Embracing complexity: Learning from minority, 50-50, and majority joint venture experience

Learning from joint venture (JV) experience is commonly viewed as a way to improve JV performance. However, many JVs are complex and difficult to learn from. How can firms embrace this complexity to realize the learning potential of their JV experience? To answer this question, we consider how minority, 50-50, and majority JVs differ in terms of complexity stemming from the interdependencies between the JV partners and between the JV and its parent organizations. We theorize that the relatively limited complexity of minority JV experience facilitates learning from more complex experience with majority and 50-50 JVs. However, the same facilitating effect is not expected between two forms of complex experience. We test these predictions on a comprehensive set of equity JVs formed by Dutch listed companies between 1966 and 2005, using JV survival and abnormal stock market returns as complementary JV performance measures.     

Leveraging tacit knowledge in alliances: The importance of using relational capabilities to build and leverage relational capital

Effectively managing existing tacit knowledge stocks and transferring knowledge between partners contributes to firm capabilities that allow them to differentiate their goods and services from those of their competitors. Because it also helps them to provide greater value to customers, it contributes to the development of a competitive advantage. In highly competitive industries, firms need to focus on proactively managing their knowledge resources to ensure survival. However, the knowledge management process is at times complex especially because of the difficulty involved in conveying tacit knowledge. Due to its latent potential for enabling firms to achieve potential competitive advantage, how firms utilize and transfer stocks of tacit knowledge requires enhanced understanding. In specific, we explain how firms use relational capabilities to build relational capital with partners. In turn, relational capital facilitates the transfer of tacit knowledge between collaborating partners. We develop several propositions regarding the factors likely to influence the transfer of a firm's tacit knowledge resources in strategic alliances. The importance of social capital's relational dimension, relational capital, in this process is highlighted.     

State fragility and informal entrepreneurship: The moderating effects of human capital under varying temporal orientations

This study examines the linkage between state fragility and informal entrepreneurship and the moderating effects of human capital on this linkage under varying temporal orientations. Using data on 429 observations from 62 countries for the 2006–2017 period, we find a positive linkage between state fragility and informal entrepreneurship. Moreover, both human capital and long-term orientation weaken the linkage, while the moderating role of human capital is weaker in long-term-oriented countries. This study advances our knowledge of the implications of state fragility for entrepreneurship and the antecedents of informal entrepreneurship. It also assists in illustrating the wide variation in the level of informal entrepreneurship across countries, thereby contributing to the comparative international entrepreneurship literature.     

Working on professional development of faculty staff in higher education: investigating the relationship between social informal learning activities and employability

In this study, we examined how social informal learning and formal learning of faculty staff in higher education relate to their employability. Data were collected from 209 faculty staff members working at a Dutch university. Results showed that social informal learning was related to the employability of faculty staff. Further analysis revealed that especially external information seeking and acting upon feedback from colleagues and not formal learning predicted the employability of faculty staff. The finding suggests that institutes of higher education should especially foster the professional development of their faculty staff by stimulating exchange of information and seeking and using feedback with colleagues in a proactive manner.     

Leadership in the digital era: A review of who,what, when,where, and why

Leadership as a social influence process has always involved a complex set of phenomena that demands an interdisciplinary lens. Leadership scholarship has now entered into a digital era. In a digital era, the overall phenomenon is changing, as are the tools through which we study it, demanding a new “lens” through which we view leadership. Yet, this raises the question, to what extent is leadership different in a digital era? In acknowledgement of this trend, a special issue was commissioned at The Leadership Quarterly that sought to stimulate the imagination of leadership scholars and practitioners. In the current work, we begin with a brief review of who, what, when, where and why of digital leadership. We cover leadership in informal contexts (e.g., social media), generalization from face-to-face to virtual contexts, computational modeling, the leveraging of technology (e.g., machine learning; Big Data), as well methodological how-to guides. We then plot a path forward for leadership scholars in the dawn of the digital era.     

