Correlation between heterogeneous knowledge and technological capability

Acquiring external knowledge, which is internally rare in an enterprise, has been an urgent problem for corporate knowledge and innovation management, especially for science and technology of small and middle enterprises (SMEs) with few scientific research funds. Blind knowledge acquisition could result in heavy R&D costs as well as integration difficulty of internal and external knowledge in an enterprise. Both external knowledge networks and organisational learning behaviours are the key factors in corporate technological capability. However, past research did not discuss knowledge networks and the effects from the aspect of knowledge, especially not on investigated science and technology SMEs, with exploitative learning as the mediator. For this reason, science and technology SMEs are selected as the research subjects, and questionnaire survey is utilised for collecting 278 valid samples in Shunde district in the Guangdong province, China. Structural equation modelling is further applied to verify the hypotheses. The research findings show the partial effects of supply chain knowledge source and science and technology knowledge source on technological capability with the mediating effects of exploitative learning, while competitor knowledge source could not significantly promote technological capability nor affect exploitative learning.