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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Customer participation has been recognised as a critical factor in successful new product development (NPD). However, there is scant empirical evidence on how customer participation affects NPD performance. This research attempts to provide a framework to interpret how interorganisational relationships mediate the impact of customer participation on NPD performance based on marketing, innovation management and social networks literature. Design/methodology/approach -An empirical study of 179 high-tech firms in Taiwan is analysed by structural equation modelling. Findings -The results indicate that the impacts of customer participation as an information resource and customer participation as a co-developer on NPD performance are mediated by inter-organisational relationships. Practical implications -The results offer a guideline for high-tech firms that decide to involve customers in NPD activities. In order to improve efficiency and effectiveness, this research suggests that firms build inter-organisational relationships with customers to foster knowledge sharing, cooperation, and problem solving. However, firms should be aware that product innovativeness may be hindered by such close collaborative relationships. Originality/value -The research demonstrates that the contributions of customer participation may not be regarded as inevitable. The authors confirm that research for investigating the linkage between customer participation and NPD performance should consider the mediating roles of interorganisational relationships, which may help resolve the conflicting results obtained by researchers on the contributions of customer participation. In addition, the results show that the establishment of close customer-supplier relationships during NPD cooperation is a key success factor for both efficiency and effectiveness, but has the opposite effect on product innovativeness.

This research is concerned with how knowledge creation influences new product performance through creativity, which includes novelty and appropriateness. The following relationships are examined in our proposed model: (1) the influence of knowledge creation on new product performance; (2) the influence of novelty and appropriateness on new product performance; and (3) the influence of knowledge creation on novelty and appropriateness. A questionnaire was designed and mailed to the sampled Taiwanese manufacturing companies. The analysis results show that knowledge creation helps research and development personnel create novel and appropriate products, which in turn increase new product success. New product performance is affected by both novelty and appropriateness, the former of which has a greater influence. Through additional exploratory analyses, in which socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization are antecedents, we show that socialization's effect on new product performance is fully mediated by novelty and appropriateness, but internalization's influence is only partially mediated. Meantime, the influence of externalization on performance is fully mediated by novelty, but not by appropriateness. Combination has a direct influence on new product performance. Finally, this research provides theoretical and managerial implications based on these results.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of social capital on competitive advantage through collective learning and absorptive capacity. Design/methodology/approach – The study carries out analyses based on structural equation modeling to measure the main constructs and test the hypothesized relationships among the variables. The primary statistical technique for assessing survey data collected from 358 Taiwan tenants is partial least squares analysis. Findings – Collective learning and absorptive capacity fully mediate the relationship between social capital and competitive advantage. Moreover, social capital has a significant influence on both collective learning and absorptive capacity. Practical implications – Tenant firms in industrial parks must develop effective management tactics for the nurturing of inter-firm relations to enhance collective learning and their absorptive capacity to acquire and exploit key strategic resources such as tacit and explicit knowledge. For specialized firms, close social interactions in specific contexts, mediated by collective learning and absorptive capacity to make up for their resource constraints, can heighten their competitive advantage. Originality/value – By demonstrating the impact of social capital on competitive advantage in the specific context of industrial parks, whose artificial environment encourages and promotes close social interactions among tenants, this paper overcomes previous and contradictory findings regarding the relationship between social capital and competitive advantage. A key contingent factor is the mediating role of collective learning and absorptive capacity.

Purpose -The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of internal integration and external integration on three types of shared knowledge (shared knowledge of internal capabilities, customers, and suppliers) and whether more leads to superior firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach -The paper draws on results from a large-scale survey. The empirical data used in the study comprises of 245 high technology firms in Taiwan. This study applies the confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the hypotheses and research model. Findings -The results show that internal integration and external integration significantly influence shared knowledge of internal capabilities, customers and suppliers among new product development (NPD) team members. The results also indicate that team members' shared knowledge enable the firm to improve innovation capability and new product competitive advantage. Research limitations/implications -As the data used in the study was cross-sectional, the causal relationships and the sustainability of firm and product innovative performance cannot be easily captured. Future research can examine how factors of individual traits, organizational characteristics, and external environmental factors may influence the shared knowledge and product competitive advantage.Practical implications -This study emphasizes the importance of the firm's integration to utilize and share knowledge of internal capabilities, customers and suppliers effectively. Besides, the relationships among internal/external integration, shared knowledge, firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage may provide a clue regarding how firms can manage integrations and promote knowledge-sharing culture to sustain their firm innovation capability and product competitive advantage. Originality/value -As only little empirical research has been conducted on the impact of internal/external integration on the firm's innovative capability and product competitive advantage through shared knowledge, the empirical evidence reported here makes a valuable contribution in this highly important area.