1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Research context and the methodology

4- Findings

5- Discussion

References

Abstract

Firms continuously report increased competitive value gains from the use of business intelligence and analytics (BI&A), however, little is known about how insights from BI&A are transformed to added value to date. We have conducted fourteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a sample of informants in CEO positions, IT managers, CIO, Heads of R&D, as well as Market Managers from nine medium or large-sized European firms. Applying the absorptive capacity’s theoretical lens, we have provided evidence that absorptive capacity’s capabilities are an underlying foundation in the process of transforming BI&A triggered insights into valuable knowledge. Moreover, this process is supported by technological, human, and relationship assets.

Introduction

The amount of data and information generated on a daily basis continuously increases, forcing firms to increasingly rely on external knowledge and information to enhance firm innovation and performance (Benner & Tushman, 2015; Ireland, Hitt, & Vaidyanath, 2002). With the quick development of computer intelligence as well as the appearance of “big data” concept, business intelligence and analytics has become an increasingly important concept for researchers and practitioners (Chen, Chiang, & Storey, 2012). Although BI&A were initially used for decision-making support activities, they have been increasingly considered for organizational learning and adjustments, improving operational efficiency, and strengthening organizational intelligence (Trieu, 2017). A survey conducted by IBM Institute for Business Value and MIT Sloan Management Review reported that firms are increasingly gaining competitive advantage from analytics (58% of the more than 4500 respondents reported competitive value gains from analytics) (Kiron & Shockley, 2011). Not surprisingly, Gartner’s survey on IT Spending found BI&A to be a top priority for most of the analyzed firms and predicted that BI&A would remain one of the top foci for the leading firms (Gartner, 2013). On the other hand, firms have acknowledged the potential of BI&A to generate insights and knowledge from both external and internal sources of knowledge (Shehzad, Khan, & Naeem, 2013; Wang, 2014; Wixom, Watson, & Werner, 2011; Yeoh & Koronios, 2010). As the complexity of the data is increasing, humans have difficulties interpreting the external information due to limited mental capacities (Jansen, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2005; Sammut & Sartawi, 2012). More information is not necessarily beneficial for the organization since its information and knowledge processing capacity is limited as well (Simsek, 2009). As a result, organizations develop information filters and routines to cope with bounded rationality (March, 1978; Nelson & Winter, 1982). BI&A have found it possible to expand the human mental capacity as well as the firm’s absorptive capacity by increasing the ability of individuals and firms to receive, store, analyze and transfer information with fewer errors (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000; Elbashir, Collier, Sutton, Davern, & Leech, 2013; Simon, 1991). While various streams of studies have provided research on the BI&A potential, there has been little attention given to the improvement of understanding the role of BI&A in the process of knowledge generation from external data and with it, the underlying mechanisms that facilitate this process.

Introduction

Theoretical background and hypotheses

Method

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Abstract

The ability of an organization to cope with radical technological change is regarded to be heavily dependent on its ability to absorb and apply knowledge from its environment. This study investigates the role of organizational structure in driving absorptive capacity and uncovers the role of the emergent phenomenon of organizational energy as the enabler of this relationship. A field study was conducted among firms that are challenged by the disruptive nature of Cloud computing. Our results show that organizational design affects the degree of mobilization of an organization’s affective, cognitive and behavioral resources, which in turn influence the effectiveness of learning processes related to the absorption and exchange of knowledge within the organization. Furthermore, they reveal the positive relationship between the enactment of absorptive capacity and the successful adoption of Cloud technology for incumbent firms. The findings contribute to our understanding of the micro-foundations of absorptive capacity and how positive organizational phenomena facilitate effective adoption and implementation of emerging technologies.

Introduction

Rapid technological change constitutes a powerful competitive force that bears significant strategic implications for organizations (Adner, 2002; Day et al., 2004; Hamilton, 1985). Schumpeter (1934) famously described such technological change as a force of “creative destruction” which can erode or reinforce the competitive advantage of all firms involved in the affected industries. Firms and organizations operating in such environments, however, are not completely at the mercy of said forces. Predicting and managing the implications of such change has been found to be related to the ability of organizations to absorb and utilize knowledge from their environment, i.e. their absorptive capacity (Grant, 1996; Lane et al., 2006; Zander and Kogut, 1995). Recent empirical research has shed light on the antecedents of absorptive capacity by constructively synthesizing theories of learning, managerial cognition, the knowledge-based view of the firm and dynamic capabilities (for a review see Volberda et al., 2010). Consequently, extant studies have revealed a breadth of contributing factors, traced at different levels of analysis, such as managerial, inter-organizational, intra-organizational or environmental. At the intra-organizational level, organizational design has been identified as a key factor that has a major influence on absorptive capacity (Van den Bosch et al., 1999).

