Abstract: With the rapid evolution of technology, complex change of environment and continuous emergence of various market demands, enterprises are encountered with fierce competitive threats. Under this circumstance, enterprises should focus much more on new product creativity, in order to occupy larger market and higher R&D returns. Therefore, improvement of NPC has become a significant topic in practice as well as theoretical studies. What factors can facilitate NPC? Existing research discussed many factors influencing NPC such as consumer participation, team information processing, failure experience, government subsidy, tariff concession and so on. In the era of knowledge-driven economy, knowledge, which is stored in the form of organization memory (OM), has been the key and fundamental resource for firms to survive and grow. Existing research has discussed relationship between knowledge and new product creativity such as technological knowledge, market knowledge and knowledge accumulation. However, few research studies the relationship between OM and NPC. Meanwhile, OM was usually used as a whole variable in empirical studies, neglecting that OM has different dimensions. Besides, we lack of understanding the mechanisms of relations between OM and NPC, based on former research focusing on behaviors of utilizing present knowledge or capabilities as mechanisms through which OM makes effect. To fill up the research gaps mentioned above, this paper uses 276 valid samples obtained by face-to-face interview, e-mail and postal questionnaires to empirically study the relationship between OM and NPC, as well as its mechanism. Specifically, this paper classifies OM into declarative memory (DM) and procedural memory (PM), and separately discusses their impact on NPC. Secondly, we focus on external knowledge search (EKS) as the mechanism of relations between OM and NPC. Further, EKS is classified into complementary search (CS) and supplementary search (SS), and separately studies the mediating role of CS and SS. The results show that: DM and PM both positively affects NPC, and both positively affects CS and SS. But the positive effects of DM on CS and PM on SS are respectively stronger than DM on SS and PM on CS. Meanwhile, we find that CS plays mediating role in the relation between DM and NPC and SS plays mediating role in relation between PM and NPC. This paper makes three contributions to current literature. Firstly, this study expands the research on OM’s influence. Through classifying OM into DM and PM, our research not only enriches the literature about empirical studies on effects of different kinds of OM, but also provide new insights about factors influencing NPC. Secondly, based on knowledge-based theory and introducing different kinds of EKS, this study answers the question that “what kind of intermediary mechanism do different kinds of OM use to improve NPC”, revealing CS and SS can play key mediating roles in relations between DM and NPC, PM and NPC. This extends the research on mechanisms of OM makes effect. Thirdly, different from present literature where EKS is scarcely classified into CS and SS, this study adopts this classification method and explores their distinguished mediating roles in relations between different kinds of OM and NPC, which are also verified by the data. This proves the necessity of classifying OM and EKS, and provide reference for future research on EKS.

摘要： 基于知识基础观，分别研究了陈述性记忆、程序性记忆与新产品创新性之间的关系，以及互补型搜寻和辅助型搜寻的中介作用。利用276家企业调研数据进行实证研究，结果表明：陈述性记忆和程序性记忆均正向影响新产品创新性，也均对互补型搜寻和辅助型搜寻产生正向影响。同时，陈述性记忆对互补型搜寻的正向作用强于辅助型搜寻，程序性记忆对辅助型搜寻的正向作用强于互补型搜寻。进一步地，互补型搜寻在陈述性记忆和新产品创新性间起中介作用，辅助型搜寻在程序性记忆和新产品创新性间起中介作用。