Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology

“Setting up foreign subsidiaries may also foster innovation and knowledge transfer, which increases the firm's long-term performance and viability (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut and Zander, 1992, 1993; Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998).”

“…network’ of affiliated companies (Ghoshal and Nohria, 1989; Nohria and Ghoshal, 1997), or a social community that crosses national boundaries (Kogut and Zander, 1992, 1993), the ability to manage dispersed capabilities effectively is seen by most scholars as a key source of competitive…”

“Following the proposal of absorptive capability by Cohen and Levinthal (1990), combinative capabilities by Kogut and Zander (1992) and capabilities by Amit and Schoemaker (1993), Teece et al. (1997) propose dynamic capability to explain why some organizations are more successful than others in…”

“Well-known types are combinatory capabilities (Kogut & Zander, 1992) and dynamic capabilities (Teece et al., 1997).”

“Design Research Technological research (Burgelman, Maidique, and Wheelwright, 2004) Resource-based innovation (Kogut and Zander, 1992) Knowledge generation, integration, and retention (Iansiti, 1997)”

“Codified knowledge, thus, can be characterised as information-like and objectified (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Spender, 1996).”

“But this literature has yet to make much connection with the literature on strategic management, where an equally rich toolbox of concepts, such as resource leverage, interfirm linkage and network advantages and the use of combinative capabilities, has been developed to make sense of firms’ competitive behavior (Praha…”

“, 1999; Zahra and George, 2002) begin by extending the knowledge-based approach (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995), and for this reason, the conceptualization of the paper follows this theoretical framework.”

“The validation of the questionnaire design and the reliability and validity of the constructs are discussed in detail in Zander [1991a] and Zander and Kogut [forthcoming].”

“…mechanisms that are normally taken for granted within the firm, such as standard operating procedures, routines, culture and informal networks (Kogut and Zander, 1992; 1996), so that coordination between explorative and exploitative processes must be achieved de novo through formal…”

“Kogut and Zander (1992) envision the firm as a coherent set of organizing principles, similar to the routines of Cyert and March (1963) and Nelson and Winter (1982), that link and combine complex and tacit knowledge held by skilled workers in collective sets of procedures, which often themselves…”

“…complementary assets downstream in the agricultural chain ( i.e., seed companies) to capture the value generated by knowledge-based assets through genetically modified seeds sold to farmers as those assets can be easily replicated by simply growing the seeds (Kalaitzandonakes and Bjornson, 1997).”

“Also, a prominent argument is that the formal and proprietary governance regime of the firm itself has special properties in the governance of knowledge exchanges where markets fail (for different perspectives, see Kogut and Zander, 1992; Nickerson and Zenger, 2004).”

“These dimensions of the small firm’s task environment have been investigated including the environment’s munificence, turbulence, heterogeneity, hostility, dynamics, customer structure, and competition (Covin and Covin 1990; Kolvereid 1992; Pelham and Wilson 1996).”

“7/ASQ, March 2007 Social Capital in Chinese Firms In large organizations, especially in multinational and multibusiness firms, lack of coordination across internal boundaries is a perennial problem (e.g., Kogut and Zander, 1992; Ghoshal, Korine, and Szulanski, 1994).”

“Our view of these mechanisms also complements ‘recombinatory’ (e.g. Galunic and Rodan, 1998; Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992) views of capabilities, which emphasize the manipulation of competences residing within the firm.”

“Consequently, by stimulating cross-fertilization or (re-)combinations of different kinds of knowledge, horizontal inflows of knowledge have been found to enhance innovation and the creation of new knowledge at the recipient level (e.g. Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967).”

“…firms are able to encourage, organize, and tap individual, group, and organizational learning about the firm’s current and potential markets determines the firm’s ability to discover why and how its resources should be reconfigured and capabilities upgraded (Kogut and Zander 1992; Mahoney 1995).”

“This approach links together the various strands of resource-based theory (Wernerfelt, 1984; Rumelt, 1984; Teece et al. 1997), including ‘routine-based’ (Nelson and Winter, 1982) and ‘knowledge-based’ (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Winter, 1987; Grant, 1996) theories.”

“Kogut and Zander [23] distinguish between “information” and “know-how” as two types of knowledge, viewing them as “what something means” and “knowing how to do some-”

“Such knowledge-in-use requires substantial codification so that it can be stored within the repository and made accessible for use with subsequent systems development projects (Kogut and Zander 1992, Walsh and Ungson 1991).”

“For more information, please contact scholarsarchive@byu.edu, ellen_amatangelo@byu.edu.”