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Methodology

4- Results

5- Discussion, contributions and limitations

References

Abstract

This paper examines the strategies and routines adopted by small and medium-sized suppliers to develop capabilities that enable them to engage in upgrading, despite a precarious relational and institutional context. To this end, we investigate the strategic behaviour of two Bangladeshi garment manufacturers. Both started out as small suppliers for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and have eventually grown into micro-multinationals. The firms are involved in ‘tacit promissory contracting’ with their buyers, a specific form of international outsourcing relationship. The study adopts a multiple case study design that involves interviews with managers/owners of the firms. The analysis yields two key findings. Both firms have devised strategies and taken coherent routines involving actions to develop skills and motivation needed to perform appropriate functional activities (i.e. pre-production, production and post-production) as they embarked on different stages of upgrading. Furthermore, firms have designed routines to internalise the challenges originating from their relationships with their buyers and the institutional environment at the time that had the potential to affect their upgrading goals. The paper contributes to IB studies by highlighting how suppliers, even in a precarious context, can control their own strategies and routines, so as to develop capabilities that allow them to gradually redress the power imbalance between themselves and their buyers.

Introduction

The present study sets out to examine how two Bangladeshi garment manufacturers built capabilities to progress from one stage of upgrading to another despite a challenging institutional environment. We define capabilities as the “resources and ability needed to generate and manage technical change, including skills, knowledge and experience, and institutional structure and linkages” (Bell and Pavitt, 1997:89). The concept of upgrading is defined as “a process of improving the ability of a firm to move to a more profitable and/or technologically sophisticated capital and skill-intensive economic niche” (Gereffi, 1999:38). The findings contribute to the literature on micro foundations of routines and capabilities by focusing on the question of what organisations can do to create and change capabilities (cf. Felin et al., 2012; Felin et al., 2015; Foss, 2009). Our study also contributes to research on the absorptive capacity of emerging market firms. More specifically, to the emerging theme of barriers to absorptive capacity and what firms can do to overcome these (Cuervo-Cazurra and Rui, 2017). Last but not least, our study contributes to integration efforts between the international business (IB) and global value chain (GVC) analysis literatures (Sinkovics et al., 2018). While the term ‘global value chain’ is increasingly utilised in the IB literature, there is a steadily growing field dedicated to the analysis of GVCs based on the pioneering work of a multidisciplinary group of scholars (Sturgeon, 2009). The GVC analysis literature is mostly focused on externalisation and inter-firm relationships through the lenses of governance and upgrading (Lee and Gereffi, 2015). It provides a very useful entry point for the investigation of knowledge flows and innovation dynamics that take place outside of the hierarchical boundaries of multinational enterprises (MNE) (De Marchi et al., 2014). To this end, we draw on the economic upgrading concept from the GVC analysis literature (Humphrey and Schmitz, 2002) to investigate the development and modification of capabilities in emerging market supplier firms over time. Bilgili et al. (2016) divide emerging markets into three categories based on their degree of institutional and factor market development. Bangladesh belongs to the category of traditional emerging economies because of its low levels on both dimensions (Bilgili et al., 2016). While studies on mid-range emerging economies and newly developed economies are steadily increasing, indepth case studies in traditional emerging economies are rare due to access difficulties. The present paper provides detailed case studies on two large garment manufacturing companies that successfully passed through all stages of functional upgrading and eventually developed into emerging market multinationals (EMNE). Generally, firms in traditional emerging markets have been found to adopt a short term focus and avoid more risky strategies requiring considerable investment (cf. Awate et al., 2012). The volatile and unpredictable institutional environment and underdeveloped factor markets tend to hamper firms’ attempts to improve their capabilities (cf. Hitt et al., 2005). As a consequence, Bilgili et al. (2016) propose that firms from traditional emerging markets are more likely to engage in duplicative imitation learning as opposed to creative imitation and innovation. They furthermore propose that the main focus of firms from this type of emerging markets is on knowledge from external sources and on objective knowledge rather than on internal sources of knowledge resulting in only small increases in absorptive capacity.

