Knowledge-based theory of the firm

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The knowledge-based theory of the firm, or knowledge-based view (KBV), considers knowledge as an essentially important, scarce, and valuable resource in a firm. [1] [2] According to the knowledge-based theory of the firm, the possession of knowledge-based resources, known as intellectual capital, is essential in dynamic business environments. [3] These resources contribute to lower costs, foster innovation and creativity, improve efficiencies, and deliver customer benefits. [3] Collectively, they are considered key drivers of overall organizational performance. [3] The proponents of the theory argue, that because knowledge-based resources are usually complex and difficult to imitate, different sources of knowledge and intellectual capital can be seen as the main sources for a sustainable competitive advantage. [1] [2] [4] [5]

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This knowledge is embedded and carried through multiple entities including organizational culture and identity, policies, routines, documents, systems, and employees. Originating from the strategic management literature, this perspective builds upon and extends the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) initially promoted by Penrose (1959) and later expanded by others (Wernerfelt 1984, Barney 1991, Conner 1991).

Although the resource-based view of the firm recognizes the important role of knowledge in firms that achieve a competitive advantage, proponents of the knowledge-based view argue that the resource-based perspective does not go far enough. Specifically, the RBV treats knowledge as a generic resource, rather than having special characteristics. It therefore does not distinguish between different types of knowledge-based capabilities. Information technologies can play an important role in the knowledge-based view of the firm in that information systems can be used to synthesize, enhance, and expedite large-scale intra- and inter-firm knowledge management. [6]

Whether or not the Knowledge-based theory of the firm actually constitutes a theory has been the subject of considerable debate. [7] [8] According to one notable proponent of the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV), "The emerging knowledge-based view of the firm is not a theory of the firm in any formal sense". [9] The research on the knowledge-based view of the firm is a sub-discourse on resources and capabilities, which is part of the broader research on strategy [10]

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Related Research Articles

Intellectual capital is the result of mental processes that form a set of intangible objects that can be used in economic activity and bring income to its owner (organization), covering the competencies of its people, the value relating to its relationships, and everything that is left when the employees go home, of which intellectual property (IP) is but one component. It is the sum of everything everybody in a company knows that gives it a competitive edge. The term is used in academia in an attempt to account for the value of intangible assets not listed explicitly on a company's balance sheets. On a national level, intellectual capital refers to national intangible capital (NIC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge management</span> Process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization

Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge transfer</span> Sharing knowledge for problem solving

Knowledge transfer is the sharing or disseminating of knowledge and the providing of inputs to problem solving. In organizational theory, knowledge transfer is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another. Like knowledge management, knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users. It is considered to be more than just a communication problem. If it were merely that, then a memorandum, an e-mail or a meeting would accomplish the knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer is more complex because:

In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning.

The word ‘dynamics’ appears frequently in discussions and writing about strategy, and is used in two distinct, though equally important senses.

Marketing strategy is an organization's promotional efforts to allocate its resources across a wide range of platforms, channels to increase its sales and achieve sustainable competitive advantage within its corresponding market.

In business administration, absorptive capacity is defined as a firm's ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends. It is studied on individual, group, firm, and national levels. Antecedents are prior-based knowledge and communication. Studies involve a firm's innovation performance, aspiration level, and organizational learning. It has been said that in order to be innovative an organization should develop its absorptive capacity.

Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified, stored and accessed. It can be expressed in formal and systematical language and shared in the form of data, scientific formulae, specifications, manuals and such like. It is easily codifiable and thus transmittable without loss of integrity once the syntactical rules required for deciphering it are known. Most forms of explicit knowledge can be stored in certain media. Explicit knowledge is often seen as complementary to tacit knowledge.

The resource-based view (RBV) is a managerial framework used to determine the strategic resources a firm can exploit to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Teece</span>

David John Teece is a New Zealand-born US-based organizational economist and the Professor in Global Business and director of the Tusher Center for the Management of Intellectual Capital at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

In organizational theory, dynamic capability is the capability of an organization to purposefully adapt an organization's resource base. The concept was defined by David Teece, Gary Pisano and Amy Shuen, in their 1997 paper Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management, as the firm’s ability to engage in adapting, integrating, and reconfiguring internal and external organizational skills, resources, and functional competences to match the requirements of a changing environment.

Birger Wernerfelt is a Danish economist and management theorist, and JC Penney Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is best known for “A Resource-based View of the Firm” (1984), which is one of the most cited papers in the social sciences.

Competitive heterogeneity is a concept from strategic management that examines why industries do not converge on one best way of doing things. In the view of strategic management scholars, the microeconomics of production and competition combine to predict that industries will be composed of identical firms offering identical products at identical prices. Deeper analyses of this topic were taken up in industrial organization economics by crossover economics/strategic-management scholars such as Harold Demsetz and Michael Porter. Demsetz argued that better-managed firms would make better products than their competitors. Such firms would translate better products or lower prices into higher levels of demand, which would lead to revenue growth. These firms would then be larger than the more poorly managed competitors.

Robert Morris Grant is a scholar and teacher of strategic management. He has held faculty positions at a number of business schools in the UK, Canada, and the US for years and is currently Professor of Strategic Management at Bocconi University in Milan. He is also a visiting professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he has held a position for 15 years.

Capability management is the approach to the management of an organization, typically a business organization or firm, based on the "theory of the firm" as a collection of capabilities that may be exercised to earn revenues in the marketplace and compete with other firms in the industry. Capability management seeks to manage the stock of capabilities within the firm to ensure its position in the industry and its ongoing profitability and survival.

Process capital is the value to an enterprise which is derived from the techniques, procedures, and programs that implement and enhance the delivery of goods and services. Process capital is one of the three components of structural capital, itself a component of intellectual capital. Process capital can be seen as the value of processes to any entity, whether for profit or not-for profit, but is most commonly used in reference to for-profit entities.

Udo Zander is a Swedish organizational theorist, and Professor in Business Administration at the Stockholm School of Economics until 2012. He is particularly known for his work with Bruce Kogut on knowledge-based theory of the firm.

Bruce Mitchel Kogut is an American organizational theorist, and Professor of Leadership and Ethics Director of the Columbia Business School. He is particularly known for his work with Udo Zander on knowledge-based theory of the firm.

The composition-based view (CBV) was recently developed by Luo and Child (2015). It is a new theory that explicates the growth of firms without the benefit of resource advantages, proprietary technology, or market power. The CBV complements some existing theories such as resource-based view (RBV), resource management view, and dynamic capability – to create novel insights into the survival of firms that do not possess such strategic assets as original technologies and brands. It emphasizes how ordinary firms with ordinary resources may generate extraordinary results through their creative use of open resources and unique integrating capabilities, resulting in an enhanced speed and a high price-value ratio that are well suited to large numbers of low- to mid-end mass market consumers. The CBV has been commented as “a new view with significant application” for emerging market firms and for small and medium sized enterprises in many countries. The view cautions though that composition-generated advantages are temporary in nature and that composition itself mandates special skills in distinctively identifying, leveraging, and combining open or existing resources inside and outside the firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hart E. Posen</span> Canadian academic

Hart E. Posen is an academic, researcher, and business analyst. He is a Professor of Management and Human Resources, and the Richard G. and Julie J. Diermeier Professor in Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

References

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