Abstract: This paper, by a questionnaire survey of 282 manufacturing firms and a multiple regression analysis, studies the impact of interaction effect of inter-organizational network density and attention allocation of TM (top managers) on firms’ service innovation, and the moderating effect of knowledge base on the relationship between them based on attention-based view, social network theory and knowledge management theory. Our findings reveal that in high-density inter-organizational networks, the focused attention of TM has a stronger positive effect on firms’ service innovation than what the divided attention of TM does, while in low-density inter-organizational networks, the divided attention of TM has a stronger positive effect on firms’ service innovation than what the focused attention of TM does. Firms’ diversified knowledge base enhances the interaction effect of high-density inter-organizational networks and the focused attention of TM on firms’ service innovation. Firms’ specialized knowledge base enhances the interaction effect of low-density interorganizational networks and the divided attention of TM on firms’ service innovation. The above results can reveal the optimal internal and external knowledge allocation, attention allocation of TM and network configuration about firms’ service innovation, and provide a theoretical reference for improving the effect of firms’ service innovation.

Key words: network density, attention allocation of TM, knowledge base, manufacturing firms’ service innovation