2- Literature review and hypotheses development

3- Samples and measures

4- Empirical results

5- Discussion

References

Introduction

In order to get rid of the fetter of the old technology and technology lock-in, the enterprises have to forget outdated knowledge and abandon the established thoughts and core rigidity. Organizational forgetting is a way for an enterprise to discard its obsolete knowledge and call into question its pre-established beliefs in order to adapt to various environmental changes (Anand et al., 1998). It can abandon some of the existing organizational inertia, and provide new cognitive space for innovation and, therefore, generate new knowledge in the organization to be recognized and nurtured, and, subsequently, inspire innovation. The complexity of the external environment causes a business, which does not forget outdated practices, to lose dynamism needed to remain vibrant and competitive. As an example, Kodak was bankrupt, partially because of sticking to the perception of its superiority in the conventional photo making industry at a time when the digital technology was developing and undergoing maturity day by day. It seems well accepted that, organizational forgetting may lead to the ability of an enterprise to innovate and may even directly impact the firm’s survival. However, most existing literatures about organizational forgetting are limited to theoretical discussion, much of the work has focused on the description or conceptual model rather than the impact of organizational forgetting on enterprise management and innovation. A reasonable theoretical framework and more empirical tests in needed to provide evidence. Literature also shows that changing attitudes and conventions does not always lead to the successful development of new products because organizational forgetting process takes up time and consumes limited resources. It is noted that the change in the values or project routines without careful assessment may weaken the team’s development ability (Akgun et al., 2006 ). In fact, changes in values and conventions will not have any impact on organizational operation and organizational performance, unless such changes are really applied. If the organization lacks the necessary skills, intentional organizational forgetting is incomplete and will result in ineffective functioning of the team. In this sense, the organizational forgetting does not necessarily lead to successful development, the development team also needs the ability to actually apply this change into the project development process. However, existing literature does not give a clear explanation for this ability. Organizational knowledge-base is adjusted by devaluation of knowledge (forgetting) and adding new knowledge (absorption) to achieve a new dynamic balance. Hence, it is necessary and an extension of natural logic to construct an analysis based on such interactive process in order to answer the intrinsic mechanism of organizational forgetting on innovation. Absorption capacity is considered to include identifying, assimilating, and integrating new knowledge; it is a dynamic process capability. Organizational forgetting has an impact on knowledge cognition, conversion and integration approach in the process of innovation. Therefore, this study believes that absorptive capacity may be the important explanatory variables with respect to organizational forgetting and innovation. Although prior researches have mentioned that organizational forgetting may correlate with absorptive capacity (Gabriel et al.,2012; Jin et al.,2009), there is practically no empirical evidence in this regard. In addition, environmental contingency theory suggests that influence of environmental contexts should be considered to enhance the predictive powers of research (Barney et al. 2011).

