPD undoubtedly is the most critical activity of a firm because the outcome of NPD will be examined by customers directly. Technology, skill, knowledge and other invisible assets will turn into tangible products and create added value through NPD. For innovation purposes, firms pursue knowledge from market information and supplier/customer involvement, and these external factors are part of diversified knowledge sources intended to support new product differentiation (Mishra & Shah, 2009). External knowledge seeking such as forming strategic alliances with partner firms for common NPD purposes is quite common in today’s innovation environment (Ma et al., 2012).

Likewise, NPD represents an opportunity for price premiums (Jayaram & Pathak, 2013), especially those occurring in the case of technologically-related products, such as mobile phones, laptops or tablet PCs. Structured processes like NPD projects reinforce organizational knowledge because project members will interchange information and cooperate with each other (Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). In modern enterprises, the organizational structure has become very complex, and it has become difficult for organizations to communicate, so NPD processes require cross-functional cooperation. Thus, NPD activities are regarded as a critical step for business operation both externally and internally. This study follows Ma et al. (2012) and uses NPD performance as an index to measure NPD-related activities, and defines this performance as the level of innovation associated with a new product, with higher levels leading to faster commercialization and better market performance. A multi-dimensional construct is used to measure NPD performance in the current study, and this assesses a new product’s innovativeness, speed to market, and market performance. The innovativeness of new product is defined as the extent to which a product differs from competing alternatives in a way that is meaningful to customers (Ma et al., 2012); the new product speed to market is defined as the time elapsed between initial development including the innovation conception and ultimate commercialization, or the introduction of a new product into the marketplace (Ma et al., 2012); and finally, new product market performance is distinguished as new products in a firm’s major product line achieving sales growth, customer satisfaction and profit objectives (Kotabe et al., 2011).

2.7 Conceptual framework

In a learning organization, absorption and internalization of internal/external knowledge and experiences are extremely important for surviving in a highly competitive environment. Internal and external knowledge (i.e., social capital and intellectual capital) facilitate organizational integration mechanisms. Such mechanisms are assumed to enhance the absorption and internalization of new technology and knowledge within an organization, and thus helping to create the dynamic competences of an organization. Therefore, this study extends social capital theory from the individual/group level to the B2B level in the context of NPD, and adopts both the knowledge-based theory and organizational learning theory to develop a complete model for understanding the relationships among corporate social capital, intellectual capital, TIM, KIM and AC in the context of NPD. The conceptual framework of this study can be divided into two parts as shown in Fig. 1. The first part is an attempt to connect resources (corporate social capital and intellectual capital) and capabilities (TIM, KIM and AC) of an organization, and the second part is a discussion of whether capabilities have a hierarchical relationship and how these capabilities influence to NPD performance.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The framework of this study

Full size image

3 Hypotheses development

3.1 Corporate social capital and integration mechanisms

Corporate social capital was defined into three dimensions: structural, relational and cognitive capitals. Interaction ties are reliable as a measurement of structural capital based on Chang and Chuang (2011), and Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998). Most literature on this topic has discussed the relation between interaction ties and knowledge sharing, but they have ignored a premise as to whether inter-organizational information exchanging is built on IT infrastructures and related transmission protocol. The necessity for IT may be derived from knowledge interchange. For example, if an inter-organizational project for NPD is launched and the design interface is not planned appropriately, in order to ensure mutual understanding about product design, the two collaborative sides have to work closely together (Wong et al., 2011).

According to Zhu et al. (2006), IOS adoption may be influenced by a firm’s network effect, including the existing ties with customers, suppliers, other vertical partners and horizontal peers. Restated, with stronger ties, organizations are more likely to achieve data consistency and cross-functional application integration for the purpose of technology integration. Thus, this study posits that stronger interaction ties could positively affect the construction of TIM. Robert et al. (2008) further indicated that a pondered tie is a mechanism to assist information exchange for the purpose of knowledge integration. Information exchange positively relates to interaction frequency or quality, in which dense social network members frequently interchange and utilize private information provided by others (Autry & Griffis, 2008). Only when strong interaction ties exists between firms will both of them be willing to share confidential information with each other, which also represents the likelihood of knowledge interchange proceeding and integrative routines (Mu et al., 2008). Thus, H1 is proposed.

  1. H1:

    Structural capital (interaction ties) has positive effects on (a) TIM and (b) KIM.

