External Knowledge Sources and Knowledge Integration Mechanisms for Organizational Performance: Evidence from Italian SMEs

2017 ◽  
pp. 253-272
Author(s):  
Daria Sarti
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Integration Mechanisms

In or Out

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinglei Wang ◽  
Darren Meister ◽  
Peter H. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Switching Behavior ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
International Consulting ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Consumer Switching

The way individuals use internal and external knowledge sources influences organizational knowledge integration, an important source of competitive advantage. Drawing on research into knowledge sourcing and consumer switching behavior, the authors develop an integrated model to understand individuals’ choices between internal and external knowledge sources in contemporary work settings, where information technology has made both easily accessible. A test of the model using survey data collected from an international consulting firm yields an important new insight: satisfied individuals in knowledge reuse friendly environments are likely to use internal knowledge sources while they may also be tempted by easily accessible external knowledge sources. The implications for researchers and practitioners are also discussed.

In or Out

2012 ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Yinglei Wang ◽  
Darren Meister ◽  
Peter H. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Integrated Model ◽  
Switching Behavior ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
International Consulting ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Consumer Switching

The way individuals use internal and external knowledge sources influences organizational knowledge integration, an important source of competitive advantage. Drawing on research into knowledge sourcing and consumer switching behavior, the authors develop an integrated model to understand individuals’ choices between internal and external knowledge sources in contemporary work settings, where information technology has made both easily accessible. A test of the model using survey data collected from an international consulting firm yields an important new insight: satisfied individuals in knowledge reuse friendly environments are likely to use internal knowledge sources while they may also be tempted by easily accessible external knowledge sources. The implications for researchers and practitioners are also discussed.

Knowledge creation in small building and construction firms

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Durst ◽  
Ingi Runar Edvardsson ◽  
Guido Bruns
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Construction Firms ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Small Building

Studies on knowledge creation are limited in general, and there is a particular shortage of research on the topic in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given the importance of SMEs for the economy and the vital role of knowledge creation in innovation, this situation is unsatisfactory. Accordingly, the purpose of our study is to increase our understanding of how SMEs create new knowledge. Data are obtained through semi-structured interviews with ten managing directors of German SMEs operating in the building and construction industry. The findings demonstrate the influence of external knowledge sources on knowledge creation activities. Even though the managing directors take advantage of different external knowledge sources, they seem to put an emphasis on informed knowledge sources. The study´s findings advance the limited body of knowledge regarding knowledge creation in SMEs.

scholarly journals Bridging the gap: integrating external knowledge from open innovation platforms

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl ◽  
Tim Hampel
Keyword(s):  
Open Innovation ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Organizational Resistance ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Innovation Activities ◽  
Project Level

AbstractWhile external knowledge has the potential to benefit a firm’s innovation activities, research shows that the positive effects of a more open model of innovation do not come naturally. This paper draws on the project level to explore the organizational factors that hamper or impede the integration of external knowledge sourced from an open innovation platform and to suggest interventions to overcome these barriers. While open innovation is mainly discussed as a concept that resides at the level of the organization, this paper draws on the project level to contribute to a multi-level understanding of open innovation and to offer a deeper understanding of the challenges project teams face, when integrating external knowledge. To investigate occurring barriers, four cases of external knowledge integration within a multinational corporation are analyzed. The results show that due to the external nature of the knowledge, an additional effort of project teams is required such as forming alliances with key individuals and changing negative attitudes towards external sources to overcome organizational resistance. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

Are winemaker consultants just another source of knowledge for innovation?

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1523-1539 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Doloreux ◽  
Ekaterina Turkina
Keyword(s):  
Positive Influence ◽  
Wine Industry ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
Content Type ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Telephone Interviews ◽  
External Sources ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
External Sources Of Knowledge

Purpose This paper aims to explore the effects of multiple external sources of knowledge and of the use of winemaker consultants on innovation in the Canadian wine industry. Design/methodology/approach The data for the study are taken from an original survey of wine firms in Canada covering the 2007-2009 period. The survey was carried out by computer-assisted telephone interviews, and it was addressed to winery firms that are engaged in growing grapes and producing wine. Findings The results show that the use of winemaker consultants positively affects all forms of innovation. At the same, as far as external knowledge sources are concerned, marketing sources positively affect all types of innovation, while research sources and general sources have a positive influence on particular forms of innovation. The results also show that winemaker consultants interact with other knowledge sources. Nevertheless, there are important nuances with regard to which type of knowledge sources is more compatible with the use of winemaker consultants for which type of innovation. Originality/value To date, there is no empirical evidence of the extent to which the use of external winemaker consultants and external knowledge sources interact together and what are their impacts on the introduction of different forms of innovation.