Absorptive capacity (AC) serves as an important component of a manufacturer’s learning capabilities by creating a set of organisational routines and processes (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George, 2002). It can help a manufacturer develop new knowledge as well as adapt existing knowledge into new applications (Lane et al., 2006; Lawson and Potter, 2012; Nagati and Rebolledo, 2012; Whitehead et al., 2016). Researchers report that AC is positively associated with a manufacturer’s performance and capabilities (Tu et al., 2006; Francalanci and Morabito, 2008; Kauppi et al., 2013; Tavani et al., 2014; Iyengar et al., 2015), including product innovation (Cepeda-Carrion et al., 2012; Ritala and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2013; Saenz et al., 2014). Both mediation (Francalanci and Morabito, 2008; Cepeda-Carrion et al., 2012; Setia and Patel, 2013; Saenz et al., 2014; Iyengar et al., 2015) and moderation (Patel et al., 2012; Kauppi et al., 2013; Ritala and Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2013; Tavani et al., 2014) models have been used to empirically investigate the relationships between AC and performance outcomes. However, the contingent conditions that influence AC’s effect on product innovation have been overlooked in previous research. The sociotechnical systems theory proposes that a firm is composed of both social and technical systems (Pasmore, 1988). They should be treated as interdependent aspects of an organisation and be jointly designed according to internal and external environments (Pasmore, 1988; Huber and Brown, 1991). Trust and information systems reflect the social and technical aspects of an organisational system (Mayer et al., 1995; Alavi and Leidner, 2001). An organisational design that only considers one of the two aspects will be inefficient for knowledge absorption and product innovation (Huber and Brown, 1991; Lane et al., 2006). In addition, a knowledge-based view of the firm argues that firms can gain competitive advantages by combining and creating tacit and explicit knowledge and they have different properties and require different mechanisms for absorption (Nonaka, 1994; Zhang et al., 2015). Trust and information systems provide two mechanisms governing the flows and applications of tacit and explicit knowledge, respectively (Malhotra et al., 2005; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Roberts et al., 2012). Trust enables employees to access each other’s private experiences and build a social system for them to share know-how, facilitating the socialisation and externalisation of tacit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). Trust also motivates cooperative behaviour and reduces opportunism in cross-functional collaboration, which promotes joint learning (Yeung et al., 2009; Zahra and George, 2002). Information systems facilitate a firm to analyse, distribute and record large amount of information quickly and efficiently, and hence provide a technical system to combine and internalise explicit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994; Setia and Patel, 2013). Researchers argue that social integration mechanisms can build connectedness and shared meaning among employees which facilitate the free flow of knowledge (Zahra and George, 2002; Todorova and Durisin, 2007) and that the synergies between information technologies and AC affect firm performance (Roberts et al., 2012). However, there is a lack of explanation of how trust and information systems jointly affect knowledge absorption and how they influence the effects of AC remains underaddressed (Hotho et al., 2012; Marabelli and Newell, 2014; Iyengar et al., 2015). In addition, Volberda et al.

Absorptive capacity (AC) is usually conceptualised as a dynamic capability that allows firms to generate competitive advantages from the external sources available in the environment (Zahra and George 2002; Lane, Koka, and Pathak 2006; Flor and Oltra 2013; Flatten, Adams, and Brettel 2015). This explains the increasing interest in research identifying its main antecedents. According to Cohen and Levinthal (1990), a firm’s AC does not simply depend on the organisation’s direct interface with the external environment; but also on the transfer of knowledge across and within subunits and on the capacity to apply that knowledge. That is to say, AC is an organisational process (Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Flor and Oltra 2013), which depends on the organisational context and practices. In spite of that, research on the intra-organisational antecedents of AC is scarce (Flatten, Adams, and Brettel 2015). This paper examines the role of leadership as an antecedent of AC. Literature notes that top management leaders influence each element of the learning system and therefore AC (Bass 1985; Wang et al. 2011) because they are crucial in putting forward the organisational context that fosters the absorption, assimilation and application of knowledge. According to previous research, the leadership style that fosters the most learning processes is transformational leadership (TL) (Garcia-Morales, Llorens-Montes and Verdu-Jover 2008; Sun and Anderson 2012; Flatten, Adams, and Brettel 2015). However, the research on this connection is still scarce and literature on this field highlights the need for additional research in this line (Volberda, Foss, and Lyles 2010; Sun and Anderson 2012). Furthermore, understanding the organisational catalysts by which TL exerts its influence on AC requires further research (Volberda, Foss, and Lyles 2010; Sun and Anderson 2012; Dinh et al. 2014). The present paper tries to fill this gap in the literature. Following Jung, Chow, and Wu (2003), we suggest that TL affects AC because the former encourages the employees’ behaviours and the organisational practices that organisational learning requires. The objective of this paper is to examine whether different organisational characteristics aimed at facilitating organisational learning mediate the relationship between TL and AC. This study contributes in opening the black box between TL and AC. This paper is structured as follows. In Sections 2 and 3, we provide a literature review on the relationships among TL, AC and organisational learning facilitators and propose the research hypotheses. In Section 4, we describe the methodology of the empirical study. In Section 5, we present the results obtained through partial least squares analyses. Finally, in Section 6, we discuss conclusions and implications.