Relational capital is the basic quality and nature of relationships among social units, which applies at both the individual and organizational level. Unlike reputation, mutual trust and reciprocity are built on long-term relationships (Chen & Hung 2010). Chan and Chong (2012) examined the relation between trust in trading partner and IOS adoption, and found that if more trust exists between a focal firm and its trading partner, they are more willing to adopt IOS or related technology. If firms lack mutual trust during the collaborative process, the accuracy of information exchange and knowledge sharing will be lower, and the firms will be less willing to share confidential information (Levin & Cross, 2004; Cheng et al., 2008). In general, when mutual trust is higher within a collaborative relationship, firm performance related to knowledge and technology integration will also be better (Chan & Chong, 2012; Cai et al., 2013).

Reciprocity directly influences motivation related to technology integration. Allen et al. (2000) mentioned that incentives for IOS adoption might not be due to moral or relational reasons but rather be a reaction to distrust. Even if trust is important in inter-firm relationships, enabling access and receipt of real-time information in businesses will increase reliability and accuracy. Nevertheless, IOS building is still reciprocal for both sides of a collaborative relationship through information interchange or real-time monitoring, further enhancing supply chain performance, predictability, and knowledge creation (Lee et al., 2012). Bock et al. (2005) considered individual’s attitude toward knowledge sharing to be driven by anticipated reciprocal relationships, and suggested that knowledge contribution behavior occurs only if the members feel that things are fair and reciprocal. Reciprocity is an incentive for cooperative behavior, in which both sides have to perceive the potential benefits from TIMs and KIMs. Thus, H2 has proposed.

  1. H2:

    Relational capital (trust and reciprocity) has positive effects on (a) TIM and (b) KIM.

In the integration process with partner firms, external integration often involves various components, such as unique communication systems, policies, routines for processing transactions, or data storing related IT (Fayard et al., 2012). Cognitive capital can help members to form accurate explanations and expectations about a task, which means cognitive capital is helpful to enhance mutual perception and data consistency (Roberts et al. 2012). Shared language provides a basis b to communicate with other network members. Past research has used shared language to examine if shared understanding between businesses and IT departments can be strengthened by cognitive capital (Van den Hooff & De Winter, 2011). Shared language can facilitate the ability of gaining information, and provide a common mechanism to evaluate the probability of benefits of knowledge exchange and combination (Chiu et al., 2006). Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) indicated that where shared language and shared narratives both exist, employees will feel free to discuss problems, to transfer and share knowledge, and to contribute more relevant information to each other. Furthermore, shared culture also plays an important role during collaboration, because cultural differences may lead to conflicts and misunderstandings, and negatively affect alliances and knowledge sharing (Lane et al., 2001).

Chang and Chuang (2011) considered cognitive capital to involve a shared understanding among individuals, extending the explanation from individuals to organizations where cognitive capital is specifically used to reduce uncertainty during collaboration. In other words, cognitive similarity may support the integration of technology and knowledge (Inkpen & Tsang, 2005). This study assumes that language and cultural similarities will affect knowledge and technology integration mechanisms because activities like information-sharing meetings or cross-functional teams between firms will attract similar firms to participate in for the purpose of benchmarking or new technology and knowledge acquisition (e.g., the A-team project in Taiwan’s bicycle industry). Using similar language and shared culture, members belonging to different organizations can exchange their experiences without cognitive gaps, and the acquired technology and knowledge will be more valuable for inspiration. Thus, H3 is proposed.

  1. H3:

    Cognitive capital (shared language and shared culture) has positive effects on (a) TIM and (b) KIM.

3.2 Intellectual capital and integration mechanisms

Intellectual capital in this study is composed of both human and organizational capital. Human capital can facilitate the transfer of knowledge among organizations and can further increase the recipient’s AC and the depth and breadth of an organization’s knowledge base (Pawlowski & Robey, 2004). Because human capital is expressed as knowledge, skill, and expertise, higher human capital means that employees have more skills by which to utilize proper knowledge from inside or outside of organizations (Hsu & Sabherwal, 2011; Roberts et al., 2012). These people will be more thoughtful, intelligent, and imperturbable with regard to dealing with problems. Using their own base of knowledge, they can quickly communicate with other knowledge workers in an information-sharing meeting and can interchange their information. After a while, they can create new knowledge based on the newly acquired knowledge or can re-combine newly acquired and existing knowledge to elevate their own personal value, ultimately improving performance. Thus, H4 is proposed.

  1. H4:

    Human capital has a positive effect on knowledge integration mechanisms.

