Researchers have used the absorptive capacity construct to explain various organizational phenomena. In this article we review the literature to identify key dimensions of absorptive capacity and offer a reconceptualization of this construct. Building upon the dynamic capabilities view of the firm, we distinguish between a firm's potential and realized capacity. We then advance a model outlining the conditions when the firm's potential and realized capacities can differentially influence the creation and sustenance of its competitive advantage.

https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5629&context=lkcsb_research

Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension

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

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in interactive learning processes. It questions the view that tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionlessly. The paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there dubbed buzz and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication called pipelines to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward-looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some policy implications, stemming from this argumen...

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Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation

How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself withthe master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.

The knowledge-creating company

This study draws from the corporate governance literature to investigate the implications of board involvement for international joint ventures (IJVs) We extend recent corporate governance research on the value of board involvement by investigating unique sources of complexity related to the nature of the IJV We argue and find that board involvement can enhance the performance of IJVs, particularly for collaborations that are complex in nature due to their broad functional scope as well the level of market overlap between IJV parents We complement recent research on joint venture control that has focused on the antecedents and types of control, as well as studies on formal (eg contractual safeguards and monitoring) and informal governance mechanisms (eg trust) by providing empirical evidence that IJV board involvement is valuable when directors undertake their control and coordination responsibilities We advance corporate governance research by providing evidence that joint ventures possess several unique characteristics that shape the value of board involvement, thereby showing that applications of corporate governance theory to joint ventures are useful, but should be made with care

Performance Implications of IJV Boards: A Contingency Perspective

Spatial variation of transit service quality preferences in Dar-es-Salaam

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Management consulting : Emergence and dynamics of a knowledge industry

In the strategic management literature, frameworks explaining the impact of the national environment, and more particularly of government, on firms and industries are still in their infancy. Michael Porter's 'The Competitive Advantage of Nations' [ 1 ] proposes a new integrative framework consisting of four determinants (the so-called diamond) and aimed at a comprehensive analysis of the above-mentioned impact. After a short overview of the diamond model and a general critique, this paper will deal with the important question of whether government is adequately integrated into Porter's ! framework. Stated more precisely: whether government can be considered ! as a fifth determinant. Porter has already recognized the indirect role of government in creating competitive advantage, but denies a direct role. To I demonstrate whether government does have a direct role and, if so, how large its influence is, is both a theoretical and empirical question. Although a \ definite answer upon this question is beyond the scope of this paper, we will contribute to this challenging question by focusing on two aspects. The first aspect will deal with the implications of the level of analysis with respect to the government. Porter analyzes government's role primarily at the macro level. However, the ongoing internationalization process forces us to redirect our attention from the macro to the meso and micro levels of policy making and government-business interaction. As a second aspect, we will discuss whether the role and impact of government changes over time. Porter believes in a diminishing role as time proceeds. We will criticize this irreversible role. We will also pay attention to the combined effect of both I aspects of our question. This means that we will investigate whether the relevant level of analysis with respect to government's role is time dependent.

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Government's impact on the business environment and strategic management

Attention to business models has flourished over the last decade in the strategy literature. However, few scholars have investigated how existing firms are able to innovate their business model, ei...

Frans van den Bosch

Papers

Performance Implications of IJV Boards: A Contingency Perspective

Spatial variation of transit service quality preferences in Dar-es-Salaam

Management consulting : Emergence and dynamics of a knowledge industry

Government's impact on the business environment and strategic management

How does business model innovation influence firm performance: the effect of environmental dynamism