Integrating Knowledge through Information Trading: Examining the Relationship between Boundary Spanning Communication and Individual Performance*

With the global penetration of Internet technologies, individuals may now cross organizational boundaries to communicate efficiently with others regardless of time and space. Thus, when looking for help in solving work tasks, knowledge workers may just as easily contact individuals in rival firms across the globe as a coworker sitting at the next desk. As a result, management faces questions such as (1) How should firms manage employees' knowledge‐sourcing activities when they span both intra‐organizational and extra‐organizational boundaries, and (2) What is the relationship between different knowledge‐sourcing activities and individual performance? Grounded in the knowledge‐based view of the firm, we investigate these questions using data from Europe's largest information technology (IT) services and management consulting company. Our results provide evidence that organizations should support boundary spanning and knowledge sourcing from both internal and external sources. Results suggest (1) a positive relationship between boundary spanning communication and creativity and general performance, and (2) a negative relationship between a reliance on colocated coworkers as knowledge sources and creativity.     

Managing the International Strategic Sourcing Process as a Market-Driven Organizational Learning System*

This study examines the effects of market-driven organizational learning on a select set of strategic sourcing outcomes involving the sourcing function of a Fortune 500 multinational corporation. The focus is on the dyadic activities and relationships between the domestic and international strategic business units (SBUs) and the corporate buying center. The hypothesized relationships are tested on the overall sample and based on a two-by-two matrix framework defined by international versus domestic settings and frequent versus infrequent sourcing scenarios. Based on a sample of 179 domestic and 167 international SBUs, the results suggest that market-driven organizational learning in the strategic sourcing units influences customer satisfaction, relationship commitment, and cycle time of the sourcing process. However, while the set of learning orientations appears to be strategically robust across the four quadrant scenarios (moderator settings), the sourcing situations differ somewhat in the specific tactical learning orientations preferred.     

Complements or substitutes? The contingent role of corporate reputation on the interplay between internal R&D and external knowledge sourcing

Existing research does not provide a clear answer to the question of whether internal knowledge development and external knowledge sourcing are complementary or substitutive innovation activities. This paper adopts a contingent approach for addressing this issue by examining whether and how the interactive effect of internal R&D efforts and external knowledge sourcing on product innovation performance may be affected by the firm’s corporate reputation. In doing so, a three-way interaction model is applied to a sample of 251 Spanish high-technology manufacturing firms. Interestingly, initial results support the substitutive argument: the positive effect of internal R&D on product innovation performance diminishes as the exposure to external knowledge increases. However, in well reputed companies, interaction becomes positive, revealing a complementary effect. Thus, the study extends the traditional approach focused on determining whether internal and external knowledge sourcing are complements or substitutes by showing that their interplay depends on other firm-specific characteristics. Moreover, identifying corporate reputation as a source of complementarity between both activities provides an additional explanation of how corporate reputation contributes to a more effective management of knowledge assets.     

Communities, alliances, networks and knowledge in multinational firms: A micro-analytic framework

We develop a model of the micro-process of knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and application in the networks of alliances that have become important sources of external knowledge for multinational firms. Based on the concept of communities of practice as sources of highly tacit know-how, this model addresses the use of alliances with local partners to acquire tacit knowledge on a sub-unit level and to then share this knowledge throughout the firm via an internal network of community-level alliances. We suggest that the supposed advantage of multinational firms in accessing and reconstituting knowledge from widely spread sources is composed of multiple micro-processes at sub-unit levels, and therefore much more complex than usually presented.     

企业内部知识转移中个体中心度、吸收能力对绩效的影响

以往关于社会资本对企业内部知识转移影响的研究,通常提取一些基本的人口统计学特征作为控制变量,考察联系特征和结构特征对知识转移的影响,而对吸收能力的讨论却较少。本文将个体在社会网络中的结构特征和个体吸收能力结合起来,分别考察在情感网络和咨询网络中,个体的中心度以及中心度与吸收能力的交叉对个体绩效的影响。结果发现情感网络对个体绩效没有显著影响。在咨询网络中,个体出度对绩效有正作用,而且该作用依赖于个体吸收能力。     

External Knowledge Sourcing and Firm Innovation Efficiency

This study examines the relationship between external knowledge sourcing and firm innovation efficiency. We build on the organizational learning theory to propose that this relationship follows an inverted U‐shape: as the level of external knowledge sourcing increases from low to moderate, firm innovation efficiency increases; as the level of external knowledge sourcing increases from moderate to high, firm innovation efficiency declines. Further, we explore the moderating role of different contextual factors and contend that this inverted U‐shaped relationship is flattened in firms that operate in high‐tech sectors and in firms that face high internal constraints for innovation. Our empirical analysis is based on a sample of 3,204 Spanish firms over the period 2004–2015, and our results provide support for these contentions. We used data envelopment analysis methodology to estimate firm innovation efficiency relative to industry best performers, and truncated regression models for panel data with bootstrapped confidence intervals to test our hypotheses.     

