Driving Open Innovation Capability Through New Knowledge Diffusion of Integrating Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations in Organizations: Moderator of Individual Absorptive Capacity

Open innovation within an organization focuses on the dissemination of new knowledge among employees in different departmental units. When the willingness to share knowledge with colleagues increases, new knowledge dissemination can be achieved. Therefore, it is vital to understand which factors can influence knowledge flow in an organization. Human behavior is strongly influenced by internal and external motivations. The technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework can be considered an extrinsic motivation associated with the sharing behavior and the diffusion of new knowledge. Furthermore, individuals have innate psychological needs that support knowledge exchange, making them eager to interact with others. Based on the internal and external motivations and the TOE model, this study proposes an innovative and complete research model to explore the factors which affect open innovation capability within an organization. There were 217 responses to this research questionnaire from 600 organizations, and PLS was used to validate the model. Empirical findings indicate: (1) the importance of extrinsic motivation such as organizational culture and disruptive technology, having strong effects as intrinsic motivation like interactive desire is also concerned; (2) new knowledge diffusion has a significant effect on open innovation capability; (3) the moderating factor of individual absorptive capacity may strengthen the connection between new knowledge diffusion and open innovation capability. The results increase our understanding for what motivations actually drive new knowledge diffusion in transmitting open innovation capability in organizations.