Codification is the core essence of organizational capital, which makes individual knowledge convert into valuable recodes that can be preserved within organizations. This greatly enhances the likelihood of information transmission because most organizational capital is performed from explicit knowledge and is easily recovered. Moreover, organizational capital is concerned with structured processes and helps to establish robust structures, systems, and processes that can be applied in recurrent activities. Structured processes can benefit from rich exchange of information by manipulating and strengthening organizational bases of knowledge (Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). This study suggests that organizational capital can help to build structured processes, such as success/failure of product analysis or cross-functional teams between organizations. Because organizational capital is composed of institutionalized knowledge and codified experience, it has proven its value by means of internal use. Similarly, organizational capital helps knowledge dissemination and integration because it is codified. Thus, H5 is proposed.

  1. H5:

    Organizational capital has a positive effect on knowledge integration mechanisms.

3.3 TIMs and KIMs

TIMs is a fundamental component intended to support information interchange and free access between partner firms and focal firms, which help to decrease communication costs and rapidly respond to environment changes (Zahra & George, 2002). IT also plays an indispensable role in knowledge management, strategic management, and the channel of exogenous knowledge internalization (Sher & Lee, 2004), while Computer-mediated communication can certainly enhance knowledge sharing and application among group members, because explicit knowledge can be easily codified and disseminated through IT (Choi et al., 2010). Consequently, the relationship exists between TIM and KIM can be ensured (Grant, 1996).

Data consistency and cross-functional application integration were used as dimensions for TIM in the current study. Data consistency is a kind of sub-language that is used to assist the communication process related to the same data stored in different databases. De Luca and Atuahene-Gima (2007) and Rai et al. (2006) found that with the higher data consistency and cross-functional application integration, not only will there be higher KIM, but also knowledge transferal will occur with lower cost and real-time connections. Thus, H6 is proposed.

  1. H6:

    Technology integration mechanisms have a positive effect on knowledge integration mechanisms.

3.4 TIMs, KIMs, and ACs

Van den Bosch et al. (1999) suggested the antecedents of AC to be prior related knowledge and internal mechanisms. In current study, TIM and KIM might influence AC and in turn raise the competitive advantage of a focal firm. From the technological perspective, the IOS warrants the information obtained from partners to be organized and manageable and helps to create new knowledge. Since pre-specified formats will help to interpret and manipulate data easier, IOS use can encourage knowledge development and AC between supply chain partners (Malhotra et al., 2005). Fayard et al. (2012) further indicated that external electronic integration systems use will bring more experiences and expertise, which might be likely to enhance communication networks, knowledge seeking capabilities, and ultimately organizational AC. IOSs not only are the infrastructure to bridge focal firms and partner information, but they also represent relation-specific capital among partners. Firms allow their knowledge assets to become public knowledge and permit their partners to access these assets, which will positively strengthen knowledge acquisition (Kim et al., 2011).

According to Saraf et al. (2012), cross-business unit integration mechanisms (IS capabilities) have an influence on AC (knowledge sharing) because when two business units have expertise in different but related customer segments, their knowledge is complementary. By providing a smoother conversion between business units, cross-business unit integration mechanisms combine multiple contexts with different business units and enhance knowledge sharing. Therefore, this study extends the applicability to the inter-organization level, and it is presumed that cross-functional application integration also affects and facilitates organizational AC. Based on previous discussions, technology factors (i.e., data consistency and cross-functional application integration) within TIM are highly likely to affect organizations that absorb new knowledge and information from the outside. Thus, H7 is proposed.

  1. H7:

    Technology integration mechanisms have a positive effect on absorptive capacity.

Malhotra et al. (2005) and Zahra and George (2002) pointed out that integrative (or collaborative) mechanisms play a critical role that affect the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge exchange between parties. The knowledge exchange activities in operations will indurate knowledge base which preserved in organization. Organizational AC is enhanced through intra-organizational knowledge flows (Teigland & Wasko, 2003), including formal and informal interactions like cross-functional meetings and sharing work experience from different departments. By recombining knowledge via informal information trading, a firm can acquire more information and industrial knowledge from its partners (Camisón & Forés, 2010). Meanwhile, the capability to recognize the usefulness of newly acquired knowledge can be enhanced by asking others who involve in meeting or contact (Zahra & George, 2002). KIM offers the opportunity for people from different departments to interchange their problems and opinions. For example, a product developer may figure out the demand from customers via direct interaction and then explain technological difficulties them. In this manner, both sides can share deep understanding with each other and gain access to new knowledge. Furthermore, when they are confronting with new knowledge in the future, based on current experience, they can better deal with it and ask the proper person for a resolution. Thus, external knowledge integration behavior is posited to potentially evoke and accelerate internal knowledge integration. Consequently, the following hypothesis is proposed:

  1. H8:

    Knowledge integration mechanisms have a positive effect on absorptive capacity.

