InternationalBusiness Review Vol. 3, NO. 4, pp.

331-335, 1994
Elsevier Science Ltd
Pergamon 0969~5931(94)00020-4 Printed in Great Britain
- 0969-5931/94 $7.00 + 0.00

Editorial
Editorial
Knowledge in Organizations, Knowledge Transfer and Cooperative
Strategies
A word from the Guest Editors*

Why this Special Issue?

The 1994 special issue of the International Business Review addresses:
knowledge in organizations; why and how knowledge is being transferred
under various types of internal and external strategic cooperative
arrangements; as well as the strategic role of such knowledge transfer. Of
practical relevance to the field of international business, not only do we hope
that the included articles will fuel the debate on these issues among
international business researchers; we also hope to stimulate thinking among
practising managers.
There are several reasons why the special issue has been published at this
particular time. First, an increasing number of international cooperative
strategies seem to be motivated by the prospects of knowledge transfer.
Organizations, present in specific markets, commanding unique technologies,
or associated with particular research surface as interesting acquisition targets
or alliance partners. The examples are many: a consumer-electronic company
merges with a movie studio to exploit the combination of information
distribution and information contents; a watchmaker develops an alliance with
a car manufacturer to fuse brand management and competence in automotive
technology; a university develops partnership programs with companies to
bring educational efforts closer to managers needs; two rival computer
manufacturers develop strategic alliances exploiting competence at product
development; Western firms enter into new countries by forced joint
ventures. Indeed the topic is a timely one.
Second, although intuitively appealing, little is known about knowledge in
organizations as well as knowledge transfer in cooperative arrangements. As
the ten contributions in the special issue illustrate, the research topic is
relatively new and much of the contemporary research thus goes into defining
an area of investigation and developing a conceptual apparatus. For example,
some of the contemporary literature seems to be somewhat confused with
respect to the concept of knowledge. We have registered several instances in
which authors choose to substitute knowledge for the less troublesome notion
of information. Yet, other authors deliberately make use of knowledge
without defining it further, acknowledging the arbitrariness and the ambiguity
of the concept. As Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested, we should not refrain from
using the concept of knowledge although it cannot be precisely defined.

*The editors are listed alphabetically, and have contributed equally to the work on this special
issue.

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International The current publication represents a brief status report on the state of
Business research on knowledge in organizations, knowledge transfer and cooperative
Review strategies among a group of international business researchers. We feel that
such a report is needed to further advance the field.
3,4
Third, perhaps the post-modem and/or post-industrial world of business is
best characterized by the lack of enduring reference points like industry,
market, technology, social and demographic factors. As managers venture
into the unknown (in the first place, knowledge transfer is motivated by
prospects of knowledge acquisition and building), they are in need of
language and concepts, techniques, and research results. Rather than
representing the ultimate lever for managerial action, we hope that the
research presented herein may be a stimulus for the development of
managerial thinking and reflection.

On the contributions
Among the ten articles five have been submitted and selected by competition,
and five have been invited by the guest editors. The articles encounter the
issues of knowledge, transfer and cooperation, both in national and
international contexts, by various theoretical lenses and methodologies.
Rooted in various national academic traditions, the articles also have different
forms and styles. As guest editors we welcome and embrace this diversity and
view it as adding to the potential for new insights.
The papers are presented according to a simple scheme: the concepts of
knowledge in organizations, knowledge transfer and organizational learning
in intra- and inter-firm cooperation. Let us briefly present the contributions.
Specifying the nature of knowledge in organizations, Nonaka, Byosiere,
Borucki, and Kono, provide an empirical test of Nonakas previous models of
knowledge creation. The empirical results strongly support knowledge
transfer as a higher-order construct, comprised of four processes of
knowledge conversion. These processes are: socialization, externalization,
combination, and internalization.
Spender pushes beyond the conventional idea of organizational knowledge.
He argues for four types of knowledge and, as a corollary, four types of
learning and memory. Each offers different possibilities for rents
(supernormal profits) and competitive advantage. The transfer implications
are different too. Overall he extends the fundamentals of Penroses synergistic
model of the growth of the firm, seeing the organization as a directed system
of practice, and confirming the importance of learning-by-doing and
collective knowledge.
Rtiegg and Gomez develop the role of vision as a medium for knowledge
transfer internally in organizations. Starting with a discussion of the radical
constructivist perspective, the authors develop the concepts of expertise
knowledge and inter-action knowledge. The article further shows how
vision, reality and knowledge are connected. In considering Rtiegg and
Gomez discussions, managers should be aware of possible impediments in
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established communication channels when communicating radical change and Editorial

