A Study On The Technological Innovation Capability In Software Firms Based On Knowledge Sharing

With the support and the guide of our country’s related policies, the softwareindustry develops quickly since21stcentury in China. We have possessed a certainscale of industry in this field. But for many years, the problems which have alwayspersecuted still exist, such as the low product structure and the weak competitiveability. The main reason is the feeble capability of technological innovation. So howto improve its capability become our significantly important projects. In the world, theresearch on it began in the1980s. From their studies, we can see that their discussionsfocus on the components and the mechanisms to promote the technological innovationcapability. And their angles of study are multi-dimensional. But among them, thestudy on knowledge sharing only began a short term ago. And their related researchesare scattered and not much. They reveal less on the mechanism and methods whichare thought to make the knowledge sharing enhance the technological innovationcapability of firms. Meanwhile, the researches done for the object of software firmshave little relationship with the characteristics in software firms and also have notmuch value on the technological innovation activities. So the research problem in thisdissertation is focused on technological innovation capability in software firms basedon the knowledge sharing. In view of the shortcomings of the present studies, theresearch problem here is divided into four parts:(1) the dimension of technologicalinnovation capability in software firms;(2) the mechanism to promote thetechnological innovation capability in software firms on account of the knowledgesharing.(3) the organization behavior dimension of knowledge sharing and itsrelationship with the technological innovation capability in software firms;(4) theconstruction tactics of technological innovation capability in software firms.The study logic in this paper is by reviewing the literature and the related basictheories, studying the cases—two famous software firms’ practice activities oftechnological innovation and knowledge sharing in Guangzhou. Based on these, thestudy puts forward the dimension of technological innovation capability in softwarefirms and reveals the mechanism to promote the technological innovation capability insoftware firms. At the same time, with the definition of the organization behaviorfactors of knowledge sharing, the study extends the promotion mechanism frame oftechnological innovation capability, constructs the theory model of relationshipbetween knowledge sharing and the technological innovation capability in software firms and suggests the hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested and verified by the dataanalysis based on the questionnaires from158software firms in Guangdong Province.At last, the study discusses the measures to construct the technological innovationcapability in software firms. By the theory analysis and the statistics testing, the studygets the conclusions as the following:1. From the view of capability factors and based on the technological innovationprocess, the technological innovation capability in software firms can be decomposedas four kinds. They are the capability to understand the market, technologicalcapability, software developing capability and software products delivery capability.2. From the view of knowledge, the technological innovation capability insoftware firms is embodied as the enterprise knowledge. The knowledge in theenterprise and the enterprise knowledge are two kinds of different concepts. Theknowledge in software firms means knowledge lies in the individuals, teams andenterprises. But enterprise knowledge means the enterprise action theory, that is, thecommon beliefs in the enterprise. The development of software enterprise knowledgecan be realized by developing the individuals’ knowledge and sharing the knowledge.In other words, the software enterprise can promote the technological innovationcapability by developing the individuals’ knowledge and sharing their knowledge. Theindividuals’ knowledge development is the basic of promoting the technologicalinnovation capability in the firm. The knowledge sharing are the way to improve thetechnological innovation capability in the firms.3. From the view of organization behavior, knowledge sharing in the softwarefirms generates from the three layers of the individuals, team and enterpriseorganization. First, knowledge sharing is a communication procedure among theindividuals. It is mainly about the communication among the members of the softwaredeveloping team. Second, the knowledge sharing is an organized team activity. It is aprocedure of communication between the individuals and the team. Finally,knowledge sharing is still an organized activity. It is a communicating procedureamong the individuals, team and enterprise.There are four factors to correspond with these three layers. They are the attitudeof individual’s knowledge sharing, the team leaders’ leadership capability ofknowledge sharing, the facilities of knowledge sharing in enterprise and the rules ofknowledge sharing in enterprise.Through the transmission of the individual’s knowledge level and of theenterprise knowledge sharing atmosphere, these four factors positively influence thetechnological innovation capability of the firms. And the seven paths of constructingtechnological innovation capability are therefore taken shape.4. According to these seven paths and on account of the knowledge sharing insoftware firms, the construction tactics of technological innovation capability in software firms includes three aspects: the first is to make the key points of enterpriseknowledge development clear. According to the current distributed characteristics ofsoftware technological innovation in China, more attention should be paid to therelated knowledge of the needs of market and the product delivery, to the improvedtechnology and the software procedure knowledge during the process of development.The second is to highly think of the individual’s knowledge. According to theirdifferent business, how to cultivate the individual’s knowledge and skill in the fieldbecomes their focus. It is essential to create a better environment of study andcommunication for the staff of the firms by fully using the modern internettechnology. The third is to build a favorable atmosphere for knowledge sharing. Whatwe should do is to identify the staff’s attitude toward the knowledge sharing; to makethe positive belief of knowledge sharing become their dominant consciousness; toassign the team leaders of software development who own the leadership ofknowledge sharing to push the activity of knowledge sharing forward; to set up theperfect rules and regulations and to lay emphasis on the arrangement of therelevant restricted rules.The outcome of the study not only enriches the theory of technologicalinnovation in enterprise but also supplies the methods and paths to construct theactivities of technological innovation capability in software firms. It also possessesthe realistic significance for promoting the development in software industry.