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

Much of prior research on board of directors examines the effects of independent directors from their function as monitors or resource providers. Relatively little attention has been paid to their ...

"Independent Directors' Professional Role Identities,Board Effectiveness, and Firm Performance"

textDe Europese financiele sector wordt geconfronteerd
met ingrijpende veranderingen in de omgeving die
van grote invloed zijn op de concurrentieverhoudingen en de
manier waarop financiele dienstverlenende bedrijven hun routines,
producten en diensten voortbrengen. Dit blijkt uit onderzoek
naar de snelheid waarmee EU-regelgeving en technologische
innovaties zich over Groot-Brittannie, Frankrijk, Italie,
Nederland en Zweden hebben verspreid gedurende de periode
1990-1999. Groot-Brittannie en Nederland komen daarin naar
voren als voorlopers met betrekking tot het implementeren van
nieuwe regelgeving en technologieen, terwijl Italie en Frankrijk
relatief laat zijn. Uit de bevindingen blijkt verder dat reguleringen
en technologieen steeds sneller algemeen verspreid worden,
in tegenstelling tot het vroegere proces van verspreiding
van land tot land. Het veranderende landschap stelt gevestigde
ondernemingen in de financiele dienstverlening daarmee voor
belangrijke uitdagingen in de nabije toekomst en maakt strategische
vernieuwing een noodzaak voor de gevestigde spelers in de
financiele sector.

/pdf/het-veranderende-landschap-in-de-europese-financiele-sector-1it0xcjue6.pdf

Het veranderende landschap in de Europese financiële sector: vooruitblik op de financiële sector in de 21ste eeuw

textThis paper examines the transfer of designs between projects within firm in the context of made-to-order producing companies. This practice is also known as knowledge reuse. Past studies has provided a detailed account of the strategies and processes involved in the reuse of technologies. Nonetheless, a large portion of this research was based on evidence collected in mass-producing companies. This paper attempts to develop a complementary framework to identify the strategies involved in reusing technologies in the made-to-order context. Data were drawn from three aerospace companies based in Israel. Two strategies emerged from the empirical evidence: exploit product success and design for reuse.

/pdf/organizing-the-innovation-system-for-reusability-the-case-of-1wcbrstm3e.pdf

Organizing The Innovation System For Reusability: The Case Of Made-To-Order Markets

textAs a result of many changes in the competitive landscape, knowledge has become a crucial resource of firms, which has impelled firms to change their forms of organizing. Evidence suggests that internal networks, as such an alternative form of organizing, progress to emerge to facilitate the organization and management of knowledge. Insights into how firms actually change into internal networks have been sparse, however. On the basis of three case studies conducted at Rabobank-one at the group level, one at the local member banks, and one at the business unit Spectrum-this paper furnishes this lack of inquiry with new insights. The evidence illustrates that when firms change into internal network forms of organizing, horizontal knowledge flows between subunits are facilitated.

/pdf/transition-processes-towards-internal-networks-4y1vlxr03w.pdf

Transition Processes Towards Internal Networks

As a result of many changes in the competitive landscape, knowledge has become a crucial resource of firms, which has impelled firms to change their forms of organizing. Evidence suggests that internal networks, as such an alternative form of organizing, progress to emerge to facilitate the organization and management of knowledge. Insights into how firms actually change into internal networks have been sparse, however. On the basis of three case studies conducted at Rabobank-one at the group level, one at the local member banks, and one at the business unit Spectrum-this paper furnishes this lack of inquiry with new insights. The evidence illustrates that when firms change into internal network forms of organizing, horizontal knowledge flows between subunits are facilitated.

Frans van den Bosch

Papers

"Independent Directors' Professional Role Identities,Board Effectiveness, and Firm Performance"

Het veranderende landschap in de Europese financiële sector: vooruitblik op de financiële sector in de 21ste eeuw

Organizing The Innovation System For Reusability: The Case Of Made-To-Order Markets

Transition Processes Towards Internal Networks

Transition Processes Towards Internal Networks