Intra-firm Networks Research Articles

Knowledge transfer between and within alliance partners: Private versus collective benefits of social capital

This article examines the process through which multilevel network structures translate into knowledge acquisition from alliance partners. The degree of knowledge transfer a multidivisional company achieves from its network of alliance partners is determined not only by the organization's external network structure, but also by the structure of relationships among its business units. By distinguishing two perspectives on the distribution of social capital's benefits – private versus collective – this article's approach reconciles the competing views on what types of network structures create social capital, that is, the brokerage and closure views of the social network literature. Private benefits of brokerage and centrality are more beneficial in interfirm networks, whereas collective benefits provided by network closure and low levels of centralization are more beneficial in intrafirm networks.

INTRAFIRM NETWORKS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES.

In this paper, we consider the costs and benefits of intra-firm networks in the context of strategic initiatives. Although it seems clear that intra-firm networks influence the availability of info...

Examining the relationship between business process improvement initiatives, information systems integration and customer focus: an empirical study

PurposeThe goal is to examine the relationship between business process improvement initiatives (BPII), information systems (ISs) integration, and customer focus.Design/methodology/approachThe data for the study were collected at the divisional levels from a list of “Fortune 500” firms. A total of 1,100 questionnaires were mailed to divisional managers and 115 responses were used for the data analysis.FindingsThe results of this study support the hypotheses that BPII directly affects customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. In addition, data integration and communication networks flexibility are found to significantly affect customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. Communication networks connectivity did not have any significant effect on customer responsiveness and product/service innovation, respectively. Data integration, intrafirm networks connectivity and networks flexibility are found to significantly mediate the relationship between BPII and customer responsiveness and BPII and product/service development, respectively. Interfirm networks connectivity was not found to significantly mediate the relationship between BPII and customer responsiveness and BPII and product/service development, respectively.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample consists of divisions ofFortune500 firms. Second, the study is cross‐sectional; therefore, it lacks the predictive power to find the long‐term effects of BPII and IS integration on customer focus. A longitudinal study can be a future research endeavor to validate the results of the study.Originality/valueTo business managers, the study clarifies the role of IS integration in customer focus.

North Atlantic Innovative Relations of Swiss Pharmaceuticals and the Proximities with Regional Biotech Arenas

Under the pressure of increased global competition and processes of concentration, the pharmaceutical giants are reorganizing their innovative capacities. Technology and research and development (R&D) play a key role in the competitive strategies of multinational pharmaceutical companies. This article analyzes the interrelation of the far-reaching but spatially selective international expansion of R&D and technology of a major Swiss pharmaceutical company and its anchoring in regional arenas of innovation. It combines this international technological expansion with a perspective on integrating spatial and social proximities. Multinational corporations (MNCs) tend to locate their R&D activities in regions that are characterized by a richness of knowledge. The structure of inter- and intrafirm networks is shaped by the geography of talent. The Swiss pharmaceutical giants made substantial efforts to anchor themselves in regional arenas of innovation, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and San Diego. A case study of a pharmaceutical giant’s embedding in the biotech arena of San Diego reveals how oligopolistic rivals fight over privileged access to spatially concentrated bases of technology. MNCs attempt to create, complement, and substitute spatial proximity with other types of social proximities, internal as well as external to their own organizations. These efforts contribute to the generation of specific global-local interfaces in the processes of global scanning, transferring, and generating new pharmaceutical compounds and technologies.

Knowledge integration capabilities of Japanese companies: reconstructing intra-firm networks for technology commercialisation

Despite aggressive investments in R&D and its success, Japanese companies demonstrate poor results in technology commercialisation. Almost half of all technological patents that Japanese companies hold are dormant, being unused. The purpose of this paper is to explore why technologies become dormant and how firms can overcome the problem to facilitate the process of technology commercialisation. Based upon the questionnaire survey of Japanese manufacturing companies, we find that exposing technology to the public in early stages of the commercialisation process plays an important role in enhancing overall commercialisation performance. Technology is an equivocal and context-dependent entity and changes its meaning from one context to another. Exposing a new piece of technology to the public enables firms to acquire more information about its market potential, which in return propels the commercialisation process more effectively. This research also implies that an early market exposure of new technological innovation contributes to building an effective inter-firm R&D network.

The impact of the information and communications technology revolution on the internationalisation of corporate technology

The rising pace of technological change in information and communications technology (ICT) has doubtless provoked the rise of “techno-globalism” at a cross-firm level by providing a new mode of diversification. As a result of the increasing process of technological interrelatedness, the specialisation in a core pervasive technology (as ICT is nowadays) allows the firm to develop tacit capabilities, which, in turn, facilitate its corporate activity in different kinds of technology across national boundaries in an intra-firm network. Therefore ICT can be view as a platform for entry into new products as well as an enabler of fusion of technology. This paper investigates whether the increased specialisation in ICT has influenced the geographical diversification or internationalisation of firms. The association between the two phenomena is found in the later (but not in the former) period under analysis. By adopting a more detailed level of sectoral aggregation within the ICT field, the econometric analysis seems to indicate computing (rather than communications) as the ICT component driving the relationship between internationalisation of research and development activity and ICT specialisation.

