Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Information & Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/im

Does the source of external knowledge matter? Examining the role of T

customer co-creation and partner sourcing in knowledge creation and
innovation
Sandeep Goyala, Manju Ahujaa,*, Atreyi Kankanhallib
a
College of Business, University of Louisville, United States
b
School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: External knowledge is widely acknowledged to be critical for organizational innovation. However, we lack
Innovation understanding of how different sources of knowledge—namely knowledge from customers and partners—in-
Customer co-creation fluence innovation. Grounded in the knowledge-based view of the firm, we theoretically develop and empirically
External knowledge test a model of mechanisms through which two forms of external knowledge acquisition i.e., customer co-
creation and partner sourcing, foster knowledge creation and innovation. We posit that the different forms of
external knowledge acquisition contribute differentially toward innovation outcomes. Finally, we examine the
moderating role of knowledge dissemination capability on the relationships between external knowledge of both
forms. We test our proposed model using data gathered from 655 organizations in two knowledge intensive
sectors i.e., financial and information technology. Our model explains 65 % of the variance in knowledge
creation and highlights that organizations with higher degree of knowledge creation are more likely to innovate
through new patents. We extend prior research on customer co-creation and organizational innovation by
identifying intervening organizational variables and mechanisms that explicate the effects of external knowledge
on innovation. The results provide important implications for organizations regarding the capabilities needed to
utilize external knowledge for innovation.

