Abstract: The existing knowledge assets are an important influencing factor of the disruptive innovation of enterprises, but the relationship between them is not fully explained. Based on the perspective of asset specificity, the impact of the enterprise knowledge assets on the disruptive innovation was explored in this paper. Using a sample of 272 Chinese manufacturing enterprises, some hypotheses are tested: (1) Knowledge assets’ application-specificity for main business has a directly positive effect on ability of experience transfer and outbound disruptive innovation respectively, but it has a directly negative effect on ability to cannibalize and inbound disruptive innovation. (2) Ability of experience transfer not only positively affects the enterprise’s outbound disruptive innovation, but also plays a complete intermediary role between knowledge assets’ application-specificity for main business and outbound disruptive innovation. (3) Ability to cannibalize not only positively affects the enterprise’s inbound disruptive innovation, but also plays a part intermediary role between knowledge assets’ application-specificity for main business and inbound disruptive innovation.

Key words: Knowledge assets&rsquo, application-specificity for main business, Ability of experience transfer, Ability to cannibalize, Outbound and inbound disruptive innovation