International Strategy and Knowledge Creation: The Advantage of Foreignness and Liability of Concentration

International business scholars increasingly emphasize regional strategies based on an optimal location of downstream sales. There has been less scholarly attention, however, to the relationship between international strategy and upstream knowledge creation including R&D. Building on contemporary strategic management theory and the knowledge‐based view we remedy this. The viability of home‐regional or bi‐regional strategies is based on common assumptions that imply negative consequences of distance and foreignness for downstream sales and marketing and benefits from agglomeration for upstream knowledge creation activities including R&D. In contrast, we propose that upstream knowledge creation, radical innovation in particular, rather gains from distance and foreignness and from being dispersed, suggesting the effectiveness of a global strategy. Based on the resource‐based view and recent research on the economics of strategic opportunities and competitive advantage, we provide theoretical explanations for this. We demonstrate how a global multinational corporation is uniquely equipped with knowledge extensity including heterogeneous social‐identity frames in multiple sub‐units. Thanks to arbitrage advantages between the sub‐units’ separate and often locally embedded knowledge, a global multinational corporation can address complex interdependences and interactions between knowledge sets required for knowledge creation. This suggests that maximum exploration capabilities are made possible by a global rather than a home‐regional or bi‐regional strategy.     

Strategic opportunity and economic performance in multinational enterprises: The role and effects of information and communication technology

Recent work on multinational enterprises (MNEs) argues that diversity in terms of the markets they serve and the environments they acquire inputs from provides strategic opportunity unavailable to purely domestic firms. However, MNEs are also exposed to higher levels of complexity and uncertainty due to the presence in different locations and confront associated needs to integrate and coordinate activities. This paper suggests that the attendant cost–benefit tradeoff can be influenced by computer-mediated communication. Based on a sample of 88 organizations in the computer products industries, we find that multinationality in itself does not guarantee a higher level of strategic opportunity. Instead, use of information technology to facilitate communication among managers across functional and geographical boundaries enhances coordination of multinational activities in the development of strategic opportunity, which in turn is associated with superior performance.     

Geographically Dispersed Technological Capability Building and MNC Innovative Performance: The Role of Intra-firm Flows of Newly Absorbed Knowledge

This study identifies key mechanisms linking multinationality with the knowledge advantages of multinational corporations (MNCs). These mechanisms are the absorption of new knowledge by one individual MNC unit and the subsequent flows of such newly absorbed knowledge to other geographically distant units of the same firm. The intra-MNC and inter-unit flows of such newly absorbed knowledge include exchanges between a parent and its overseas subsidiaries and those between subsidiaries. Through analyzing the U.S. patent data of the world's largest firms in the electrical equipment industry, our study shows that those two mechanisms are complementary in affecting MNC innovative performance. More notably, given the geographically dispersed new knowledge absorption within an MNC, only the flows of the newly absorbed knowledge between the parent and subsidiaries, in contrast to those between subsidiaries, are positively associated with MNC innovative performance. This study contributes to the MNC literature. Managerial implications are also discussed.     

Added Psychic Distance Stimuli and MNE Performance: Performance Effects of Added Cultural,Governance, Geographic,and Economic Distance in MNEs' International Expansion

Distance has long been recognized as a major impediment in MNEs' international expansion. However, it still remains unclear: (1) If different psychic distance stimuli (PDS) constitute different sources of complexity and (2) how PDS affect MNE performance during international expansion. That is, the unconditioned argument that distance increases complexity needs further development, specifically, with regard to the nature of distance. In this study we distinguish between different PDS and provide crucial insights about the degree of complexity and the associated performance effects. In particular, acknowledging that the underlying constructs vary across different PDS, we theorize and empirically demonstrate that different PDS have a significant effect on firm performance and, as a result, constitute distinct sources of complexity within firms' international expansion. Applying the CAGE-framework on a unique panel dataset of 91 German MNEs and relying on the concept of added distance, the results reveal that added governance, cultural, and geographic distances all have a negative effect on firm performance. In addition, added governance distance seems to explain the largest part of variation in firm performance, followed by added cultural distance. In conjunction with research on the relationship between perceived psychic distance and PDS, we are able to conclude that MNEs' awareness of PDS may constitute a major determinant of the performance effects. Thus, the effect on firm performance may depend on the degree to which MNEs are aware of inter-country differences and therefore proactively take measures to mitigate potential negative effects of added PDS on performance.     

