Knowledge management during radical change: Applying a process oriented approach

During periods of radical organisational change two elements - namely the organisation's strategy and its people - are affected profoundly. Strategic change involves refocusing the organisation in a direction that has little bearing on its past. People are affected by changes, as they are displaced to other parts of the organisation in different roles, or perhaps, are removed under the euphemism of de-layering, rightsizing and re-engineering. Hence, rather than enhance knowledge, senior managers inadvertently destroy knowledge during a radical organisational change. Yet pressures to change and the pace of change are unrelenting. Senior managers are forced to take an approach that can be summarised as ''change first - limit the damage to knowledge later''. Thus, this paper argues that organisations need a process to manage knowledge during periods of radical organisational change. The paper proposes such a process through case study evidence. It highlights actions managers take to ensure that they navigate the paradox of leading the organisation through radical change and nurture knowledge

Lusophone-African SME internationalization: a case for born global and international joint ventures

This study investigates the internationalization strategies of Lusophone Africa multinational enterprises (MNEs) from Angola and Mozambique, more specifically their entry mode. Information was gathered through a survey of 29 MNEs upper management respondents and subsequent face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 24 of them in their countries. The results suggest that most MNEs opted for equity-based investment strategies, mainly joint venture and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as their preferred mode of entry when internationalizing. A significant group of them opted for e-commerce/e-business strategies and direct and indirect exports. A smaller portion of the interviewees chose Greenfield investment as a mode of entry. Many of these MNEs could be classified as born global/international new venture (INV). Finally, this study presents a conceptual framework for use in studying the entry mode choice of enterprises from Lusophone Africa frontier markets and presents research propositions for better understanding the determinants of entry mode strategies of enterprise from Angola and Mozambique.https://doi.org/10.1080/15475778.2019.1634406Accepted manuscriptPublished versio

Knowledge Management As an Economic Development Strategy

The United States is shifting to an information economy. Productive capability is no longer completely dependent on capital and equipment; information and knowledge assets are increasingly important. The result is a new challenge to the practice of local economic development. In this information economy, success comes from harnessing the information and knowledge assets of a community and from helping local businesses succeed in the new environment. Knowledge Management (KM) can provide the tools to help economic development practitioners accomplish that task. KM is a set of techniques and tools to uncover and utilize information and knowledge assets -- especially tacit knowledge. Economic development organizations can use KM tools to enhance external communications of local companies including marketing and to promote internal communications within local businesses and help companies capture tacit knowledge. More importantly, they can use those tools to uncover and develop local intellectual assets, including helping develop information products, and helping identify entrepreneurial and business opportunities. KM tools are also useful in developing local economic clusters. Finally, these tools can be used to enhance external knowledge sharing among the economic development community and to capture and share tacit knowledge within an economic development organization

Tacit Knowledge and Innovation Capacity: Evidence from the Indian Livestock Sector

To cope and compete in this rapidly-changing world, organisations need to access and apply new knowledge. While explicit knowledge is important, what is often critical is an organisation's ability to create, access, share and apply the tacit or un-codified knowledge that exists among its members, its network and the wider innovation system of which it is a part. This discussion paper explores the role of tacit knowledge in livestock sector innovation capacity though the case of Visakha Dairy, one of the most progressive producer-owned milk marketing companies in India. Analysis of two episodes in Visakha's evolution clearly illustrates how it used tacit knowledge to innovate around challenges. The paper concludes that while tacit knowledge is clearly a major resource that organisations rely on to cope with change, it does not follow that knowledge management approaches that rely on codifying this knowledge are the way forward. Instead, what it does suggest is that better management of the learning processes, through which tacit knowledge is generated, would be a more useful contribution to innovation and innovation capacity - in other words, a shift from knowledge management to learning management.Innovation Systems, Innovation Capacity, Tacit Knowledge, Livestock, India Journal

Cooperation and Cluster Strategies Within and Between Technology-Intensive Organizations: How to Enhance Linkages among Firms in TechnoParks