1. Introduction internal R&D, improving new product/service acceptance, and ob-

Innovation is key to sustained competitiveness in current dynamic
business environments, serving as a salient way to challenge the com-
moditization of products and services [1,2]. Contemporary organiza-
tions are increasingly relying on external knowledge as a means to
overcome innovation barriers, such as declining economies of scale,
slow speed to market, and creativity blocks [3–6,96,107]. For example,
given the changing business environment, long-established companies
like General Electric (GE) are adapting innovative practices. Realizing
that innovation through global R&D centers employing thousands of
researchers may not be sufficient [99], GE has been experimenting with
open innovation and leveraging external knowledge e.g., through put-
ting up challenges on GrabCAD. Indeed, external knowledge from
customers and partners can offer several advantages for the firm’s in-
novation as compared to internal knowledge. These include con-
tributing more diverse ideas [105] and first-hand knowledge of re-
quirements [11], as well as reducing costs of innovation as compared to
taining continuous innovation [81,85].
Yet, even with the increasing use of external knowledge in in-
novation, there is limited understanding of various sources of such
knowledge and if they contribute differentially toward innovation
outcomes. The extant literature has primarily explored the role of
partner knowledge [3,105,48,88], while a separate stream of research
has examined how and why users or customers contribute to innovation
[4,92,60,76]. Although there has been an increased interest in ex-
amining the effects of customer co-creation on innovation, its impact
relative to other salient forms of external knowledge, such as partner
sourcing, is unclear and understudied [48,90]. Customer co-creation is
defined as the direct engagement of a firm’s customers in the design and
delivery of its goods and services [37,61]. Examples of customer co-
creation can be found in the Lego Group, as well as Sony’s development
of its PlayStation 2 with customer ideas [92]. Partner sourcing refers to
seeking knowledge from entities such as suppliers, competitors, and
universities or research centers [22,22,23]. For example, the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sandeep.goyal@louisville.edu (S. Goyal), manju.ahuja@louisville.edu (M. Ahuja), atreyi@comp.nus.edu.sg (A. Kankanhalli).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2020.103325
Received 1 August 2019; Received in revised form 22 May 2020; Accepted 25 May 2020
Available online 28 May 2020
0378-7206/ Published by Elsevier B.V.
S. Goyal, et al.
automotive industry is replete with instances of car companies’ co-in-
novation with suppliers [58].
The premise of our study is that co-creation with customers is likely
to be significantly different from using partner knowledge for innova-
tion for three key reasons. First, the nature of the innovation con-
tributions differs in that partners usually provide fewer, specific, and
better thought-out ideas [25]. For instance, Gattiker et al. [41] noted
that B2B partners tend to take into account situational factors and
available product attributes while providing innovation inputs. Custo-
mers, on the other hand, tend to provide a large number of ideas that
may be less feasible to implement (see also [64,94]), e.g., My Starbucks
Idea [67]. Second, partners and customers differ in their motivations for
contributing innovative ideas. Partners are likely to be ultimately mo-
tivated by their respective business bottom lines over partnership ob-
jectives [57,101]. Partners are more likely to provide only those ideas
that: (1) are less central to their core competencies; or (2) may have
synergies with their business operations [86]. Partners, especially
competitors, proceed with caution in co-creation because of potential
risks associated with intellectual property rights and risks associated
with losing market share [44]. Customers, on the other hand, are mo-
tivated to participate in the co-creation process because they: (1)
identify with the products of the organization and want to improve
them, (2) enjoy the experience of innovating, (3) want to enhance their
reputation, and (4) like to share their experiences with others
[39,60,64]. Third, customers usually communicate their innovation
ideas through brand communities or through frontline employees of the
organization [30,96]. However, partners are more likely to share their
ideas directly with employees of the organization with whom they in-
teract, or even through formal alliances [91]. These differences have
implications for the ways in which the two sources of external knowl-
edge can be leveraged for organizational innovation and can help ad-
dress concerns raised by prior research (see [92]) regarding customer
involvement in the innovation process.
The objective of this research is to investigate the differential role of
customer co-creation versus partner sourcing in enhancing the knowl-
edge creation through which an organization can innovate. Although
this is not always the case, we suggest that even when an organization is
convinced about the need for external knowledge in innovation, it
would still need to understand if customer knowledge and partner
sourcing can be differentially leveraged for enhancing innovation.
Using the conceptual framework from Nambisan [75], we theorize the
intervening organizational mechanisms that translate customer inputs
and other external knowledge into innovation. Specifically, grounding
our work in the knowledge-based view of the firm (see [46]), our re-
search investigates if two distinct sources of external knowledge influ-
ence organizational knowledge creation i.e., the ability of an organi-
zation to produce new knowledge and original ideas that serve its
objectives [80]. For example, the differences in knowledge creation for
customer co-creation versus partner sourcing are likely to arise because
customers tend to provide a large number of ideas that may not always
be feasible [67,84]. This may result in significant additional costs for
the organization to process and filter customer ideas e.g., in the case of
Dell IdeaStorm [30], which reduces knowledge creation and resultant
innovation.
As part of our theorization, we also identify knowledge dissemina-
tion capability (KDC) as a key intervening capability that can play a
vital role in enhancing organizational knowledge creation and thereby
its innovation outcomes. We propose a moderating effect of KDC on
organizations’ ability to share and distribute knowledge with those who
need it [62,97], helps to share knowledge within the organization e.g.,
through knowledge management systems (KMS), and increase the
number of available ideas to solve a problem at hand. The need for such
a capability is likely to differ for different sources of external knowl-
edge. For example, the need for KDC may be higher for disseminating
ideas from customers, as compared to partners, because of the higher
volume of ideas provided. Thus, we seek to achieve the following
2
Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
research objectives:
1) Examine the effects of customer co-creation versus partner sourcing
on organization’s knowledge creation, and subsequently, innova-
tion; and
2) Examine the differential moderating effects of KDC for the re-
lationships between the two forms of external knowledge acquisi-
tion with knowledge creation.
Our research makes the following four contributions. First, our
study contributes to the research on organizational innovation by ex-
amining if the external knowledge acquisition in the form of customer
co-creation and partner sourcing influence knowledge creation. Among
the limited work at the intersection of knowledge creation and cus-
tomer-based innovation literatures, Nambisan [75] is notable for setting
a broad agenda for researchers to explore the role played by organi-
zational capabilities in enhancing customers’ contributions to innova-
tion. The current research aims to answer this question by theoretically
and empirically examining if different sources of external knowledge
(customer and partners) contribute differentially to knowledge creation
and innovation in organizations. Second, our research serves as a step
forward by investigating the intervening organizational processes that
convert external knowledge into innovations. A rich stream of literature
(e.g. [102],) has explained that external knowledge can be a valuable
resource for organizational innovation. To better understand the me-
chanisms underlying the linkage between external knowledge and in-
novation, it is important to examine the specific capabilities that may
help organizations leverage external knowledge for innovation. An
explication of these intervening variables is relevant for both re-
searchers as well as practitioners. For researchers, our findings can
provide a more nuanced understanding of the knowledge creation
mechanism. For practitioners, this understanding can allow organiza-
tions to create knowledge by leveraging both customer and partner
knowledge for innovation. Third, our research highlights the role of
specific organizational capabilities facilitated by KMS i.e., KDC, in
driving organizational innovation. Prior research (e.g. [22],) has sug-
gested that KMS, such as online repositories, forums, and yellow pages,
can drive innovation. However, research about the specific capabilities
supported by KMS that are most beneficial for innovation is limited and
much needed. Our research theorizes and empirically examines if KDC,
as enabled by a KMS, can help foster organizational innovation. This
research responds to the calls by senior information systems (IS)
scholars for a more immersive view of information technology (IT) in IS
research (e.g., [35,103]). El Sawy [35], for example, argued that “it
may be time for a natural shift of emphasis from the Connection view to
the Immersion View to the Fusion view as IT continues to morph and
augment its capabilities” (p. 588). El Sawy [35] explains the Immersion
view of IS as one in which “IT is immersed within the business en-
vironment and cannot be separated from work” (p. 593) and Fusion
view of IS as one in which “IT is not only immersed, but it is fused with
the business environment such that they are indistinguishable to our
perception” (p. 591).
In the remainder of the paper, we develop a theoretical model and
report on our empirical test of the model utilizing survey and patent
data of 655 organizations from two highly knowledge-intensive in-
dustries [93] i.e., financial and IT, that can benefit from external
knowledge for innovation. We conclude with a discussion of the theo-
retical and practical implications of our research.
2. Theoretical background
In this section, we make use of the knowledge-based view of the
firm to highlight the important role played by external knowledge
sourcing in organizational knowledge creation and innovation. We
conceptualize external knowledge sourcing in terms of partner sourcing
(i.e., knowledge from suppliers, competitors, and other partners) and
S. Goyal, et al.
customer co-creation. We then review the relevant literature on
knowledge creation and innovation to outline the gap in prior research
that our study seeks to address.
2.1. Role of external knowledge
Incorporating external knowledge for organizational innovation has
hurdles. Companies have traditionally considered external knowledge
as hard to find and risky to rely upon, resulting in the “not invented
here” syndrome [26,28]. This and other sources of organizational re-
sistance to external innovations, can result in innovation inefficiencies
[56]. Thus, organizations would benefit from understanding the me-
chanisms under which external knowledge could be most effectively
leveraged for innovation. Prior research in various disciplines, such as
organizational behavior, IS, and management, has examined organi-
zational knowledge creation, its processes, and its enablers in some
depth (e.g. [65–52],). We aim to build on this research by examining if
external knowledge – especially the knowledge acquired through cus-
tomer co-creation and partner sourcing in tandem – results in knowl-
edge creation and innovation outcomes for the firm.
The knowledge‐based view of the firm, in turn, contends that such
specialized knowledge resources drive sustainable competitive ad-
vantage [45]. Accordingly, organizations may engage in knowledge
sourcing to gain a variety of ideas for value creation [22,49]. Gray and
Meister [47] term knowledge sourcing as the seeking of information
from different entities such as suppliers, government agencies, uni-