3.5 AC and NPD performance

Referring to Cohen and Levinthal (1990), the last step of AC is to apply acquired knowledge to a commercial end, which indicated that research can examine the effect of AC by recognizing R&D or NPD performance. Pavlou and El Sawy (2006) stated that AC is conceptualized as a set of routines and processes by NPD teams, while Yao et al. (2013) stressed that greater knowledge absorption effectiveness can help achieve successful NPD performance. AC can thus be viewed as an antecedent of NPD performance. Therefore, if a company acquires knowledge or technology without AC, it will not perform well with regard to innovation (Chen et al., 2009). With better knowledge acquisition and dissemination, product-related knowledge can be created and innovated more quickly. AC plays a role in the utilization of knowledge and aims to achieve sustainable advantages. The relationships among knowledge, AC and NPD performance are indiscrete. To sum up, it is assumed that AC has a high correlation with NPD performance. Thus, H9 is proposed.

  1. H9:

    Absorptive capacity has a positive effect on new product development performance.

4 Methodology

The definitions of all variables and dimensions in the proposed framework are based on the prior literature with some modifications to fir the specific context of this study (see Table 5). The exogenous variables include structural capital (interaction ties), relational capital (trust and reciprocity), cognitive capital (shared language and shared culture), human capital, and organizational capital; the endogenous variables include TIM (data consistency and cross-functional application integration), KIM, and AC (acquisition, dissemination, transformation, exploitation); finally, NPD performance (innovativeness, speed to market, and market performance) is the dependent variable in this framework. Details of the measurements are presented in Table 6.

The respondents for the pilot test were chosen from EMBA students studying in Taiwan, who are experienced in the workplace and familiar with completing and commenting on questionnaires. A total of 82 respondents participated in the pilot test, although three of these responses were invalid because their organizations had no experience of NPD in the past 5 years, leaving 79 valid questionnaires for analysis. The Cronbach’s alphas of all constructs exceeded 0.7 and almost all the items met the item-to-total correlation criteria of 0.4, except for items HC1, HC2, IT5, ACQ8, DC1, KM4, EXP5, and EXP1, which were thus removed from the final survey (see Table 6). In order to raise the Cronbach’s alpha of KIM, item KIM6 was also deleted.

Following comments from respondents, two additional items were added for the formal data collection: (1) Has your current company engaged in NPD in the past 5 years? (2) Have you been engaged in NPD-related business in the past 5 years? Do you understand the NPD process? If these questions were answered positively, then the respondent was qualified for the survey. A snow ball sampling technique was applied, and paper-based survey was used to collect data. The EMBA students from the pilot test were asked to send the questionnaires to general and other top managers that they knew. One thousand and two hundred formal questionnaires were distributed in January 2015, and 297 questionnaires were returned, of which four were invalid because of incomplete answers. A total of 293 valid questionnaires (a response rate of 24.41 %) were thus gathered. Because the initial response rate was not good, reminder letters were sent and additional phone calls were made to obtain more responses, after which 103 additional questionnaires were returned. By eliminating two incomplete questionnaires from these, an extra 101 valid sample were gathered. This study thus had a total of 394 valid samples were for further analysis.

To assess the non-response bias, respondents were divided into two groups: (1) early respondents (293) returned without reminders, and (2) late respondents (101) returned after reminder letters or phone calls. The results of an independent-sample t-test showed that there were no significant differences (i.e., the p values ranged from 0.068 to 0.968) between early and late respondents. Furthermore, according to Harman’s single-factor test, the 34 % variance explained by a single factor indicates that the common method bias is not a major concern in the current work (as it is less than the 50 % cut-off point).

Table 1 shows the demographic details of the valid samples. Most of the respondents were male (81.7 %) and had a college or university degree (61.4 %). About half of the respondents had worked in their current company for 11 to 15 years (55.8 %). The large portion of firms operated in the area of electronic manufacturing (18.5 %), were founded between six to 15 years prior to the study (28.7 %), had less than 100 employees (32 %), sales below US$30 million (38.8 %), and capital of more than US$50 million (36.3 %).

