The Mediating Effects of the Process Design Capability and Product Interior Design Capability on the Relationship between SMEs' External Information Network Diversity and Their New Technology Development Capability

New technology development capability plays a key role in making small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increase their innovation performance, such as in product or process innovation. To examine the influencing factors of SMEs' new technology development capability, this study empirically analyzes the mediating effects of SMEs' process design capability and product interior design capability on the positive association between their external information network diversity and new technology development capability. This study performs the ordinary least squares regression on a sample of 2,000 South Korean SMEs. Results reveal that SMEs' process design capability fully mediates, and product interior design capability partially mediates the positive association between the external information network diversity and new technology development capability.