Grandori, Anna
--05.5.18--
--Grandori & Kogut, 2002, Dialogue on Organization and Knowledge--Kogut: intellectual roots of the knowledge approach to understanding what firms do: massive literature on technology transfer.
Kogut: Technology transfer is not mechanical, but interactive and
embedded in existing capabilities on both sides and in the social
relationships between both sides of the transaction. This occurs in
three levels, institutional, firm, project. Absorptive capacity.
Learning to learn can explain differences in growth and wealth among
coutries (Dasgupta, Stiglitz). Single-loop, double-loop learning
(Argyris and Schon).
Kogut: firms invest in learning depending upon the
degree of competition and imitation (Cohen and Levinthal). The knowledge literature
overfocuses on the learning dimension and misses the competitive aspect.
Kogut: New learning depends on social understandings and situated
cognition. Social and technical capabilities of countries matter deply.
Firms are heterogeneous and differ in their abilities to absorb foreign
technologies.
AG: knowledge complexity, differentiation and specialization,
complementarity, and interdependence are emerging as important
contingencies affecting effective organization and governance
solutions. Simon and March, information cost perspective. Knowledge
provides many more coordination and governance mechanisms. ... enlarge
the perspective to include processes of knowledge articulation and
deliberate hypotheses testing. ... more varied trajectories of learning
open up. ... knowledge and cognition, rather than just information and
information costs, heuristic, theoretical, and paradigmatic knowledge,
rather than just routine-based knowledge.
BK: ... historical roots... cultural roots... ... situated practice...
Theory of the firm:
BK: knowledge and incentives are independently sufficient conditions.
AG:
neither incentives nor knowledge independently explain the need for
islands of shared property rights. ...firms can be explained as
communities of shared knowledge and identity (Kogut). Communities of
shared knowledge do exist across firm boundaries. ... mechanisms
governing them: face-to-face interactions, common computer-based
knowledge exchange networks, shared practices and theories,
certification bodies and rules. ... little evidence that incentives to
share knowledge are generally stronger within the same organization
than across its boundaries. ... we do have both communities of
knowledge (shared objectives) and knowledge markets (differentiated
knowledge and conflicting interests) both within and across firm
boundaries. There can be internal islands of shared rights (internal
corporate ventures), as there can be external islands of shared rights
(interfirm joint ventures).
BK: the effort was... to understand firms as consisting of patterns of
behavior that persist even if there is turnover in individuals.
AG: conflit in the firm: lack of incentive compatibility, but also
conflict in rooted judgement (different training and orientation).
BK: division of labor organizes our occupational identities, how we see the world, how we learn.
AG: ...occupational identities, industrial identities (e.g. industrial
districts), social group identities may be stronger than firm
identities. ... many boundaries to a firm, at least (legally defined)
property rights boundary, (de facto) knowledge possession boundary, and
contractual boundaries (like HR service providers).
BK: certainly identity is not limited to the firm. ... four levels of
knowledge, one of them the network. ... explain boundary choice by
other factors than incentive conflicts (knowledge-based view). ...
endorse this perspective of networks. ... knowledge and incentives are
influenced by firm boundaries. ... we cannot create a continuum of
organizational forms from the market to the firm. ... Theories of
capabilities, competence, and knowledge have forced a major rethinking
of the source of differences among firms. ... in firms, coordination,
learning and communication are facilitated, but at the cost of a lost
in variety. ... identities rule out paths of exploration, alternative
visions of organization, and competence. ... the cost of socialization
is homogeneity. ... differences among firms and increasing costs
incurred by variety. ... identities, learning and coordination are to
be found in the interstices among firms and in the occupational
communities. ... It is increasingly clear that communities of practice
are critical to understanding regions and transfer of ideas by the
movement of people.
AG: ... should be possible to explain governance arrangements (firms
too) by means of a more general theory that does not rely on particular
configurations of power. ... knowledge is an important factor in this
more general theory.
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