Does attention from headquarters influence subsidiary behavior? A social psychological perspective

Prior research has not explored fully the effect of headquarters (HQ) attention on subsidiary behavior. We address the gap via a social psychological lens, proposing that subsidiaries with more HQ attention often deal with higher performance expectation in terms of contributing towards the MNC, and thus, they tend to have a greater participation in the activities that can demonstrate such contribution. We test the idea in the context of MNC knowledge flows, hypothesizing a positive correlation between HQ attention and a subsidiary's reverse knowledge, and further the moderation effects of a subsidiary's shared vision and local market performance. Results lend support for the model. The study introduces a novel perspective of how HQ attention may influence subsidiaries, as well as the importance of attention allocation for the multinational corporation (MNC).     

Sourcing Strategy,Supplier Relationships and Firm Performance: An Empirical Investigation of UK Organizations

This article conceptualizes and empirically examines buyer–supplier relationships in respect of supply sourcing strategies, relationship characteristics and firm performance. Two sourcing strategies available to organizations are examined, critical and leverage, which in turn, influence the approach to managing the supplier relationship (arms‐length or collaborative). We argue that different relationship approaches are appropriate to achieving different performance outcomes. A structural equation model, using a sample of 142 manufacturing firms based in the United Kingdom, is used to test this hypothesized model. The results indicate that a critical sourcing strategy requires collaborative supplier relationships in order to achieve higher relationship and business outcomes, while leverage sourcing strategies have a direct impact on these same performance outcomes. In addition, a leverage strategy was associated with increased levels of supplier power, though this power was found not to have a significant effect on performance. Our study provides support for the importance of aligning sourcing strategies to particular supplier relationship approaches in order to improve firm performance. Managerial implications of these findings and future directions for research are then offered.     

Organizing for Global Competition

Global information technology (i.e., computer hardware, software, and data communications shared across country boundaries) can support the multinational firm as it seeks to coordinate global operations, diffuse innovations worldwide, or provide integrated service to a global corporate customer. The current study uses information processing theory as the basis for examining alternative organizational designs for information technology in a globally competing firm. Mail survey data gathered from information technology managers in 109 multinationals provide evidence that multinational firms use different and distinct ways of organizing their global information technology activities. The survey data also reveal that in nearly half of the organizations, the way information technology activities are organized is inconsistent with the way the organization is reportedly structured. A follow-up interview-based study sought explanations for these misfits. Several contingency variables were identified that may shed some light to the misfits. These included factors from both the firm's internal and external environments.     

Exploitative Learning and Entrepreneurial Orientation Alignment in Emerging Young Firms: Implications for Market and Response Performance*

We examine exploitative learning and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in emerging young high technology firms located within business incubators. In the last five years, the UK government has invested approximately £125m in incubation activities. The rationale for supporting business incubation is to maximize knowledge sharing across firms with an expectation that it will leverage performance. This represents exploitative learning – the acquisition of established knowledge that carries clear known value and outcomes. Paradoxically, research into EO has repeatedly emphasized the value of knowledge created through exploratory learning mechanisms (‘play, discovery and experimentation’) in securing advantage. Theoretical and empirical questions are raised herein with regard to the value of exploitative learning within a network context which might negatively influence the impact of EO on the firm. Using configuration theory, we demonstrate that firms cannot sustain dual‐dominant orientations of exploitative learning and EO. A strongly configured EO generates high performance returns. However, multi‐group analysis reveals that these effects are particularly strong for those firms whose exploitative learning is weak. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Overcoming blind spots in global sourcing research: Exploiting the cross-sections between supply chain management and international business

This article reviews existing work on global sourcing and suggests a number of new theoretical directions for research in this area. We discuss how international business (IB) and supply chain management (SCM) research can benefit from increased cross-fertilization of themes and perspectives. We begin by introducing a taxonomy of global sourcing research, building on relevant insights from SCM research. We then generate recommendations for potential future research on global sourcing, particularly highlighting antecedents, processes, performance and contextual variables. SCM research employs the entire supply chain as the primary unit of analysis (rather than the individual firm), while IB research focuses primarily on international aspects, adapting to institutional contexts in a globalized world. Building on this complementarity, several specific empirical directions are proposed for future research directions.     