社会资本和公司企业家精神与绩效的关系:组织学习的中介作用——江苏与广东新兴企业的实证研究

近年来,社会资本和企业家精神被认为是新兴企业取得竞争优势的关键因素。虽然很多学者认为组织学习在社会资本和公司企业家精神与组织绩效之间起了中介作用,但了解“如何发生作用”的知识要远远难于“是什么”,并且极少有研究给出实证结果。在转型经济中类似的研究更是缺乏。本文以中国江苏和广东两省的676家新兴企业为被试对象,对社会资本和公司企业家精神是否以及如何通过组织学习影响组织的绩效进行实证研究。结果表明组织学习在社会资本和公司企业家精神—组织学习—组织绩效链中起到了至关重要的作用,是通过社会资本和公司企业家精神提升组织绩效的瓶颈。     

Forms of Network Resource: Knowledge Access and the Role of Inter‐Firm Networks

The leveraging of inter‐firm networks is increasingly considered to be a strategic resource that can potentially be shaped by managerial action. In recent years, scholars have turned to the concept of social capital to understand how the transfer of knowledge occurs within and across firms. However, this has resulted in an overstretching of the social capital concept. The aim of this paper is to refine and add specificity to the current broad application of the social capital concept. It is argued that although the social capital concept explains investments in networks based on a network logic relating to sociability and socialization, it does not explain investments in networks based on a logic relating to economic expectations. These expectations result in network participation that is more calculative than networks containing social capital. The paper introduces the notion of ‘network capital’ to explain the resources contained within inter‐firm networks that do not necessarily equate with the type of trust and obligations associated with social capital. Network capital is defined as an investment in calculative relations through which firms gain access to knowledge to enhance expected economic returns. It is argued that while network capital can be strategically managed, particularly to influence knowledge flow, the nature of social capital is such that it is very difficult to manage. It is concluded that the network capital–social capital framework opens a number of avenues in terms of future research, especially in relation to the extended resource‐based view of the firm and theories of open innovation.     

团队社会资本与知识转移关系的实证研究:交互记忆系统的中介作用

团队社会资本被认为是促进团队知识转移的关键因素,但已有研究对社会资本如何影响团队知识转移的作用机理还缺乏系统的理论分析和实证研究。本文引入交互记忆系统作为中介变量,对社会资本是否通过交互记忆系统对团队知识转移产生影响进行实证研究。基于对23家软件外包承接企业的93个项目团队的问卷调查数据,通过结构方程模型方法发现,交互记忆系统在社会资本与团队知识转移的关系中发挥显著的完全中介作用,团队通过社会资本促进交互记忆系统的形成,是提高知识转移绩效的有效途径。     

社会资本结构与中小企业创新--一项基于结构方程模型的实证研究

本文针对中小企业核心竞争力的关键问题——创新展开分析,根据我国中小企业的组织特征,在综合分析了国外有关企业创新理论的基础上,我们提出了中小企业基于社会资本的创新理论,在传统创新理论解释变量集中加入了企业规模,并区分了社会资本构成的两大因素:结构性社会资本和认知性社会资本;在问卷调查的基础上,通过探索性因素分析和结构方程建模(SEM),对我国中小企业技术创新影响因素进行了结构测量和机理分析,认为:(1)中小企业的创新结构和知识管理水平受到结构性、认知性社会资本和企业人力资本的综合影响;(2)中小企业认知性社会资本既直接地、又通过影响企业的结构化社会资本间接地影响了企业的技术创新水平,显示出社会资本对中小企业创新的影响存在明显的分层结构和不同路径。     

Leveraging global sources of knowledge for business model innovation

This article explores the concept of leveraging global knowledge for business model innovation, whereby knowledge is transferred across space and firm boundaries for the reconfiguration of an incumbent firm's business model. Considering the implications of an ever-increasing fragmentation of global value chains and the associated dispersion of global knowledge sources, we propose that supply chain partners at foreign locations can provide valuable knowledge that incumbents can leverage to change their business model. Integrating insights from global supply chain, business model, and organizational learning literature, we theorize and empirically test how different organizational capabilities enable firms to acquire knowledge from foreign partners, integrate external with internal knowledge, transform knowledge through experimentation, and finally apply global knowledge in the form of business model innovation. We conclude with suggestions for future research.     

