Knowledge-based theories of the firm in strategic management : a review and extension

Large infrastructure projects are seldom completed on time or on budget. Unlike many other projects of this type, the construction of the Oresund Bridge was considered to be a successful infrastructure project. Since no plan can foresee all events, deviations from plans arise, and these have to be managed as they appear during construction. How deviations are managed is of strategic importance. This dissertation investigates the ability of the contractor organization, constructing the Oresund Bridge, to manage deviations from prescribed requirements. Deviations can be detected and corrected through formal routines (ISO 9000, a quality standard), or informal groups (communities of practice).The findings show that deviations were managed through both communities of practice as well as through formal routines. The development of communities of practice was both impeded and enhanced by the built-in surveillance and disciplining processes embedded in ISO 9000, as well as the ability to communicate using rich media. The performance of the communities studied was variable, and moreover, it can be concluded that some communities of practice are more important than others. The implications of this dissertation is that when knowledge-based capability of managing deviations is included as a metric of project performance several actions could have been taken to enhance the management of deviations.

[1]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[2]  J. Barney.  The Resource-Based Theory of the Firm , 1996 .

[3]  Richard M. Cyert,et al.  Organizations, decision making and strategy: overview and comment , 1993 .

[4]  K. Arrow.  Classificatory Notes on the Production and Transmission of Technological Knowledge , 1969 .

[5]  Alan Burton-Jones.  Knowledge Capitalism: Business, Work, and Learning in the New Economy , 1999 .

[6]  Nathan Rosenberg,et al.  Inside the Black Box: Technology and Economics , 1984 .

[7]  Jean Tirole,et al.  The theory of the firm , 1989 .

[8]  J. Barney.  How a Firm's Capabilities Affect Boundary Decisions , 1999 .

[9]  Todd R. Zenger,et al.  Testing Alternative Theories of the Firm: Transaction Cost, Knowledge-Based, and Measurement Explanations for Make-or- Buy Decisions in Information Services , 1997 .

[10]  B. Kogut,et al.  What Firms Do? Coordination, Identity, and Learning , 1996 .

[11]  H. Demsetz.  The Theory of the Firm Revisited , 1988 .

[12]  R. Reed,et al.  Causal Ambiguity, Barriers to Imitation, and Sustainable Competitive Advantage , 1990 .

[13]  K. R. Conner,et al.  A Resource-Based Theory of the Firm: Knowledge Versus Opportunism , 1996 .

[14]  John Roberts,et al.  The Boundaries of the Firm Revisited , 1998 .

[15]  S. Winter.  On Coase, Competence, and the Corporation , 1988 .

[16]  B. Kogut,et al.  Exploring internal stickiness : Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm , 2007 .

[17]  B. Kogut,et al.  Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology , 1992 .

[18]  K. Arrow.  Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention , 1962 .

[19]  T. Kippenberger.  When is virtual virtuous , 1997 .

[20]  Joan V. Robinson,et al.  The Nature of the Firm , 2004 .

[21]  S. Winter,et al.  The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution, and Development , 1992 .

[22]  David Lei,et al.  Dynamic Core Competences through Meta-Learning and Strategic Context , 1996 .

[23]  Gustavo A. C. Guzman,et al.  Practical Knowledge , 1883, J. Knowl. Manag..

[24]  O. Williamson,et al.  Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. , 1977 .

[25]  Lawrence M. Wein,et al.  Economics of Product Development by Users: the Impact of Sticky Local Information , 1998 .

[26]  M. Lessnoff.  Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy , 1979 .

[27]  J. Spender.  Pluralist Epistemology and the Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm , 1998 .

[28]  Georg von Krogh,et al.  Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation , 2000 .

[29]  D. Teece.  Capturing Value from Knowledge Assets: The New Economy, Markets for Know-How, and Intangible Assets , 1998 .

[30]  H. Demsetz,et al.  Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization , 1975, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[31]  N. Foss,et al.  Competitive Advantage and Industry Capabilities , 1995 .

[32]  P. Hobbs,et al.  American Economic Association , 1992 .

[33]  D. Teece.  Firm organization, industrial structure, and technological innovation☆ , 1996 .

[34]  J. R. Moore,et al.  The theory of the growth of the firm twenty-five years after , 1960 .

[35]  E. Hippel.  Sticky Information and the Locus of Problem Solving: Implications for Innovation , 1994 .

[36]  Anne Wheeler,et al.  Knowledge Management Toolkit , 2001 .

[37]  I. Nonaka.  A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation , 1994 .

[38]  C. P. Goodman,et al.  The Tacit Dimension , 2003 .

[39]  G. Krogh,et al.  An essay on corporate epistemology , 2007 .

[40]  B. Klein,et al.  Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process , 1978, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[41]  Thomas S. Wurster,et al.  Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy , 1999 .

[42]  Pierre Garrouste,et al.  Towards an Austrian Theory of the Firm , 1999 .

[43]  Anne Morris,et al.  Knowledge Management Toolkit , 2001 .

[44]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[45]  D. Leonard-Barton.  CORE CAPABILITIES AND CORE RIGIDITIES: A PARADOX IN MANAGING NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT , 1992 .

[46]  J. Spender.  Making knowledge the basis of a dynamic theory of the firm , 1996 .

[47]  J. Barney.  Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[48]  Organizations , 1992, Restoration & Management Notes.

[49]  R. Nelson.  Why do firms differ, and how does it matter? , 1991 .

[50]  M. Shubik,et al.  A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. , 1964 .

[51]  Alanson P. Minkler.  Knowledge and internal organization , 1993 .

[52]  R. Grant,et al.  Knowledge and Economic Organization: An Application to the Analysis of Interfirm Collaboration , 2000 .

[53]  B. Frey,et al.  Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, and Organizational Forms , 2000 .

[54]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[55]  Cynthia A. Montgomery,et al.  Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm: Towards A Synthesis , 2012 .

[56]  O. Williamson,et al.  STRATEGY RESEARCH: GOVERNANCE AND COMPETENCE PERSPECTIVES , 1999 .

[57]  N. Foss.  Knowledge-Based Approaches to the Theory of the Firm: Some Critical Comments , 1996 .

[58]  D. Teece,et al.  Strategic management and economics , 1991 .

[59]  C. Paul Hallwood,et al.  Competencies as Private Information: An Efficient Capital Asset Pricing Theory of the Firm , 1997 .

[60]  Nicolai J. Foss,et al.  More Critical Comments on Knowledge-Based Theories of the Firm , 1996 .

[61]  S. Winter,et al.  An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.by Richard R. Nelson; Sidney G. Winter , 1987 .

[62]  Silviano Esteve‐Pérez,et al.  The Resource-Based Theory of the Firm , 2006 .

[63]  B. Wernerfelt,et al.  A Resource-Based View of the Firm , 1984 .

[64]  H. Tsoukas.  The firm as a distributed knowledge system : A constructionist approach , 1996 .

[65]  Joseph T. Mahoney,et al.  The management of resources and the resource of management , 1995 .

[66]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage , 1998 .

[67]  K. Arrow.  The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing , 1962 .

[68]  Jens Frøslev Christensen.  Asset profiles for technological innovation , 1995 .

[69]  W. Ocasio.  TOWARDS AN ATTENTION-BASED VIEW OF THE FIRM , 1997 .

[70]  R. Grant,et al.  Knowledge and the firm: Overview , 1996 .

[71]  B. Frey,et al.  Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, and Organizational Forms , 1999 .

[72]  R. Rumelt.  Towards a Strategic Theory of the Firm , 1984 .