Knowledge is considered the most important component of any organization, irrespective of the type of organization, their knowledge structures, the type of Processes and the type of the products they are producing (Nonaka, 1994). In the view point of resource based theory, knowledge is created inside the boundaries of the organization; therefore, Organizations focus on the value of their knowledge created by them inside their boundaries. They make it unique so that they are able to make their products significantly different from their competitors. Further, they apply their knowledge which they have created by them in such a manner that it becomes difficult for their competitors to copy it for their processes. In this way they make their knowledge a non-substitutable component of their organizations (Grant, 1991; Hitt et al, 2016; Nonaka,1991) However, in this turbulent environment it is not possible for any organization to create all the required knowledge inside their boundaries; therefore, most of the organizations upgrade their knowledge base by getting the required knowledge form outside their boundaries from different sources instead of generating all the knowledge inside (Grant, 1996; Teece et al, 1996; Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). The organizations require specific capabilities to acquire and absorb new knowledge coming from outside their boundaries and this capability is called absorptive capacity. Now-a-days instead of focusing on the single source of knowledge through their limited internal capacity to generate all the required knowledge, the organizations focus on enhancement of absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Minbaeva et al, 2014). The construct “absorptive capacity” (ACAP) was introduced by Cohen and Levinthal (1990) and is defined as the ability of an organization to acquire new knowledge from outside the boundaries, its assimilation and application in its processes.

R&D outsourcing, that is, the purchasing of R&D or technological knowledge from external providers, can provide the firm with many advantages (for a recent review of international R&D outsourcing, see Contractor et al., 2010). Thus, some scholars argue that R&D outsourcing is beneficial for the firm’s competitive advantage, because a firm increases its diversity of knowledge, helping it innovate more (Berchicci, 2013; Bertrand and Mol, 2013; Nieto and Rodrı´guez, 2011). However, other scholars counter that R&D outsourcing may have a negative effect on the firm’s competitive advantage, because the firm is not developing the capability to create the technological knowledge it purchases since firms typically learn by doing (e.g., Bettis et al., 1992; Helfat, 1994; Pe´ rez-Lun˜o and Valle-Cabrera, 2011; Weigelt, 2009). Thus, it appears that we have a debate regarding the benefits of R&D outsourcing, and this debate may be driven in part by a limited understanding of the drivers that lead firms to invest more in R&D outsourcing. Therefore, this study fills an important gap in the literature by developing theory to explain firms’ investments in R&D outsourcing. I use the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV) (Grant, 2013; Kogut and Zander, 1992, 1993) and link it to the concept of absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George, 2002) to propose a separation between the mechanisms that enable the firm to identify and integrate outsourced R&D knowledge into the firm, and the mechanisms that enable the firm to use outsourced R&D knowledge to innovate. I propose that outsourced R&D knowledge can be viewed as a type of external knowledge and that firms with particular characteristics that build their absorptive capacity are more likely to invest more in R&D outsourcing. Specifically, first, I propose that firms that engage with foreign customers and with foreign suppliers are more likely to invest more in R&D outsourcing. The reason is that these firms develop an ability to understand new and complex external knowledge in their relationships, and this ability becomes useful for integrating outsourced R&D knowledge. These mechanisms reflect the potential absorptive capacity of the firm. Second, I argue that firms that have more skilled employees and invest more in internal R&D are also more likely to invest more in R&D outsourcing.

مقاله سال 2016

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) entails the extent to which an organization’s top managers emphasize risk-taking, proactivity, and innovativeness in firm strategy (Covin et al., 2006; Lyon et al., 2000; Miller, 1983). EO is an important underpinning of the extent to which entrepreneurial behavior in the firm is encouraged, undertaken, and rewarded (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996), and evidence suggests that more entrepreneurially oriented firms tend to perform better, especially in dynamic environments (Rosenbusch et al., 2013; Wiklund and Shepherd, 2005). Considering these performance benefits and in line with an emerging emphasis on drivers of EO in literature, Ruiz-Ortega et al. (2013) recently explored whether firms operating in dynamic environments are indeed more entrepreneurially oriented. Although the expected benefits of EO in dynamic environments are well documented, and EO is instrumental for capturing emerging opportunities, top managers may struggle to foster EO due to the increased uncertainty inherent to dynamic environments. Uncertainty may instead trigger conservative responses through reliance on familiar routines (Muurlink et al., 2012) and attempts to improve efficiency (Chattopadhyay et al., 2001). Thus, the question remains: How can top managers enhance entrepreneurial orientation in dynamic environments?

