External knowledge acquisition and innovation output: an analysis of the moderating effect of internal knowledge transfer

Numerous studies highlight the advantages of accessing knowledge from outside the firm as a means of enhancing the firm’s innovation efforts. However, access to external knowledge is not without organisational problems, including rejection of external knowledge by firm members or difficulties in applying such knowledge to the firm’s operations. Based on the knowledge management literature, this paper analyses the conditions within the firm that favour external knowledge acquisition, and focuses on internal transfer as a key variable for the successful integration of external knowledge in the innovation process. Our results demonstrate that internal knowledge transfer intensifies the influence of external knowledge acquisition on innovation output. Specifically, achieving an environment within the firm that favours knowledge integration into the innovation process depends to a large extent on the willingness of knowledge users to share and assimilate knowledge, and on th

The role of Enterprise portals in Enterprise Integration

Today’s enterprises are moving business systems to the Internet - to connect people, business processes, and people to business processes in enterprise and across enterprise boundaries. The portal brings it all together: business processes, departmental sites, knowledge management resources, enterprise management systems, CRM systems, analytics, email, calendars, external content, transactions, administration, workflow, and more. The goal of this paper is to present the role of the Enterprise Portal in internal and external enterprise integration.Portal, Enterprise Portal, Integration, ETL, EAI, EII

Knowledge management, absorptive capacity and organisational culture: A case study from Chinese SMEs

Copyright © 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Based on the analysis of an innovative medium sized enterprise from mainland China, this paper investigated the Knowledge Management (KM) issues by focusing on its KM enablers and process. This paper attempts to investigate how Chinese enterprises absorb knowledge from external sources; how they developed culture to facilitate Knowledge Management Processes (KMPs) and what major challenges they raise for the future by looking at the case study of a Chinese Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The case study indicates that Chinese enterprises emphasised knowledge acquisition and the capacities of knowledge absorption, application, creation, sharing and integration as vital to sustaining competitive advantage for these firms. Corporative organisational culture also has significant impact on the KM in those enterprises

Antecedents and consequences of knowledge integration in product development. An empirical evidence

The purpose of this paper is to explain product development performance through the link between knowledge management and knowledge integration. When product development teams integrate knowledge about two external entities -customers and suppliers, they acquire a better understanding of the market and of each other´s needs and capabilities, which enables them to operate and innovate better than their competitors. In this context, our theoretical framework focuses on the social enablers usually associated to knowledge management, and combine them with knowledge integration as to determine product development performance.

FutureFarm vision

This paper defines the first version of a vision of Future Farming project and also a knowledge management system used by European farms which will be designed and developed by the Future Farm project. An important part of the vision is a definition of external drivers and their influence on farm business in future. Paper is looking on a situation in three periods: short (2013), middle (2020) and long-term (2030). Our vision expects that the farming system will continuously converge to the situation of two types of farm: an industrial farm, which will guarantee both the food safety and the food security for European citizens, and multifunctional farms focused on environment protection. The recommendation proposes an architecture based on communication of interoperable services, so called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), for easy integration of different levels and components of farm management.Farming, external drivers, future vision, knowledge management, SOA, Farm Management,

From shifting agriculture to sustainable rubber agroforestry systems (jungle rubber) in Indonesia: a history of innovations processes.

The aim of this chapter is to describe changes in the Indonesian jungle rubber system from the angle of the production of innovation by farmers themselves (indigenous knowledge) and the process of integration of external technical innovations in an overall process of creation of innovation. In other words, the integration of indigenous knowledge at different stages of history with rubber has enabled, and continues to enable farmers to rely on the sustainable cropping and farming systems represented by agroforestry systems.shifting agriculture ; complex agroforestry systems ; jungle rubber ; rubber ; adoption of innovations

The "potential" face of absorptive capacity. An empirical investigation for an area of 3 European countries

This paper draws on the multi-dimensional characterization of absorptive capacity (AC) to empirically investigate the antecedents and the effects of its "potential" dimension (PAC): i.e., the firm's capacity of acquiring and assimilating external knowledge, as distinguished from its "realized" transformation and exploitation (RAC). Based on a sample of about 10,500 firms for an area of 3 EU countries (Italy, Germany and Spain) we find that the firm's reliance on external knowledge in general increases its PAC, and that this effect is magnified by the internal shocks the firm faces. However, both these effects find relevant exceptions when different kinds of external sources are considered, at different kinds of distance from the absorbing firm. Unexpectedly, social integration mechanisms in the firm makes PAC less, rather than more, inductive of innovation outcomes. On the contrary, the human capital of the firm has a positive moderating role on the PAC effects. A possible trade-off in the exploitation of the externally assimilated knowledge is suggested.absorptive capacity; external knowledge; innovation