Coping with Diversity in Alliances for Innovation: The Role of Relational Social Capital and Knowledge Codifiability

Alliances are increasingly considered a key element for innovation, especially in knowledge‐intensive firms. While this is true, the mere membership to alliances does not explain innovation performance, and thus the alliance's characteristics that determine high performance must be examined. This research address the question of how the diversity of partners in a certain alliance for innovation affects innovation performance, and how this influence can be moderated by certain characteristics, such as the relational dimension of social capital and the type of knowledge shared among partners. The empirical analysis of a sample of 90 biotech companies shows that there is an inverted U‐shaped relationship between alliance partner diversity and innovation performance and confirms the positive moderating effects of relational social capital and knowledge codifiability. These findings contribute to the current research on alliances for innovation by providing empirical evidence on why some alliances perform better than others. Also, the results suggest that the study of alliance partner diversity, as a determinant of alliance performance, should not be addressed in isolation.     

Impact of subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared and social capital on MNCs' explorative and exploitative innovation capability

As subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge increases in tacitness, it becomes more difficult for subsidiaries to articulate and for multinational corporations' (MNCs') headquarters to integrate and apply. Herein, dynamic capabilities and social capital theory frame structural and relational social capital as capabilities that improve the productivity of subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared on MNCs' headquarters explorative and exploitative innovation capability. The hypotheses are tested on a data set consisting of survey data collected from 220 senior managers or executives at the headquarters of Taiwan-based MNCs. Interestingly, structural social capital between headquarters and subsidiaries strengthens the negative association between subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared and explorative innovation capability; relational social capital attenuates the negative association between subsidiaries' cross-border knowledge tacitness shared and both explorative and exploitative innovation capability. Stated differently, different types of social capital can facilitate (i.e., relational social capital) or impede (i.e., structural social capital) innovation capability when cross-border knowledge tacitness is high. The validity and managerial implications of these findings are explored through interviews with senior managers or executives of MNCs headquarters or subsidiaries. Theoretically, this study emphasizes the importance of understanding relationships between subsidiaries and MNCs' headquarters to understand the association between subsidiaries' resources and MNCs' headquarters innovation capability.     

Knowledge Transfer and Knowledge Building at Offshored Technical Support Centers

This study investigates knowledge transfer and knowledge building at three technical support centers (TSCs) which have been offshored to China. Utilizing an interpretive case study approach, the study examined how organizational knowledge was transferred from the US-based onshore TSC to a China-based offshore TSC, and how China-based knowledge was built and expanded in a dynamic changing business context. A model is presented which was developed from qualitative analysis of the field data, and this model aids understanding of how knowledge was transferred and built at the individual level, the group level and the organization level at the China-based offshored TSC. The shared mental models of the people in the organizations helped individual knowledge to be linked to group knowledge, and then to organizational knowledge. The ongoing informal communication, close interaction and coordination between onshore and offshore group members facilitated the knowledge transfer from onshore to offshored TSC. The model presented also demonstrates the knowledge flow through knowledge intermediaries in the offshored knowledge transfer and building processes, and provides new insights into organizational learning in an offshored business context.     

Network memory,cultural distance and the ebb and flow of international resources – Evidence from 20 years of professional player transfers to big-five European soccer leagues

Human capital flow embeds firms into knowledge sharing–protection tension. In this study we explore whether firms balance this tension by regulating the volume of human capital inflow. Accordingly, we examine the presence of ebb and flow cycle in human capital inflow. Ebb is expressed in terms of net negative change in volume of human capital inflow of a firm, at any given period, with respect to prior period. Flow is expressed in terms of net positive change. As human capital flow embeds firms into interorganizational network, we examine moderating effects of network closure and network status on the ebb and flow. Further, we examine the role of cultural distance on the moderating effect of network closure and status on ebb and flow. We test our hypotheses based on professional football player transfers among the clubs of the Big-five European Leagues. The results indicate presence of ebb and flow in human capital inflow. Also there is moderating effect of network closure and status, such that they diminish the ebb and flow cycle. We also found evidence that cultural distance further determines effectiveness of network closure and status in diminishing ebb and flow.     

