دانلود رایگان مقاله آنالیز منابع مبتنی بر دانش مرتبط با دانش در شرکت متنوع

abstract

The competitiveness of related diversified firms depends upon their ability to exploit knowledge relatedness by using the internal knowledge transfer processes within the organizational network. However, most existing studies deal with potential knowledge relatedness at the corporate level, rather than focusing on realized knowledge flows among divisions at the business unit level. Little is consequently known about the very essence of related diversifiers, i.e., the management of knowledge flows within the corporate knowledge network. This study therefore attempts to bridge this research gap by distinguishing four knowledge roles within related firms and analyzing their relative performance outcomes. Based on a sample of 116 product divisions, results indicate that divisions playing a knowledge provider role outperform those that not play that role, thus signaling unique resource endowments in the formers. On the contrary, those divisions which plays a knowledge receiving role do not benefit from the internal accumulation of resources.

5. Discussion and conclusion

The RVB of rent creation explains performance differentials among firms on the grounds of their ability to possess and accumulate unique resources (Barney, 1989; Dierickx & Cool, 1989) through the interplay of resource-pickering and capability-building mechanisms (Makadok, 2001). This study investigates these issues in the richer context of related diversified firms in which these processes can be explored at a deeper level by looking at knowledge exchanges among their constituent business units (Tsai, 2001) and the corresponding knowledge role that they play within the internal corporate network (Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000). The results support the importance of division knowledge role as regards understanding division performance within related firms. Those business divisions with high knowledge outflows to the rest of the corporation have the advantages that a rich resource base is developed around the core competences of the corporation. On the contrary, those business divisions with low knowledge outflows to the rest of the corporation do not have a resource base on which to sustain their operations (Fig. 4).