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://seg.fsu.edu/Library/From%20sectoral%20systems%20of%20innovation%20to%20socio-technical%20systems,%20Insights.pdf

From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory

Toward a new economics of science

Convention: a philosophical study

Wittgenstein's work remains, undeniably, now, that off one of those few philosophers who will be read by all future generations.

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. By L. Wittgenstein. Edited by G. H. Von Wright, R. Rhees and G. E. M. Anscombe. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Pp. 400. 37s. 6d. 1956. (Basil Blackwell, Oxford)

Differential approximation for radiative transfer in a nongrey gas near equilibrium.

A study is made of the propagation of acoustic waves in a semi-infinite expanse of radiating gas on one side of an infinite, plane, radiating wall. A solution is found, in particular, for the case of sinusoidal oscillations in both position and temperature of the wall. The solution is based on a single linear integro-differential equation that plays the same role here as does the classical wave equation in equilibrium acoustic theory. The solution is applicable throughout the range from a completely transparent to a completely opaque gas and from very low to very high temperatures. The solution appears, in general, as the sum of two types of travelling waves: (1) an essentially classical sound-wave, but with a slightly altered speed and a small amount of damping and (2) a radiation-induced wave whose speed and damping may be either large or small, depending on the temperature and absorptivity of the gas. Since the waves are coupled, both types will usually be present together, even in the special cases of pure motion or pure temperature variation of the wall.

Effect of thermal radiation on the propagation of plane acoustic waves

A small-disturbance solution is obtained for the steady two-dimensional flow over a sinusoidal wall of an inviscid gas in vibrational or chemical non-equilibrium. The results are based on a single, linear, third-order partial differential equation, which plays the same role here as does the Prandtl–Glauert equation in equilibrium flow. The solution is valid throughout the range from subsonic to supersonic speeds and for all values of the rate parameter from equilibrium to frozen flow (in both of which limits it reduces to Ackert's classical solution of the Prandtl–Glauert equation). The results illustrate in simple fashion some of the properties of non-equilibrium flow, such as the occurrence of pressure drag at subsonic speeds and the absence of the discontinuous phenomena that characterize the Prandtl–Glauert theory when the flow changes from subsonic to supersonic.

Non-equilibrium flow over a wavy wall

The effect of thermal radiation is investigated for the axisymmetric flow over the blunt body associated with a given paraboloidal shock wave. Radiative transfer is treated by means of the differential approximation, which applies to multidimensional flow and is valid throughout the entire range of temperature and optical thickness. The gas is assumed to be perfect and optically grey, and molecular-transport processes are neglected. A semi-analytical solution for the flow and radiation fields is obtained by the method of series truncation.Results are presented, in the strong-shock approximation, for various values of the appropriate dimensionless variables. In general, radiation is found to have a significant influence on temperature and density, moderate effect on velocity, and little effect on pressure. The stand-off distance between the shock wave and the body is found to decrease significantly with increasing radiation; the body shape is less affected. The anomalous behaviour of the gas temperature on the body streamline as obtained by earlier investigators in the optically thin case does not appear in the present work. The results thus show correct physical behaviour throughout the flow field for all values of optical thickness. The detailed flow quantities exhibit a number of features of multidimensional radiating flow. They also provide a check on the special assumptions made in other, more approximate treatments. Similarities between radiating flow and non-equilibrium reactive flow over blunt bodies are apparent.

Inviscid radiating flow over a blunt body

This article comes at a point in my work that is both advantageous and awkward. The awkwardness comes from the fact that I have recently published a book under the title What Engineers Know and How They Know It (hence the allusion in the title of the present piece). 1 This book contains most of what I think I know about what engineers know, and what I offer here will not be essentially new. The advantages arise because, like most authors, I have been having second thoughts about what I have written and about ideas I think I see more clearly now. I shall attempt here to repackage and summarize those ideas in a way that — I hope — will make more explicit the historiographic and epistemological structure behind them. This structure did not appear so clearly when I was occupied with the nuts and bolts of the work. A diagram has also occurred to me that embodies some of the key ideas in an easily remembered and suggestive form. I will present and discuss it in the concluding part of this material.

Walter G. Vincenti

Papers

Differential approximation for radiative transfer in a nongrey gas near equilibrium.

Effect of thermal radiation on the propagation of plane acoustic waves

Non-equilibrium flow over a wavy wall

Inviscid radiating flow over a blunt body

Engineering Knowledge, Type of Design, and Level of Hierarchy: Further Thoughts About What Engineers Know …