Learning in strategic technology alliances

In this paper we examine the influence of strategic technology alliances on organisational learning. From an empirical perspective we examine the pre- and post-alliance knowledge bases of allying firms. We find that the pre-alliance knowledge base overlap of the allying firms has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the degree of learning taking place in the alliance. Alliances established for the purpose of learning also show a significantly greater increase in knowledge base overlap for the allying firms than for non-learning alliance or non-allying firms. This shows the particular importance of learning alliances as a vehicle for organisational learning and competence development. Contrary to what we expected we found that weak ties are more important than strong ties in organisational learning within strategic alliances.     

Learning in strategic technology alliances

In this paper we examine the influence of strategic technology alliances on organisational learning. From an empirical perspective we examine the pre- and post-alliance knowledge bases of allying firms. We find that the pre-alliance knowledge base overlap of the allying firms has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the degree of learning taking place in the alliance. Alliances established for the purpose of learning also show a significantly greater increase in knowledge base overlap for the allying firms than for non-learning alliance or non-allying firms. This shows the particular importance of learning alliances as a vehicle for organisational learning and competence development. Contrary to what we expected we found that weak ties are more important than strong ties in organisational learning within strategic alliances.     

Interactive planning for strategy development in academic-based cooperative research enterprises

The evolution of strategic management concludes that formulation and implementation is an emergent process. In today's knowledge-based society this requires that managers develop more creative ways to align strategies with core competencies to maximise organisational performance and efficiencies. This paper evaluates the approach taken by a university-based research collaborative to illustrate an integrated planning process that supports strategic management in higher education environments. Utilising the concepts of road mapping and interactive planning, this case study provides insights into the participative approach used and provides a modification of several conceptual models to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of this process.     

战略柔性、绿色创新与企业绩效 ——动态环境规制下的交互和调节效应模型

高质量发展成为当今时代的主题,归根到底是要实现企业绿色转型、提升企业绩效。鉴于企业发展受内外部因素的联动影响,尝试构建动态环境规制嵌入下战略柔性、绿色创新与企业绩效关系的理论模型,采集173份有效调查问卷,通过层次回归对影响企业转型和绩效的因素进行实证分析。结果表明,在当前情境下,战略柔性、绿色创新对企业绩效有显著提升效应,但是伴随战略柔性强度增大,其贡献度减小;两者交互效应能显著正向提升企业绩效,且绿色创新在不同水平的战略柔性与企业绩效关系中发挥不同中介作用,说明变革管理理念和强化绿色创新是遏制战略柔性过高导致企业绩效贡献度下降的重要措施,绿色创新对战略柔性的效应发挥起到纽带作用;动态环境规制在战略柔性、绿色创新对企业绩效的显著正向影响中存在负向调节效应,表明动态环境下政府规制政策更多地对企业决策和创新行为带来抑制效果。综合研究结果,提出企业应加强内生路径建设、注重环境规制政策引导、实现政企双赢与协同发展。     

Constructing and mobilising futures knowledge in an organisation: foresight as a catalyst of dynamic strategic practice

The paper discusses foresight as a dynamic strategic practice and theorises the connections of foresight and strategic management. The paper argues that organisations have a rising need to foster relevant future-oriented knowledge in a continuous process that builds on the systemic understanding of the operational environment. For this purpose, the paper outlines a conceptual framework for continuous organisational foresight practice. The framework is based on two conceptual bedrocks. The first is the idea of continuity, referring to the long-term accumulation of organisational practices. The second bedrock is the notion of discontinuity as an organisational transformation factor. Furthermore, the framework builds on the notion of four knowledge spaces in an organisation, and it is constructed through six layers depicted in detail. The paper demonstrates this framework through a case study of a Finnish research and technology organisation, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.     

Absorptive capacity and firm performance: an integrative framework of benefits and downsides

Research underscores the important role a firm's absorptive capacity plays in developing knowledge, promoting open innovation, managing alliances, facilitating organisational learning, creating strategic variety, and enhancing financial performance. However, prior research often overlooks how absorptive capacity could increase a firm's costs associated with building this capacity, perpetuate and even increase inertia because of reduced variety and limited organisational search, handicap internal knowledge development, and complicate knowledge sharing. Research also ignores the growing complexity of absorptive capacity, a factor that could reduce a firm's gains from exploiting external knowledge. Our discussion builds on the knowledge-based view to provide an integrative framework for the performance effects of absorptive capacity. Based on different benefits and downsides of absorptive capacity at multiple levels of analysis, it points to an inverted U-shaped relationship between absorptive capacity and a firm's financial performance, highlighting several promising avenues for future research.     

