Knowledge Management Strategies, Intellectual Capital, and Ambidextrous Innovation Capability in SMEs: Are They Relevant?

Knowledge management strategies (KMSs) and intellectual capital have received widespread attention due to their important contribution to the growth of ambidextrous innovation capability (AIC). Yet, there is still a relative paucity of empirical research on the associations between KMSs, intellectual capital, and AIC in the SME context. Thus, this paper is empirically aimed at examining the associations among KMSs and AIC and further explores how intellectual capital mediates these relationships in SMEs. We analyze survey data from 170 Iranian SMEs using structural equation modeling. The results mainly show that the direct improvement in AIC caused by the personalization strategy of knowledge management is greater than the codification strategy of knowledge management. Moreover, the intellectual capital acts as a mediator of the effects of the codification and personalization strategies on AIC. Hence, one practical implication of this paper is that SMEs should pay attention to their personalization strategy as the most effective strategy for promoting ambidextrous innovation and provide guidelines on the interaction between KMSs and intellectual capital to foster their AIC. In addition, this paper offers new insights on the role of KMSs implemented through intellectual capital in organizational ambidexterity, which extends the ambidexterity literature in the context of SMEs.