FROM SENSING SHAPE TO SHAPING SENSE: A DYNAMIC MODEL OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY AND SELECTIVE REVEALING

The concept of absorptive capacity is mainly agnostic to the iterative nature of knowledge production processes. We extend it to a dynamic model, in which firms can influence future spillovers they receive by selectively revealing knowledge today. We derive two strategies, signaling and steering, allowing firms to exhibit managerial agency to increase structural and content compatibility of external knowledge. We explicate potential goals, highlight boundary conditions, and discuss implications for innovation strategy and organization theory.

[1]  Phanish Puranam,et al.  Integrating Acquired Capabilities: When Structural Integration is (Un)Necessary , 2005 .

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

[3]  D. Teece,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1997 .

[4]  Ammon Salter,et al.  Does IP strategy have to cripple open innovation , 2009 .

[5]  Michael L. Katz,et al.  An Analysis of Cooperative Research and Development , 1986 .

[6]  Boris Durisin,et al.  Absorptive capacity: Valuing a reconceptualization , 2007 .

[7]  R. Grant.  Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm,” Strategic Management Journal (17), pp. , 1996 .

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

[9]  Edward J. Zajac,et al.  Defections from the Inner Circle: Social Exchange, Reciprocity, and the Diffusion of Board Independence in U.S. Corporations , 1995 .

[10]  B. Holzner,et al.  Knowledge application: The knowledge system in society , 1979 .

[11]  Andrea Bonaccorsi,et al.  Comparing motivations of individual programmers and firms to take part in the open source movement: From community to business , 2006 .

[12]  Andrea Shepard.  Licensing to Enhance Demand for New Technologies , 1987 .

[13]  Roberto A. Weber,et al.  Cultural Conflict and Merger Failure: An Experimental Approach , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[14]  Corey Phelps,et al.  Learning from What Others Have Learned from You: The Effects of Knowledge Spillovers on Originating Firms , 2009 .

[15]  S. Scotchmer,et al.  Protecting Early Innovators: Should Second-Generation Products Be Patentable? , 1996 .

[16]  Joachim Henkel,et al.  Modularity for Value Appropriation - Drawing the Boundaries of Intellectual Property , 2008 .

[17]  A. MacCormack,et al.  Intel Research: Exploring the Future , 2004 .

[18]  Peter J. Lane,et al.  Relative absorptive capacity and interorganizational learning , 1998 .

[19]  D. Harhoff,et al.  Profiting from Voluntary Information Spillovers: How Users Benefit by Freely Revealing Their Innovations , 2003 .

[20]  Karim R. Lakhani,et al.  Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software , 2005 .

[21]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Design Rules: The Power of Modularity , 2000 .

[22]  Jeffrey H. Dyer,et al.  The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage , 1998 .

[23]  John Cullen,et al.  Democratizing Innovation , 2020, Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

[24]  Michael L. Katz,et al.  On the licensing of innovations , 1985 .

[25]  A. Gawer,et al.  Platform Owner Entry and Innovation in Complementary Markets: Evidence from Intel , 2005 .

[26]  P. Romer.  Endogenous Technological Change , 1989, Journal of Political Economy.

[27]  Alessandro Nuvolari,et al.  Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine , 2004 .

[28]  Ramon Casadesus-Masanell,et al.  Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[29]  David M. Gann,et al.  "In Case of Fire, Please Use the Elevator": Simulation Technology and Organization in Fire Engineering , 2007, Organ. Sci..

[30]  L. Jeppesen,et al.  The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving , 2007 .

[31]  W. Powell,et al.  Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology. , 1996 .

[32]  Brian Fitzgerald,et al.  Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects , 2007 .

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

[34]  R. Grant.  Chapter 8 – Prospering in Dynamically-Competitive Environments: Organizational Capability as Knowledge Integration , 1999 .

[35]  D. Teece.  Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy , 1993 .

[36]  Dietmar Harhoff,et al.  Strategic spillovers and incentives for research and development , 1996 .

[37]  D. Teece,et al.  How to Capture Value from Innovation: Shaping Intellectual Property and Industry Architecture , 2007 .

[38]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Valuing Internal vs. External Knowledge: Explaining the Preference for Outsiders , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[39]  Karel Cool,et al.  Asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage , 1989 .