沉淀冗余、跨界搜寻与高科技企业创新绩效——战略柔性的调节作用

基于资源基础观与路径依赖理论，以高科技企业为研究对象，构建沉淀冗余、跨界搜寻、战略柔性与企业创新绩效的理论模型，利用SPSS23.0和Amos24.0软件进行实证检验。研究结果表明，沉淀冗余与高科技企业创新绩效间存在倒U型关系；技术知识跨界搜寻、市场知识跨界搜寻分别在沉淀冗余与高科技企业创新绩效之间的倒U型关系中发挥中介作用；战略柔性在沉淀冗余对高科技企业创新绩效的倒U型影响中发挥调节作用。结论证实了适量沉淀冗余对高科技企业创新的重要性，有助于弥补沉淀冗余与高科技企业创新绩效关系研究的不足，对企业管理实践具有一定参考价值。     

沉淀冗余、跨界搜寻与高科技企业创新绩效——战略柔性的调节作用

基于资源基础观与路径依赖理论,以高科技企业为研究对象,构建沉淀冗余、跨界搜寻、战略柔性与企业创新绩效的理论模型,利用SPSS23.0和Amos24.0软件进行实证检验。研究结果表明,沉淀冗余与高科技企业创新绩效间存在倒U型关系;技术知识跨界搜寻、市场知识跨界搜寻分别在沉淀冗余与高科技企业创新绩效之间的倒U型关系中发挥中介作用;战略柔性在沉淀冗余对高科技企业创新绩效的倒U型影响中发挥调节作用。结论证实了适量沉淀冗余对高科技企业创新的重要性,有助于弥补沉淀冗余与高科技企业创新绩效关系研究的不足,对企业管理实践具有一定参考价值。     

互联网能力与知识能力交互效应对知识创造绩效的传导机制:一个被中介的调节效应模型

整合资源基础观、知识基础观和动态能力理论，探讨互联网背景下互联网能力、知识能力两种企业内部因素交互作用对知识创造绩效的影响过程，尤其关注了具有前瞻性与反应性特征的战略柔性在这一过程中的重要作用，从而构建了一个被中介的调节效应模型。基于我国399家企业调研数据发现，互联网能力、知识能力均对战略柔性有显著正向影响；互联网能力与知识能力的交互作用通过战略柔性的中介机制促进企业知识创造绩效提升，即存在被中介的调节效应。在理论上，丰富了资源基础观和知识基础观在组织竞争优势构建方面的前因研究，在实践上，为处于互联网背景下的企业有效提升知识创造绩效提供了实践参考。     

The Investment Behaviour of Russian Farms

This article analyses determinants of the investment behaviour of Russian farms during the period of economic stabilisation after the 1998 financial crisis. We argue that the performance and investment activity of Russian farms are significantly affected not only by the macroeconomic and institutional environment but also by the farm's individual characteristics. Our empirical analysis confirms that farm investment decisions are determined by farm idiosyncrasies. The farm's managerial competence and organisational learning are found to have the greatest impact.     

The Role of Market Orientation and Entrepreneurial Orientation for New Product Development Performance in Manufacturing Firms

The overall purpose of this article is to examine the relationships between two strategic orientations and performance in new product development. The first orientation considered is market orientation; the second one considered is entrepreneurial orientation, which reflects a firm’s propensity to innovate, to be proactive, as well as its willingness to take risks. Drawing upon a sample of 224 mid-sized manufacturing firms, multiple regressions with and without interaction terms were used for testing seven hypotheses. The results show that a market orientation and innovativeness were positively related to performance in new product development, while proactiveness and risk taking show no such relationship. The results also show that neither product characteristics nor environmental characteristics moderate these relationships. In terms of implications, our results suggest that contradictory and to some extent paradoxical capabilities are needed to increase performance in new product development, and that the different components of an entrepreneurial orientation do not impact new product development performance equally.     

Security analyst firm reputation and investors’ response to forecasted stocks in the biotechnology sector

ABSTRACT

Stock analyst reputation bridges the gap between technical knowledge of the high-technology and the investor's response to its stock, implying that the reputation of the stand-alone analyst serves this purpose. However, global firms have a stronger influence on their stock analysts than do small firms with 2 personnel. Does firm reputation affect the individual analyst and attract investor attention to forecasted stocks? Evidence from SAFs (security analyst firms) in the biotechnology sector supports this question and proposition. Four moderators (interactive predictors of organisational reputation) show positive correlations. They are the SAF's age, size, performance, and media coverage. These organisational level measures contribute to the institutional theory compared to the literature that focuses on the individual analyst without their organisations. In line with institutional theory, we make three explicit points. First, high uncertainty in the biotechnology sector turns investors to the organisational legitimacy and reputation of the analyst. Second, the organisational age, size, performance and media coverage of the security firm reduces uncertainty of the investor in the biotechnology sector. Third, the reputation of security firm flow to its individual analysts as well as from the individual analyst to the security firm. Thus, the organisational context matters in a social setting.     

