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The Application of External Knowledge: Organizational Conditions for Exploration and Exploitation
Author(s) -
Bierly Paul E.,
Damanpour Fariborz,
Santoro Michael D.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00829.x
Subject(s) - absorptive capacity , exploit , knowledge management , tacit knowledge , business , competitive advantage , organizational learning , explicit knowledge , work (physics) , industrial organization , computer science , marketing , engineering , mechanical engineering , computer security
A firm's ability to acquire and exploit external knowledge is often critical to achieving and sustaining a competitive advantage. In this study, we adopt a multi‐dimensional view of absorptive capacity and focus specifically on the application of external knowledge that has been obtained via university‐firm collaborations. We examine various organizational conditions that we propose influence a firm's ability to apply external knowledge for explorative and exploitative innovations. We collected data by a survey of firms in industries that frequently work with university research centres (URCs) and from publicly available sources. Results show that predictors of exploration and exploitation of the application of external knowledge differ. Surprisingly, technological relatedness, a common measure of absorptive capacity, is negatively associated with the application of external knowledge to explorative innovations, indicating that knowledge from more distant sources is applied more to exploration. Results also indicate that the effects of two external learning capabilities (prior experience with URCs and technological capability) on knowledge application are moderated in such a way by the tacitness of the knowledge transferred that experience is a stronger predictor when the knowledge is more explicit and technological capability is a stronger predictor when the knowledge is more tacit. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on the application of external knowledge.