ifkad articles

Studying the role of knowledge sharing practices for augmenting business model innovation via innovation speed and innovation quality: A study on IT companies in Pakistan

Aleena Shuja, Atif Hassan, Naveed Yazdani, Aleema Shuja

The study seeks to investigate the impact of explicit and implicit knowledge sharing on business model innovation of IT Companies in Lahore (Wu et al., 2013), Pakistan through intervention of innovation speed and innovation quality. Based on the tentative deductions derived from Knowledge Based View (KBV) of information technology companies, this paper employs Partial Least Square for Structured Equation Modeling in order to investigate these hypotheses. Sample in the intended cross-sectional study contains empirical analysis performed on primary data collected from knowledge workers employed in IT companies. This envisioned investigation highlights the vivacious role of knowledge sharing within IT based firms that with the sharing of both implicit and explicit knowledge capital entrenched in the form of hidden intangible experiences, perceptions, behaviors, attitudes and as well as coded information in the documents and systems promote the strengthening of innovation capability of their existing business models. Thus, it has been found that business model innovation of IT companies can only be achieved when these firms quickly and more effectively come up with novel and breakthrough ideas, develop and launch new products & services, design and adopt new business processes and solve business problems as compared to their competitors supported by critical knowledge sharing comprising of explicit and implicit knowledge. This study has significant practical implications for the knowledge workers working in IT based firms committed to increase the innovation capacity of their business model and process through common perspectives of shared experiences and information platforms. Knowledge sharing will thus help them utilize the integrated and collective information capital in order to produce effective, efficient, high speed and superior quality driven innovation in their IT services to reach and equally meet their customers’ demands. Thus through resultant innovation in their firms’ business model, IT managers can help their organizations gain sustained edge ahead of their competitors. Customer satisfaction and long-standing competitive advantage can be evidently achieved through sharing of innovation building explicit and implicit critical knowledge throughout the organization.

IN: Proceedings IFKAD 2019 – Knowledge Ecosystems and Growth
PP: 475-499