The impact of social class on top managers’ attitudes towards employee downsizing

In this paper, we examine the impact of top managers' social class on their attitude towards employee downsizing. Mobilizing Bourdieu's concepts of social class as a unique social position defined by the combination of economic, cultural, and social capital, we develop hypotheses about the effects of different capital endowments, which we test with unique data on more than 2500 top managers in Germany. We find that both higher economic and higher social capital increase openness towards employee dismissals, while higher cultural capital reduces it. We also find that the overall effect of a top manager's social position is an aggregate of the effects of the individual types of capital: Managers with high cultural, low social and low economic capital are least open to employee dismissals, while those with low cultural, high social and high economic capital are most open – with the other combinations lying somewhere between the two extremes.     

Brokering knowledge: Linking learning and innovation

This paper presents a model of innovation, knowledge brokering, that explains how some organizations are able to routinely innovate by recombining their past knowledge in new ways. While existing theories of organizational learning and innovation are useful, the links between them are crucial for understanding how existing knowledge becomes the raw materials from which individuals in organizations construct innovative solutions. This model develops these links by grounding processes of learning and innovation in the larger social context within which they occur. Using a microsociological perspective, this article draws together research spanning levels of analysis to explain innovation as the dissembling and reassembling of extant ideas, artifacts, and people. Previous research has suggested that firms spanning multiple domains may innovate by moving ideas from where they are known to where they are not, in the process creating new combinations of existing ideas. This paper more fully develops this process by linking the cognitive, social, and structural activities it comprises. Knowledge brokering involves exploiting the preconditions for innovation that reside within the larger social structure by bridging multiple domains, learning about the resources within those domains, linking that knowledge to new situations, and finally building new networks around the innovations that emerge from the process. This article also considers the origins of knowledge brokers as firms committed to this innovation strategy, the structural and cultural supports for the knowledge brokering process, and several obstacles to the process that these firms experience. Finally, I discuss the implications of this model for further research on innovation and learning, and the implications for other organizations seeking to establish their own capabilities for brokering knowledge.     

高层管理团队内部社会资本、团队冲突和决策效果的关系——研究综述与理论分析框架

反映在结构因素、关系因素和认知因素三个维度上的高管团队内部社会资本为决策信息的交换和共享提供了机会、意愿和能力,有利于团队内部形成建设性的冲突模式,促进决策效果的提高.本文以团队冲突为中介变量,建立了高管团队内部社会资本与决策效果的关系的理论框架,提出了研究命题,并对企业高管团队内部社会资本的培育提出建议.     

社会资本、组织学习与组织创新的关系研究

近年来,学者对社会资本是否以及如何提升企业的竞争力问题进行了大量的研究,但社会资本对组织学习以及组织创新的影响却鲜有学者关注.本文以我国珠三角地区企业为调查对象,对社会资本、组织学习与组织创新之间的关系进行实证研究.结果表明,组织的内部社会资本对组织学习有显著的直接影响,外部社会对技术创新也有显著的直接影响.组织学习对组织技术创新和管理创新都有显著的直接影响.而且技术创新对管理创新也有直接的正向影响,本文的结果进一步拓展了组织学习与组织创新的相关理论,对企业知识管理与创新管理实践也有重要的指导意义.     

Human Capital,Wages and Family Interactions

The majority of studies of the returns to human capital investment have generally considered the relationship among wages and individuals’ investment in education. However, among factors which increase individuals’ stocks of human capital and affect their labour market performances there are variables linked to the relevant social environment, such as the family. This paper takes into consideration intra‐generational relations which form between spouses through marriage, as well as inter‐generational relationships between parents and their sons/daughters. The empirical work investigates the effects of some family background variables on individuals’ economic performances, using data drawn from the 1995 survey of household income and wealth conducted by the Bank of Italy. The results of the analysis show that individuals’ wages do not depend only on their own human capital endowment, but also on that of other family members (parents and partners).     

Organizational responsiveness of Russian and American growth-oriented small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

The paper discusses problem-based learning (PBL) as a mediating factor in generating a variety of learning networks in workplace contexts. It is argued that informal learning in experiential circumstances can be systematized to encourage deep learning at the individual and collective level. Given the distinct problem-solving opportunities in PBL, learners can increase their capacity to acquire new knowledge through self-inquiry, reflection and dialogue. The repositioning of learning attitudes also leads to an enlargement of communities of practice wherein double and triple-loop learning cycles intersect to create rigorous learning. An integrated model is proposed to explain the dynamics of PBL operating within the constraints of workplace contexts.