versities, and research agencies (see also [22,59]). Of particular im-
portance to the current research is the notion that customers are a key
source of knowledge for organizations [48]. This is consistent with
prior research, which has found that customers can play an active role
in the innovation process [76,96]. Thus, we conceptualize external
knowledge sourcing in terms of two constructs in our model i.e., partner
sourcing and customer co-creation. Partner sourcing refers to seeking
knowledge from entities such as suppliers, competitors, universities, or
research centers [22,59] e.g., obtaining specific technical know-how
from an academic research center. Customer co-creation is the direct
engagement of customers in the design and delivery of goods and ser-
vices produced by a firm [37,61] e.g., customers providing product
ideas on brand communities.
Here, we would like to highlight that the concept of customer co-
creation includes, but is not limited to the notion of lead user innova-
tion in the innovation literature [98]. Indeed, lead users are a subset of
customers, defined as members of a user population who: (1) expect to
gain relatively high benefits by finding a solution to their needs, and so
may innovate; and (2) are at the leading edge of important trends in a
marketplace, and so are currently experiencing needs that will later be
experienced by many users in that marketplace. For example, organi-
zations like 3 M identify lead users to carry out specific innovation tasks
[98]. Customer cocreation, on the other hand, refers to inputs from any
customer (not only lead users) toward the firm’s innovation. Customers
usually have hedonic, reputational, and altruistic motives for cocrea-
tion [39] rather than financial goals, and may not necessarily have the
most current knowledge required to solve the organizational problem.
The knowledge-based view suggests that a firm can gain competi-
tive advantage through the application of knowledge resources through
its network [63]. Furthermore, Amit and Schoemaker [57] posit that
the encompassing construct previously called "resources" can be divided
into resources and capabilities, where capabilities are firm-specific and
are used to engage resources within the firm, such as capability to
transfer knowledge within the firm [58]. In the current research, we
focus on KDC as a key capability that could assist in the conversion of
external knowledge resources for innovation. Consistent with Kingston
[62], KDC is defined as the organization’s ability to share and distribute
knowledge as needed (see also [97],). In our context, this applies to
knowledge from external partners and customers who are engaged in
co-creation with the organization. Knowledge creation refers to the
3
Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
ability of an organization to produce new knowledge and original ideas
that serve its objectives [80].
2.2. Knowledge creation and innovation
In this research, we consider customer co-creation, partner sourcing,
and innovation in the light of the knowledge-based view of the firm.
The knowledge-based view considers knowledge as the most valuable
resource of an organization [45] and suggests that innovation can be
achieved by accessing external knowledge [46]. In conjunction with the
shift to a knowledge-based economy (e.g., digitalization, inter-
networking, virtualization, the role of online networks, and services),
the knowledge-based view has gained importance for explaining orga-
nizational innovation [11].
Prior research in several disciplines, including management and IS,
has examined organizational knowledge creation, defined as the iden-
tification and amplification of new knowledge by organizational enti-
ties to serve its objectives [80]. Following the classic work by Nonaka
[79], subsequent research has explored various enablers of knowledge
creation in organizations. For example, Lee and Choi [65] examined the
effects of organizational structure, culture, people, and technology
elements on knowledge creation. Based on their empirical study, they
found that centralization, collaboration, trust, and IT support con-
tribute toward organizational knowledge creation. While Malhotra
et al. [70] explained that collaboration with supply chain partners can
create knowledge for the organization, several other studies (e.g. [110])
have explicated the role of individuals e.g., knowledge facilitators, in
enabling knowledge creation. However, we observed a lack of research,
as also indicated in recent work (e.g. [60],), that links external
knowledge, including customer inputs, to knowledge creation in orga-
nizations.
At the same time, there is a stream of research (see [11]) on how
(e.g. [95],) and why (e.g. [76],) external knowledge sources contribute
to a firm’s innovation. These studies have mainly considered absorptive
capacity as the key characteristic of an organization that allows it to
assimilate external knowledge for innovation (e.g. [36,38],). However,
such findings may not provide the whole picture because absorptive
capacity is a complex construct that addresses how knowledge is “re-
ceived” and integrated into the firm. This construct relates to various
capabilities that allow a firm to integrate knowledge [71]. Other studies
such as Hagedoorn and Wang [50] considered external knowledge as a
whole and related its exploitation for innovation to the firm’s R&D in-
tensity and R&D collaborations with other organizations. Furthermore,
work by Hagedoorn and Wang [50] and other similar studies (e.g.
[22],) mainly tried to explore if internal and external sources of
knowledge complement each other, rather than examine the effects of
the different forms of external knowledge acquisition as we aim to do.
Among the literature that examined the role of specific forms of
external knowledge in innovation, some studies focused on one parti-
cular type or source of external knowledge. For example, Hsueh et al.
[112] observed that firms with stronger business partner networks
achieved better innovation performance, without testing the mechan-
isms of how this happens. In terms of partner sources, while Beers and
Zand [66] tested the impact of relationship commitment and diversity
with partners on firms’ service innovation focus, Fang [37] examined
the innovation impact of customer co-creation in B2B dyads. Yet, an-
other set of studies (e.g. [60],) investigated how online tools or plat-
forms enable users or consumers to participate in software innovation.
Our review revealed limited work comparing the effectiveness of dif-
ferent forms of external knowledge acquisition for innovation. Among
the few studies that we found, Vega-Jurado et al. [111] compared two
strategies (buying vs. cooperating) and two types of sources (industrial
vs. scientific agents) in terms of their effects on innovation, while Kang
and Kang [59] compared the effects of three ways of external knowl-
edge sourcing (information transfer from informal networks, R&D col-
laboration, and technology acquisition) on technology innovation.
S. Goyal, et al.
Fig. 1. Research Model.
Note: KDC: Knowledge dissemination capability.
Thus, while the importance of customer involvement and partner
sourcing for innovation is acknowledged, our review points to a yet-
unfilled need for research comparing effects of these two forms of ex-
ternal knowledge on innovation. Moreover, there is a need to under-
stand the intervening mechanisms through which customer co-creation
and partner sourcing influence firm innovation.
3. Research Model and Hypothesis Development
The goal of this study is to understand the mechanisms that enable
customer co-creation and partner sourcing to create knowledge and
foster innovation for the organization. We propose that the ideas pro-
duced through customer co-creation and partner sourcing are likely to
increase knowledge creation, though more strongly for partner sourcing
than customer co-creation. We also posit that knowledge creation can
be strengthened further by effective KDC. That is, the effects of cus-
tomer co-creation and partner sourcing on knowledge creation would
be enhanced by KDC. Fig. 1 presents our research model.
3.1. External knowledge
With the advent of new IT, organizations can easily move beyond
traditional sources for knowledge creation [25,66]. Even the largest R&
D active organizations do not rely solely on internal sourcing anymore
[24]. Organizations are gathering knowledge relevant to their business
problems from a variety of additional sources, such as suppliers, com-
petitors [109], government agencies, universities, and research centers
[104]. For example, Apple adopted code from open-source developers
to build its new operating system, while SAP and Microsoft set up R&D
labs at universities to tap their knowledge [40]. Among competitors,
Sony and Samsung have drawn knowledge from each other to develop
large LCD panels [44]. Companies also source knowledge from gov-
ernment agencies, for example, Allstate Insurance collaborated with the
City of Chicago through an open government data project [72].
The knowledge obtained from such heterogeneous partners is con-
sidered more diverse than internally available knowledge, which
thereby facilitates idea creation Yan and Azadegan [10]. Also, such
sourcing often involves specific knowledge that a partner has, which
complements the knowledge creation activities of the firm. For in-
stance, suppliers can provide expert feedback related to a company’s
products or services, which enhances refinement and knowledge crea-
tion Yan and Azadegan [10]. Indeed, diverse knowledge is found to
stimulate the creation of new ideas [55], while specific knowledge from
partners has helped improve organizational processes for many com-
panies, like Amazon [75]. Therefore, we posit that the greater the
4
Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
ability of an organization to acquire external knowledge from partners,
such as suppliers and competitors, the more it can create new knowl-
edge to serve its organizational objectives.
H1. Partner sourcing is positively related to knowledge creation.
We posit customer co-creation as a second external source of
knowledge creation. Present day customers demand a much greater role
in customizing the world that surrounds them than before. They not
only provide feedback and input on their experiences, they also actively
participate in online communities to provide ideas toward creating new
products and services that better suit their needs, such as on Dell
IdeaStorm [30]. Bendapudi and Leone [76] and Nambisan and Baron
[76] define a situation where the customers and employees of the or-
ganization interact to develop or improve products, services, or pro-
cesses as customer co-creation. Through customer co-creation in-
itiatives, organizations can potentially gain access to a large number of
new ideas that they can then leverage to address their business pro-
blems more effectively and efficiently [67].
Knowledge creation involves novel rearrangements of ideas,
methods, processes, and strategies, among others [74]. When organi-
zations involve customers as co-creators, interacting employees and
customers are able to challenge traditional problem solving perspec-
tives and discover linkages that have not been discovered before [37].
Acting as partial employees, these customers can influence various
parts of the problem-solving process, such as through idea generation
and/or providing first-hand knowledge of their requirements [98].
Customers may thus serve as valuable participants and help in creating
new combinations of knowledge, thereby enhancing the knowledge
creation of the organization.
H2. Customer co-creation is positively related to knowledge creation.
The key premise of our work is that co-creation with customers is
likely to be significantly different from partner sourcing in its effect on
innovation. We argue that there are two key differences between cus-
tomers and partners that would have a bearing on their influence on
knowledge creation. First, partners tend to provide fewer and better
thought-out ideas. Customers, on the other hand, are likely to provide a
large number of ideas that may not be well thought-out, as they gen-
erally lack business specific knowledge [94,67]. Customer co-creation
would, therefore, require a higher level of organizational resources to
filter customer ideas and determine their feasibility, which would have
a bearing on the knowledge creation of the organization. Along these
lines, Di Gangi and Wasko [30] illustrated that the complexity of the
idea has a direct bearing on its implementation. Literature on in-
formation overload and cognitive overload (e.g. [78],) also suggests
S. Goyal, et al. Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325

