Knowledge maintenance debt and durable innovation impact

This study develops a knowledge-architecture explanation for durable innovation impact by introducing knowledge maintenance debt: cumulative translation, interface, and reintegration obligations that arise when specialization and coherence evolve out of sync. Using polynomial regression and response-surface analysis on U.S. software firms, we show that patent-visible innovation impact is higher when knowledge specialization and coherence are aligned and declines as they diverge. We also find that high specialization-low coherence misalignment outperforms high coherence-low specialization misalignment. The study reframes innovation governance as a maintainability problem: sustaining impact requires keeping knowledge architectures legible, interoperable, and reusable over time.