Task partitioning in new product development teams: A knowledge and learning perspective

R&D alliances and outsourcing elements of the new product development process are now commonplace practices among many firms. However, little previous work has examined how these organizational choices influence project knowledge and learning. Based on a comparison of three new product development projects in the software industry, this paper examines how task partitioning in the project influences learning and knowledge development within the firm. The paper suggests that internal development projects encourage synthetic learning and development of architectural and tacit knowledge; in contrast, outsourcing and joint ventures encourage analytic learning and development of component and explicit knowledge.     

A quest for form: the tacit dimension of social work practice

This paper presents the findings of a small-scale study of social workers’ tacit understandings. Tacit is conceptualised as, difficult to describe knowledge, taken for granted knowledge or tacitly presupposed and silenced knowledge. The sample comprised 10 social workers employed in a statutory child protection context who participated in three stages of data collection. The research strategy encompassed six techniques: in-depth interviewing, observation, think-aloud, unstructured interviewing, reflective recall, and knowledge mapping. The tacit domain appears to be a rich site for practice understandings, as what practitioners explicitly offer is not a complete account of their knowing in practice. Interpretations suggest that practice may be guided by understandings of which practitioners are frequently unaware. When knowledge remains implicit, its content, level of influence, impact and use remain unconsidered as well. It is crucial, in attempting to gain clarity on any practice activity, that this realm be explored as it contributes to a fuller account of the realities of practice behaviour.     

Learning How and Learning What: Effects of Tacit and Codified Knowledge on Performance Improvement Following Technology Adoption

This paper examines effects of tacit and codified knowledge on performance improvement as organizations gain experience with a new technology. We draw from knowledge management and learning curve research to predict improvement rate heterogeneity across organizations. We first note that the same technology can present opportunities for improvement along more than one dimension, such as efficiency and breadth of use. We compare improvement for two dimensions: one in which the acquisition of codified knowledge leads to improvement and another in which improvement requires tacit knowledge. We hypothesize that improvement rates across organizations will be more heterogeneous for dimensions of performance that rely on tacit knowledge than for those that rely on codified knowledge (H1), and that group membership stability predicts improvement rates for dimensions relying on tacit knowledge (H2). We further hypothesize that when performance relies on codified knowledge, later adopters should improve more quickly than earlier adopters (H3). All three hypotheses are supported in a study of 15 hospitals learning to use a new surgical technology. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

科技型人才聚集中的隐性知识扩散特征研究

知识扩散是影响人才聚集效应产生和区域经济发展的关键因素之一。在分析科技型人才聚集和隐性知识扩散的基础上,研究了科技型人才聚集中的隐性知识扩散的以下特征：扩散系统非线性动力特征、扩散机制的多样性和综合性、知识扩散与知识创新的两难困境和扩散的偏好特征等。为促进隐性知识的有效扩散和增强科技型人才聚集效应提供一定的理论基础。     

Uncertainty,pluralism, and the knowledge-based theory of the firm: From J.-C. Spender’s contribution to a socio-cognitive approach

J.-C. Spender’s award-winning, knowledge-based theory of the firm is based on four premises: (1) The firm can be sufficiently understood as a system of knowledge, (2) explicit and implicit knowing can be clearly dissociated, (3) organizations are conceived as cognizing entities, and (4) intuition shaped by shared cultural practices is a superior source of managerial knowledge. This line of reasoning represents a social constructionist view of the enactment, transfer, and storage of knowledge according to which managerial knowledge is largely tacitly shaped by industry recipes and the firm’s socio-cultural conventions and other social processes. Although comprehensive in scope, we argue that a knowledge-based theory of the firm needs to integrate a cognitivist approach that includes the synergetic production of tacit and explicit knowledge, the role of reflective thinking in resolving strategic uncertainties, and the interaction between the individual and the social. This socio-cognitive theory of the firm posits that sustained competitive advantage of a firm is founded on the ability to align knowledge internally within the firm as well as externally with its stakeholders through the individual sense-making of feedback from other individuals.     

中小企业隐性客户知识的管理

隐性客户知识可以有效地帮助中小企业进行创新,适应市场竞争,实现企业价值。中小企业应加强对隐性客户知识的管理,从隐性客户知识的获取、挖掘、共享入手,通过建立相应的激励机制来保证企业员工能够充分掌握,使其发挥最大的效用。     

应对知识竞争的企业联盟范式的转变——产品联盟到知识联盟

本文从知识管理的角度阐述了由知识驱动的竞争理论,分析了显性知识转移、隐性知识整合与产品联盟、知识联盟的相互关系.产品联盟是企业跟踪和获取可转移的知识的方法,无法为企业提供持续竞争优势;知识联盟不但获取显性知识,而且学习隐性知识和创造新能力,它有助于企业通过战略管理来更新它的核心能力或创造新的核心能力.     

Out of machine age?: complexity, sociotechnical systems and actor network theory

This paper compares sociotechnical systems (STS) theory and actor network theory (ANT) as developed by Latour, Callon and Law. We examine how STS and ANT can be viewed as responses to rationalist/functionalist research on large sociotechnical systems and as extensions and elaborations of pragmatist/culturalist frameworks developed in sociology and anthropology. We reexamine, from an actor network perspective, Trist and Bamforth’s seminal article in which the concept of a sociotechnical system was introduced. We also discuss how STS ideas on interactive planning can be combined with concepts from ANT to investigate interdependent processes of invention and innovation in large sociotechnical networks.     

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.     

难言技术知识及其传播途径探析

将技术作为一种知识来研究,难言的部分是其主要的部分。技术知识因其深深地嵌入于知识主体、技术对象本身以及具体情境之中,故而具有难言性的特征。难言技术知识对于技术创新具有重要的意义。难言技术知识的传播主要在于克服其难言性以及在时间和空间维度上存在的障碍。从组织、个人、媒介的角度上可以找到传播的途径。