Global innovation performance: Strategic challenges for multinational corporations

In the emerging knowledge economy many companies are forced to access globally dispersed technological and market knowledge to maintain their competitive advantage. A conceptual model is presented to analyze the relationship between the globalization of the innovation function and firm performance. Longitudinal data from 10 multinational companies are used to support the proposed model. The analysis concludes that the relationship between global innovation reach and firm performance is concave and time lagged. The results suggest the strategic importance of globalization decisions. The managerial implications are structured in five distinctive strategic challenges to successfully manage global innovation.     

Subsidiary marketing knowledge and strategic development of the multinational corporation

This paper explores distinctive marketing knowledge of subsidiaries as an important resource contributing to the performance of the multinational corporation (MNC). Two different paths are analyzed. The first is the direct effect of the usage of subsidiary marketing knowledge on the perceived performance of other MNC units. The second is the indirect effect in which an MNC's usage of subsidiary marketing knowledge affects its performance via capability development in technology and market expansion within the MNC. Using data on 237 MNC subsidiaries in Sweden, six hypotheses are tested in a LISREL model. The results indicate that an MNC's usage of subsidiary marketing knowledge directly affects its performance. Additionally, the results reveal a strong relation between subsidiary marketing knowledge and the subsidiary's impact on development of the capabilities of other MNC units' technology and their expansion on the market, which in turn, positively impacts the performance of the MNC.     

存在信息更新时的双源采购和后备生产结合策略研究

在现实的采购运作中,双源采购和后备生产是两种最常见的风险应对策略。本文在考虑信息更新的情况下,探讨了一个两阶段动态采购决策模型：第一阶段,制造商向存在供应风险的一个或两个主供应商订货;第二阶段,制造商根据主供应商风险信息的更新,决定是否向供应可靠但价格较高的后备供应商订货。本文得到了两阶段的最优采购策略,分析发现,当固定采购成本较低时：若潜在市场需求较小,双源采购将排斥后备生产;若潜在市场需求较大,双源采购和后备生产共存;若潜在市场需求适中,后备生产可能排斥双源采购,两者也可能共存。特别地,在潜在市场需求适中时,可靠性改进概率的增大或后备供应商生产成本的降低,将使后备生产趋于排斥双源采购;反之,可靠性改进概率的减小、固定采购成本的降低或后备生产成本的增加,将使两者趋于共存。     

Reordering Spatial and Social Relations: A Case Study of Professional and Managerial Flexworkers

Research on flexible work practices has focused primarily on social relationships, individual identity, work/work–life balance experience and performance. This paper aims to add another dimension by focusing on space and, specifically, the performance of space by professional flexworkers as they reorder their home and work lives through the process of becoming flexworkers. Drawing on Law's ‘modes of ordering’ and Latourian actor network theory, as well as on Beyes and Steyaert's recent contribution on ‘performing space’, the paper considers how flexworkers themselves reorganize space(s) as an ongoing accomplishment. The purpose and contribution is to offer an alternative to the view that the home and work are rigid containers fixed in social structure, to one that views them as self‐referential space(s), reordered by flexworkers as they seek to ‘keep the social moving’. The paper is based on an empirical study of employees in a Canadian subsidiary of a large hi‐tech multinational corporation. It examines organizational policy documents and interviews with managerial and non‐managerial flexworkers to identify how social and spatial relations are reordered and performed.     

Managing Internal R&D Networks in Global Firms: What Sort of Knowledge is Involved?

How should a global firm manage its network of R&D centres in an effective manner? Some have developed an Integrated Network model in which the R&D centres around the world are tightly integrated into a coherent whole. Others have adopted a Loosely-Coupled Network model in which individual “centres of excellence” are given considerable autonomy. In this paper we argue that the way individual R&D units are structured, and the way the entire network is managed, should be based not on administrative heritage, environmental turbulence or management style, but on the basis of the underlying characteristics of the firm’s knowledge assets. In particular we focus on the observability and mobility of the firm’s knowledge assets, the impact these factors have on the way individual R&D centres are structured, and how they relate to one another in the international network. The argument is supported using examples and data from Swedish firms including ABB, Alfa Laval and Ericsson.