The study reported here examined the relationship between knowledge inertia and R&D team creativity by focusing on the mediating effect of cognitive conflict with direct and moderating effect of intentional unlearning capability to find out how to improve R&D team creativity for sustainable innovation from the perspective of coping with knowledge inertia. Data from a two-wave survey of 135 R&D teams within 67 firms in China were used to conduct the analysis of structural equation modeling and hierarchical multiple regression. Results showed that as predicted, knowledge inertia can not only decrease R&D team creativity directly but also decrease it by reducing the level of cognitive conflicts among the R&D team members, causing serious damage to R&D team creativity. In addition, intentional unlearning capability can help the R&D team reduce knowledge inertia directly and moderated the negative relationship between knowledge inertia and R&D team creativity, which was when intentional unlearning capability was high, the negative relationship between knowledge inertia and R&D team creativity would be weakened, and when it was low, the relationship would be strengthened, thus further verifying the important role of intentional unlearning capability in reducing the negative impact of knowledge inertia on R&D team creativity for sustainable innovation.

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