Table 1 Respondent characteristics (N = 394)
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5 Results

5.1 Measurement assessment

In this study, corporate social capital (i.e., structural, relational and cognitive), intellectual capital (i.e., human and organizational), TIM, KIM and AC are operationalized as reflective constructs, whereas NPD performance is operationalized as a formative construct (Petter et al. 2007; Jarvis et al., 2003). When the reflective and the formative constructs are included in the structural model, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is more appropriate than covariance-based SEM (CB-SEM) (Cenfetelli & Bassillier, 2009; Hair et al., 2014; Polites et al., 2012). Therefore, PLS-SEM path modeling was used in this study to assess the path modeling with latent variables by using SmartPLS 2.0.

In the PLS path modeling, IT1, TR1, TR2, TR4 and SC1 were eliminated because of factor loadings below .5. As shown in Table 2, the item-to-total values ranged from .556 (OC4) to .832 (IN4), while the factor loadings ranged from .660 (IT4) to .943 (IT2). Both the Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (C.R.) of all constructs were higher than the threshold of .70. The average variance extracted (AVE) of all constructs ranged from .568 (Acquisition) to .859 (Shared language).

Table 2 Mean, SD, factor loading, composite reliability, AVE and cronbach’s alpha (N = 394)
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Moreover, following the guidelines in Fornell and Larcker (1981), the discriminant validity of the scales used in this study was also acceptable. As shown in Table 3, all the values of the square root of the AVE on the diagonal were greater than the correlations among constructs on the off-diagonal. It can thus be concluded that the scales used in this study possess sufficient construct validity.

Table 3 Results of discriminant validity analysis
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5.2 PLS path model

This study assumed that corporate social and intellectual capitals are the antecedents of TIM and KIM. The construct of corporate social capital, including structural, relational and cognitive dimensions, may thus influence TIM and KIM. Before hypotheses testing, this study investigated the relationships among corporate social capital, TIM and KIM in order to confirm the conceptual framework. The analytical results show that corporate social capital has positive influences on TIM (β = .478, p < .001) and KIM (β = .398, p < .05). Human and organizational capital, both composed of intellectual capital, also have positive and significant impacts on KIM (β = .415, β = .559, p < .001).

Figure 2 shows the path diagram of the bootstrap results. It suggests that the interaction ties of corporate social capital are positively related to TIM (β = .095, p < .01), but not KIM (β = −.024, p > .05). H1a is thus supported, but H1b is not. Trust and reciprocity do not influence TIM, whereas reciprocity has a statistical impact on KIM (β = .101, p < .05). Therefore, H2a is not supported and H2b is only partially supported. Shared language and shared culture have positive effects on TIM (β Shared language = .602, p < .05; β Shared culture = .462, p < .01), but not KIM, supporting H3a, but not H3b. Furthermore, human capital, organizational capital and TIM influence KIM significantly and positively (β Human capital = .319, β Organizational capital  = .272, β TIM  = .229, p < .001), and so H4, H5 and H6 are all supported. In the case of the relationship between TIM/KIM and AC, both are positively and significantly related (β TIM  = .315, β KIM  = .445, p < .001), and so H7 and H8 are supported. AC is confirmed to have a significant influence on NPD, so H9 is supported (β = .695, p < .001). To summarize the test results: eight hypotheses are supported, two are partially supported, and two are not supported, as seen in Table 4.

Fig. 2
figure 2

The bootstrap results of PLS

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Table 4 Results of the hypotheses testing
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6 Conclusions & recommendations

6.1 Discussion of findings

6.1.1 Structural capital (interaction ties), TIM, and KIM

This study assumed that inter-organizational relationship is a critical factor which influences willingness toward collaboration, and corporate social capital was used as the antecedent. Interaction ties were used to represent structural capital. The supported H1a indicated that interaction ties are positively related to TIM. When an organization cooperates and interacts with its partners frequently, especially when establishing an inter-organizational team for a new product project or using IT applications for real-time material quality control, firms will be more willing to make investments. Building a TIM seems to be more convenient for information interchange with regard to partner firm’s function-specific applications because they have unobstructed cross-functional transmission channels for the shared data, sequentially reduced the time-spending costs related to repeated inspection and duplication in highly frequent collaboration relationships. This study proved that interaction ties have a positive influence on TIM. Higher tie strength is critical for the intention toward TIM because it will enhance the motivation and requirements associated with the use of TIM. Unexpectedly, H2b was not supported. Tie strength represents the closeness between two sides. According to Hansen (1999), the knowledge transmission effect of weak ties is better than that of strong ties across organizational subunits. When interaction ties become very strong, information and knowledge transmission and exchange will be restricted within the group. It thus becomes very difficult to establish cross-functional teams with partner firms, and so conflicts and misunderstandings will arise, making KIM implementations more challenging.