scholarly journals Masking Orchestration: Multi-Task Pretraining for Multi-Role Dialogue Representation Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (05) ◽  
pp. 9217-9224
Author(s):  
Tianyi Wang ◽  
Yating Zhang ◽  
Xiaozhong Liu ◽  
Changlong Sun ◽  
Qiong Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Question Answering ◽  
Representation Learning ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Specific Learning

Multi-role dialogue understanding comprises a wide range of diverse tasks such as question answering, act classification, dialogue summarization etc. While dialogue corpora are abundantly available, labeled data, for specific learning tasks, can be highly scarce and expensive. In this work, we investigate dialogue context representation learning with various types unsupervised pretraining tasks where the training objectives are given naturally according to the nature of the utterance and the structure of the multi-role conversation. Meanwhile, in order to locate essential information for dialogue summarization/extraction, the pretraining process enables external knowledge integration. The proposed fine-tuned pretraining mechanism is comprehensively evaluated via three different dialogue datasets along with a number of downstream dialogue-mining tasks. Result shows that the proposed pretraining mechanism significantly contributes to all the downstream tasks without discrimination to different encoders.

scholarly journals Prediction Markets for Crowdsourcing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Horn ◽  
Marcel Bogers ◽  
Alexander Brem*
Keyword(s):  
Stock Market ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Business Practice ◽  
Prediction Markets ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
Prediction Market ◽  
Online Platform ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Opening Up

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly important phenomenon that is fundamentally changing how companies create and capture value. There are still important questions with respect to how crowdsourcing works and can be applied in practice, especially in business practice. In this chapter, we focus on prediction markets as a mechanism and tool to tap into a crowd in the early stages of an innovation process. The act of opening up to external knowledge sources is also in line with the growing interest in open innovation. One example of a prediction market, a virtual stock market, is applied to open innovation through an online platform. We show that use of mechanisms of internal crowdsourcing with prediction markets can outperform use of external crowds.

Exploring the antecedents and consequences of technology and knowledge integration mechanisms in the context of NPD

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 1165-1189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsin Hsin Chang ◽  
Yao-Chuan Tsai ◽  
Chen-Su Fu ◽  
Shu-Hui Chen ◽  
Yao De Peng
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Integration Mechanisms ◽  
Antecedents And Consequences

Knowledge sources and innovation in the hotel industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 2537-2561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Nieves ◽  
Gonzalo Diaz-Meneses
Keyword(s):  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Knowledge Sources ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
Content Type ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Radical Innovations ◽  
External Agents ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Organizational Collaboration

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify the role played by external knowledge sources and intra-organizational collaboration as determinants of innovation in hotel firms. It proposes that local knowledge sources and intra-organizational collaboration determine the probability of producing incremental innovations, and that non-local knowledge sources determine the introduction of radical innovations.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive statistics made it possible to evaluate the importance of each of the external sources as the origin of ideas for innovation. Principal component analysis was used to find homogeneous groups based on the different knowledge sources contemplated. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine which variables predict a hotel’s capacity to introduce innovations.FindingsThe findings suggest a dissociation between innovations adopted by directly incorporating the specific knowledge provided by external agents and innovations that require the mediation of intra-organizational collaboration for their development.Research limitations/implicationsFuture qualitative studies can provide data that would considerably improve the understanding of how innovation processes are produced in hotel companies based on the use of external knowledge and how hotel firms develop spaces to exchange and combine internal knowledge.Practical implicationsHotel firms can adopt innovations by incorporating specific knowledge from external companies or by developing their own innovations based on information gathered from external agents or events (e.g. customers, attending trade fairs and professional conferences). The transformation of this information into innovations requires the establishment of internal communication channels that foment employees’ collaboration and exchange of information.Originality/valueThe study provides empirical evidence for the relevant role played by both external agents and intra-organizational relationships as sources of knowledge to foster innovation in hotel firms. External agents are classified as local and non-local sources, and their effect on innovation is analyzed, distinguishing between incremental and radical innovations.

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