This paper investigates the mechanisms through which organizations develop dynamic capabilities, defined as routinized activities directed to the development and adaptation of operating routines. It addresses the role of (1) experience accumulation, (2) knowledge articulation, and (3) knowledge codifi- cation processes in the evolution of dynamic, as well as operational, routines. The argument is made that dynamic capabilities are shaped by the coevolution of these learning mechanisms. At any point in time, firms adopt a mix of learning behaviors constituted by a semiautomatic accumulation of experience and by deliberate investments in knowledge articulation and codification activities. The relative effectiveness of these capability-building mechanisms is analyzed here as contingent upon selected features of the task to be learned, such as its frequency, homogeneity, and degree of causal ambiguity. Testable hypotheses about these effects are derived. Somewhat counterintuitive implications of the analysis include the relatively superior effectiveness of highly deliberate learning processes such as knowledge codification at lower levels of frequency and homogeneity of the organizational task, in contrast with common managerial practice.

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Deliberate Learning and the Evolution of Dynamic Capabilities

http://www.oni.uerj.br/media/downloads/1-s2.0-S0048733399000554-main.pdf

The dynamics of innovation: from national systems and "Mode" 2 to a triple helix of university-industry-government relations.

Abstract The Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations is compared with alternative models for explaining the current research system in its social contexts. Communications and negotiations between institutional partners generate an overlay that increasingly reorganizes the underlying arrangements. The institutional layer can be considered as the retention mechanism of a developing system. For example, the national organization of the system of innovation has historically been important in determining competition. Reorganizations across industrial sectors and nation states, however, are induced by new technologies (biotechnology, ICT). The consequent transformations can be analyzed in terms of (neo-)evolutionary mechanisms. University research may function increasingly as a locus in the “laboratory” of such knowledge-intensive network transitions.

The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and

The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory

This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation. Contributors to this volume - Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo William Lazonick, INSEAD Walter W. Powell, Stanford University Keith Pavitt, SPRU Alice Lam, Brunel University Keith Smith, INTECH Charles Edquist, Linkoping David Mowery, University of California, Berkeley Mary O'Sullivan, INSEAD Ove Granstrand, Chalmers Bjorn Asheim, University of Lund Rajneesh Narula, Copenhagen Business School Antonello Zanfei, Urbino Kristine Bruland, University of Oslo Franco Malerba, University of Bocconi Nick Von Tunzelmann, SPRU Ian Miles, University of Manchester Bronwyn Hall, University of California, Berkeley Bart Verspagen , ECIS Francisco Louca, ISEG Manuel M. Godinho, ISEG Richard R. Nelson, Mario Pianta, Urbino Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

This paper attempts a greater precision and clarity of understanding concerning the nature and economic significance of knowledge and its variegated forms by presenting "the skeptical economist's guide to 'tacit knowledge."' It critically reconsiders the ways in which the concepts of tacitness and codification have come to be employed by economists and develops a more coherent re-conceptualization of these aspects of knowledge production and distribution activities. It seeks also to show that a proposed alternative framework for the study of knowledge codification activities offers a more useful guide for further research directed to informing public policies for science, technological innovation and long-run economic growth. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.

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The explicit economics of knowledge codification and tacitness

https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/786012/guid-7f6e0aea-60c7-494c-b8ce-3a0836ec63d0-ASSET1.0

Network structure and the diffusion of knowledge

The process by which knowledge or information evolves and spreads through the economy evolves changing its nature between tacit and codified forms The process of codification includes three aspects: model building, language creation and the writing of messages Recent technical changes in several technologies have impinged on these three activities and changed the costs and benefits from each of them, generally lowering the costs of codification Technical changes have also facilitated the diffusion of codified knowledge, which has increased its value Due to the temporal relations among the three aspects of codification, the ongoing process in which codification takes place may be path-dependent Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press

The Economics of Codification and the Diffusion of Knowledge

Recent theory has predicted that if competing technologies operate under dynamic increasing returns, one, possibly inferior, technology will dominate the market. The history of nuclear power technology is used to illustrate these results. Light water is considered inferior to other technologies, yet it dominates the market for power reactors. This is largely due to the early adoption and heavy development by the U.S. Navy of light water for submarine propulsion. When a market for civilian power emerged, light water had a large head start, and by the time other technologies were ready to enter the market, light water was entrenched.

/pdf/nuclear-power-reactors-a-study-in-technological-lock-in-3x7hsrg56l.pdf

Nuclear Power Reactors: A Study in Technological Lock-in

Theoretical literature on the economics of technology has emphasized the effects on technological trajectories of positive feedbacks. In a competition among technologies that all perform a similar function, the presence of increasing returns to adoptions can force all but one technology from the market. Furthermore, the victor need not be the superior technology. This paper provides an empirical study of one technological competition which illuminates this theoretical work. It uses theoretical results to explain why chemical control of agricultural pests remains the dominant technology in spite of many claims that it is inferior to its main competitor, integrated pest management. Copyright 1996 by Royal Economic Society.

Robin Cowan

Papers

The explicit economics of knowledge codification and tacitness

Network structure and the diffusion of knowledge

The Economics of Codification and the Diffusion of Knowledge

Nuclear Power Reactors: A Study in Technological Lock-in

Sprayed to Death: Path Dependence, Lock-in and Pest Control Strategies