World today is characterized by rapid transformations in all aspects of human’s life where innovation, technological change and technological progress play the most significant role. Therefore, technologyintensive organizations by engaging in strategic alliances, clusters and networks tend to extract maximum benefits i.e. to enable entry into the international markets and to develop core competences. Even though clusters have become a highly popular strategy, many of them fail to realize their intended goals. Thus, under the scope of this paper we explore why choosing a clustering strategy can be beneficial for technologyintensive organizations. Main focus will be on investigating if there are inter-firm and firm-university linkages among the actors located in a particular techno-park i.e. METU Techno-park and Bilkent Cyber-park. Results of the analysis showed certain extent of firm-university relationships and low level of inter-firm interactions. This further implied necessity of the policy interventions for enhancement of those interactions if the studied techno-parks are to become successful in the sense of the theoretical techno-park model, and if the tenant firms are to extract maximum benefits associated with cluster concept in theory.Clusters, Networks, Innovation, Techno-parks, Policy

A Network Perspective on Inter-Organizational Transfer of R&D Capabilities: A Study of International Joint Ventures in Chinese Automobile Industry

Multinational enterprises' transfer of R&D capabilities to their international joint ventures in the less developed countries has been an emerging phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to understand the transfer of R&D capabilities between organizations embedded in drastically different organizational contexts using a network perspective. We identified different networks involved in the R&D capability transfer process from the perspectives of source organization, recipient organization and the interface between them, and analyzed the impact of different attributes of these networks on the effectiveness of R&D capability transfer, based on the notion that R&D capabilities are largely collective knowledge.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39746/3/wp362.pd

Knowledge assimilation processes of rapidly internationalising firms: longitudinal case studies of Scottish SMEs

<p>Purpose – The accumulation of knowledge and learning by firms has been identified as being critical to their internationalisation. This paper aims to explore the knowledge assimilation processes of rapidly internationalising small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).</p> <p>Design/methodology/approach – This is a qualitative enquiry in two stages. First, four case studies were selected from firms that were participating in an internationalisation programme run by Scottish Enterprise, the regional development agency. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) and programme providers, and archival data. Second, two focus groups were held with six CEOs participating in the programme.</p> <p>Findings – The findings indicate that knowledge sharing is important for rapidly internationalising SMEs and that firms adopted high levels of formality in assimilating knowledge. Two key aspects of formality were identified as important; formal planned events to share explicit and tacit knowledge and the codification of tacit to explicit knowledge. Knowledge may be assimilated less formally by the retention of tacit knowledge as tacit, while utilising elements of formality. The paper finds that learning for internationalisation can be transferred to support domestic growth.</p> <p>Practical implications – It is important for firms to develop appropriate knowledge assimilation processes within their management systems to support internationalisation. The CEO and management team need to take the lead in marshalling commitment to learning processes and in cultivating an organisational culture that is supportive of learning.</p> <p>Originality/value – This research contributes to international entrepreneurship by providing insights into the knowledge assimilation processes employed by rapidly internationalising SMEs to manage the tensions between the need for greater formality to be efficient at learning, and informality to enable speedy decision making.</p&gt

Technological spillovers from multinational presence - Towards a conceptual framework

This paper undertakes a critical review of existing spillover analyses and proposes a unique analytical framework for examining technological spillovers in a manufacturing industry setting. The proposed framework overlaps three different literature strands; cluster and network dynamics, technological innovations; and spillover literature. It enables determination of the extent to which multinational presence in a host country stimulates spillover occurrence to local firms as well as their nature. Using this framework, the kind and the channels through which spillovers occur most can be equally determined - this is particularly relevant for policy intervention in a technically backward country. Lastly, it allows determination of factors and conditions under which spillovers from multinationals occur.International Economic Relations, Technology Transfer, Learning, Network Dynamics, Capability Building, Technological Change, Multinational Enterprises