Knowledge Revealing and Organizational Legitimacy: Comparisons between Different Types of Firms in China

摘要

Knowledge revealing, as a unique form of open innovation, increasingly attracts interests in academia and practice. Yet, its impacts on firms are still under-researched. Based on open innovation research and impression management perspective, this paper examines the relationship between knowledge revealing and organizational legitimacy, and how the relationship varies between different types of firms in the Chinese context. Using the survey data from 217 manufacturing firms in China, we find that knowledge revealing has positive impacts on both political and business legitimacy. These impacts are stronger for new ventures than for established firms. While knowledge revealing has a stronger influence on political legitimacy for non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the effect of knowledge revealing on business legitimacy does not show significant difference between non-SOEs and SOEs. Our study, therefore, uncovers the legitimacy benefit of knowledge revealing in a firm-type-dependent manner.