[40]  Marco Iansiti,et al.  Special Issue: Organizational Design: Organization Design and Effectiveness over the Innovation Life Cycle , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[41]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

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

[43]  Joel West,et al.  How open is open enough?: Melding proprietary and open source platform strategies , 2003 .

[44]  A. Arora,et al.  Markets for Technology and Their Implications for Corporate Strategy , 2000 .

[45]  O. Williamson.  The economic institutions of capitalism , 1985 .

[46]  Reflexive Epistemology: The Philosophical Legacy of Otto Neurath , 1989 .

[47]  Mark J. Safferstone.  Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy , 1999 .

[48]  Araújo,et al.  An Evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[49]  A. Salter,et al.  Open for innovation: the role of openness in explaining innovation performance among U.K. manufacturing firms , 2006 .

[50]  M. Spence.  Job Market Signaling , 1973 .

[51]  R. Veugelers,et al.  R&D Cooperation and Spillovers: Some Empirical Evidence , 1998 .

[52]  Georg von Krogh,et al.  Open Source Software and the "Private-Collective" Innovation Model: Issues for Organization Science , 2003, Organ. Sci..

[53]  Lars Frederiksen,et al.  Why Do Users Contribute to Firm-Hosted User Communities? The Case of Computer-Controlled Music Instruments , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[54]  R. Allen,et al.  Collective Invention , 1982 .

[55]  L. Jeppesen,et al.  Getting Unusual Suspects to Solve R&D Puzzles , 2007 .

[56]  A. Jaffe.  Technological Opportunity and Spillovers of R&D: Evidence from Firms&Apos; Patents, Profits and Market Value , 1986 .

[57]  D. Teece.  Knowledge and Competence as Strategic Assets , 2004 .

[58]  C. Shapiro,et al.  Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities , 1986, Journal of Political Economy.

[59]  D. Mowery,et al.  Technological overlap and interfirm cooperation: implications for the resource-based view of the firm , 1998 .

[60]  A. Arora,et al.  COMPLEMENTARITY AND EXTERNAL LINKAGES: THE STRATEGIES OF THE LARGE FIRMS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY* , 1990 .

[61]  Balaji R. Koka,et al.  The Reification of Absorptive Capacity: A Critical Review and Rejuvenation of the Construct , 2006 .

[62]  Joachim Henkel,et al.  The Jukebox Mode of Innovation - a Model of Commercial Open Source Development , 2004 .

[63]  E. von Hippel,et al.  Sources of Innovation , 2016 .

[64]  W. Dugger.  The Economic Institutions of Capitalism , 1987 .

[65]  Yannis Katsoulacos,et al.  Endogenous spillovers and the per-formance of research joint ventures , 2003 .

[66]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D , 1989 .

[67]  Michael A. Cusumano,et al.  Platform Leadership How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation , 2002 .

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

[69]  Henk W. Volberda,et al.  Co-evolution of Firm Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Environment: Organizational Forms and Combinative Capabilities , 1999 .

[70]  D. Mowery,et al.  Strategic alliances and interfirm knowledge transfer , 1996 .

[71]  O. Bjelland,et al.  An Inside View of IBM's 'Innovation Jam' , 2008 .

[72]  Karim R. Lakhani,et al.  Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast Search , 2010, Organ. Sci..

[73]  J. Henkel.  Selective revealing in open innovation processes: the case of embedded Linux (gekürzte Version) , 2006 .

[74]  S. Zahra,et al.  Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension , 2002 .

[75]  Andrea Fosfuri,et al.  The Penguin Has Entered the Building: The Commercialization of Open Source Software Products , 2008, Organ. Sci..

[76]  Jennifer W. Spencer,et al.  Firms' knowledge-sharing strategies in the global innovation system: empirical evidence from the flat panel display industry , 2003 .

[77]  D. Gann,et al.  How open is innovation , 2010 .

[78]  L. Fleming.  Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search Lee Fleming , 2001 .

[79]  Henk W. Volberda,et al.  Absorbing the Concept of Absorptive Capacity: How to Realize Its Potential in the Organization Field , 2009 .

[80]  Nancy Gallini,et al.  Second-sourcing as a Commitment: Monopoly Incentives to Attract Competition - eScholarship , 1986 .

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