6.1.2 Relational capital (trust & reciprocity), TIM, and KIM

Chan and Chong (2012) have suggested that trust and reciprocity are critical factors that affect TIM because they can reduce perceived risks, our results of H2a did not support that trust and reciprocity have positive effect on TIM. There are two possible explanations for this result. On one hand, the willingness of technology integration between a focal firm and its partner may not be facilitated by trust. Instead, they may cooperate and inter-correlate by integrating information systems to directly control and monitor real-time information and the trade rules of business partners (Allen et al., 2000). The relationship between a focal firm and its partner can be facilitated after business systems integration. On the other hand, mutual trust and reciprocity might not be the primary critical factors in TIM. Although Zhu et al. (2006) have reflected a concept that IT integration can be regarded as a relation-specific asset, both sides are still inclined to be self-interest-oriented in business collaboration and therefore will be focused more on the benefits provided by TIM to themselves, such as cost reduction or NPD process acceleration.

Furthermore, H2b was not supported with regard to the relationships among trust, reciprocity and KIM. Members who believe in each other thus will not do things for their own interest. In addition, firms provide valuable information to others because they expect that some equivalent knowledge will be provided in return. However, the study did not take into consideration that members who are involved in information-sharing meetings have an obligation to their companies. A great deal of confidential information is not allowed to be provided to outsiders unless there is a formal agreement between firms. Traditionally interpersonal trust may exist in virtual communities or inter-departmental relationships, but such social groups are composed of individuals. Nevertheless, only if a contract or other formal agreement has been signed in the business collaboration, will both sides contribute legally reciprocal behavior based on this safeguard and interchange information such as patents, critical technological data, or customer knowledge for future use.

6.1.3 Cognitive capital (shared language & culture), TIM, and KIM

Shared language and culture were found to affect TIM. This result is consistent with H3a assumption, for the study considered shared language and data consistency to high similarity in essence. Both of them tend to build up common understanding that helps diminish cognitive mistakes and accelerate knowledge interchange between people or organizations. The difference between these two factors is that the former is for people, but the latter is for computer-mediated communication environments. Initially, the distinctive vocabulary, terms or jargon that exists between specific-knowledge workers, such as engineer, product manager, or software developer was considered in this interchange. Moreover, consistent with the findings of Parra-Requena et al. (2010), this study found that shared culture is a suitable variable to measure TIM. The results showed that if firms have similar operational mechanisms, corporate culture, and management style, they have better data consistency and IT integration between firms. Cultural differences originally exist between firms because organizational culture is unique and inimitable. Thus, shared culture becomes a critical factor as long as two firms begin to interchange and share information. If two sides both understand the other’s culture, customs or management styles, this not only makes it easier for them to reduce conflicts during collaboration, but also easier to define a set of common data. The current study suggests that operational mechanisms can directly influence the information flow across organizational boundaries. With similar procedures or culture, two sides in a collaborative process will manage the processing information more clearly and lower barriers while using an IOS.

Unfortunately, cognitive capital (shared language and culture) only partially relates to KIM, not supporting the shared language assumption of H3b. Shared language occurs mostly in virtual communities, because of their anonymous nature, making members feel more intimate and comfortable with making contributions to the group, as compared to B2B relationships (Chiu et al., 2006), and thus a shared language may not help knowledge assimilation and dissemination in a B2B context. The purpose of KIM is to acquire external knowledge, but a shared language may present a barrier to new entrants and their knowledge. Therefore, a higher degree of shared language related to cognitive capital raises more problems for knowledge access, renewal, and integration, thus ultimately influencing NPD performance within organizations. On the other hand, a shared culture enables identification of insiders and outsiders under different circumstances, and this can facilitate knowledge assimilation and dissemination in a B2B context.

