The Customer Knowledge Management and Innovation. An Empirical Study Using Structural Equations Model

Innovation is a key factor to increase the competitive advantage for business. When the Innovation is improved by the Knowledge Management, it does in the Firms based on the sense of information: for, from and about the customers and is called: Customer Knowledge Management. So, the aim of this study is to solve: which are the latent factors between Innovation and Customer Knowledge Management relationship? To achieve it, a questionnaire was designed and applied to the 500 Chief Executive Officers from the Small & Media Enterprises Software Sector in Guadalajara, Mexico, that are part of the value chain, involving: designers, manufacturers and suppliers. The study applied the Structural Equations Model as a quantitative method to discover the underlying relationships amongst the most relevant variables between Innovation on Customer Knowledge Management, as: Driver of Innovation; Support; other Sources of Knowledge, Satisfaction, Experience and Performance with a total of 15 indicators