| As the open source movement continues to grow,a number of highly influential open source communities have formed around the world.Studies have shown that commercial IT service companies can strengthen their innovation capabilities,develop markets and reduce R&D costs when interacting with open source communities,so more and more commercial IT service companies are participating in open innovation related to open source communities to improve their innovation performance and enterprise value.However,in participating in the open source community,commercial IT service companies need to follow the open source license in the community,i.e.they need to selectively reveal their internal R&D results in the community to a certain extent,so they may face the challenge of protecting their intellectual property rights.Some successful cases show that open source software companies can rely on the resources in the open source community to support their own new product development in the long term.At the same time,we can also find many examples of failed commercialisation of open source companies.While the idea of leveraging the open source community may be appealing,there is little literature examining how to make this relationship work in practice.Based on the above background,this paper brings together commercial IT service firms to explore whether and how open innovation interacting with open source communities affects innovation performance,and how a firm’s knowledge sharing capabilities can play a mediating role between the two,supported by two major theories:knowledge base theory and organisational learning theory.This paper reviews the existing literature,summarises the existing research findings,and develops a theoretical research model in which open innovation interacting with open source communities is the antecedent variable,innovation performance is the outcome variable,and knowledge sharing capability is the mediating variable.Specifically,open innovation interacting with open source communities is divided into two dimensions: inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation,and the mechanism of the impact of open innovation interacting with open source communities on innovation performance is explored.In this paper,368 complete and valid sample data were collected using a questionnaire survey method to analyse the relationship between variables through an empirical analysis method,taking Chinese commercial IT service companies as the research target.The main findings obtained from this study are:(1)Open innovation interacting with open source communities positively contributes to firms’ innovation performance.At the same time,its two sub-dimensions,inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation,also have a positive contribution to the innovation performance of enterprises,and the contribution of inbound open innovation is stronger;(2)open innovation of enterprises interacting with open source communities and its sub-dimensions(inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation)have a positive contribution to enhancing the knowledge sharing ability of enterprises;(3)the knowledge sharing ability of enterprises sharing capability plays a partly mediating role in the impact of open innovation of enterprises interacting with open source communities on enterprises’ innovation performance,while knowledge sharing capability also plays a partly mediating role in the impact of inbound and outbound open innovation on enterprises’ innovation performance.The findings of the study provide references and reasonable suggestions for corporate managers to enhance their firms’ innovation performance through the rational use of open source communities,and the main management implications are as follows:(1)In today’s dynamic and globalised business environment,firms should break the traditional closed innovation model and engage in open innovation.This paper finds through empirical research that for commercial IT service companies,engaging in open innovation that interacts with the open source community can contribute to the improvement of their innovation performance.Therefore,in the process of development,commercial IT service enterprises should actively participate in open innovation by interacting with open source communities;(2)the information technology industry is a knowledge-intensive industry,and commercial IT service enterprises in this industry need to enhance their knowledge-sharing capabilities,create an open and shared corporate culture,improve the knowledge-sharing mechanism and broaden knowledge-sharing channels;(3)in the process of development,enterprises need to improve their their own innovation performance,they need to focus on both participating in open innovation and enhancing their knowledge sharing capabilities,and find a balance between the two,so as to improve their own innovation capabilities.This study clarifies the positive impact of open innovation interacting with open source communities on innovation performance,and verifies the transmission mechanism of knowledge sharing capability in it,providing guidance and suggestions for enterprise managers to make reasonable use of open source communities and their own knowledge sharing capability to enhance their innovation performance. |
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