that when people receive too many messages, they are often unable to Furthermore, the higher the level of knowledge creation, the greater is
recognize the significance of the incoming messages. Collectively, this the choice set of knowledge accessible to employees to innovate.
suggests that such a resource-intensive process may result in a slower Therefore, we argue that knowledge creation generates more unique
conversion of customer ideas into knowledge creation than the con- ideas that could be translated into innovations e.g., in terms of patents
version of partner ideas into knowledge creation. granted for the organization.
Second, partners are usually motivated by profits whereas custo-
H6. Knowledge creation is positively related to innovation.
mers typically co-create with firms because of non-monetary reasons
[64,96]. Specifically, because partners would like to improve their
bottom line, they tend to delve into the business processes that parti-
4. Research Method
cularly address their current task requirement and focus their ideas in a
succinct and precise manner [67]. Customers, however, are motivated
In this section, we discuss the organizational settings, participants,
to co-create because they: (1) identify with products of the organization
and procedures for our empirical work, followed by the details of our
and want to improve them, (2) enjoy the experience of innovating, (3)
measures.
want to enhance their reputation, and (4) like to share their experiences
with others [39]. Therefore, while customers contribute toward
knowledge creation, the effect is likely to be weaker than for partner 4.1. Organizational setting, participants, and data collection procedure
sourcing, where business profits may provide a stronger motive.
The setting for testing the research model presented in Fig. 1 was a
H3. Effect of partner sourcing is stronger than the effect of customer co-
sample of organizations based in the United States (U.S.) and in Sin-
creation on knowledge creation.
gapore. The U.S. and Singapore offer similarities and differences that
are useful for our study purpose. While both countries have developed
economies that rank highly on innovation indices,1 there are con-
3.2. Moderating impact of KDC
siderable differences in the size and composition of the two economies.
In terms of innovation parameters, the Bloomberg Innovation Index in
The positive influence of external knowledge from customers and
20192 ranked Singapore highly on tertiary efficiency, while the U.S.
partners on knowledge creation may depend to a large extent on how
ranked highly in terms of its high-tech companies and patents. Thus,
accessible this external knowledge is to various entities within the or-
including firms from these two economies that are similarly innovative
ganization. Therefore, when the external knowledge is disseminated
but have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of innovation
broadly within the organization, this external knowledge is more likely
inputs and outcomes provide richness to our data. The organizations in
to translate into knowledge creation. Built-in processes that facilitate
our sample provide IT services and financial services to their customers.
the dissemination of knowledge are important for bringing the new
The IT and financial industries were chosen. We selected these two
knowledge closer to individuals who are involved in the relevant pro-
sectors because: (1) Both are highly knowledge intensive [93] and
cesses so that they are able to engage in experimentation and en-
contribute significantly to the economies of the U.S. and Singapore
trepreneurial risk taking [54]. Easy access to new cutting- edge
[93]; and (2) these two sectors generate the highest share of startups.
knowledge allows for a novel combination and recombination of
Duffin [33] notes that the IT sector was responsible for over 19 % of the
knowledge elements derived from connecting people, firms, and re-
new startups worldwide while the financial sector was responsible for
sources [74]. When knowledge is disseminated across functional areas,
over 8% worldwide, making them two sectors with the most innova-
as well as individuals and groups with diverse frames of reference, it
tion. Moreover, financial services is one of the largest sectors in the
creates an environment that carries a potential for novel recombination.
Singapore economy,3 while the U.S. leads the world in the IT services
Thus, KDC allows diverse external knowledge to more effectively en-
sector.4 In total, 655 organizations participated in the study; 399 or-
hance knowledge creation. Relatedly, dissemination of knowledge is
ganizations from the U.S. and 256 from Singapore.
also essential for transactive memory [80] to develop within the or-
For the organizations in Singapore, we generated lists of companies
ganization, where the awareness of “who knows what” is high and
in the IT and Finance sectors. We used two sources to create our list of
employees do not feel the need to “hide” knowledge. Transactive
IT companies, i.e., Findouter Singapore and Singapore Companies
memory allows open pathways of communication that are essential for
Directory, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore for our list of fi-
enhancing knowledge creation. Therefore, we suggest that KDC
nancial institutions. All the IT and Finance companies listed in these
strengthens the relationship between external knowledge from partner
two sources were included. We then emailed the corporate commu-
sourcing or customer co-creation and knowledge creation.
nications contact in each of these organizations to seek participation in
H4. KDC strengthens the positive relationship between partner sourcing our study. If the organization agreed to participate, we asked them to
and knowledge creation, i.e., the relationship is stronger when KDC is nominate a suitable person (person familiar with the innovation in-
high than when it is low. itiatives and patent applications for the organizations) to answer our
survey questions. All organizations were given a month to respond to
H5. KDC strengthens the positive relationship between customer co-
our survey. In between, the non-respondents were contacted by phone
creation and knowledge creation, i.e., the relationship is stronger when
to remind them to complete the survey. In all, the entire data collection
KDC is high than when it is low.
process lasted about two months. We contacted a total of 615 organi-
Innovation is defined as the creation of new products and services zations in Singapore (506 IT and 109 financial companies). Overall, 256
not previously available to the firm’s customers, including an addition companies provided complete survey responses (207 IT and 49
to the current offerings or a change in existing offerings [73]. It includes
changes in products, services, processes, and business models that could 1
The U.S. and Singapore ranked 3rd and 8th on the Global Innovation Index
cater to new or existing markets. Organizational employees can use
in 2019. https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report#
their tacit and explicit knowledge in a variety of ways for organiza- 2
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/germany-nearly-
tional problem solving. A high level of knowledge creation indicates catches-korea-as-innovation-champ-u-s-rebounds
that they may combine new knowledge with their existing knowledge 3
https://www.tablebuilder.singstat.gov.sg/publicfacing/createDataTable.
structures to either develop new or transform existing products, pro- action?refId=16059
cesses, or services resulting in innovation. Indeed, such a recombination 4
https://www.selectusa.gov/software-and-information-technology-services-
of diverse knowledge is seen as a wellspring of innovation [74]. industry-united-states

