The Mediating Effect of Customer Knowledge Sharing on Organizational Performance

Abstract

Customer knowledge is a vital external factor which can affect organizational performance and survival. Customer knowledge consists of knowledge for customers (KfC), knowledge about customers (KaC) and knowledge from customers (KfrC). Many researchers regard customer knowledge as a strategic resource for companies to improve innovation, to facilitate the detection of new market opportunities, and to support long-term relationships with customers. However, there is still a lack of understanding of the role of knowledge sharing in improving organizational performance. This study aimed to investigate the impact of customer knowledge, and innovative customer knowledge sharing, on organizational performance. A second aim was to study the mediating effect of innovative customer knowledge sharing. The findings showed that customer knowledge positively influences customer knowledge sharing (CKS) except regarding the factor of knowledge about customers (KAC). Organizational performance (OP) was positively impacted by customer knowledge sharing (CKS). The findings also showed that customer knowledge sharing (CKS) has a mediating effect between customer knowledge (CK) and organizational performance (OP).