In this study we examine the role of the top management team (TMT) in enhancing EO in dynamic environments. While previous studies have mainly investigated the relation between EO and firm performance, we draw on upper echelons theory and bolster the increasing emphasis on TMTs in EO scholarship (Miller and Le Breton-Miller, 2011; Van Doorn et al., 2013). Upper echelons theory proposes that strategic choices reflect the idiosyncrasies of decision makers and recent studies indeed have highlighted the impact of compositional attributes of top managers on EO (Boling et al., 2015; Miller and Le Breton-Miller, 2011; Sciascia et al., 2013; Wales et al., 2013). However, we argue that going beyond demographic attributes is an important next step in understanding EO from an upper echelons perspective.

We extend upper echelons based inquiries into EO by contending that it is important to take into account the tendency of the TMT to acquire external information to improve judgment accuracy on emerging opportunities in dynamic environments. We develop this premise by drawing on the emerging literature on TMT external advice-seeking, which suggests that top managers rely on advisors to inform their judgments under uncertainty (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006) (e.g., such as the uncertainty inherent to dynamic environments (Fredrickson and Mitchell, 1984; Heavey et al., 2009b). Given that entrepreneurial opportunities in dynamic environments require TMTs to process information that is relatively new to the firm, we additionally assess TMT absorptive capacity, i.e. their ability to filter, process, and assimilate new information (Zahra et al., 2009). TMTs may better capitalize on external insights that enable understanding of emerging and future opportunities in the environment when they have the absorptive capacity to adequately interpret these new insights and its implications for firm strategy (Goll et al., 2007).

مقاله سال 2016

 مجله مدیریت مالی چند ملیتی – Journal of Multinational Financial Management

Multinational companies (MNCs), particularly in technology intensive firms have been shifting their operational formats to project-oriented organization adopting temporary team to deal with increasing complex environment through projects (e.g., Maidique & Hayes, 1984; Sydow, Lindkvist, & DeFillippi, 2004). Particularly, in the automotive industry, Clark, Chew, and Fujimoto (1987) found that new product development (NPD hereinafter) projects in the automotive industry consist, to a large extent, of investment in research and development (R&D) and represent a substantial commitment of company resources to ensure advances in technology through the introduction of timely new products to the marketplace. As such, growth and sustainability in MNCs automotive industry depend largely on the successful management of the resources dedicated to completing both short- and long-run projects (e.g. Brady & Davies, 2004). Short-run NPD project completion refers to the performance of the project on the targeted timeframe and within a predetermined budget, whereas long-run NPD project performance is associated with the organizational potential created through the knowledge transfer from current projects to future projects (Shenhar, Levy, & Dvir, 1997).

Sivasubramaniam, Liebowitz, and Lackman (2012), in their report of meta-analysis on NPD team performance, revealed that team ability is one of the key influencing factors on project effectiveness and efficiency. This echoes the arguments of Grant1996) and Collins and Smith (2006) that technology intensive firms in rapidly changing industries derive their primary competitive advantage through the ability of their employees to create and manage knowledge for creating innovation. Moreover, Brady and Davies (2004) and Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) explained that the ability of project team is valuable resource because high capability team could engender the ‘project-to-project’ learning by capturing project knowledge, transferring lessons learned and experience in the current project to a subsequent one. The ability in this regard is analogous to project team’s knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP hereinafter), which Cohen and Levinthal (1990) categorized as the determinant of effective knowledge recipient. Zahra and George (2002) delineated the ACAP concept into realized ACAP, employees’ ability to utilize existing knowledge for project success and potential ACAP, employees’ ability to transfer and apply their key learnings and experience to create new or innovative projects. Previous research shows support for the utility of two different determinants of knowledge receiver to facilitate project outcomes: project team’s realized ACAP has positive influence on short-run NPD project performance whist project team’s potential ACAP on long-run NPD project performance (Popaitoon & Siengthai, 2014).