5
S. Goyal, et al.
financial companies) resulting in a response rate of 41.62 %.
For data collection in the U.S., we signed a contract with a market
research company and obtained a one-time use mailing list of IT and
Finance sector project managers. This list was filtered by the market
research company for managers engaged in the company’s knowledge
creation and innovation initiatives. We then contacted these employees
through email to solicit their participation in the study. A total of 502
organizations were under contract. We received a total of 399 usable
responses after eliminating observations with missing data (224 IT and
175 financial companies). The descriptive statistics of the combined
dataset is provided in Appendix B.
4.2. Measurement
All constructs in this study were measured based on items validated
in prior research. The items for partner sourcing and KDC were adapted
from Pee and Kankanhalli [83] and Gold et al. [43]; customer co-
creation from Auh et al. [85]Dobni [31], and Menor and Roth [73]; and
knowledge creation from de Pablos [29] and Gold et al. [43]. All these
scales utilized seven-point Likert agreement scales. The final dependent
variable, innovation, was operationalized by measuring the number of
successful new patents registered by the organization during the one-
year period leading up to data collection time. Patents in financial
sector companies mainly included innovations related to new business
methods e.g., financial services or marketing approaches. Patents in IT
companies were for new software for system components, security, or
user interfaces. The items constituting the survey are presented in Ap-
pendix A.
Because the innovation data were self-reported, we wanted to ad-
dress any potential common-method bias. To this end, we collected
patent application data for a subset of these organizations in terms of
patents issued to the organization one year after our data collection.
This data was collected from the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) because our organizations were based in different
countries i.e., U.S. and Singapore.5 The correlation between the in-
novation variables operationalized by the two different data sources
(self-report and WIPO) was very high (0.91).
We controlled for a number of variables in our study. For example,
larger organizations are expected to create more knowledge than
smaller organizations. Similarly, organizations with higher R&D bud-
gets are likely to create more knowledge than organizations with
smaller R&D budgets. Therefore, we controlled for the size of the or-
ganization, R&Dand IT investments operationalized by the number of
employees, number of employees for R&D initiatives, as well as the
dollar amount for R&D, and dollar amount allocated for IT investments,
respectively. Because we had organizations from different countries
(i.e., the U.S. and Singapore), we introduced dummy variables to con-
trol for country-specific effects. Finally, we controlled for the slack time
the organization provides to its employees, as well as the management
support for innovation.
5. Data Analysis and results
As part of our preliminary analysis, we screened our data for any
outliers, which did not result in cases being excluded. We conducted
pooled sample tests to determine if it was appropriate to pool data from
organizations in the U.S. and Singapore, and did not find any concerns.
Specifically, we first conducted an F-test for variance and found the p-
value to be greater than 0.10. We then ran a t-test for a difference in
5
One limitation of this dataset is that not all patents are filed with WIPO,
making it inappropriate as a main source for our dependent variable. Some of
the patents are filed with United States Patent office (USPO) and yet others with
both USPO and WIPO. Therefore, we used WIPO patents for common method
bias testing only.
6
Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
means for independent samples. We found that the sample means were
not significantly different either (p > 0.10). Therefore, we were able to
pool the data from two countries. We then tested our data for reliability,
convergent, and divergent validity. The Cronbach alpha coefficients for
all our constructs exceeded 0.80, with the lowest being 0.81 for partner
sourcing and highest being 0.95 for knowledge creation, thus showing
acceptable reliability levels [51]. A principal component analysis with
varimax rotation of the independent variables indicated a strong sup-
port for convergent validity. All factor loadings were greater than 0.70
and all cross-loadings were less than 0.40. Furthermore, we found that
the means of all scales were close to or above 4 and the standard de-
viations were above 1. The average variance extracted for all variables
was higher than the squared correlations between that variable and any
other variable. Table 1 shows the relevant correlations. We also ex-
amined the VIF values for the presence of multicollinearity. All VIF
values were under 4, indicating our data did not suffer from multi-
collinearity issues [51]. The results of the factor analysis are presented
in Appendix B. Finally, we tested our data for selection bias utilizing
Monte Carlo simulations [89,32]. We first created 1000 random sam-
ples from our data utilizing the Monte Carlo approach. Then, we
computed coefficients for the main effects, for each of these 1000
samples. We then developed a confidence interval of coefficients for
each of these computed samples. Because our observed estimates were
within the 95 % confidence interval, we concluded that selection bias is
not a concern for our data.
5.1. Model testing
We used partial least squares (PLS) analysis to test hypotheses H1-
H7 and negative binomial regression for testing H8 because our final
dependent variable innovation included non-negative count data6 .
Using the Smart-PLS software, we tested two different models. For our
baseline model, we first examined the influence of only control vari-
ables on knowledge creation (R2 = 0.16). We then examined only di-
rect effects of partner sourcing and customer co-creation on knowledge
creation (R2 = 0.53). Finally, we examined the moderated effects
model. Cohen’s f-square test showed that the moderated effects model
performed significantly better than the baseline model and the direct
effects model. We also compared the Bayesian Information Criterion
(BIC) values for the control variable model that only has control vari-
ables to the full model that has control variables along with variables of
interest—namely, customer co-creation, partner sourcing, and KDC. We
found the BIC value for the control variable model to be 1961.135611
and BIC value for the full model to be 1742.882592, showing that the
full model had a better fit. Fig. 2 presents results of the moderated ef-
fects model. The results show that the model explained a significant
amount of the variance in knowledge creation (R2 = 0.65).
Based on the results presented in Fig. 2, we found support for all of
our hypotheses. Support for H1 and H2 indicates the influence of cus-
tomer co-creation and partner sourcing on knowledge creation. Inter-
estingly, we found that partner sourcing has a stronger influence on
knowledge creation than customer co-creation (as per H3). Following
Brown et al. [91] and Edwards [34], we compared standardized coef-
ficients for two relationships. The coefficients of partner sourcing (0.40,
p < 0.001) was considerably higher than the coefficient of customer co-
creation (0.13, p < 0.01) on knowledge creation indicating that partner
sourcing has a stronger influence on knowledge creation than customer
co-creation, thereby supporting H3.
Hypotheses H4 and H5 hypothesized the moderating effect of KDC
on relationships between the two forms of external knowledge and
knowledge creation. Our results support both hypotheses suggesting
that: (a) the influence of customer co-creation on knowledge creation is
greater for organizations that can readily disseminate knowledge; and
6
We thank reviewers for this suggestion.
S. Goyal, et al. Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325

