Empirical Study on Innovation Competence Based on Tacit Knowledge

Many researchers approve the influence of tacit knowledge on innovation and performance. But these researchers´ studying on tacit knowledge rarely involve influencing interior factors, and treat it as black box. However, these factors directly restrict the effect of organizational innovating, and impact on their performance. Therefore, the cause of innovation capability was unveiled by studying on these factors. We propose that tacit knowledge serve improving organizational innovation capability and performance by reviewing study on knowledge management and innovation. We must research the relationship of tacit knowledge and performance if we desire to improve organizational innovation capability. So we employ knowledge fermenting model of organizational learning as a mean of analyzing innovation capability. Knowledge fermenting model is composed of knowledge bacterial strain, knowledge body, knowledge enzyme, knowledge environment, knowledge tools, and knowledge fermenting bar. They are divided into disparate indexes. According to these indexes, we investigated 51 companies by which we research the relationship of tacit knowledge and innovation. We applied SPSS to data analysis and researching on the relativity of these indexes and innovation capability. On the basis of our investigating, we find that the companies which are in high level of innovation have better effect of tacit knowledge, and low level ones are worse. We conclude that there is the positive correlation between tacit knowledge and innovation capability.