6.1.4 Human capital, organizational capital, and KIM

Human capital is tacit knowledge which belongs to employees and is used to create their personal value in specific areas. Human capital can reflect the quality of employees in a company, which is positively related to KIM, because a greater employee knowledge base can reduce misunderstandings and help staff to absorb more new knowledge during meetings or when conducting product analysis, thus ultimately enhancing organizational competence and value. Organizational capital is generated in codified form (e.g., patents, licenses, or databases), and this codified data can help smooth the communication process, because the information is more unambiguous and precise than is the case with tacit knowledge.

In formal knowledge-integration activities, patenting and licensing issues are often discussed in the initial stages of cooperative ventures among technology firms, and this requires skillful negotiation, careful execution, and meticulous drafting of the related agreements (Cohendet & Meyer-Krahmer, 2001). Organizational capital can help both sides in patenting or licensing agreements, because it is based on the prior institutionalized knowledge and codified experience within organizations, making it more reliable than other knowledge (Katila, 2002). According to Morris and Snell (2011), organizational capital does indeed improve the acceptance of ideas across boundaries, and helps to facilitate KIM, when developing new products. Consistent with previous studies, intellectual capital (including human and organizational capital) facilitates the implementation of KIM, thus supporting H4 and H5.

6.1.5 TIM and KIM

The relationship between TIM and KIM is supported by H6. Many organizations are in the process of implementing intranet-based communication tools and know that IT tools are useful to knowledge sharing (Teigland & Wasko, 2003). This study suggested that once a TIM is built, two sides of the collaborative process will be able to access the new level of integrated knowledge and will be able to utilize it. Most information will be freely processed and used by both sides’ employees, who promote knowledge transmission between their firms and accelerate knowledge re-combination. The information within IOS is performed in explicit knowledge which is similar to organizational capital. Therefore, organizational capital, TIM and KIM are inseparable.

A higher degree of data consistency and cross-functional application integration means that both internal/external forms of knowledge are compatible, and the cross-boundaries of the IT system are able to connect respective and rapid transition. The consistent data and free interchange channels make KIM smoother because the latest information allows them to integrate in an identical information base, and electronic data makes documentation easier. Technological support from TIMs can rapidly provide real-time information for members who participate in information-sharing meetings or collective product analyses, and can help those within or between organization(s) acquire more skills by which to manipulate the latest information for future use.

6.1.6 TIM and KIM’s effect on organizational AC

H7 and H8 were significantly supported. Both TIM and KIM have positive effects on AC. Referring to Daghfous (2004), who divided the factors affecting AC into internal and external, one of the internal factor is cross-functional communication. In this study the question was asked to know whether cross-functional communication can enhance the efficiency of knowledge transformation and accelerate the product time-to-market if R&D and production are well-linked.

Todorova and Durisin (2007) refined the model of AC and deemed “recognition value” as an important dimension before knowledge acquisition. This study used KIM to substitute “recognition value”, received satisfactory results that indicated KIM performed well with regard to AC. This study deemed TIM as not only the receiver for external knowledge, but also the disseminative channel for internal knowledge. When the information flows in organizations, it has to re-combine existing knowledge like organizational capital, or be directly utilized by various departments. Data consistency and cross-functional application integration ensure the data stored in respective databases will be consistent and real-time between focal and partner firms.

KIM represents externally information-collective activities and knowledge-based interactions, such as information-sharing meetings, success/failure product analysis or cross-functional team that truly help to facilitate organizational AC. Because the newly acquired knowledge in KIMs will be recognized and judged by participants, it seems to be the primary gatekeepers for information quality (Daghfous, 2004). Internal/external information integration can enhance AC, because the more information that is integrated, the more precise and accurate will be the resulting analysis of market and customer needs. Therefore, it is more efficient for the NPD process to be on the inside and for market and customer response to be on the outside. In brief, the critical roles of both TIM and KIM to activate AC were confirmed by this study.

6.1.7 Absorptive capacity on NPD performance

The results indicated strong support for H9. AC was proven to have a positive effect on NPD performance. This outcome is consistent with the definition of AC in which most knowledge is considered to be created within organizations but utilized to commercial ends (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Previous literature has rarely or only partially used AC to discuss NPD-related issues (Yao et al., 2013; Yli‐Renko et al. 2001), while this study considered AC to be impartibly, dynamic and highly concerned with NPD performance because knowledge and the environment change all the time. Based on this, each dimension of AC was used for measurement. The results satisfactorily proved the assumption, and indicated that a firm can facilitate its NPD performance through a set of routine building efforts (i.e., acquire, disseminate, transform, and exploit). Both internal and external knowledge will be gathered, comprehended and re-created by these competences. NPD-related performance including innovativeness, speed to market, and market performance will be enhanced.

