World Investment Report

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

In this concluding article to the Management Science special issue on "Managing Knowledge in Organizations: Creating, Retaining, and Transferring Knowledge," we provide an integrative framework for organizing the literature on knowledge management. The framework has two dimensions. The knowledge management outcomes of knowledge creation, retention, and transfer are represented along one dimension. Properties of the context within which knowledge management occurs are represented on the other dimension. These properties, which affect knowledge management outcomes, can be organized according to whether they are properties of a unit (e.g., individual, group, organization) involved in knowledge management, properties of relationships between units or properties of the knowledge itself. The framework is used to identify where research findings about knowledge management converge and where gaps in our understanding exist. The article discusses mechanisms of knowledge management and how those mechanisms affect a unit's ability to create, retain and transfer knowledge. Emerging themes in the literature on knowledge management are identified. Directions for future research are suggested.

Managing Knowledge in Organizations: An Integrative Framework and Review of Emerging Themes

Since Geert Hofstede's Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Sage, 1980) was published, researchers have utilized Hofstede's cultural values framework in a wide variety of empirical studies. We review 180 studies published in 40 business and psychology journals and two international annual volumes between 1980 and June 2002 to consolidate what is empirically verifiable about Hofstede's cultural values framework. We discuss limitations in the Hofstede-inspired research and make recommendations for researchers who use Hofstede's framework in the future.

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A quarter century of Culture's Consequences: a review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede's cultural values framework

This paper introduces the concept of knowledge networks to explain why some business units are able to benefit from knowledge residing in other parts of the company while others are not. The core premise of this concept is that a proper understanding of effective interunit knowledge sharing in a multiunit firm requires a joint consideration of relatedness in knowledge content among business units and the network of lateral interunit relations that enables task units to access related knowledge. Results from a study of 120 new product development projects in 41 business units of a large multiunit electronics company showed that project teams obtained more existing knowledge from other units and completed their projects faster to the extent that they had short interunit network paths to units that possessed related knowledge. In contrast, neither network connections nor extent of related knowledge alone explained the amount of knowledge obtained and project completion time. The results also showed a contingent effect of having direct interunit relations in knowledge networks: While established direct relations mitigated problems of transferring noncodified knowledge, they were harmful when the knowledge to be transferred was codified, because they were less needed but still involved maintenance costs. These findings suggest that research on knowledge transfers and synergies in multiunit firms should pursue new perspectives that combine the concepts of network connections and relatedness in knowledge content.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3086019.pdf

Knowledge Networks: Explaining Effective Knowledge Sharing in Multiunit Companies

This paper reports on a multimethod study of knowledge transfer in international acquisitions. Using questionnaire data we show that the transfer of technological know-how is facilitated by communication, visits & meetings, and by time elapsed since acquisition, while the transfer of patents is associated with the articulability of the knowledge, the size of the acquired unit, and the recency of the acquisition. Using case study data, we show that the immediate post-acquisition period is characterized by imposed one-way transfers of knowledge from the acquirer to the acquired, but over time this gives way to high-quality reciprocal knowledge transfer.

/pdf/knowledge-transfer-in-international-acquisitions-1hq33m4jj4.pdf

Knowledge transfer in international acquisitions

This paper addresses issues of global innovation in multinational corporations by examining the patterns of communication and control in international RD (2) local and international adaptors both focus their communication on their internal corporate network; and (3) international creators have strong internally and externally oriented networks of relationships. The implications for the management of global innovation are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

http://faculty.london.edu/jbirkinshaw/assets/documents/Patterns_of_control_communication_in_international_research_journal1998.pdf

Innovation in multinational corporations: control and communication patterns in international r&d operations

This paper examines the validity of knowledge as a contingency variable. Building on recent advances in thinking about the dimensions of knowledge assets (Winter 1987, Zander and Kogut 1995), we argue that such dimensions might have an important influence on organization structure. More specifically, we focus on two dimensions of knowledge--observability and system embeddedness--and their influence over the level of unit autonomy and interunit integration in an international network of R&D units. Statistical analysis of questionnaire responses from 110 R&D unit managers show strong association between the dimensions of knowledge and organization structure. It also indicates partial support for the "fit" hypothesis in contingency theory.The paper makes two important contributions to the knowledge management literature. First, we find support for the contingency logic, suggesting that effective organization design has to take into account the underlying characteristics of the firm's knowledge base. Second, we shed light on a relatively neglected dimension of knowledge that we callsystem embeddedness. This is the extent to which knowledge is a function of the social and physical system in which it exists. In the statistical analysis it emerges as a strong predictor of organization structure. Moreover, it also appears to be conceptually distinct from the tacit-articulate dimension that is normally emphasized. This allows us to speculate on four generic forms that a firm's knowledge might take, that we label integrated, isolated, opaque, and transparent. These are discussed using examples from the data.

http://faculty.london.edu/jbirkinshaw/assets/documents/65knowledge_as_a_contingency_variable.pdf

Knowledge as a Contingency Variable: Do the Characteristics of Knowledge Predict Organization Structure?

Drawing on a sample of foreign R&D units in 17 Swedish MNCs, this paper examines how variations in the intensity of interaction with local partners - 'embeddedness' - and with other corporate units - 'integration' - affect the propensity of foreign subsidiaries to transfer technology to their parent organizations.

Robert Nobel

Papers

Knowledge transfer in international acquisitions

Innovation in multinational corporations: control and communication patterns in international r&d operations

Knowledge as a Contingency Variable: Do the Characteristics of Knowledge Predict Organization Structure?

Organizational Characteristics and Reverse Technology Transfer1

Foreign research and development in Swedish multinationals