The productivity and governance of company-specific knowledge

Abstract

Knowledge is a valuable and crucial economic factor. In this study, knowledge is not regarded as a separate production factor but as the output of economic interactions that can be stored and reused. Company-specific knowledge is defined as knowledge that is not owned by a single stakeholder. According to the economic growth theory, productivity increase that cannot be related to a change in the inputs by one of the core stakeholders can be calculated and is defined as productivity due to the deployment of company specific knowledge. In this study, 75 companies, listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, were analysed on the productivity of company-specific knowledge during the 1990–2000 period. It was found out that half of the overall productivity increase was related to the deployment of company-specific knowledge. Besides a quantitative analysis six companies (Akzo-Nobel; ASML; Heineken; ING-Group; McDonald's Nederland and Royal Dutch Shell Group) were analysed in order to determine if these companies governed productivity development according to company-specific knowledge and how they applied it. Each analysis was discussed with a member of the board of the analysed six companies. In this study, it was found out that the companies analysed explicitly focused on different groups of core stakeholders and governed the relationship between the different groups of core stakeholders and the company. It was also found out that the governance occurred both implicitly (AKZO Nobel and ASML) and explicitly (Heineken; ING-Group; McDonald's and Royal Dutch Shell Group). Based on the analysis, a business characteristic could be derived for each company and each stakeholder. The business characteristic was multiple (Akzo-Nobel; ING-Group; McDonald's) since for each core stakeholder a different business characteristic was defined. The existence of a single business characteristic, where it was relevant and worthwhile for all groups of core stakeholders, was also found out (ASML, Heineken and Royal Dutch/Shell Group).