“First, to the extent that innovation results from the novel combination of existing knowledge, the expansion of the firm’s knowledge base will lead to a greater number of possible knowledge configurations ( Kogut and Zander, 1992 ).”

“In contrast, other KBV works presuppose that knowledge resides at an individual level, thereby making knowledge integration the essential function for a firm (Grant, 1996a, 1996b; Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“They suggested that organizational units can leverage valuable resources and knowledge through interacting with one another (Hansen, 1999; Ibarra, 1993; Kogut & Zander, 1992; Tsai, 2002).”

“collective approaches to work are all desirable characteristics of knowledge creation, sharing, and the overall learning process—in other words, the socialization mode of tacit-to-tacit knowledge creation and the personalization mode of knowledge transfer (Argote, Gruenfeld, & Naquin, 1999; Bixler, 2002; Gold et al.,…”

“Ambiguity Far from being readily or easily transferred from the originator to a user, knowledge faces barriers and is relatively immobile (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Tiemessen et al., 1997).”

“While codified knowledge as patents, academic articles, and books among others, could easily be transmitted over long distances with rather low costs, tacit knowledge is bound to the individual as the source of knowledge (Kogut and Zander 1992).”

“Knowledge barriers arise because the know-how and technical knowledge required to successfully deploy complex process innovations typically goes far beyond simple awareness of the innovation and its potential benefits (Attewell 1992)—such knowledge tends to be 'sticky' (von Hippel 1994), and is usually acquired only o…”

“Thus, the knowledgebased view brings to TCE a new dimension of the efficiency explanation of entry mode choice by explicitly acknowledging the exploitation of the relative efficiency in transferring idiosyncratic technologies (Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“These ‘combinative capabilities’ allow the firm to synthesize its acquired resources, and build new applications from them, so as to generate innovative responses to unfamiliar or rapidly evolving environments.(10) We extend this notion to include collaborative relationships between MNEs and NGOs in developing country…”

“Organizational learning incorporates two important sub-processes: communication and combination (Cohen & Levinthal 1990, Kogut & Zander 1992 ).”

“In particular, the ‘knowledge-based view’ of the firm proposes knowledge as a key resource, and therefore is a development of the resource-based view as a source of competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“Others have described this process of integrating disparate knowledge and skills as knowledge transformation (Carlile and Rebentisch, 2003), combinative capacity (Kogut and Zander, 1992), transformative capacity (Garud”

“Moreover, capabilities and their underlying routines can be considered as forms of knowledge about how to carry out productive tasks (Langlois and Robertson, 1995; Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“In contrast, strategy research that takes a knowledge-based view of the firm has emphasized performance implications, but the theoretical focus here has been on firm-level rather than task-level variation in performance (e.g., Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“As strategic options (Kogut and Zander 1992), dynamic capabilities give the ability to pursue new opportunities, which are more likely to materialize in turbulent environments.”

“596 Research on the resource-based view of the firm illustrates that for most firms knowledge is the most important strategic resource and that the capability to create, integrate and apply knowledge is critical to the development of sustainable competitive advantages (Nonaka, 1994; Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“This theory influenced Nelson and Winter's (1982) theory of routines, which has become influential both as a component of evolutionary economics theory and as a research topic for strategy scholars interested in organizational capabilities (e.g., Kogut and Zander 1992, Teece et al. 1997).”

“Finally, some strategy researchers have suggested that firms may use acquisitions to expand their stock of knowledge (Huber, 1991; Karim and Mitchell, 2000; Kogut and Zander, 1992).”

“While we have been investigating how knowledge workers deal with tacit knowledge over the last three decades of organizational scholarship (e.g., Kogut and Zander 1992), we know relatively little about dealing with the opacity of modern technologies.”

“This is certainly a key and indeed explicit premise in each of the examples we have discussed, whether it be voluntary contributors to Wikipedia or the self-selection of employees into projects they like in Oticon (also see Lakhani and Wolf (2005) on its importance in open source projects).”

“Subsequent researchers have highlighted the importance of intangible resources, such as knowledge and scientific capabilities, to competitive advantage (Henderson and Cockburn 1994; Kogut and Zander 1992; Petraff 1993).”

“This is surprising given the widespread belief that firms differ significantly in their strategies and capabilities (e.g., Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991), arguments which assert that valuable firm-specific knowledge often drives vertical boundary decisions (e.g., Conner and Prahalad, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992, 199…”

“Although some of them may make the transition, acquiring new capabilities once again requires learning through experience, which is time consuming (Kogut & Zander, 1992).”

“The knowledge-based view (e.g., Kogut & Zander, 1992, 1993) portrays the MNE primarily as an arbitrageur and combiner of knowledge derived from multiple sites and brought together in some centralized process.”