Managerial knowledge to organisational capability: new e‐commerce businesses

Abstract

The knowledge and skills of individuals are widely considered to represent an important component of a firm's intellectual capital. The value of individuals' knowledge is also recognised from a capability-based perspective. While routines and capabilities are considered to act as the interface for the knowledge of individuals, an important and related issue is to examine how and to what extent individuals' knowledge acts as the source of knowledge for the creation of firm-based routines and capabilities. Four firms across two online sectors, online broking and ISPs, are selected for the empirical case study research. The findings highlight the importance of the role of prior organisational experience in the development of new routines and capabilities. It is shown that variations in the role of prior organisational experience across firms and sectors are better understood in respect of the architectural and component knowledge of which managerial knowledge consists. IntroductionThe knowledge and skills of individuals are widely considered to represent valuable, intangible firm assets and, in so doing, represent an important component of a firm's intellectual capital. The value of individual skills and knowledge is also recognised from a capability-based perspective, where it is argued that underlying a firm's routines and capabilities is the knowledge of individuals (Grant, 1996). The relationship between an organisation's knowledge assets and its performance is central to both an intellectual capital as well as a capability-based perspective (Carlucci et al., forthcoming). However, while a key focus of an intellectual capital approach is the valuation of knowledge assets and the intellectual capital of which they are a part, the focus of this paper is on understanding the process of utilising and integrating knowledge assets within the organisation. More specifically, while routines and capabilities are considered to act as the interface for the knowledge of individuals, an important and related issue is to examine how and to what extent managerial knowledge comes to act as the source of knowledge for the creation of firm-based routines and capabilities. New markets provide an interesting opportunity to assess the challenge of developing new routines and capabilities and further afford the opportunity to assess the capability development process across different types of firms, where new market entry is essentially the challenge of diversification for established companies and that of entrepreneurship for new companies.

Organisational Capabilities for Customer Participation in Health Care Service Innovation

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Learning, firm age and performance: An investigation of returnee entrepreneurs in Chinese high-tech industries

“…The learning perspective has important implications for entrepreneurial firms because it focuses on experience and capability to obtain external knowledge and resources. The characteristics of returnee entrepreneurs associated with their experiential and vicarious learning will be reflected in firm performance, as these two forms of learning help entrepreneurs identify and pursue business opportunities (Bakhru, 2004;Wright et al, 1997). Past business experience and the ability to obtain advanced technology and commercial knowledge are essential tools for the successful development of technology-based firms in emerging economies (Saxenian, 2006).…”

Organisational capital and competence building

“…Their fi ndings support the role of organisational capital in enabling incremental innovation, although social and human capital have a positive effect on radical innovation only in combination. The interactive effect between social and human capital reinforces prior research on the role of individuals as the source of new knowledge (Grant, 1996) and highlights their role in the transfer of new knowledge prior to the development of routines and capabilities (Bakhru, 2004). A primary benefi t of this approach is that it specifi es the role played by different types of capital in enabling organisational adaptation.…”