The Impact of Knowledge Sources on Knowledge Creation: A Study in Thai Innovative Companies

In today fast changing business world, innovation has become the mainstay of every organization. Organizations have to ensure that their business strategies are innovative to build and sustain competitive advantage. Innovation is a result of knowledge acquisition, sharing and assimilation through knowledge creation. However, innovation is extremely dependent on the availability of knowledge and therefore the complexity created by the explosion of richness and reach of knowledge has to be identified and managed to ensure successful innovation. In the context of Thai innovative companies, there are not many studies conducted to investigate the impact of internal and external sources of knowledge on knowledge creation. The main purpose of this study is to identify the sources of knowledge which includes organizational knowledge and market orientation as well as to investigate their impacts on knowledge creation. The dimensions of organizational knowledge consisted of social interaction, organizational routines and information system. Meanwhile, the dimensions of market orientation consisted of customer orientation, competitor orientation and supplier orientation. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the influence of both sources of knowledge on knowledge creation. The study on 209 Thai innovative companies showed that all factors of organizational knowledge significantly impacted knowledge creation. Social interaction became the most influential factor. The result also showed that all factors of market orientation had significant influence on knowledge creation. Customer orientation contributed the most impact on knowledge creation.