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High‐tech industries in Taiwan exist in an environment with diverse product requirements and intense cost reduction and information integration stress. They must develop new operational directions to increase industry competitiveness. Therefore, Taiwan’s high‐tech industries must continue R&D and creativity, establish knowledge sharing mechanisms and improve new product development (NPD) performance. This research analyzed and explored the influences of knowledge management (KM) and knowledge sharing mechanisms introduced by Taiwan’s high‐tech industries on new product development performance. The relationship between knowledge management capabilities and NPD performance is studied. This research considers the intervening industry and corporate position variables. Taiwan’s high‐tech industries have gradually entered the era of IT region integration and application with competitive advantage creation based upon core techniques. The in‐depth study of knowledge management and knowledge sharing introduced by the high‐tech industry revealed double meanings in academic and practical applications. The research results showed the following: (1) the stronger the knowledge management capabilities of Taiwan’s high‐tech industries, the more significant the NPD performance. (2) The better the knowledge sharing mechanism in Taiwan’s high‐tech industries, the more significant the NPD performance. (3) Corporate scale is not necessarily the critical factor in NPD success and the influence of corporate scale on NPD performance did not show significant differences. (4) The stronger the degree of leading corporate techniques, the more significant the NPD performance.

High‐tech industry has been the principal economic source for Taiwan in recent years. The characteristics of high‐tech industries in Taiwan are changeable product markets, short product life cycles and high company attrition rate. In the globalization trend, the high‐tech industry has gradually increased corporate competitiveness and reached the goal of sustainable operations through knowledge management, knowledge sharing and new product research and development. Firms have aggressively strengthened and integrated their internal and external resources and enhanced knowledge sharing to increase industry operational performance. Effectively strengthening the knowledge management operation and performance evaluation of knowledge sharing in Taiwan’s high‐tech industry has become a critical issue. In the selection of knowledge sharing Key Performance Indicators (KPI), this research divided the knowledge sharing indicators into representative strategic indicators such as organizational knowledge learning, organizational knowledge resources, organizational information capacity and organizational knowledge performance through screening using Factor Analysis. The characteristics of the constructs were interdependent. This research calculated and adjusted the correlation among the key performance knowledge sharing indicators using ANP and determined the relative weight of knowledge sharing.

This study aims to probe into the influence of new product design and new product development process management on development performance. The research finding demonstrates that product design reveals positive and significant influence on new product development performance. Through statistical analysis, this study finds that companies in Taiwan value new product design. When companies value it more, they tend to have better new product development performance. With regard to the relation between new product development process management and new product development performance, the empirical results demonstrate that companies would pay more attention on new product development process management. With regard to new product idea and assessment, concept design and development, product function test and mass production in the market, through statistical analysis, this study finds that companies that value process management of new product development tend to have better new product development performance. As to the influence of new product design and new product process management on new product development performance, statistical analysis result demonstrates that the integration between new product design valued by companies in Taiwan and development process management would lead to significantly positive influence on new product development performance of the companies.

The high‐tech industry is the economic lifeline for Taiwan. Its characteristics are short product life cycle, rapid changes in the market, and a high obsolescence rate for new products. Under globalization, the high‐tech industry has adopted Information Technology (IT) to shorten the manufacturing process, reduce costs and conduct product research and development (R&D) to increase the core competence of enterprises and achieve the goal of sustainable operations. Enterprises should actively strengthen their integration with internal and external resources and lead in R&D management to increase industrial operating performance. Effectively managing operations and R&D management evaluation in Taiwan’s High‐tech Industry has become a critical subject. This study adopted 4 major Balanced Scorecard (BSC) perspectives to establish the Total Performance Evaluation Indicators for the R&D management department in Taiwan’s High‐tech Industry. The Analytic Network Process (ANP) was applied to evaluate the overall performance of the R&D management department. The research framework is divided into 2 phases. The first phase is combined with the 4 major perspectives, Financial, Customer, Internal Business Process and Learning and Growth, as the related indicators for each measurement perspective. The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were selected using Factor Analysis to identify the key factor from the complicated indicators. The relationship between the characteristics of each BSC’s evaluation perspective is dependence and feedback. This study applied ANP to conduct the calculation and adjustment of correlation between each KPI, and determine on their relative weights for the objective KPI. The “Financial Perspective” for R&D management department in Taiwan’s High‐tech Industry focused on the budget achievement rate of R&D management. The weight indicator value is (0.05863). The “Customer Perspective” focused on problem‐solving satisfaction. The weight value of this indicator is (0.17549). The “Internal Business Process Perspective” focused on the quantity and quality of R&D. The weight value of this indicator is (0.13506). The “Learning and Growth Perspective” focused on improving competence in the research ersonnel’s professional techniques. The weight value of this indicator is (0.02789). From the total weighting indicators, the order of the Performance Indicators for the R&D management department in Taiwan’s High‐tech Industry is: (1) Customer Perspective; (2) Internal Business Process Perspective; (3) Financial Perspective; and (4) Learning and Growth Perspective.