Strategic Alliances and the Learning Life-Cycle of Biotechnology Firms

Strategic alliances in the biotechnology industry are used as an inter-organizational learning device, in addition to their ability to provide financial resources, vertical and horizontal integration facilities, and legitimacy to dedicated biotechnology firms (DBFs). However, despite the advantages associated with strategic alliances, the literature accounts for hazards and disadvantages as well. This paper analyzes the relationship between organizational life-cycle and the formation of strategic alliances based on a population of 554 new biotechnology firms (DBFs) in a 15-year period. Using event history analysis, this study tests two propositions: that the inability of DBFs to form strategic alliances will be associated with organizational death and that firm growth will make it possible to reduce network learning through alliances (exploration stage of learning), allowing the firm to enter a period of internalized learning (exploitation). These propositions are supported by the data. The findings showed that lack of alliances is associated with organizational death, that learning through alliances is not a cumulative process, and that firm life-cycle alliance formation is not linear. Although alliance-based learning is vital to biotechnology firms at the early stages of their formation, when learning is associated with exploration, at later phases of the life-cycle, learning is internally exploited through intrafirm networks. The results also provide some evidence that another phase of external, network based, learning follows.

Embedding Foreign Affiliates in Transnational Business Networks: The Case of Hong Kong Firms in Southeast Asia

The author aims to examine the nature and organisation of transnational business networks. From an empirical study of some 111 parent Hong Kong transnational corporations (TNCs) and 63 of their foreign affiliates in Southeast Asia, he argues that the role and functions of TNC affiliates are critically dependent on their embeddedness in transnational business networks. These transnational business networks can be organised either within TNCs (intrafirm) or with local firms (interfirm). This network embeddedness of TNC affiliates is socially organised and can be strategically deployed to facilitate the extension of network associations through time and space. Two detailed case studies of business networks of Hong Kong TNCs (HKTNCs) in Southeast Asia present several interesting illustrations. First, the strategic strength and spatial reach of intrafirm networks determine the competitive advantage of Hong Kong TNCs in the regional economy. Better integration and regional coverage are the winning strategies of Hong Kong firms in Southeast Asia. Second, the embeddedness of foreign affiliates in the business networks of HKTNCs are socially constructed. Personal relationships and business association among leading actors in HKTNC networks provide the underlying organising principles of such network formation. Third, the functions and contributions of local Southeast Asian affiliates to overall group performance are related to their access to local business and other forms of interfirm networks. Local affiliates with strong networking capabilities tend to receive more support and coordination from parent TNCs. In the concluding section the author offers some implications for recent developments in network theory in economic geography and geographies of Chinese business networks in Asia.

Use Of Information Network And Organizational Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence In Korea

This paper studies the relationship between the use of various information networks and organizational productivity in Korean firms. To this end, first. the current firm-level usage panems of information networks are explained in the following network categories: (1) LAN (Local Area Network). (2) inter- and intra-firm networks, (3) various types of inter-firm networks, and (4) the Internet and intranet, Second, by deriving TFP (Total Factor Roductivity) from the baseline production function, which augments lT stock into otherwise standard one, the impact of various information networks is investigated. The results show that LAN, the Intemet and intranet have significant impacts on fm-level TFP, while inter-firm network does not. Also, the productivity of firm using the Internet is 8.5 percent higher than the firms using only LAN, and the productivity of firms using intranet is 43.6 percent higher than the firms using just the Internet.

Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks

Social Capital and Value Creation: The Role of Intrafirm Networks

Missing factors of intra-industry trade: Some empirical evidence based on Japan

A rising share of Japanese intra-industry trade with the Asian countries is puzzling in the light of the modern theory of international trade. This paper examines the similarity in production technology between the trade partners, as well as the similarity of factor endowment, as a determinant of the share of Japanese intra-industry trade. The empirical results, while supporting earlier studies by Helpman, Krugman, and others, provide some new evidence which indicates that the rising share of intra-industry trade may be due to the increase of technological transactions and the expansion of the intra-firm network through foreign direct investment.

Business Networks and Transnational Corporations: A Study of Hong Kong Firms in the ASEAN Region

In recent years, the question of how business firms are embedded in society and space has received serious attention in economic geography. Arising from empirical research into the transnational operations of Hong Kong–based firms in Southeast Asia, this paper is concerned with the organizational processes of transnationalization—that is, how transnational operations are accomplished through networks of personal and business relationships. A network perspective specifies that three dimensions of transnational organizations—extrafirm, interfirm, and intrafirm networks—must be addressed simultaneously. Based on personal interviews with top executives from 111 headquarters and 63 subsidiaries of Hong Kong transnational corporations operating in the ASEAN region, I argue that social and business networks are necessary mechanisms of transnationalization. Political connections at the highest level enable Hong Kong entrepreneurs and business firms to tap into extrafirm networks and to penetrate local markets in Southeast Asia. Business connections and personal relationships are cornerstones of interfirm transactional governance structures through which Hong Kong firms establish their ASEAN operations. At the intrafirm level, personal trust and experience are keys to coordination and control in transnational operations. By showing how these Hong Kong firms and their ASEAN operations are socially and culturally embedded in networks of relationships, this paper serves also as a critique of economistic arguments and transaction cost analysis commonly found in leading international business research.

Engineering careers, job rotation, and gatekeepers in Japan and the United States

Japan's employment system is generally characterized as involving infrequent moves between firms, but regular and systematic transfers within the firm. This system might be expected to result in Japanese engineers having smaller interfirm networks of professional contacts than Americans. This could impede the efficient interfirm diffusion of new technology. On the other hand Japanese engineers might be expected to have larger intrafirm networks of professional contacts. This should facilitate the intrafirm transfer of technical information. The research reported here tests the applicability of our images of Japanese career practices to engineering careers, replaces the simple dichotomous characterizations of differences between the U.S. and Japan with data suggesting the degrees of difference, and explores linkages between personnel practices and the transfer of information by engineers in both countries.

Robinson's Economics of Imperfect Competition

Robinson's Economics of Imperfect Competition