Organisational knowledge and innovation failures : the moderating effect of knowledge spillovers

Ferreira, João J. M. (author), Fernandes, Cristina (author), Mota Veiga, Pedro (author), Dabić, Marina (author)

Purpose - This study aims to explore the relationship between organisational knowledge (OK) and innovation failures, as well as their connection to future innovation capability, while testing the moderating effect of knowledge spillovers (KS) on these two previous relationships. Design/methodology/approach - The data set used in this study comes from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS), which has been widely used in innovation research. The CIS is a harmonised questionnaire based on the Oslo Manual, with methodological recommendations specified by Eurostat, and includes questions on a range of topics related to innovation activities. This study used the CIS2018, which covers 2016–2018 and includes 100,115 companies with more than 10 employees from 14 european union (EU) countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia). Findings - Using logistic and linear regression models, the authors find that OK can effectively decrease innovation failures. However, after a failure, firms are more likely to pursue new, innovative projects only if KS is considered a moderator in the relationship between innovation failures and innovative capacity. The authors did not observe statistical significance in the KS moderation effect between OK and innovation failure. In other words, a company does not attempt to learn solely from a failure but should seek new knowledge to analyse what went wrong. Therefore, knowledge transfer that promotes discussion and learning from unexpected outcomes is vital for a firm to continue innovating successfully. Originality/value - This research contributes to the understanding of the impact of failure on innovation from a knowledge-based perspective, examining how different failure mechanisms can diminish future innovation, despite growing interest in how failure can promote it.

• Language: English
• Keywords: knowledge, corporate culture, knowledge transfer, innovativeness, organisational knowledge, innovation failure, knowledge spillovers
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 147-167
• Numbering: Vol. 30, iss. 11
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-180141
• UDC: 005.3
• ISSN on article: 1367-3270
• DOI: 10.1108/JKM-05-2025-0656
• COBISS.SI-ID: 267770627
• Publication date in RUL: 03.03.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of knowledge management
• Shortened title: J. knowl. manag.
• Publisher: Emerald Publishing
• ISSN: 1367-3270
• COBISS.SI-ID: 20511749

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: znanje, kultura podjetja, prenos znanja, inovativnost

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0441
• Name: Regeneracija ekonomije in posla