Technology's contribution to economic growth and competitiveness has been the subject of vigorous debate in recent years. This book demonstrates the importance of a historical perspective in understanding the role of technological innovation in the economy. The authors examine key episodes and institutions in the development of the U.S. research system and in the development of the research systems of other industrial economies. They argue that the large potential contributions of economics to the understanding of technology and economic growth have been constrained by the narrow theoretical framework employed within neoclassical economies. A richer framework, they believe, will support a more fruitful dialogue among economists, policymakers, and managers on the organization of public and private institutions for innovation. David Mowery is Associate Professor of Business and Public Policy at the School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley. Nathan S. Rosenberg is Fairleigh Dickinson Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is the author of Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics (CUP, 1983).

Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth.

Knowledge, Networks, and Knowledge Networks A Review and Research Agenda

Building dynamic capabilities for digital transformation: An ongoing process of strategic renewal

textPrior studies have emphasized that structural attributes are crucial to simultaneously pursuing exploration and exploitation, yet our understanding of antecedents of ambidexterity is still limited. Structural differentiation can help ambidextrous organizations to maintain multiple inconsistent and conflicting demands; however, differentiated exploratory and exploitative activities need to mobilized, coordinated, integrated, and applied. Based on this idea, we delineate formal and informal senior team integration mechanisms (i.e. contingency rewards and social integration) and formal and informal organizational integration mechanisms (i.e. cross-functional interfaces and connectedness) and examine how they mediate the relationship between structural differentiation and ambidexterity. Overall, our findings suggest that the previously asserted direct effect of structural differentiation on ambidexterity operates through informal senior team (i.e. senior team social integration) and formal organizational (i.e. cross-functional interfaces) integration mechanisms. Through this richer explanation and empirical assessment, we contribute to a greater clarity and better understanding of how organizations may effectively pursue exploration and exploitation simultaneously to achieve ambidexterity.

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Structural Differentiation and Ambidexterity: The Mediating Role of Integration Mechanisms

This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. In this paper, we present opportunities for future research on OI, organised at different levels of analysis. We discuss some of the contingencies at these different levels, and argue that future research needs to study OI – originally an organisational-level phenomenon – across multiple levels of analysis. While our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting and integrating various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorising will be needed to advance OI research. On this basis, we propose some new research categories as well as questions for future research – particularly those that span across research domains that have so far developed in isolation.

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The open innovation research landscape: established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis

Applying a new theoretical and empirical approach to intrafirm knowledge transfers, this paper provides some initial insight to the little-researched phenomenon of why some subsidiaries are isolated from knowledge-transfer activities within the multinational corporation (MNC). Knowledge transfer is framed as a problemistic search process initiated by the recipient unit. We show that knowledge flows from units that are perceived to be highly capable to units that perceive themselves to be highly capable. Knowledge flows are also associated with existing levels of communication and reciprocity. Taken together, these findings suggest that knowledge transfers in MNCs typically occur between highly capable members of an “in crowd,” and the isolated minority rarely, if ever, engages in knowledge-sharing activities. Finally, we show that the isolated minority underperforms other subsidiaries, suggesting the possibility of a “liability of internal isolation.”

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Knowledge Flows Within Multinational Corporations: Explaining Subsidiary Isolation and Its Performance Implications

Over the years, many multinational corporations (MNCs) have created overseas “scouting” units to tap into new ideas and opportunities in leading-edge markets, but with mixed outcomes. In this study, we describe the development of a European telecom firm's scouting unit in Silicon Valley during the 2000s, focusing on the specific approaches used by the scouting managers to build effective connections between Silicon Valley start-ups and the firm's business units back in Europe. We identify four distinct approaches for different types of opportunities, and we observe a clear sequencing of effort over time as the scouting managers built the necessary capabilities and credibility.

The external knowledge sourcing process in multinational corporations

https://research-api.cbs.dk/ws/files/44759386/michael_mol_ready_to_be_open_postprint.pdf

Ready to be open? Explaining the firm level barriers to benefiting from openness to external knowledge

This paper provides new theory and evidence about the benefits of openness on a firm’s innovation performance and, more importantly, the specific firm-level contingencies under which those benefits are more (or less) likely to be observed. Building on Dyer and Singh’s (1998) relational view, we suggest that a firm’s lack of resources and absorptive capacity, as well as its use of secrecy, are significant barriers to benefiting from openness to external knowledge. Using responses from 12,152 firms to the fourth and fifth UK versions of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) we generate findings consistent with our hypotheses.

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Ready to Be Open? Explaining the Firm-Level Barriers to Benefiting from Openness to External Knowledge

Multinational corporations (MNCs) frequently use their foreign subsidiaries to identify new opportunities to access external knowledge. This article builds on the attention-based view to examine how selective attention – the focus on certain issues or answers at the exclusion of others – works in the global knowledge-sourcing process in MNCs. The results reveal an intriguing paradox: while MNCs may establish foreign subsidiaries far from headquarters to identify diverse, novel knowledge, and overcome local search, headquarters’ decision makers tend to favor opportunities that are market proven and simply confirm what the MNC already knows. Subsidiary managers’ pre-selling and selling efforts, however, can play a pivotal role in overcoming that bias. This study combines detailed qualitative data with access to a proprietary database on 137 external knowledge-sourcing opportunities in one of the world’s largest MNCs in the telecommunications sector.

L. Felipe Monteiro

Papers

Knowledge Flows Within Multinational Corporations: Explaining Subsidiary Isolation and Its Performance Implications

The external knowledge sourcing process in multinational corporations

Ready to be open? Explaining the firm level barriers to benefiting from openness to external knowledge

Ready to Be Open? Explaining the Firm-Level Barriers to Benefiting from Openness to External Knowledge

Selective attention and the initiation of the global knowledge-sourcing process in multinational corporations