Examining the impact of boundary-spanning knowledge search on cooperative innovation performance among Chinese firms

This paper examines the influence of boundary-spanning knowledge search on cooperative innovation performance and explores the moderating role of innovation passion in Chinese firms. We collected 229 valid responses from Chinese firms participating in collaborative innovation projects and applied confirmatory factor analysis to test the reliability and validity of the constructs, multiple stepwise regressions to verify the direct effect, and the PROCESS macro to test the moderating effect. The results show that all three dimensions of boundary-spanning knowledge search (i.e. network capability, IT capability, and absorptive capacity) positively affect cooperative innovation performance. Harmonious innovation passion positively moderates the relationship between network capability and cooperative innovation performance. In contrast, compulsive innovation passion plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between absorptive capacity and cooperative innovation performance. This study further enriches and extends the theoretical framework of cooperative innovation performance by emphasizing the impact of the three dimensions of boundary-spanning knowledge search.