Knowledge sharing, intellectual capital and organizational results in SMES: are they related?

Pages893-911
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-04-2019-0077
Date28 April 2020
Published date28 April 2020
AuthorMírian Oliveira,Carla Curado,Andrea Raymundo Balle,Aino Kianto
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour,Behavioural accounting,Accounting & Finance,Information & knowledge management,Accounting/accountancy
Knowledge sharing, intellectual
capital and organizational results
in SMES: are they related?
M
ırian Oliveira
Escola de Neg
ocios, Pontif
ıcia Universidade Cat
olica do Rio Grande do Sul,
Porto Alegre, Brazil and
Advance/CSG-ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Carla Curado
Advance/CSG-ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Andrea Raymundo Balle
Professional Master in Business Management, UniFBV University Center,
Recife, Brazil and
Escola de Neg
ocios, Pontif
ıcia Universidade Cat
olica do Rio Grande do Sul,
Porto Alegre, Brazil, and
Aino Kianto
School of Business, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Kouvola, Finland
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations among knowledge sharing (KS), intellectual
capital (IC), absorptive capacity (AC), innovation (IN) and organizational performance (OP).
Design/methodology/approach This paper empirically tests a model that uses structural equation
modeling (SEM) based on a partial least squares (PLS). The sample is composed of 351 Brazilian and 135
Portuguese enterprises. They are micro, small and medium enterprises.
Findings The results show that: the relation between KS and AC is partially mediated by IC; the relation
between IC and IN is partially mediatedby AC and the relation between KS and IN is mediated by AC and IC or
both. There are relations among KS, IC, AC, IN and OP.
Research limitations/implications The study does not control for industry effects and technological
differences among the firms.
Practical implications The use of KS mitigates the loss of knowledge associated to employeesretirement
or job changes. The knowledge appropriation by the organization (turning human capital (HC) into structural
capital (SC)), the knowledge achieved from connections (relational capital, RC) and the trust embedded in an
organizations relation with employees are important for AC and IN. Moreover, KS can positively influence all
elements of IC. OP depends directly on IN and indirectly on the others constructs.
Originality/value This study is relevant because it explores the relations among KS, IC, AC, IN and OP in
one model. Moreover, it focuses on small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) with data from two countries.
Keywords Knowledge sharing, Intellectual capital, Absorptive capacity, Innovation, Organizational
performance, SMEs
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Knowledge is more important than tangible resources to gain a sustainable competitive
advantage in a knowledge-based economy (L
onnquivist et al., 2009;Kianto et al., 2013).
The
relationship
among KS, IC,
AC, IN and OP
893
The authors are grateful for the support provided by CAPES (Coordenaç~
ao de Aperfeiçoamento de
Pessoal de N
ıvel SuperiorBrazil), CNPq (Conselho Naciona l de Desenvolvimento Cient
ıfico e
Tecnol
ogico Brazil) and FCT (Fundaç~
ao para a Ci^
encia e TecnologiaPortugal), national funding
through research grant UIDB/04521/2020.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1469-1930.htm
Received 23 April 2019
Revised 9 December 2019
7 February 2020
Accepted 5 March 2020
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 21 No. 6, 2020
pp. 893-911
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-04-2019-0077
Davenport et al. (1998, p. 43) define knowledge as information combined with experience,
context, interpretation and reflection. Nevertheless, the simple existence of knowledge in an
organization is not enough to gain a sustainable competitive advantage; knowledge only
generates value when the organization uses it in a specific way. Additionally, knowledge is
not lost after being used; on the contrary, it increases with use. However, tangible resources,
in general, depreciate or need to be replaced (Spender and Grant, 1996). The stock of
knowledge in the organization is called intellectual capital (IC) (Bontis et al., 2002;Vaz et al.,
2019) that is relevant to innovation (IN) as both an input and an output (Kianto et al., 2017).
IN, in turn, affects the companys organizational performance (OP) (Kim and Shim, 2018).
While the accumulated literature on IC has demonstrated well its importance for various
types of outcomes for OP (see, e.g. Inkinen, 2015;Buenechea-Elberdin, 2017), several
important gaps in the current knowledge remain. First, studies have proposed that the
relation between IC and knowledge management is an important concept to develop further
(Kianto et al., 2014). In knowledge management, studies have identified knowledge sharing
(KS) as crucial (e.g. Heisig, 2009;Naim and Lenkla, 2016). Therefore, this study focuses on KS
rather than knowledge management. Second, while a great number of studies have addressed
the effect of IC on various types of OP, they rarely address its relation with intermediate
knowledge-related outcomes, such as absorptive capacity (AC) (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990).
The relations can be better explained when the model contemplates all constructs.
KS means that individuals can achieve knowledge from others and that they can provide
knowledge to others. The literature shows that KS influences IN (Nguyen, et al., 2018;Wang
and Wang, 2012;Soto-Acosta et al., 2017;Podrug et al., 2017;Nguyen et al., 2018) and OP
(Wang and Wang, 2012;Nodari et al., 2016;Nguyen et al., 2018;Nodari et al., 2016;Wang and
Wang, 2012)). Nevertheless, AC can mediate the relation between KS, and IN can be partially
(e.g. according to Oliveira et al., 2015) or totally (e.g. according to Curado et al., 2017) mediated
by AC.
AC is a set of organizational routines and processes by which firms acquire, assimilate,
transform, and exploit knowledge to produce a dynamic organizational capability(Zahra
and George, 2002, p. 186). Nazarpoori (2017) finds that AC is a mediator of the relation
between IC and the ability to innovate. According to Soo et al. (2016), there is a lack of research
that relates IC to AC.
Although IC contributes to an increase in organizational results (IN and OP), there is a
scarcity of research on KS, IC and AC as antecedents of IN and OP. Smriti and Das (2018) find
that IC contributes to OP, in particular to structural capital (SC) and relational capital (RC).
However, the authors do not analyze the presence of mediators in this relation. According
Hussinki et al. (2017), IC and KS should be studied together to better understand OP.
Further, the research has primarily explored IC in the context of large enterprises, and few
studies have focused on micro, small and medium enterprises (small and mid-size enterprises,
SMEs) (Marzo and Scarpino, 2016;Agostini et al., 2017). The way in which large enterprises
and SMEs conduct knowledge management is different because of their characteristics. For
instance, SMEs have less complex organizational structures and stronger internal social
connections compared to large enterprises (Wee and Chua, 2013). Although SMEs are very
important to the world economy (Coyte et al., 2012;Marzo and Scarpino, 2016), a great number
of SMEs only survive in the market for a small number of years (Wee and Chua, 2013).
Moreover, according to Massaro et al. (2016), the literature on the knowledge management of
SMEs has few comparative studies between countries, and the different definitions of SMEs
in them makes the comparison impossible. According to the authors, SMEs may adopt
different practices. Nevertheless, these studies treat them as homogeneous.
This paper aims to fill the above gaps in the literature. Specifically, an original model is
proposed and tested. The model: 1) identifies key IC elements to leverage IN and OP; 2)
presents AC as the mediator in the relation between IC and IN; 3) presents AC as the mediator
JIC
21,6
894

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT