The Impact of Knowledge Management Orientation on New Product Commercialization: The Mediating Role of Market Orientation

Abstract

The knowledge management orientations that firms adopt as a business input may lead at least partially to the superior performance of the new products they introduce to the market. Our empirical research investigates the knowledge management orientation effect on new product commercialization performance, using data collected from 700 Iranian manufacturing firms in six industries including plastic, steel manufacturing, construction, machinery, stone, mine, and Nano industries. However, our final sample due to missing data is 252 firms. Further, we study the mediating role of proactive and responsive market orientation. Our findings indicate that knowledge management orientation is positively associated with three aspects of new product commercialization, namely product advantage, new product development, and the number of new products introduced to the market. However, there was no significant mediating role in market orientation. Finally, our results show that market orientation and knowledge management orientation affect commercialization performance and therefore could improve new product commercialization.