6.2 Theoretical implications

In a learning organization, absorption and internalization of internal/external knowledge and experiences are extremely important for a firm’s survival in a highly competitive environment. This study adopted the concepts of social capital theory, knowledge-based theory and organizational learning theory to develop a complete model for understanding the relationships among corporate social capital, intellectual capital, TIM, KIM and AC in the context of NPD. In this study, social capital theory is extended from the individual/group level to the B2B level in the context of NPD. Although the prior literature has indicated that social capital is effective with regard to enabling technology integration (Patnayakuni et al., 2006) and knowledge integration (Autry & Griffis, 2008; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Roberts et al. 2012), this study found that the influence of corporate social capital on TIM/KIM is weaker at the B2B level than at the individual/group level. From a theoretical perspective, this is attributed to differences in the environment and motivations that drive the actors, because the opportunity costs of business actors are much higher than those for individual actors, resulting in more self-interested considerations in a B2B environment. This study combined social capital with intellectual capital and treated these as internal and external antecedent factors affecting organizational integration mechanisms. Although this premise was only partially supported by the results, it provides on suggestion for future studies, by indicating that social and intellectual capitals do exist in the organizational integration mechanisms that are found in the NPD context.

Furthermore, past studies (e.g., Todorova & Durisin, 2007; Yao et al., 2013) have used knowledge complementarity or resources as antecedents of AC. However, this study considered both TIM and KIM to be important facilitators of AC, as both serve to consolidate external and internal knowledge for organizations. When knowledge goes through the process of an integrating mechanism, AC can perform better through the absorption of complete knowledge provided as a result of the integration mechanism. Notably, TIM also can influence KIM significantly because better data consistency and cross-functional integration systems can help KIM in facilitating AC. In short, the results of this study confirm that TIM, KIM, and AC to have a triangular relationship in the context of NPD.

Lastly, in past literature AC was treated as a one-dimensional construct (Yli‐Renko et al. 2001). In this study AC is confirmed to be a multi-dimensional construct in an NPD context, because each part of AC is independent and equally important with regard to influencing NPD performance.

6.3 Managerial implications

Cooperating with regard to innovative ideas from the external environment is important for firms in the context of NPD (Grève et al., 2013). Interaction ties and shared culture are critical factors that affect cross-boundary integration. More intensive ties and similar cultures will increase mutual understanding, and thus this study suggests that managers should help their employees interact more frequently with their existing or potential partners. For example, assigning employees to participate in related conferences or exhibitions can create more opportunities for staff to directly express themselves and exchange ideas with business partners. At the same time, managers themselves are encouraged to interact more closely with their clients and suppliers, in order to expand their business networks, as this can benefit future cooperation.

Moreover, human capital is an important resource in an organization, and firms should thus develop employees’ sense of belonging to the organization and generate a friendly organizational climate. If employees feel anxious about sharing their know-how and are worried that they will be replaced by others once they do so, this anxiety will decrease their willingness to share what they know. In addition to reducing such anxiety, organizations should provide employees with incentives to share their experiences, knowledge and information. For example, if some incentives are offered to encourage knowledge codification, then valuable employee experiences can be passed down and learned from by other staff who have different functions and may even be from different organizations (Yueh et al., 2009). NPD performance can ultimately be enhanced by adopting such practices.

Finally, managers should encourage employees to write down useful information or technological details when they are participating in cross-functional NPD teams with partners or in knowledge-sharing meetings. In order to facilitate the functions of TIM and KIM, managers should push the development of shared data formats between firms to establish the structures need to enable better information exchanges and aid the innovation process. Recorded information and electronic data can be the basis for internal knowledge sharing and re-combination, or can provide ideas for brainstorming new products (Shin et al., 2010).

6.4 Limitations and directions for future research

This study applied social capital theory to inter-organizational partnerships in order to understand whether such partnerships have an influence on knowledge integration. However, the measurement scales of social capital adopted in literature have mostly been used in social communities or at the individual level. Future research may consider adopting qualitative research to develop different scales for interpersonal and inter-organizational measurements. Furthermore, the proposed model mainly focuses on the context of NPD performance within an organization. Future research may consider applying the proposed model to understand other types of inter-organizational relationships, such as alliances, joint ventures or different sub-companies.