RETRACTED ARTICLE: Knowledge search and innovation performance: The mediating role of absorptive capacity

Knowledge search is an effective way to rapidly enhance enterprise innovation performance. To test whether absorptive capacity has a mediating effect between knowledge search and innovation performance, this paper brings the three into a unified analysis framework and takes 86 enterprises in Shaanxi Province of China as a research sample to verify the conceptual model through a questionnaire survey, structural equation model and mediating effect test. The results show that knowledge search has a significant positive impact on innovation performance in enterprises and effectively promotes their absorptive capacity. Simultaneously, absorptive capacity has a significant positive impact on enterprises’ innovation performance, and absorptive capacity has an intermediary role in the relationship between knowledge search and innovation performance.