Purpose

Open innovation platform has become an effective field through which enterprises can acquire valuable knowledge for incremental and breakthrough innovation. However, as more entities join the innovation platform, the knowledge activities in the platform ecosystem are now facing higher complexity and vulnerability due to the differences in the knowledge demands as well as conflicting interest claims of participants. The lack of mature governance mechanisms has caused opportunistic behaviors like knowledge infringement, leakage and hiding, which seriously hinder the in-depth knowledge sharing and effective utilization. What’s more, the enthusiasm for collaborative innovation also reduced among multi-subjects. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to improve platform participants’ innovation ambidexterity under the guidance of scientific design of platform knowledge governance mechanisms through improved knowledge transformation processes.

Design/methodology/approach

Therefore, based on knowledge governance theory and knowledge transformation model (SECI, socialization-externalization-combination-internalization), the study explored the influence of relationship and contractual knowledge governance on the innovation ambidexterity of platform participants through the mediation effect of knowledge transformation. To better analyze complex causal relationships among variables and the chain multiple mediation effect, structural equation modeling is used, coupled with bootstrap analysis verification.

Findings

Platform contractual governance and relationship governance can positively influence the innovation ambidexterity of participants through knowledge trading and reuse, as well as through knowledge sharing and creation. The findings not only contribute to optimizing the effectiveness of knowledge activities on digital platforms but also provide empirical evidence and practical insights to support enterprises’ incremental and breakthrough innovation according to their own knowledge bases.

Practical implications

The findings offer valuable insights for providing decision-making guidance not only for platform-leading enterprises but also for individual and enterprise users on effectively using open innovation platforms to conduct knowledge seeking, trading or sharing and knowledge reuse or creation to enlarge the incremental innovation value and to trigger breakthrough innovation value in their product and technology developments.

Social implications

Through diverse knowledge governance mechanisms, platform-leading enterprises do not only act as “economic agents” with private attributes to reduce knowledge asymmetry in the public trading market, diffuse knowledge broadly and mitigate cooperation costs to increase economic value; they also serve as “social actors” for multilateral participants to increase the cohesion of knowledge sharing and creation to provide sustainable knowledge fuel for the higher level of breakthrough innovation. Overall, knowledge arrangement efficiency can be optimized, and breakthrough innovation value can be activated in a well-governed platform, gradually escaping the diminishing marginal benefits of exploitative innovation.

Originality/value

This study has extended the views of the knowledge transformation model under the platform context and proposed dualistic knowledge transformation pathways, named “tacit knowledge socialization” and “explicit knowledge combination,” respectively. Besides, it discovered that under the contractual and relationship knowledge governance mechanisms’ guiding, participants in open innovation platforms may choose different knowledge searching and exchange ways according to their knowledge needs and thus trigger the different knowledge transform process. Then, “tacit knowledge socialization” transformation can show larger positive impact on breakthrough innovation, while “explicit knowledge combination” transformation makes larger impact on incremental innovation.

中文翻译：

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平台背景下的知识治理和创新二元性：探索知识转化的作用

 目的

开放式创新平台已成为企业获取宝贵知识以进行增量和突破性创新的有效领域。然而，随着越来越多的主体加入创新平台，由于知识需求的差异以及参与者的利益主张冲突，平台生态系统中的知识活动现在面临着更高的复杂性和脆弱性。缺乏成熟的治理机制，导致了知识侵权、泄露、隐藏等机会主义行为，严重阻碍了知识的深入共享和有效利用。更重要的是，多学科对协作创新的热情也有所下降。因此，本研究的目的是在科学设计平台知识治理机制的指导下，通过改进的知识转化过程，提高平台参与者的创新二元性。

设计/方法/方法

因此，基于知识治理理论和知识转化模型（SECI，socialization-externalization-combination-internalization），本研究通过知识转化的中介效应，探讨了关系和契约知识治理对平台参与者创新二元性的影响。为了更好地分析变量之间的复杂因果关系和链式多重中介效应，使用了结构方程建模，并结合了 bootstrap 分析验证。

 发现

平台合同治理和关系治理可以通过知识交易和再利用以及知识共享和创造，对参与者的创新双元性产生积极影响。研究结果不仅有助于优化数字平台上知识活动的有效性，而且还提供了实证证据和实践见解，以支持企业根据自身知识库进行渐进式和突破性创新。

 实际意义

研究结果为平台引领企业、个人和企业用户有效利用开放式创新平台进行知识搜索、交易或分享、知识复用或创造，以扩大增量创新价值，并在其产品和技术发展中触发突破性创新价值提供有价值的见解。

 社会影响

通过多样化的知识治理机制，平台主导企业不仅充当具有私有属性的“经济主体”，减少公共交易市场中的知识不对称，广泛传播知识，降低合作成本，提高经济价值;他们还充当多边参与者的“社会参与者”，以增加知识共享和创造的凝聚力，为更高水平的突破性创新提供可持续的知识燃料。总体而言，知识安排效率可以得到优化，突破性的创新价值可以在一个治理良好的平台中被激活，逐渐摆脱剥削性创新的边际收益递减。

 原创性/价值

本研究扩展了平台背景下知识转化模型的视角，提出了二元知识转化路径，分别命名为“隐性知识社会化”和“显性知识组合”。此外，研究发现，在契约和关系知识治理机制的指导下，开放式创新平台的参与者可以根据自己的知识需求选择不同的知识搜索和交流方式，从而触发不同的知识转化过程。那么，“隐性知识社会化”转化对突破性创新表现出更大的积极影响，而“显性知识组合”转化对增量创新的影响更大。