Does interfirm modularity complement ignorance? A field study of software outsourcing alliances

Knowledge‐intensive outsourcing alliances present outsourcers with a tension between simultaneously sharing enough private knowledge to accomplish alliance goals and safeguarding such knowledge against misappropriation. This study explores the perspective that increasing interfirm modularity lowers the need for interfirm knowledge sharing. Put another way, modularity complements outsourcee ignorance. Analyses of data on 209 alliances between U.S. firms and software services firms in Russia, Ireland, and India provide strong support for this idea. Our theoretical elaboration and empirical testing of the complementarities between modularity and outsourcee ignorance has significant implications for strategy theory, which are also discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Similarities and contradictions in the core logic of three strategy research streams

The logical foundations shaping three prominent streams of strategic management thought are summarized and then compared and contrasted. The intent is to determine whether these research streams are restatements of a single core logic using different terms to describe the same phenomena and relationships, or whether they provide alternate, and potentially competing, explanations for effective strategic action. Analysis reveals some concordant assertions, some similarities across pairs of frameworks, and some fundamental contradictions among the various logic sets. Since key elements in the fundamental premises of each research stream present logical contradictions with each of the other two, a strategy derived from an integration of these perspectives creates inconsistencies in a firm’s enacted context, its assumptions about strategy making, and its administrative arrangements. As circumstances change, a firm may be required to undergo a ‘core logic shift’ to maintain consistency between its strategy and its strategic context. When a shift becomes necessary, a firm needs to overcome structural inertia, competitive inertia, organizational momentum, and its current management logic to maintain internal consistency. Additional implications of the comparison of these three logics for both theory and practice are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

资源外包网络的治理研究

资源外包网络作为一种特殊的资源联合体,其运作过程并非十全十美,机会主义行为和知识分享问题及其引致的网络失灵成为网络治理的主要诱因。资源外包网络的治理包含两个层面:关系治理和结构治理。机会主义行为多发生于外包商和供应商双边交易过程中,对应于资源外包网络的关系治理;知识分享问题涉及网络整体的协调与管理,对应于网络的结构治理。论文分别从关系治理和结构治理两个角度剖析了资源外包网络的治理特点、作用机制和治理对策。     

人力资本治理模式的选择--基于任务复杂性的分析

企业的存在、发展、成熟与衰退的演化过程蕴含着不同特征的任务。本文运用过程与效果两因素将任务的复杂性分成5阶(包括0阶),深入地剖析了这5阶复杂性任务与资产的专用性,尤其是人力资本的通用性、专用性、专有性及通用的专有性之之间的对应关系,指出复杂性任务与人力资本的不同组合其治理成本存在着差异,其选择的治理模式也应有所不同。在此基础上,推断出相应的理论命题。     

The Paradox of Openness: How Product and Patenting Experience Affect R&D Sourcing in China?

External R&D sourcing may help firms compete in an environment characterized by rapid technological changes. Yet, prior studies have produced conflicting findings on how a firm's technological experience affects the extent to which the firm engages in external R&D sourcing. Although many highlight that firms with extensive technological experience are equipped with more technological knowledge, collaborative skills, and absorptive capacity, encouraging greater levels of external R&D, others suggest the opposite due to potential exchange hazards and partnership conflicts. Adopting an external partner's perspective, the current study reconsiders this “paradox of openness” by analyzing how a focal firm's product experience and patenting experience affect an external partner's tendency to provide external R&D services to the focal firm. Specifically, this study explore how a focal firm's knowledge protectiveness and tacitness embedded in its product and patenting experience influences the external partners' motivation for knowledge transfer. This study predicts that a firm's product experience increases the focal firm's external R&D sourcing because it provides high levels of knowledge tacitness and external openness and can encourage external partners to share and exchange knowledge with the focal firm. In contrast, a firm's patenting experience decreases the focal firm's external R&D sourcing because it denotes knowledge explicitness and protectiveness and may discourage external partners to share and exchange knowledge with the focal firm. This study further predicts that patenting experience has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between product experience and external R&D sourcing. Using a data set of 575 high‐tech firms in China, this study finds support for our predictions. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on the knowledge‐based view and technology entrepreneurship in emerging markets.