Table 1
Correlations.
Construct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 R&D
2 IT Invest 0.25***
3 Slack time 0.21* 0.22*
4 Mgmt. Support 0.32*** 0.35*** 0.30***
5 Org. Size 0.15 0.08 0.02 0.03
6 Partner Sourcing 0.07 0.09 0.10 0.18 0.08
7 Customer Co-creation 0.23* 0.13 0.16 0.24* 0.03 0.51***
8 KDC 0.11 0.10* 0.12* 0.25** 0.06 0.59*** 0.64***
9 Knowledge Creation 0.17* 0.09 0.18** 0.24** 0.06 0.67*** 0.60*** 0.72***
10 Innovation 0.17*** 0.13 0.11 0.15** 0.08 0.11*** 0.32*** 0.17*** 0.20***

Fig. 2. Model Test Results.

Notes: KDC: Knowledge dissemination capability; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
Coefficients for the influence of control variables on knowledge creation: IT investment (0.06***); management support (0.18***); other control variables were not
significant.

(b) the influence of partner sourcing on knowledge creation is greater
for organizations that can readily disseminate knowledge. Interestingly,
the moderating influence of KDC on partner sourcing—knowledge
creation relationship was only marginally significant. The interaction
plots depicting H4 and H5 are presented in Fig. 3.
We operationalized our innovation construct as the number of pa-
tents the organization has obtained. This operationalization is con-
sistent with how this contrast has been operationalized in prior research
(Aghion et al. 2011; Moser 2012; Phelps 2010), particularly Financial
(see Atanassov 2013) and IT (see [93]), two core sectors of organiza-
tions in our data. We focused on patents because: (1) we wanted to
examine innovation, and patents indicate the development of new ideas;
and (2) the goal of our research was to explicate innovative knowledge
creation resulting in unique solutions to business problems. We tested
the influence of knowledge creation on innovation (H6) using a nega-
tive binomial regression model. We found that knowledge creation has
a significant and positive relationship with innovation (0.047,
p < 0.05) indicating one degree increase in knowledge creation in-
creases the logs of expected number of patents by 0.047, thus sup-
porting H6. We also tested to see if the effect of partner sourcing and
customer co-creation had a direct impact on innovation, over and above
their impact through knowledge creation. When we include partner
sourcing and customer co-creation in the negative binomial regression
model as covariates, we did not find them to be significant.
5.2. Post hoc analysis
To better understand these findings, we divided our dataset into
groups – one representing IT organizations and the other representing
financial organizations. The resulting IT organization dataset had 431
observations and financial organization dataset had 234 observations.
Testing the research model presented in Fig. 1 on these two groups
separately reveal interesting observations (see Figs. 4 and 5). The re-
sults show that the variance explained in these two groups is very close
(IT organizations explain 65 % variance in knowledge creation and fi-
nancial organizations explain 64 % variance in knowledge creation).
However, we found that the influence of KDC varied in IT organizations
as compared to financial organizations. While IT organizations show a
significant (p < .001) moderating effect of KDC on co-crea-
tion—knowledge creation relationship as well as partner sourcing—-
knowledge creation relationship, financial sector organizations did not
show a significant moderating effect. These finds could be explained by
the following two conjectures.
First,we observe that both IT workers and IT consumers tend to
participate more in online forums, such as Stackoverflow and Techspot,
than finance workers do. Perhaps this is in keeping with the fast-
changing nature of the IT industry itself that the participants would use
IT-based knowledge dissemination tools. Customer co-creation would
enable the organization to allow experimentation, accept diverse ideas,
and learn from failures [27]. Willingness to try new ideas and find a
suitable idea for the problem at hand is likely to be higher if there are
more available options from which to choose. Because the number of
ideas available for IT organizations can be much larger than finance
organizations if the knowledge in the online communities is adequately
disseminated, KDC is likely to be more effective for IT organizations. In
other words, the larger the number of ideas, the greater is the need for
technology e.g., a KMS, which would allow these ideas to be stored and
effectively disseminated within the organization. This higher level of

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S. Goyal, et al. Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325

participation as well as the resultant level of knowledge developed in

Fig. 3. Interaction Plots: Examining the moderating influence of KDC.
these online communities can explain the significant moderating effect
of KDC for IT organizations. Moreover, financial organizations tend to
be more traditional as compared to the IT organizations that pioneered
the open-source concept. Therefore, it is possible that the workers at
finance organizations are more likely to share their ideas directly with
employees within their own organizations or outside their organization
with whom they have a rapport. IT organization employees, on the
other hand, are more likely to share their ideas using online commu-
nities. Thus, IT organizations may exhibit a stronger influence of KMS
than finance organizations.
Second, the IT sector worldwide has a wider share of startups than
the financial sector. Duffin [33], for example, notes that in the year
2017, the worldwide share of financial startups including fintech
startups was a little over 8%, while the worldwide share of (non-fin-
tech) technology startups was a little over 19 %. This disparity could be
because of several reasons. Organizations in the financial sector often
face much stricter regulations than the organizations in the IT sector
[21,23]. For example, Capgemini [21] in their report note that because
of the 2008 financial crises, they have faced increased government
scrutiny and regulations. Another reason could be increased technolo-
gical disruptions across industries. For example, Duffin [33] notes that
IT startups have revolutionized many sectors such as marketing, edu-
cation, and agriculture. These factors may make KDC more valuable to
organizations in the IT sector than organizations in the Finance sector
in the following two ways: First, regulations tend to stifle competition
by increasing barriers to entry [52]. Therefore, the IT sector tends to see
a much higher number of startups than the Finance sector. These
technology startups are more open to accepting new ideas, take risks,
and change their business models than the traditional well-regulated
organizations, such as those common in the Finance sector [42–100]. In
fact, many IT sector organizations force their employees to act on new
ideas and take risks. Adams [101], for example, notes that Google re-
quires its employees to spend 20 % of their time on side projects. While
the KDC brings employees closer to new ideas, if employees can act
swiftly on those ideas without much regulation, they are likely to
generate more value from those ideas. Second, stricter legal require-
ments might hinder knowledge sharing. Even if an organization has
access to a KMS, if the legal regulations prevent various users of the
system from sharing information in the system, organizations are un-
likely to generate much value from it. In addition to the influence of
regulations, the very nature of organizations in the Finance sector as
compared to organizations in the IT sector may change the influence of

Fig. 4. Model Test Results for IT Firms Only.

Notes: KDC: Knowledge dissemination capability; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
Coefficients for the influence of control variables on knowledge creation: IT investment (0.10***); management support (.023**); slack time (0.07*); other control
variables were not significant.

