Strategic knowledge management research: tracing the co‐evolution of strategic management and knowledge management perspectives

This article traces the evolution of strategic management and knowledge management research during the past four decades with particular emphasis on the role of knowledge in interorganizational collaborative arrangements. By outlining the main strategic management perspectives in contemporary business literature and combining them with current knowledge management perspectives, an indication of the evolution of research pertaining to strategic knowledge management emerges. It is shown that most of the current strategic knowledge management research is conducted within the existing paradigms of strategic management. A criticism of this is offered and the article concludes by offering a new, more dynamic perspective of knowledge management, focusing on the synergies of knowledge‐related capabilities in explaining the formation and economic justification of strategic collaborative arrangements.

[1]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  The myopia of learning , 1993 .

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

[3]  J. Liebeskind,et al.  Knowledge, Strategy, and the Theory of the Firm , 1996 .

[4]  J. March,et al.  A Behavioral Theory of the Firm , 1964 .

[5]  R. Kaplan,et al.  The balanced scorecard--measures that drive performance. , 2015, Harvard business review.

[6]  S. Winter.  Knowledge and Competence as Strategic Assets , 1987 .

[7]  Sumantra Ghoshal,et al.  Rebuilding Behavioral Context: A Blueprint for Corporate Renewal , 1996 .

[8]  C. Prahalad,et al.  Competing for the Future , 1994 .

[9]  B. Kogut.  Joint ventures: Theoretical and empirical perspectives , 1988 .

[10]  Andrew C. Inkpen,et al.  Believing Is Seeing: Joint Ventures and Organization Learning* , 1995 .

[11]  Nandini Rajagopalan,et al.  TOWARD A THEORY OF STRATEGIC CHANGE: A MULTI-LENS PERSPECTIVE AND INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK , 1997 .

[12]  R. Caves.  International Corporations: The Industrial Economics of Foreign Investment , 1971 .

[13]  M. Hammer,et al.  REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION: A MANIFESTO FOR BUSINESS REVOLUTION , 1995 .

[14]  Bo B. Nielsen.  Managing knowledge in international strategic alliances: theory and practice , 2003 .

[15]  B. Kogut,et al.  Knowledge and the Speed of the Transfer and Imitation of Organizational Capabilities: An Empirical Test , 1995 .

[16]  J. Brown,et al.  Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation , 1991 .

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

[18]  H. Igor Ansoff,et al.  Implanting Strategic Management , 1984 .

[19]  K. Pavitt.  What We Know about the Strategic Management of Technology , 1990 .

[20]  J. March.  Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning , 1991, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[21]  Melissa M. Appleyard,et al.  HOW DOES KNOWLEDGE FLOW? INTERFIRM PATTERNS IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY , 1996 .

[22]  C. Prahalad,et al.  The Core Competence of the Corporation , 1990 .

[23]  Keith W. Glaister,et al.  Strategic Motives For International Alliance Formation , 1996 .

[24]  David J. Miller,et al.  The Resource-Based View of the Firm in Two Environments: The Hollywood Film Studios From 1936 to 1965 , 1996 .

[25]  I. Nonaka,et al.  How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation , 1995 .

[26]  Alice Lam.  Tacit Knowledge, Organizational Learning and Societal Institutions: An Integrated Framework , 2000 .

[27]  Michael Marcus,et al.  THE SECRETS OF A SUCCESSFUL LIAISON. , 1993 .

[28]  M. Polanyi.  Personal Knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy , 1959 .

[29]  M. Tushman,et al.  Executive succession, strategic reorientations, and organization evolution: The minicomputer industry as a case in point , 1985 .

[30]  E. Johnsen.  Richard M. Cyert & James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of The Firm, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963, 332 s. , 1964 .

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

[32]  Arvind Parkhe.  “Messy” Research, Methodological Predispositions, and Theory Development in International Joint Ventures , 1993 .

[33]  Arvind Parkhe.  Strategic Alliance Structuring: A Game Theoretic and Transaction Cost Examination of Interfirm Cooperation , 1993 .

[34]  F. Blackler.  Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and Interpretation , 1995 .

[35]  Greg Young.  Comment: The Resource-Based View of the Firm and "Austrian" Economics , 1995 .

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

[37]  W. Powell,et al.  The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis , 1993 .

[38]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Organizational Learning: A Theory Of Action Perspective , 1978 .

