How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal Tushman, Michael L. and O'Reilly, Charles A., 256 pp., Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Reviewed by Subodh P. Kulkarni, Assistant Professor in School of Business at Howard University, Washington, D.C. Professors Tushman and O'Reilly are well known for their research on innovation and organizational culture. In this book, the authors address a fundamental and interesting issue underlying organizational change and innovation: that of how firms can achieve a balance between stability and change. Businesses are not likely to prosper or survive in the long run without this balance. One of the book's key premises is that short-term success may constrain a firm's ability to change. Short term successes often occur in larger, older, more structured organizations, the source of structural and cultural inertia, which yields success in stable environments and failure when environments change. Therefore, a company's culture holds the key to success (or failure) in the long run. To create and sustain a competitive edge in the long run, companies must learn how to manage incremental and revolutionary change. The key, according to the authors, is to develop an "ambidextrous organization." Tushman and O'Reilly define ambidextrous organizations as those having internally consistent structures and an internal operating culture that provides for excelling today, while also planning for the future. The ambidextrous organizations are, thus, engaged in a balancing act between the management of incremental and revolutionary technologies. Further, these organizations have very different cultures within a company (or even a business unit, for that matter). Vision is vital to ambidextrous organizations, often displaying one vision that hosts multiple cultures in the unit. Of course, a firm can have multiple cultures under one roof by spinning off different business units and managing them independently. This is unacceptable to the authors. It is important to manage them as a whole, or as a system. The thing that holds the system components together is the overarching vision for the technology firm. That is why the book emphasizes strategic intent or competitive vision; because without a common, overarching purpose and set of values, the ambidextrous company just does not hold together. So it is not only different cultures, but different structures, systems, rewards, and competencies that need to be managed together. Drawing on their extensive research, consulting practice, as well as the experiences of managers from several "ambidextrous companies," the authors develop a model that can be used by executives to understand the dynamics of change necessary for long-term success. Toward this end, the book provides several tools for identifying and diagnosing the causes of performance gaps and for developing action plans to attain, and maintain, industry leadership. The book is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 is introductory, and it outlines the concepts underlying the authors' model. Chapter 2 highlights the significance of the concepts introduced earlier in the context of global change and innovation. Chapters 3 through 6 focus on the building of capabilities, competencies, and cultures that can generate a sustainable competitive advantage. Chapter 4 develops a model that highlights the congruence among an organization's strategies and four distinct factors: critical tasks, culture, structure, and people. A lack of congruence often results in performance gaps. Chapter 5 outlines how organizational culture-the selecting, socializing, and rewarding of workers consistent with the company's goals-promotes this congruence. It also illustrates how to assesses an organization's culture. Chapters 7 and 8 stand out in particular because in these chapters the authors introduce techniques for building an ambidextrous organization. …

Winning through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

This paper studies the determinants of income smoothing by management of loan-loss provisions in banks around the world. Using a panel database of 3221 bank-year observations from 40 countries and controlling for unobservable bank effects and for the endogeneity of explanatory variables, we find that bank income smoothing depends on investor protection, disclosure, regulation and supervision, financial structure, and financial development. Results suggest there is less bank income smoothing not only with the strength of investor protection, but also with the extent of accounting disclosure, restrictions on bank activities, and official and private supervision, while there is more income smoothing with market orientation and development of a country's financial system.

Cross-country determinants of bank income smoothing by managing loan loss provisions

Purpose – While nowadays an extensive literature promoting knowledge management (KM) exists,
there is a worrying shortage of empirical studies demonstrating an actual connection between KM
activities and organizational outcomes. To bridge this gap, this paper aims to examine the link between
KM practices, firm competitiveness and economic performance.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper proposes a framework of KM practices consisting of
human resource management (HRM) and information communication technology (ICT). These both are
hypothesized to impact competitiveness and economic performance of the firm. Hypotheses are then
tested with structural equation modeling by using a survey dataset of 234 companies.
Findings – The results show that HRM and ICT practices for managing knowledge are quite strongly
correlated and have a statistically significant influence on both financial performance and
competitiveness of the firm. The findings also indicate that ICT practices improve financial
performance only when they are coupled with HRM practices.
Research limitations/implications – The data are limited to companies from Finland, Russia and
China.
Practical implications – The paper contributes to managerial practice by pointing out the importance
of utilizing a combination of both social and technical means for KM and illustrating that they do matter
for the company bottom line.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature on knowledge-based organizing by
empirically analyzing the performance impact of various areas of KM. It thereby tests the proposition put
forth in many previous theoretical and case-based studies that KM promotes high organizational
performance. It also addresses the interaction of social and technical KM practices in producing
organizational outcomes.

Does knowledge management reallymatter? Linking knowledge managementpractices, competitiveness and economicperformance

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/5444919.pdf

Impacto de la innovación sobre el rendimiento de la mipyme: un estudio empírico en Colombia