8
S. Goyal, et al.
Fig. 5. Model Test Results for Finance Firms Only.
Notes: KDC: Knowledge dissemination capability; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
Coefficients for the influence of control variables on knowledge creation: IT investment (0.03**); management support (0.14**); other control variables were not
significant.
KDC. Specifically, organizations in the Finance sector usually value
information asymmetry much more than organizations in the IT sector.
Because KDC tends to reduce such information asymmetry, users may
resist using available systems, thereby decreasing its value.
6. Discussion
Internet-based communication technologies have greatly reduced
the distance between organizations and their partners. These technol-
ogies have also brought customers and partners closer to sellers and/or
organizations [77]. These closer and instant interactions create op-
portunities for researchers to revisit how organizations can work with
their customers and partners to generate and test ideas for new pro-
ducts, services, and solve complex business problems. Our study con-
tributes to innovation research by examining the role of knowledge-
related antecedents in attaining greater innovation outcomes. We in-
vestigated the role of customer co-creation and partner sourcing, in
enhancing knowledge creation. A core strength of our study is that we
tested our research model using a large and a broad dataset. The results
of our study show that different forms of external knowledge—-
customer co-creation and partner sourcing—contribute differentially
toward knowledge creation. Our model explained 65 % of the variance
in knowledge creation. Our findings highlight that organizations
creating new knowledge are more likely to innovate through patents.
6.1. Theoretical contributions
Our study offers several important theoretical contributions. First,
our research contributes to the research on organizational innovation
by investigating if customer co-creation and partner sourcing enhance
knowledge creation. Prior research (e.g., Van der Aa and Elfring 2002;
Yli-Renko et al. 2001) has examined the role of external knowledge in
creating organizational innovation. However, very little work has de-
lineated the role of customers from other sources of knowledge. Unlike
traditional customers, modern day customers demand a greater role in
customizing the world that surrounds them. Such customers are willing
to go beyond just presenting summary feedback to actively partici-
pating in solving business problems. Yet, the number and the quality of
customer ideas may differ from those of partners because of the un-
derlying motivations and core business knowledge. The results of our
study show that while these customer efforts are fruitful in enhancing
knowledge creation, partner sourcing has a much stronger direct in-
fluence on knowledge creation. To the best of our knowledge, this study
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Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
is the first attempt to delineate this complex relationship between dif-
ferent sources of external knowledge and organizational innovation
initiatives.
Second, our research contributes to the innovation and knowledge
management literatures by identifying intervening organizational cap-
abilities that help knowledge creation in organizations. Identifying such
capabilities has the potential to provide a more nuanced understanding
of knowledge creation, a key enabler of innovation. In doing so, our
research explores the moderating and amplifying role of KDC.
Organizations are increasingly investing in technologies such as KMS as
they see such systems as important drivers of firm performance [100].
However, our understanding of specific organizational processes that
allow organizations to leverage benefits of such systems and translate
these benefits into firm performance is fairly limited [78,106]. Our
research theorizes and empirically examines the role of one organiza-
tional process i.e., knowledge dissemination, that typically uses a KMS
as its enabler. Highlighting the moderating role of knowledge dis-
semination capability, we argue that organizations’ ability to dis-
seminate knowledge to their employees using IS (e.g., a KMS) will result
in a more innovative culture, greater knowledge creation, and in-
novation.
6.2. Practical implications
Our study provides several important practical implications. First,
our research evidences the benefits of involving customers in devel-
oping new innovations. Per the recommendations of the marketing
literature, managers usually develop new products in-house and then
conduct extensive testing with their customers. For this purpose,
managers closely listen to the feedback provided by customers and
revise their products to meet customer needs. Although such feedback
from customers is highly valuable, our research goes further and re-
commends managers to partner with customers using communication
and collaboration technologies available to them. Such partnerships
would promote customers (not just lead users) co-developing products
and services with employees of organizations. To facilitate such co-
creation, we recommend managers put in place business processes that
would allow the integration of customers’ inputs in the product/service
development lifecycle. These business processes should be enabled by
advanced communication and collaboration technologies that would
make customer and employee co-production as effortless as possible.
Second, our research finds a significant influence of KDC.
Specifically, this finding suggests that organizations that invest in KDC
S. Goyal, et al.
tend to have a higher degree of knowledge creation. Therefore, we
recommend managers to invest in technologies, such as a KMS. Such a
system could facilitate knowledge dissemination from different sources
within the organization. This is important for two reasons. First,
knowledge or ideas generated in one context may be applicable in an-
other context. Such knowledge if compiled well and made available to
employees of the organization may be a source of unexpected knowl-
edge. Second, an employee may need an idea to be explained in several
different ways before he/she can develop a mental model and inter-
nalize it. Organizations often lack resources that would allow them to
have multiple explanations of a single idea. However, with customer co-
creation and sourcing knowledge from multiple partners, organizations
may be able to compile multiple explanations in one single area and
make it available to employees. Discovery of unexpected knowledge or
multiple explanations of one idea may persuade employees to think
about novel solutions to mundane problems that they experience on a
daily basis. Moreover, IT managers are often criticized for the lack of
significant returns on IT investments. Our research results can help
make a case for the IT investments. Based on the findings of our study,
we suggest that investing in KMS technologies to enhance the influence
of customer co-creation and partner sourcing can increase an organi-
zation’s innovation outcomes. Therefore, managers could potentially
use the number of new successful patents from customer co-creation
initiatives as a measure of return for any investments in knowledge
management or collaboration tools.
Third, many organizations assess their employees’ involvement in
knowledge creation activities by the number of patents they file. Some
companies (e.g., Google) even provide employees with additional
compensation as a reward for each successful patent filed. Therefore,
most managers involved in new product development or innovation
departments are looking to develop knowledge that can be patented.
Our research serves as an additional data point highlighting how
managers can effectively create such opportunities for themselves and
their employees.
Finally, the findings of our research suggest that organizations
would benefit more from valuing partner sourcing more than customer
co-creation. Indeed, Panzarino [82] recently noted that Apple and
Google, two of the biggest competitors are partnering on a COVID-19
contact tracing tool. The logic behind such partnerships is that partner
ideas are more likely to be well-defined and also more likely to in-
corporate business specific knowledge and constraints. Moreover,
partners can pool resources for knowledge creation if it could be mu-
tually beneficial for them, which may not be possible in the case of
customer co-creation.
6.3. Limitations and future research directions
As with other research studies, our research is not without limita-
tions. Even though the central goal of our research was to examine
knowledge creation, we were interested in important organizational
outcomes, such as innovation. However, we operationalized innova-
tion: (1) by measuring the number of patents filed by the organization;
and (2) by measuring it as a dichotomous variable indicating low
number of patents filed by the organization to high number of patents
filed by the organization. Future research could test for the general-
izability of our research model by incorporating other operationaliza-
tions of innovation and by measuring it as a continuous variable.
The goal of our research was to examine the influences of customer
co-creation and partner sourcing on knowledge creation and sub-
sequent innovation. Although we did not study the process of how
external sources of knowledge contributed to knowledge creation and
innovation directly, in examining the differential contribution of var-
ious sources of external knowledge provides key insights into our un-
derstanding of this important process. Future research should consider
examining this process of converting external knowledge to knowledge
creation and innovation explicitly. Such examination would not only
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Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
provide generalizability to the findings of this study, but may also
provide finer insights into the knowledge creation and innovation
process.
The findings of our research show that KDC has a significant effect
on the influence of customer co-creation and partner sourcing on
knowledge creation. This effect was small in size. However, we caution
against minimizing the implications of this small effect in light of
Abelson’s paradox. Abelson [107] tested the magnitude of the propor-
tion of variance accounted for by player ability but found that for ty-
pical data the magnitude of the proportion of variance accounted for is
only about 0.003. This small effect conflicts with the typical sports fans'
intuition that player ability should account for a lot more of the var-
iance of hits. Abelson’s explanation of this effect has evolved into what
is being called Abelson’s Paradox. He states, “In such cases, it is quite
possible that small variance contributions of independent variables in
single-shot studies grossly understate the variance contribution in the
long run. Thus, one should not necessarily be scornful of miniscule
values for percentage variance explanation, provided there is statistical
assurance that these values are significantly above zero, and that the
degree of potential cumulation is substantial” (p. 132). Other examples
of potentially cumulative processes provided by Abelson are educa-
tional interventions, the persuasive effects of advertising, and repeated
decisions by ideologically similar policy makers. We suggest that the
effect in the context of knowledge creation are cumulative and there-
fore, while small, have significant and important implications for the
innovation research.
Organizations implement KDC, such as a KMS, for a variety of
reasons. These include implementing best practices within an organi-
zation, mapping internal expertise, and creation of knowledge networks
(for a review, see [58]). Recently, Zhang [108] argued that organiza-
tions struggle to show the return on investments on KDC implementa-
tions. The findings of our research can serve as another potential benefit
for KDC implementations. Specifically, findings of our research allow
organizations to make a case for the return on investments for KDC
implementations by showing how such systems can help convert ex-
ternal knowledge into innovation. Future research should conduct field
studies primarily to study the role of KDC in knowledge creation. These
studies could perhaps use a broader set of industry sectors and/or
countries. Using a broader dataset may allow researchers to provide a
more pronounced effect size of the effect of KDC.
While our research focused primarily on inbound ideas, future re-
search should focus on both inbound ideas as well as outbound ideas7 .
Understanding the desorptive capacity (see [68]) of an organization
would provide a more enriched understanding of how an organization
fits within an overall industry. Future research should also explicitly
delineate the influence of quality versus quantity of ideas. This would
help researchers determine if sheer large number of ideas are beneficial
to an organization even if they are not all usable. Strength of ties would
present another perspective to look at the quality versus quantity of
ideas. Future research could investigate if the strength of the relation-
ship between the knowledge source (customers or partners) and the
organization is important. This would help researchers determine if
organizations would create more knowledge with higher quality ties or
higher quantity ties. Furthermore, researchers should also examine to
what extent organizations actually adopted customer or partner ideas.
Qualitative data highlighting examples of such adopted ideas would
provide generalizability and validity to the findings of this research.
Finally, it would be important to establish causality between knowledge
creation abilities and innovation. This would necessitate a longitudinal
design and we call future researchers to design such studies in this
important area of research.
7
We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.
S. Goyal, et al. Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325