However, Kim (1997) pointed that project team’s knowledge ACAP could be intensified on its link with NPD project outcomes should the motivational devices are being used appropriately to exert the project team to utilize, transfer and share knowledge (see also Amabile & Kramer, 2011; Anand & Gomez-Mejia, 2014; Cerasoli, Nicklin, & Ford, 2014; Rose & Manley, 2011; Schmid & Adams, 2008; Zhao & Chadwick, 2014). For example, Schmid and Adams (2008) reported that motivational devices such as extrinsic reward and intrinsically challenged tasks will benefit project team at different stages of project. Osterloh and Frey (2000) pointed to the important role of intrinsic motivation on knowledge transfer across team members, particularly the transfer of tacit knowledge as a primary source of innovation that is crucial for NPD projects (e.g., Dewett, 2007). In contrast, other research projects suggested that extrinsic rewards can improve project team’s speed of work and their likelihood to support other team members so as the overarching project goals were achieved (e.g. Szulanski, 2000; Zander & Kogut, 1995). Amabile (1993) proposed that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can combine synergistically whereby extrinsic motivation can complement intrinsic motivation to yield higher level of performance and that employees’ ability should be taken into account when applying these two types of motivation. As such, the effects of motivational devices will not be undermined. Scholars such as Zhao and Chadwick (2014) and Minbaeva (2007) explored this combined effect of ability and motivation in their study of related NPD projects but these studies did not demonstrate clearly the interaction of ability with different types of motivation.

مقاله سال 2016

 مجله تحقیقات بازاریابی – Journal of Business Research

Research investigating the role that individuals within organizations play in affecting organizational outcomes, which are generally referred to as “micro-foundations” has increased in recent years (Lewin, Massini, & Peeters, 2011). Scholars have argued that in order to understand organizational concepts such as learning and knowledge, we must develop a better understanding of the role individuals play in these processes (Felin & Foss, 2005). However, although absorptive capacity (AC) is intricately related with both organizational learning and knowledge, AC researchers have focused less on individuals’ contributions to its development, focusing instead on structural and procedural antecedents (for exceptions, see Jones, 2006; Sun & Anderson, 2012). Indeed, despite being the focus of over 900 academic articles, Lane et al. (2006: 833) argue that researchers have failed to incorporate the role of individuals into AC models: From a practical perspective, omitting individuals from absorptive capacity models suggests that they are not important to knowledge processing. Yet, in the real world, executives of knowledge-intensive firms routinely worry about the fact that their core asset goes home every night. From a theoretical perspective, overlooking the role of individuals not only overlooks a key component of Cohen and Levinthal’s (1990) logic but suggests that absorptive capacity is fundamentally an algorithmic matching process: develop X amount of absorptive capacity in Y, and then your firm can learn Z. But what creates competitive advantage out of knowledge is the unique and valuable ways in which it is combined and applied. (Lane et al., 2006: 853-854) (emphasis added).

We develop theoretical support for why organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) of employees contribute to the “unique and valuable ways” that organizations acquire, assimilate/transform and exploit new knowledge, which are the very foundations of AC. Prior work finds that it is often the informal, non-prescribed interactions of individuals that leads to learning within organizations (e.g., Obembe, 2013). By its very definition, organizational citizenship behavior – “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization” (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006: 3) – suggests that OCBs are precisely the types of behavior that fill the gaps between how firms have organized their learning processes and what is actually needed for them to create competitive advantage.

Employees who engage in OCBs are often referred to as “good soldiers” because of their willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty (Organ, 1988), that is, to engage in these relatively discretionary and less explicitly rewarded behaviors in order to improve the “efficient and effective functioning” of organizations (Organ et al., 2006). Organ and colleagues identified several ways in which OCBs may accomplish this, including enhancing coworker productivity and improving coordination of team effort (see p. 200–202). Building on their intuition, we propose another way that OCBs contribute to organizational effectiveness: by enhancing each of the four learning capabilities that comprise AC. More specifically, we argue that these discretionary behaviors can be the vital link in the AC process that fills the gap between how AC learning capabilities are formally structured and how they need to operate in order to generate a competitive advantage.

مقاله سال 2016

If firms with superior market knowledge perform better, what is a key performance indicator of the firms’ being more knowledgeable in the most useful fashion? Many answers exist to this question. However, key performance indicators must explain the source of knowledge, identify the use of knowledge, and accommodate the context specific to the firm. Considering these criteria, which construct should one use as a key indicator to define the firms’ smartness? An even bigger dilemma arises when two similar theories collide on the issue.

