Multi-Technology Corporations: Why They Have “Distributed” Rather Than “Distinctive Core” Competencies

Granstrand, Ove; Patel, Parimal; Pavitt, Keith

doi:10.2307/41165908

Cited by 577 publications

(338 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…One explanation for this growth has been that -as with production -firms have been "outsourcing" R & D in order to reduce technology-related costs, and to concentrate on their core technological competencies. But the evidence shows the contrary: both corporate R & D costs and their dispersion across fields have continued to increase in large firms (Granstrand et al, 1997) A more plausible explanation is the continuously increasing number of technological fields that firms must monitor and master. These have increased not only with the division of labour in the production of knowledge, but also with the division of labour in the production of goods and services.…”

Section: What's Changing: External Co-ordination -The 'Third Face' Ofmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…computing in automobiles. See also Granstrand et al, 1997). Another consequence has been that new combinations of fields of knowledge 6 have enabled firms based in rich fields of science and technology -like chemistry, and electrical and electronic fields in the past, and ITC today -to diversify by creating and entering cognitively related product markets.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Innovating routines in the business firm: what corporate tasks should they be accomplishing?

Pavitt¹

2002

Industrial and Corporate Change

100

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Section: What's Changing: External Co-ordination -The 'Third Face' Ofmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovating routines in the business firm: what corporate tasks should they be accomplishing?

Pavitt¹

2002

Industrial and Corporate Change

100

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“…8 Thus, in the strategy field, Tsoukas (1996) conceptualized the firm as a distributed knowledge system, Granstrand, Patel and Pavitt (1997) documented the increasing extent to which the knowledge bases controlled by major technology-intensive corporations are distributed, and Lessard and Zaheer (1996) discussed the implications of distributed knowledge for the strategy-making process. Hutchins (1995) and Gherardi (1999) discussed implications for organizational learning, Cohen and Regan (1996) applied the notion to technology management, Foss (1999) This scholarly activity may reflect reality.…”

Section: Defining Distributed Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, what is being asserted by a number of authors seems to be that there are significant discontinuities in the evolution of distributed knowledge, so that the distributed character of knowledge has strongly increased during the last decades. Thus, Granstrand, Patel and Pavitt (1997) document the significantly increasing extent to which firms organize in-house distributed technological knowledge, drawn from a growing number of underlying technological disciplines. Wang and von Tunzelman (2000) emphasize that not only are the number of disciplines that firms draw on expanding, it is also the case that these disciplines themselves evolve in terms of their depth and specialization; firms' sourcing of technological knowledge reflects this.…”

Section: Defining Distributed Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is because firms increasingly need to rely on a growing number of knowledge specialists, be they employees or outside knowledge agents, such as supplier firms or universities (e.g., Granstrand, Patel and Pavitt, 1997;Hodgson, 1998;Coombs and Metcalfe, 2000;Smith, 2000;Wang and von Tunzelman, 2000;Brusoni, Prencipe andPavitt, 2001, Orlikowski, 2002;Husted and Michailova, this volume). This tendency is seen as having strong transformative implications for the boundaries of the firm (Coombs and Metcalfe, 2000), as well as for internal organization (Cowen and Parker, 1997;Foss, 1999) ⎯ including the use of authority as a mechanism of coordination (Grandori, 1997(Grandori, , 2002.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Managerial Authority When Knowledge is Distributed: A Knowledge Governance Perspective

Foss¹,

Foss²

2009

Knowledge Governance

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A critical knowledge governance problems concern the consequences the use of the governance mechanism of authority if the knowledge that is essential in a work setting is partially unknown to the person who is to exercise authority. Is it possible to rationally direct work and activities under such conditions? Recently, many scholars have given negative answers to this question, arguing that authority relations are becoming strained by the increasingly distributed nature of knowledge in and between firms. We analyze this argument, providing definitions of "authority" and "distributed knowledge." This allows us to show that ⎯ while intuitively appealing ⎯ the argument that authority cannot be an efficient coordination mechanism in the presence of distributed knowledge is at best problematic. The argument is based on the flawed inference that because the holder of authority is ignorant about some of the knowledge held by employees, he cannot rationally direct them. However, it is correct that the quality of centralized direction (planning, authority) may be compromised by distributed knowledge, leading to choices of other governance mechanisms and structures.2

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Strategy and circumstance: the response of American firms to Japanese competition in semiconductors, 1980-1995

Langlois

Steinmueller

2000

Strat. Mgmt. J.

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The transistor was an American invention, and American firms led the world in semiconductor production and innovation for the first three decades of that industry's existence. In the 1980s, however, Japanese producers began to challenge American dominance. Shrill cries arose from the literature of public policy, warning that the American semiconductor industry would soon share the fate of the lamented American consumer electronics business. Few dissented from the implications: the only hope for salvation would be to adopt Japanese-style public policies and imitate the kinds of capabilities Japanese firms possessed. But the predicted extinction never occurred. Instead, American firms surged back during the 1990s, and it now seems the Japanese who are embattled. This striking American turnaround has gone largely unremarked upon in the public policy literature. And even scholarship in strategic management, which thrives on stories of success instead of stories of failure, has been comparatively silent. Drawing on a more thorough economic history of the worldwide semiconductor industry (Langlois and Steinmueller 1999), this essay attempts to collect some of the lessons for strategy research of the American resurgence. We argue that, although some of the American response did consist in changing or augmenting capabilities, most of the renewed American success is in fact the result not of imitating superior Japanese capabilities but rather of taking good advantage of a set of capabilities developed in the heyday of American dominance. Serendipity played at least as important a role as did strategy.

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Multi-Technology Corporations: Why They Have “Distributed” Rather Than “Distinctive Core” Competencies

Cited by 577 publications

References 11 publications

Innovating routines in the business firm: what corporate tasks should they be accomplishing?

Innovating routines in the business firm: what corporate tasks should they be accomplishing?

Managerial Authority When Knowledge is Distributed: A Knowledge Governance Perspective

Strategy and circumstance: the response of American firms to Japanese competition in semiconductors, 1980-1995

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