Table A1
Survey Items.
Appendix A: Survey Items

Partner Sourcing [43, 83]

My organization has strong ability in acquiring knowledge from our suppliers
My organization has strong ability in acquiring knowledge from our partners
My organization has strong ability in acquiring knowledge from our competitors
Knowledge Dissemination Capability [43, 83]
My organization has strong ability in distributing knowledge throughout the
organization
My organization has strong ability in transferring knowledge to individuals
My organization has strong ability in sharing knowledge about customers when
necessary
My organization has strong ability in sharing knowledge about improving
organizational performance when required
My organization has strong ability in sharing knowledge about our work processes
when required
Customer co-creation [31, 73, 85]
My organization co-defines value with our customers
In my organization, customers are viewed as potential sources of new ideas and
offerings
In my organization, customers actively support the work of employees, ensure that
the innovation process is smoothly completed
In my organization, customers are willing to provide additional resources (time,
energy, emotion, etc.) to assist the service of employees
The development of services in my organization depends largely on customer inputs
and working closely with customers on each stage of the development process
Knowledge Creation [43, 29]
My organization has strong ability in producing new knowledge about improving
customers satisfaction
My organization has strong ability in creating original ideas about improving
organizational performance
My organization has strong ability in creating original ideas for improving work
processes
My organization has strong ability in generating original ideas for improving
products and/or services
Innovation [93]
What is the number of successful new patents registered by your firm in the one year
period

Table B1
Results of Factor Analysis with Varimax Rotation.
Item Customer Co-creation Knowledge Dissemination Partner Sourcing Knowledge Creation Innovation

Knowledge Creation 1 .256 .382 .318 .759 .007

Knowledge Creation 2 .226 .434 .370 .717 −.007
Knowledge Creation 3 .207 .404 .385 .731 .013
Knowledge Creation 4 .256 .408 .369 .707 −.004
Partner Sourcing 1 .191 .287 .844 .186 .014
Partner Sourcing 2 .234 .254 .814 .201 .062
Partner Sourcing 3 .226 .240 .836 .197 .041
Knowledge Dissem. 1 .255 .778 .244 .228 −.013
Knowledge Dissem. 2 .301 .837 .269 .128 −.030
Knowledge Dissem. 3 .296 .780 .258 .220 .013
Knowledge Dissem. 4 .306 .818 .273 .177 −.025
Knowledge Dissem. 5 .307 .806 .254 .270 .019
Customer Co-creation 1 .782 .343 .184 .042 .076
Customer Co-creation 2 .768 .281 .180 .161 −.006
Customer Co-creation 3 .739 .282 .273 .160 −.062
Customer Co-creation 4 .773 .229 .202 .061 .010
Customer Co-creation 5 .868 .322 .230 .224 .004
Innovation .079 .149 .019 .077 .381

7. Conclusions knowledge-related antecedents of innovation. In doing so, we focused

Organizations invest in a variety of technologies to promote
knowledge creation and innovation. While a number of these technol-
ogies allow for sourcing knowledge from a variety of sources such as
suppliers, government agencies, and R&D firms, others allow for or-
ganizations to work closely with their customers in the problem-solving
process. However, our understanding of how and if these investments
differentially result in knowledge creation and innovation is limited.
Our research sought to investigate and understand the role of
on the key factors of customer co-creation, partner sourcing, and
knowledge dissemination in knowledge creation. The resulting em-
pirical model presents a richer and more nuanced understanding of how
organizations can generate unique knowledge and greater innovation.
Funding
Partial funding for this project came from a University of Louisville's
College of Business Research Incentive Grant.

11
S. Goyal, et al. Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325

Table B2
Detailed Descriptive Statistics.
Overall U.S. Singapore IT Finance

Construct Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

R&D 3.9025 1.6233 3.8730 1.6217 3.9833 1.6318 4.0670 1.6653 3.7381 1.5666
IT Invest 4.4449 1.5291 4.4553 1.5403 4.4167 1.5040 4.5521 1.5841 4.3378 1.4676
Slack time 4.0246 1.7050 4.0843 1.6925 3.8611 1.7353 4.0729 1.7791 3.9762 1.6301
Mgmt. Support 4.2132 1.6298 4.2736 1.6622 4.0479 1.5323 4.1830 1.6645 4.2433 1.5975
Partner Sourcing 4.5212 0.9739 4.5549 0.9413 4.4292 1.0565 4.5640 1.0418 4.4784 0.9011
Customer Co-creation 4.4449 1.3022 4.4685 1.3180 4.3806 1.2610 4.4665 1.3716 4.4234 1.2315
KDC 4.4576 1.3601 4.4494 1.3255 4.4800 1.4560 4.5500 1.4925 4.3652 1.2097
Knowledge Creation 4.5491 1.3756 4.5396 1.3793 4.5750 1.3707 4.6406 1.4254 4.4576 1.3207
Innovation 1.3683 0.6411 1.3780 0.6404 1.3417 0.6449 1.4330 0.6927 1.3036 0.5794

CRediT authorship contribution statement Data curation, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing - review &
editing. Atreyi Kankanhalli: Investigation, Methodology, Data cura-
Sandeep Goyal: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Validation, tion, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.
Writing - original draft. Manju Ahuja: Investigation, Methodology,

Appendix A

See Table A1

Appendix B

See Table B1, Table B2B2

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Sandeep Goyal is currently an associate professor of Computer Information Systems at
the University of Louisville. His main research interests are in business analytics, in-
telligent decision support systems, and the role of technological innovations in supply
chain management. His research has been published in top Information Systems journals
such as MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research and Operations Management
journals such as Production and Operations Management.
Manju Ahuja is the Frazier Family Professor in the College of Business, at the University
of Louisville. Her research focuses on issues related to impacts and the use of IT, in-
novation related to IT, work-life balance, remote work, as well as the management of
human resources in IT professions. Dr. Ahuja currently serves as a senior editor at
Information Systems Research and previously served as a senior editor at MIS Quarterly and
the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. She was Division Chair and Program
Chair of the Academy of Management’s OCIS division during 2010−11. Her publications
have appeared in MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management
Information Systems, Management Science, Organization Science, and others.
Atreyi Kankanhalli is Provost’s Chair Professor in the Department of Information
Systems and Analytics at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests
pertain to online communities and digital collaboration, digital innovation, and
S. Goyal, et al.
transformation. Dr. Kankanhalli serves or has served on the editorial boards of prestigious
journals such as Information Systems Research (associate editor), MIS Quarterly (senior
editor, associate editor), Journal of AIS (senior editor), and Information and Management
(associate editor), among others. Her work has appeared in premium journals such as MIS
Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, and
14
Information & Management 57 (2020) 103325
Research Policy, and been highly cited. She has served the AIS and the Academy of
Management’s OCIS Division in various roles. She is currently the AIS Vice President for
Region 3. She has won the ACM-SIGMIS Best Doctoral Dissertation award, IBM Faculty
Award, and a number of other research awards.