Absorptive capacity (ACAP) is a central construct in several research areas in organizational studies. Researchers propose several conceptual models of ACAP(Camison & Fores, 2010; Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Zahra and George (2002) reformulate a term “ACAP” and further broaden the definition to be a set of organizational routines and strategic processes by which firms acquire, assimilate, transform, and apply knowledge to gain and sustain competitive advantage. Researchers widely use these four dimensions of ACAP to empirically test ACAP’s in- fluences on a variety of product and firm performance outcomes (Atuahene-Gima, 1992; Jansen, Van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2005; Lichtenthaler, 2009). ACAP is evidently an indicator of firm performance and seems to fit the criteria as mentioned above, hence can one conclude that a firm with higher ACAP will be smarter than the others?Unfortunately, the answer remains unclear. Most of the past ACAP literature does not pay much attention to the importance of context specific effects of ACAP. In particular, research studies mainly focus on R&D context rather than marketing context when studying ACAP. Besides technological knowledge, market knowledge—customer and competitor intelligence—is a critical component of a firm’s ACAP in a free market economy since a firm’s central principle and driving force is a competition (or, in other words, the intensity of the rivalry between sellers for the demand of buyers or customers; Dickson, 1992).

Thus, firms that are most alert to learn directly from competitors’ moves and strive hardest in their search for more efficient and effective ways to serve their customers’ needs will be the most competitive in the market (Dickson, 1992). Significantly, firms with customer and competitor intelligence ACAP can apply and commercialize opportunities for the use of technological knowledge in creating new products, improving quality, or developing process innovation (Teece, 2007; Van den Bosch, Volberda, & de Boer, 1999).

A fundamental aspect of innovation is “making novel linkages and associations” (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990: 133; also Nelson & Winter, 1982; Schumpeter, 1934). Increasingly, innovation and strategy scholars emphasize the making of “novel linkages and associations” that transcend the boundaries of the firm (e.g., Chesbrough, 2003). Thus, successful innovation performance is increasingly seen to involve the recognition of external sources of potentially valuable knowledge, the transfer of such knowledge into the firm and the deployment of it in the context of innovation, perhaps in continued cooperation with external knowledge sources (Foss, Lyngsie, & Zahra, 2013).

(Foss, Lyngsie, & Zahra, 2013). In spite of an increasing and widespread emphasis in research and managerial practice on such “inbound open innovation (i.e., the knowledge sourcing aspect of open innovation)”, the “benefits to openness are subject to decreasing returns” (Laursen & Salter, 2006, p. 132). Too much openness results in a negative impact on the firm’s long-term innovation success, because attention is allocated too “thinly” and control over core competences is easily lost (Enkel, Gassmann, & Chesbrough, 2009; Laursen & Salter, 2006). At the same time, closed innovation has many weaknesses, in particular the difficulty for this model of keeping up with an increasing speed-ofinnovation-time (Chesbrough, 2003). Therefore, Enkel et al. (2009) advocate simultaneous investment in closed as well as open innovation activities, that is, simultaneously leveraging internal as well as external knowledge sources in the context of innovation. However, the right balance between internal and external sources of innovation is an important issue which has not yet been satisfactorily addressed, framed and answered in the research literature (Dahlander & Gann, 2010). “Balance” may be formally defined as the combination of internal and external sources that will maximize the firm’s rent-stream from innovation over time.

We approach this important issue from the point of the allocation of attention (Ocasio, 1997). Innovation requires directing attention to the sources of innovation, because attention precedes the deployment of assets, actions and investments to innovation opportunities (Leiponen & Helfat, 2010). A firm’s attention is a limited resource that can only be allocated to a relatively small number of innovative ideas at the same time (March, 1991; Ocasio, 1997). Absorptive capacity (henceforth, AC) d defined as the “ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends” (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990, p. 128) d is a critical component influencing the relationship between openness and innovative performance by organizing open innovation activities (Laursen & Salter, 2006). We frame AC as an attention-directing and action-generating capability which applies to knowledge held externally to the firm as well as to knowledge held internally.1 This helps us address our overall research questions, namely why a balance between open and closed innovation is important and how such a balance may be brought about.