Introduction The era of knowledge plays an essential role in the economic growth and development of all enterprises (Foray, 2004; Mosconi & Roy, 2013). With the arrival of globalization, knowledge has become an intangible resource generator of permanent competitive advantage (Ikujiro & Hiroshi, 2013; Tunc Bozbura, 2007) and contributes to the generation of intellectual capital and to the economic activities of organizations (Kristandl & Bontis, 2007). In these times of constant motion, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) require the extraction of knowledge from both domestic sources and foreign sources to achieve greater participation in the markets, foster innovation, and improve performance (Gold, Malhotra, & Segars, 2001; Morgan & Berthon, 2008). Knowledge management (KM) is a comprehensive approach that includes capture, receipt, and transfer of information in a company that considers the policies, procedures, knowledge, and experience of employees (Duhon, 1998). In addition, technology systems influence the behavior of employees and strengthen a culture based on the use and transfer of information (Davenport, 1994). KM is a business practice that integrates essential strategies, policies, techniques, and procedures (Davenport, 2013; Lavergne & Earl, 2006). The alignment of corporate strategy with KM is vital for adding value and achieving results (Chuang, 2004; M. H. Zack & Singh, 2010). KM influences business systems by increasing profitability, creating a harmonious atmosphere among employees, and ensuring businesses' sustainability and competitiveness (Darvish, Mohammadi, & Afsharpour, 2012; Darvish & Nazari, 2013). However, KM is not sufficiently widespread in SMEs, mainly due to the lack of strategic planning, lack of financial resources, distaste to change cultural, uncertainty regarding benefits, and technological immaturity, which are typical in these organizations (Edvardsson & Durst, 2013; Yew Wong, 2005). A reasonable number of empirical studies have analyzed the impact of KM and innovation in SMEs (Constantinescu, 2009; C. Yu, Yu-Fang, & Yu-Cheh, 2013). However, the relationship between innovation and performance is still a wide field for exploration (Price, Stoica, & Boncella, 2013; Vaccaro, Parente, & Veloso, 2010). Works on KM have placed minimal emphasis on the benefits generated in SMEs; the majority of research focuses on large organizations (Darroch, 2005; Roxas, Battisti, & Deakins, 2014). In addition, minimal understanding of how companies create, transfer, and use knowledge has led to difficulty in transforming knowledge into a competitive advantage (C. Lin, Wu, & Yen, 2012; Perrin, Vidal, & McGill, 2006). The difficulty of measuring KM in SMEs provides a reasonable explanation for the scarcity of empirical studies in this developing discipline (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, 2014; Choi, Poon, & Davis, 2008). By the great influence of the KM in the progress and development of SMEs, it is important to develop this type of study more regularly (Imran, 2014; Vaccaro et al., 2010). The objective of this work is to empirically analyze the relationships between KM, innovation, and performance in SMEs in the region of Murcia, Spain. In the current competitive global environment, it is important to analyze the key factors that affect the development and growth of these companies. The research questions that we attempt to answer are as follows: 1. Does knowledge management influence innovation activities in SMEs? 2. Does business innovation exert any influence on SME performance? Literature reveals that KM can help SMEs to professionally develop employees, improve innovation processes, grow sales, satisfy customers and thus achieve organizational success (Edvardsson & Durst, 2013; Lopez-Nicolas & Merono-Cerdan, 2011; Madrid-Guijarro, Garcia, & Van Auken, 2009). …

/pdf/management-of-knowledge-innovation-and-performance-in-smes-2w6d6ra0hh.pdf

Management of Knowledge, Innovation and Performance in SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between a firm's internal audit function (IAF) and the quality of its financial reporting. Since regulations on corporate governance were introduced, numerous national and international bodies have emphasized the fundamental role of the IAF in the financial reporting process, especially since it generally leads to higher quality reporting.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses questionnaires sent to internal audit directors of Spanish banks.Findings – Banks with high quality financial reporting have greater collaboration between internal and external auditors in the annual audit. Greater involvement of internal audit in reviewing financial reporting leads to improved quality financial reporting.Research limitations/implications – Besides the usual caveats of survey research, there are limitations to this study. First, the problem of response bias may exist. Second, the 66 per cent survey response rate may mean that respondents have l...

Internal audit and financial reporting in the Spanish banking industry

La importancia de las Pequenas y Medianas Empresas ha originado una serie de investigaciones para identificar los factores que determinan su competitividad. Este articulo tiene por objeto analizar la relacion que existe entre el exito competitivo y cuatro factores relacionados con el ambiente interno de las Pequenas y Medianas Empresas (recursos humanos, planeacion estrategica, innovacion, tecnologia y certificacion de calidad), a traves de una muestra de 405 empresas mexicanas. La metodologia utilizada se baso en la revision de estudios previos y planteamiento de hipotesis; trabajo de campo y analisis de datos; determinacion de resultados y conclusiones del estudio. Los resultados muestran valores positivos y significativos en las variables de innovacion, tecnologia y planeacion estrategica. La contribucion del estudio es la comprobacion empirica en el contexto de Mexico, respecto de los factores determinantes de la competitividad. Concluimos que las Pequenas y Medianas Empresas altamente competitivas son aquellas que innovan en sus productos, procesos y gestion, que tienen un nivel tecnologico superior y poseen un plan estrategico

/pdf/factores-determinantes-del-exito-competitivo-en-la-pyme-4ybaw4bbeb.pdf

Factores determinantes del éxito competitivo en la pyme: estudio empírico en méxico

Resumen es: Actualmente, el uso de Tecnologias de Informacion y Comunicacion (TICs) en las PyMEs (Pequenas y Medianas Empresas), son un elemento esencial en la integ

/pdf/la-influencia-de-las-tics-en-el-rendimiento-de-la-pyme-de-1fdm04hjql.pdf

Domingo García Pérez de Lema

Papers

Impacto de la innovación sobre el rendimiento de la mipyme: un estudio empírico en Colombia

Management of Knowledge, Innovation and Performance in SMEs

Internal audit and financial reporting in the Spanish banking industry

Factores determinantes del éxito competitivo en la pyme: estudio empírico en méxico

La influencia de las TICs en el rendimiento de la PyME de Aguascalientes