1.Introuction
Driven by the most powerful double-engine of mass entrepreneurship and
innovation, enterprises, especially high-tech manufacturing enterprises’
innovation activities are more and more active. With the communication
and collision of ideas among knowledge workers, the enterprises’
knowledge traverses the process of socialization, externalization,
combination, and internalization. This process is called knowledge
spiral. Under the process of knowledge spiral, the enterprises’
knowledge constantly realize the innovation and breakthrough of
knowledge ontology in order to deprive new knowledge that drives the
technological process. Obviously, knowledge spiral is a natural barrier
to promote enterprises’ knowledge progress and healthy growth. An
efficient knowledge spiral inevitably improves the efficiency of
enterprises’ knowledge and technology innovation. The core power of
knowledge spiral stems from the knowledge interaction among knowledge
workers. Knowledge spiral also depend on the consistency of
organizational structure dimensions, relationship dimensions, and
cognitive dimensions with various knowledge activities. This creates an
appropriate internal and external environment, and fully mobilizes the
subjective initiative of knowledge creation. This process is key to
ensure the successful operation of knowledge spiral mechanism. The
empirical results show that simmelian ties, high performance work
practice system, and knowledge fermenting are the key conduction
variables that promote the knowledge spiral, and they have excellent
characteristics. Together, they discover the mechanism among simmelian
ties, high performance work practice system, and knowledge fermenting
while finding out the transmission mechanism of simmelian ties on high
performance work practice system and knowledge fermenting as
conduction. Two studies are important in solving the knowledge
spiral dilemma and granting the rising trend of enterprises’ knowledge
spiral.
Through looking at all different literatures, the research on
cross-boundary ties of organization and organizational knowledge
performance generally go through two stages. In the first stage, related
literatures focus on the relationship between the ties’ characteristics
(strong or weak) and ties’ space structure with results (organizational
knowledge performance including the extent of knowledge sharing and the
efficiency of knowledge transferring)(Dekker, 2006). For instance, Kogut
and Zander(1992) pointed that the core knowledge of organizations were
comprehensively tacit and widely embedded into the practitioner
communities, teams, and other social structures. Jason(2010) pointed
that weak ties which only served as mediators were useful for the
exploration and derivation of knowledge, and strong ties which served as
connectors were useful for the discovery and application of knowledge.
The literature in the second stage focuses on the characteristics
(simmelian ties or not) of ties that have effects on results(Zhangwei,
2016). Sorenson (2006) and other scholars pointed that non-simmelian
ties were likely to directly absorb and integrate knowledge and
information with middle or low heterogeneity. Simmelian ties are more
likely to directly improve the overall knowledge innovation performances
of enterprises by the desire of sharing knowledge and similar knowledge
base among knowledge workers.
Following the research logic, this study not only integrates the
features and characters of simmelian ties into the same research
framework, but also tries to clarify the specific mechanism of the cause
and reason of knowledge performance. It takes high performance work
practice system and knowledge fermenting as the breakthrough points, and
constructs theoretical framework of transmission mechanism of simmelian
ties on knowledge spiral. The theoretical framework sets high
performance work practice system and knowledge fermenting as conduction
and dual media channel variables, which takes high-tech manufacturing
enterprises as empirical analysis objects. The study carries out
empirical research on the transmission mechanism and media paths of
simmelian ties on knowledge spiral by combinations of differential
evolution algorithm method, extended DEMATEL method, and Bayesian
estimation-SEM method, which provides theoretical references and
practical guidances for promoting and catalyzing the knowledge
fermenting and knowledge spiral situation of high-tech manufacturing
enterprises.