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...

/pdf/clusters-and-knowledge-local-buzz-global-pipelines-and-the-29bsuyvekg.pdf

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

Understanding the phenomena of corporate longevity and self-renewing organizations has become an important topic in recent management literature. However, the majority of the research contributions focus on internal determinants of longevity and self-renewal. Using a coevolutionary framework, the purpose of this chapter is to address the dynamic interaction between organizations and environments in the realm of sustained strategic renewal, i.e. corporate longevity. To this end, we will focus on the competence of long-lived firms to coevolve due to the joint effect of managerial intentionality and environmental selection pressures. Building on coevolutionary framework, we develop a conceptual framework that highlights an organization's coevolutionary competence. Two longitudinal case studies are presented illustrating the arguments.

/pdf/coevolutionary-competence-in-the-realm-of-corporate-538aoe3pim.pdf

Coevolutionary Competence in the Realm of Corporate Longevity: How Long-lived Firms Strategically Renew Themselves

This chapter focuses on the gap between the speed of proliferation of theoretical and empirical contributions and the speed of accumulation of the acquired scientific knowledge regarding absorptive capacity To contribute to narrowing this gap, we will in particular review the conceptual developments of the absorptive capacity construct Based on the seminal contributions of Cohen & Levinthal (1989, 1990) we will provide a brief overview of the various conceptual attributes of this construct, like the definition, antecedents and consequences, and levels of analysis involved Next, we will assess the refinements, extensions and reconceptualizations of this construct in the literature Furthermore, from the perspective of viewing models as mediating instruments between theory and empirical phenomena (Morgan and Morrison, 1999), we will analyze efforts to build conceptual models Finally, we will address the progress made, select key problems and we will formulate future research directions to improve the multilevel and transdisciplinary characteristics of absorptive capacity

Absorptive Capacity: Antecedents, Models and Outcomes *)

Strategic Renewal is an original research anthology offering insight into a subject area which, although critical for the sustained success of organizations, has received relatively little attention as distinct from the more general phenomenon of strategic change. Firstly, by providing a summary of the literature, this research anthology helps graduate students and new researchers grasp the current state of affairs in the field. Secondly, this research anthology will help update the knowledge base of the existing researchers in the field. By bringing together various studies, the research anthology determines the core concepts of the field and elucidates the key gaps and future research areas. Through contributions building on the knowledge bases of other disciplines, this research anthology develops an interdisciplinary research agenda, giving the reader an in-depth understanding of the mediating, moderating, and antecedent variables concerning strategic renewal. Strategic Renewal aims to provide a state-of-understanding to the subject, as well as a clear picture of the cross-disciplinary landscape that informs the subject. Thus, this research anthology is essential reading for managers, consultants, and other practitioners, as well as students and scholars of business.

/pdf/strategic-renewal-core-concepts-antecedents-and-micro-1te8ch2fgg.pdf

Strategic Renewal : Core Concepts, Antecedents, and Micro Foundations

Reputations rise and fall. In this Part of the Corporate Reputation Review attention focusses on companies whose star is waning. The presentations made at the Stern School of Business conference and now published below comprise a distillation of the insights gained by a senior crisis-management practitioner, as well as three case studies and three more empirically-oriented crisis communication studies. Included in panelists' presenta- tions are theoretical frameworks which seek to explain the behavior of managers and opponents during crisis situations.

/pdf/part-vi-how-should-reputations-be-managed-in-good-times-and-37r5m4hs2l.pdf

Part VI: How Should Reputations be Managed in Good Times and Bad Times?: Increasing effectiveness of managing strategic issues affecting a firm's reputation

1. Introduction: Perspectives on Porter F.A.J. van den Bosch. 2. Porter on Business Strategy B. de Wit. 3. Business Level Strategy: Lessons from Shell C.A.J. Herkstroter. 4. Porter on Corporate Strategy R.J.H. Meyer, H.W. Volberda. 5. Corporate Strategy from a Unilever Perspective F.A. Maljers. 6. Porter on National and Regional Competitive Advantage A.-P. de Man, et al. 7. The Netherlands: More Than Flower Power L.A. Geelhoed. 8. Rotterdam seen Through Porter-Coloured Glasses R.M. Smit. 9. From Positions to Places? A.-P. de Man. 10. Porter's Contribution to More General and Dynamic Strategy Frameworks F.A.J. van den Bosch. List of Contributors. Subject Index.

Frans van den Bosch

Papers

Coevolutionary Competence in the Realm of Corporate Longevity: How Long-lived Firms Strategically Renew Themselves

Absorptive Capacity: Antecedents, Models and Outcomes *)

Strategic Renewal : Core Concepts, Antecedents, and Micro Foundations

Part VI: How Should Reputations be Managed in Good Times and Bad Times?: Increasing effectiveness of managing strategic issues affecting a firm's reputation

Perspectives on Strategy-Contributions of Michael E. Porter