a new vision.
Roos, von Krogh, and Yip discuss two concepts in an emerging theory of
knowledge development in globalizing firms. The concept of language
games is used to shed light on the role of language in globalizing
organizations. The concept of self-similarity enables discussions of changes
in routines, processes, and structures as firms evolve from national to global
organizations. Their discussion focuses on an alternative view on knowledge
development in organizations, an alternative organizational epistemology.
Gilbert and Lorange address issues relating to national differences in
management approaches, both when it comes to the cognitive side as well as
social contract differences. Implications are identified for strategic
management in more general terms, as well as for cooperative strategies and
strategic alliances more specifically.
Winterschied and McNabb outline a three-stage evolutionary model of
product development organizations from a knowledge transfer perspective,
based upon AT&Ts experience in moving from a national to a global
organization. Each stage puts particular demands on individual and
organizational knowledge transfer capabilities which are outlined and
critiqued in the paper, and the evolution in the model is motivated by the
firms desire to maintain a tight match between customer needs and product
offerings. The article also contains a discussion of the current competitive
dynamics of the telecommunications industry in Europe.
Focusing on intra-organizational cooperation, Gupta and Govindarajan
investigate the strategic roles of subsidiaries within an MNC in terms of
extent and directionality of knowledge flows. Subsidiaries of the MNC will
assume the roles of global or local innovators, implementors, or integrated
players dependent on their position in the network of knowledge flows. The
authors test hypotheses of associations between the subsidiaries strategic
roles and systems and processes linking subsidiaries to the rest of the MNC.
Strong empirical support is found for the notion of differentiated strategic
roles, differentiated systems and processes within MNCs. The data also
indicate that innovation by foreign subsidiaries typically result from
autonomous initiatives by subsidiaries rather than directives issued at
corporate headquarters.
Focusing on inter-organizational cooperation, Lyles develops insights into
the relationship between past organizational learning on the decision to form
new joint ventures. She argues that a model organizational learning provides a
context in which to understand problem setting, direction setting and
structuring processes of joint ventures. In recalling past joint-venture
experiences, stories of success and failure assume importance. The joint-
venture formation process is also influenced by the firms willingness to learn
from its partner, and the current interpretation of past experiences may be
influenced by this.
Gonard and Durand examine empirically the efficiency of the relationship
between public research institutions and industry in 32 French cases of
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International partnership. The findings indicate both contextual variables, including the
Business nature of the innovation, public research skills needed, duration of the
Review partnership and technological strategies of the firm, as well as strategies of the
public research institutions involved. Contrary to much of the existing
374
literature, the authors find that partnerships between industry and public
research institutions can be successful even when the firms involved have
little or no R&D capacity.
Salk focuses on organizational processes related to corporate mergers and
acquisitions and a particular stock of social knowledge, namely legitimation.
She develops a framework for the analysis of mergers and acquisitions along
three dimensions; the nature of strategic goals in terms of value creation; the
envisioned nature of relations among organizations and individuals; and the
anticipated mode of governance. Based on a typology of acquisitions, she
continues by discussing forms of strategic legitimation involved in the social
integration of two organizations.
We hope this special issue of the International Business Review will
stimulate further research within our field on the topics of knowledge in
organizations, knowledge transfer, and cooperative strategies.
We would like to acknowledge the work of the many authors who
submitted their work for consideration in this special issue as well as our
project coordinator Mr Thorvald Haerem of the Norwegian School of
Management. Acknowledgement should also be given to the Norwegian
School of Management for their support, as well as to NORAS/NFR (grant
no. 2 15 1309). Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the substantial efforts of the
reviewers for this special issue:

Francis Bideault, ZMD, Switzerland

Philippe Byosiere, Versa& College, Belgium
Roland Calori, ESC Lyon, France
Mark Casson, Reading University, United Kingdom
Balaji Chakravarthy, ZNSEAD, France
Roland Deisel; Cast, Austria
Mats Forsgren, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bernard Garette, HEC, France
Peter Gomez, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Kjell Gr@nhaug, Norwegian School of Economics and Business
Administration, Norway
Thorvald Harem, Norwegian School of Management
Peter Hagstriim, Harvard University, USA
Bernard J. Jaworski, Arizona State University, USA
Vijay K. Jolly, ZMD, Switzerland
Marjorie Lyles, Indiana University, USA
Giinter Miiller-Stewens, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Torger Reve, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration,
Norway
Philip Rosenzweig, Harvard University, USA
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Susan Schneidel; INSEAD, France Editorial

Charles Snow, Pennsylvania State University, USA
J-C Spendel; Rutgers University, USA
James F! Walsh, University of Michigan, USA

Georg von Krogh

Institute of

Johan Roos
Norwegian School of Management
Norway
From 1 January 1995:
International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
Luusanne
Switzerland