Knowledge networking : structure and performance in networks of practice

TLDR: In this article, the authors investigated the individual level activities and their relationship to individual outcomes of centrality and performance in a multinational new media consulting company and found that there are different patterns of activities related to knowledge integration depending on whether efficient knowledge integration or flexible knowledge integration is the goal.

Abstract: Multinational organizations create sustainable competitive advantage based on their ability to effectively integrate knowledge that is increasingly dispersed throughout their global operations. This knowledge resides in specialized form among the organization's individual members, and as individuals perform their everyday work tasks, they participate in activities related to the firm's knowledge integration processes. In so doing, individuals build and participate in emergent networks that have been labeled networks of practice, which spread across the multinational's intra-organizational boundaries as well as across its legal boundaries. Grounded in the knowledge-based view of the firm and in particular theories of knowledge integration, we investigate these individual level activities and their relationship to individual outcomes of centrality and performance. Using survey and social network data from a multinational new media consulting company, we recreated the informal advice networks for the entire multinational of 1698 individuals spread across 28 offices (84.7% response rate). We find results through structural equation modeling that suggest that organizations should support individual level activities that include not only the use of internal knowledge sources but also the use of informal, external knowledge sources, such as participation in interorganizational networks of practice. Research results also suggest that there are different patterns of activities related to knowledge integration depending on whether efficient knowledge integration or flexible knowledge integration is the goal. Implications for theories of the knowledge-based view of the firm, the multinational, and networks of practice are discussed as well as some implications for practice.