Supply chain partnership and innovation performance of manufacturing firms : mediating effect of knowledge sharing and moderating effect of knowledge distance

Affected by complicated issues, such as regional conflicts, trade wars, and the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturing firms face enormous challenges in reconstructing the global supply chain landscape to form new cooperative innovation mechanisms. This study investigates the relationship between supply chain partnerships (SCP) and innovation performance (IP) from a knowledge-management perspective. A multi-factor conceptual model of this relationship was proposed, considering the mediating effect of knowledge sharing (KS) and the moderating effect of knowledge distance (KD). SCP is measured in three dimensions: trust relationship (TR), commitment relationship (CMR), and contractual relationship (CTR). IP is measured in two aspects: technological innovation performance and management innovation performance. An empirical study was conducted to test the hypotheses using data from 417 valid questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to test the hypotheses. The results demonstrate that (1) KS plays a significant mediating role in how SCP impacts IP and that the indirect effect of TR through KS on IP is greater than that of CTR or CMR. (2) KD between supply chain partners plays a significant negative moderating role between KS and IP; that is, the smaller the KD, the higher the IP achievable through sufficient KS. These findings shed new light on building collaborative innovation mechanisms for supply chain management.