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

[40]  Y. Doz.  The evolution of cooperation in strategic alliances: Initial conditions or learning processes? , 2007 .

[41]  J. Birkinshaw,et al.  Managing knowledge in global service firms: Centers of excellence , 1998 .

[42]  Ian H. Gordon,et al.  Relationship Marketing: New Strategies, Techniques and Technologies to Win the Customers You Want and Keep Them Forever , 2000 .

[43]  Rod Coombs,et al.  `Knowledge management practices' and path-dependency in innovation , 1998 .

[44]  M. Porter.  Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance , 1985 .

[45]  J. Killing,et al.  Strategies for joint venture success , 1983 .

[46]  R. Eccles,et al.  Networks and Organizations: Structure, Form, and Action , 1992 .

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

[48]  G. Hamel.  Competition for competence and interpartner learning within international strategic alliances , 1991 .

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

[50]  D. Teece.  The Competitive challenge : strategies for industrial innovation and renewal : the Transamerica lectures in corporate strategy, School of Business, University of California, Berkely , 1987 .

[51]  Joel A. C. Baum,et al.  OPPORTUNITY AND CONSTRAINT: ORGANIZATIONS’ LEARNING FROM THE OPERATING AND COMPETITIVE EXPERIENCE OF INDUSTRIES , 1997 .

[52]  Martyn Cordey-Hayes,et al.  Inward technology transfer as an interactive process , 1995 .

[53]  D. Leonard-Barton,et al.  Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation , 1995 .

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

[55]  J. Barney.  Looking inside for competitive advantage , 1995 .

[56]  C. Knudsen,et al.  Theories of the Firm, Strategic Management, and Leadership , 1995 .

[57]  M. Casson,et al.  The future of the multinational enterprise , 1977 .

[58]  W. Hamilton,et al.  The Evolution of Cooperation , 1984 .

[59]  V. Albino,et al.  KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AND INTER-FIRM RELATIONSHIPS IN INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS : THE ROLE OF THE LEADER FIRM , 1998 .

[60]  T. A. Stewart.  Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations , 1997 .

[61]  R. Gulati.  Alliances and networks , 1998 .

[62]  Gabriel Szulanski.  Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm , 1996 .

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

[64]  Pierre Dussauge,et al.  Cooperative Strategy: Competing Successfully Through Strategic Alliances , 1999 .

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

[66]  S. Balakrishnan,et al.  Information asymmetry, adverse selection and joint-ventures* Theory and evidence , 1993 .

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

[68]  M. Polanyi,et al.  Personal Knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy , 1959 .

[69]  Paul Trott,et al.  Inward technology transfer as an interactive process : a case study of ICI , 1993 .

[70]  Ari Ginsberg,et al.  Measuring and modelling changes in strategy: Theoretical foundations and empirical directions , 1988 .

[71]  Greg Laugero,et al.  Managing Knowledge , 1998 .

[72]  Jeffrey H. Dyer.  Collaborative Advantage: Winning through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks , 2000 .

[73]  G. Krogh,et al.  Managing Knowledge: Perspectives on Cooperation and Competition , 1996 .

[74]  Andrew C. Inkpen,et al.  Knowledge Management Processes and International Joint Ventures , 1998 .

[75]  J. B. Quinn,et al.  Managing professional intellect: making the most of the best. , 1996, Harvard business review.

[76]  J. Jarillo.  On strategic networks , 1988 .

[77]  J. M. Geringer,et al.  Joint Venture Partner Selection: Strategies for Developed Countries , 1988 .

[78]  D. Teece.  ECONOMIES OF SCOPE AND THE SCOPE OF THE ENTERPRISE , 1980 .

[79]  J. Hennart,et al.  Trojan horse or work horse? The evolution of U.S.-Japanese joint ventures in the United States , 1999 .

[80]  R. Gulati.  Does Familiarity Breed Trust? The Implications of Repeated Ties for Contractual Choice in Alliances , 1995 .

[81]  K. Andrews.  The Concept of Corporate Strategy , 1971 .

[82]  Bernard L. Simonin.  The Importance of Collaborative Know-How: An Empirical Test of the Learning Organization , 1997 .

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

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

[85]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  The new science of management decision , 1960 .

[86]  Alice Lam.  Embedded Firms, Embedded Knowledge: Problems of Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer in Global Cooperative Ventures , 1997 .