Digital Orientation and Innovation Outputs in Collaboration Networks: Inside the Black Box

Despite the predominant focus on the effect of digital orientation on innovation performance from firm level, few studies have considered the collaboration network contexts, and there is a “black box” in understanding the digital orientation-innovation outputs relationship. The study draws on the knowledge-based view to explain the digital orientation-innovation outputs relationship, and opens up the black box of the innovation process through which digital orientation affects innovation outputs by proposing the missing link of knowledge management practices (knowledge acquisition and knowledge creation). In addition, the study links the literature on digital orientation and network centrality linkage by providing novel insights into how to match digital orientation and network centrality for superior innovation outputs. By adopting the survey approach, we collected two-waved survey data from a total of 286 Chinese firms, and conducted hierarchical linear regressions to test our hypotheses. The empirical results demonstrated that digital orientation has a stronger influence on exploratory innovation relative to exploitative innovation. Knowledge acquisition mediates the impact of digital orientation on exploratory innovation, while knowledge creation does not mediate the impact of digital orientation on exploitative innovation. Network centrality strengthens the influence of digital orientation on exploratory and exploitative innovation.