Achieving competitive capabilities in e-services

What implications does the Internet have for service operations strategy? How can business performance of e-service companies be improved in today's knowledge-based economy? These research questions are the subject of this paper. We propose a model that links the e-service company's knowledge-based competencies with their competitive capabilities. Drawing from the current literature, our analysis suggests that services that strategically build a portfolio of knowledge-based competencies, namely human capital, structural capital, and absorptive capacity have more operations-based options, than their counterparts who are less apt to invest. We assume that the combinative capabilities of service quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost are determined by the investment in intellectual capital. Arguably, with the advent of the Internet, different operating models (e.g., bricks-and-mortar, clicks-and-mortar, or pure dot-com) have different strategic imperatives in terms of knowledge-based competencies. Thus, the new e-operations paradigm can be viewed as a configuration of knowledge-based competencies and capabilities.     

开放式创新、战略柔性与创新绩效

以中国制造业259家企业为数据样本，研究了开放式创新、战略柔性与企业创新绩效之间的关系，研究发现开放式创新战略与企业创新绩效呈显著正相关关系，战略柔性与创新绩效呈显著正相关关系，并且开放式创新战略与战略柔性对创新绩效的影响存在显著正向交互作用。研究结果对企业管理层有一定的借鉴意义，企业应该尽可能实施开放式创新战略，提高资源柔性和协调柔性。     

Transformational leadership and absorptive capacity: an analysis of the organisational catalysts for this relationship

Research analysing the antecedents of a firm’s absorptive capacity suggests that transformational leadership (TL) is one of its main determinants. However, the few studies focusing on the relationship between these two variables do not explicitly assess why transformational leaders facilitate knowledge acquisition, sharing and retention inside firms. This paper suggests that the reason is that the former contributes to the creation of an organisational context that favours learning processes. We test our research model on a sample of 467 Spanish industrial firms. Findings provide evidence that TL is positively related to the firm’s absorptive capacity and that this relationship is mediated by some organisational learning facilitators: experimentation, risk-taking, interacting with external environment and dialogue.     

领先顾客知识管理对产品不连续创新绩效的影响

基于技术采用生命周期的视角,构建了领先顾客知识管理对企业产品不连续创新绩效影响模型,研究了战略柔性在两者间影响关系中的中介作用。利用问卷调查数据实证检验了领先顾客知识管理、产品不连续创新以及战略柔性三者之间的关系。得出如下结论:领先顾客知识管理对产品不连续创新绩效存在正向影响;战略柔性在领先顾客知识管理对产品不连续创新绩效影响中起中介作用。     

领导—员工目标导向匹配对员工越轨创新行为与创新绩效的影响

基于493份领导—员工配对问卷，采用多项式回归与响应面分析技术，探讨领导—员工4种目标导向匹配模式对员工越轨创新行为以及创新绩效的影响机制。研究结果表明，与领导—员工目标导向差异性匹配相比，领导—员工目标导向一致性匹配对员工越轨创新行为的影响更显著；在领导—员工目标导向一致性匹配情形下，与领导绩效目标导向—员工绩效目标导向匹配相比，领导学习目标导向—员工学习目标导向匹配对员工越轨创新行为与创新绩效的影响更显著；在领导—员工目标导向差异性匹配情形下，与领导学习目标导向—员工绩效目标导向匹配相比，领导绩效目标导向—员工学习目标导向匹配对员工越轨创新行为与创新绩效的影响更显著；越轨创新在领导—员工目标导向匹配与员工创新绩效之间发挥中介作用。     

多维企业战略柔性体系增强模型的构建

基于Porter的价值链思想,从企业外部环境不确定性和内部资源可调整性的视角,构建了多维企业战略柔性体系。基于该体系,将战略领导力作为首要的决定因素,提出了基于企业资源适应性和协同性的企业战略柔性的增强模型和增强途径。     

Organisational learning capability,product innovation performance and export intensity

The hypothesis that managerial characteristics which facilitate the organisational learning process can provide firms with a basis for competitive advantage has received a great deal of attention. While there is evidence that organisational learning affects export intensity, we argue that intermediate variables, such as innovation, should be used in order to evaluate its impact in organisations. This study shows that firms with a higher organisational learning capability tend to be more innovative, and for this reason, they are more likely to export a higher share of their production. From a longitudinal perspective, we use structural equation modeling on a database from Italian and Spanish ceramic tile producers, worldwide leaders in terms of technology. The database combines primary and secondary data. The results support our theoretical conjectures. Findings improve our understanding of the antecedents of export intensity and are related to previous research.     

Real options game over the business cycle

This paper studies the impact of business cycles on firms' strategic investment decisions by developing and solving a continuous time regime-dependent real options game in an asymmetric duopoly. The value functions, roles and optimal investment timing decisions of the two firms in the expansion and recession states are jointly determined. We show that the preemptive investment equilibrium, where the leader invests earlier than its own first-best investment timing, is pro-cyclical. Moreover, the simultaneous investment equilibrium, where the firms simultaneously invest late and enjoy waiting flexibility as a tacit collusion, is counter-cyclical. In addition, we specifically demonstrate that the values of the leader and follower in the expansion state are smaller than those in the recession state when the preemptive equilibrium prevails in the expansion state and the simultaneous equilibrium prevails in the recession state.