How Do Knowledge Management Strategy and Communication Channels Influence Innovation?

How do knowledge management (KM) strategy and communication channels influence individuals’ innovative behavior? We answer this research question by drawing on media richness theory, and studying how two KM strategies (codification and personalization) and communication approaches with varying degree of media richness (i.e., telephone communication and email communication) shape innovative behavior at the individual level. Our analyses of the survey collected from more than 900 employees from several firms belonging to a leading conglomerate reveal three findings. First, we find that codification KM strategy has a positive effect on employees’ innovative behavior. Second, we find that both face-to-face communication and telephone communication foster innovative behavior, but such an effect is absent for email communication presumably due to its lack of media richness. Finally, we find that the codification KM approach diminishes the advantages of face-to-face communication in innovative behavior. We discuss implications for research and practice