How digital transformation affects innovation speed and quality: the mediating roles of knowledge sharing and creation

In the current digital economy, digital transformation has brought about extensive and profound impacts on enterprise innovation performance. This study focuses on inter-organisational knowledge sharing and intra-organisational knowledge creation based on the knowledge-based view, and investigates their influence on the relationship between digital transformation and innovation. We employed the PLS-SEM method to analyse the questionnaire data of 219 enterprises in China. The empirical results illustrate that enterprises implementing digital transformation significantly enhance innovation speed and quality, among which knowledge creation mediates the relationship between digital transformation and innovation speed, whereas knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between digital transformation and innovation quality. By enriching the debates between digital transformation and innovation from the perspective of the knowledge-based view, this research provides a theoretical basis for enterprises to implement digital transformation and choose knowledge management strategies.