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Technology-based firms continue to compete primarily on innovation, and are continuously required to present new solutions to an exacting market. As technological complexity and specialization intensifies, firms increasingly need to integrate and co-ordinate knowledge by means of project groups, diversified organizations, inter-organizational partnerships, and strategic alliances. Innovation processes have progressively become interdisciplinary, collaborative, inter-organizational, and international, and a firm's ability to synthesize knowledge across disciplines, organizations, and geographical locations has a major influence on its viability and success. This book demonstrates how knowledge integration is crucial in facilitating innovation within modern firms. It provides original, detailed empirical studies of prerequisites, mechanisms, and outcomes of knowledge integration processes on several organizational levels, from key individuals, projects, and internal organizations, to collaboration between firms. It stresses the need to understand knowledge integration as a multi-level phenomenon, which requires a broad repertoire of organizational and technical means. It further clarifies the need for strong internal capabilities for exploiting external knowledge, reveals how costs of knowledge integration affect outcomes and strategic decisions, and discusses the managerial implications of fostering knowledge integration, providing practical guidance and support for managers of knowledge integration in high-technology enterprises.
Show moreTechnology-based firms continue to compete primarily on innovation, and are continuously required to present new solutions to an exacting market. As technological complexity and specialization intensifies, firms increasingly need to integrate and co-ordinate knowledge by means of project groups, diversified organizations, inter-organizational partnerships, and strategic alliances. Innovation processes have progressively become interdisciplinary, collaborative, inter-organizational, and international, and a firm's ability to synthesize knowledge across disciplines, organizations, and geographical locations has a major influence on its viability and success. This book demonstrates how knowledge integration is crucial in facilitating innovation within modern firms. It provides original, detailed empirical studies of prerequisites, mechanisms, and outcomes of knowledge integration processes on several organizational levels, from key individuals, projects, and internal organizations, to collaboration between firms. It stresses the need to understand knowledge integration as a multi-level phenomenon, which requires a broad repertoire of organizational and technical means. It further clarifies the need for strong internal capabilities for exploiting external knowledge, reveals how costs of knowledge integration affect outcomes and strategic decisions, and discusses the managerial implications of fostering knowledge integration, providing practical guidance and support for managers of knowledge integration in high-technology enterprises.
Show moreIntroduction
1: Christian Berggren, Anna Bergek, Lars Bengtsson and Jonas
Söderlund: Exploring Knowledge Integration and Innovation
2: Fredrik Tell: Knowledge Integration and Innovation: A Survey of
the Field
Part I: People and Processes
3: Lars Lindkvist, Marie Bengtsson and Linnea Wahlstedt: Knowledge
Integration and Creation in Projects: Towards a Progressive
Epistemology
5: Hans Andersson and Christian Berggren: Inventors as Innovators
and Knowledge Integrators
6: Jonas Söderlund and Karin Bredin: Participants in the Process of
Knowledge Integration
Part II: Projects and Partnerships
6: Thomas Magnusson and Nicolette Lakemond: Knowledge Integration
Processes in New Product Development: on the Dynamics of Deadlines
and Architectures
7: Mattias Johansson, Mattias Axelson, Cecilia Enberg and Fredrik
Tell: Knowledge Integration in Inter-firm R&D Collaboration:
How do Firms Manage Problems of Coordination and Cooperation?
8: Jonas Söderlund and Fredrik Tell: Knowledge Integration in a
P-form Corporation: Project Epochs in the Evolution of Asea/ABB
1945-2000.
Part III: Strategies and Outcomes
9: Lars Bengtsson, Mandar Dabhilkar and Robin von Haartman:
Knowledge Integration Challenges when Outsourcing Manufacturing
10: Mandar Dabhilkar and Lars Bengtsson: Trade-Offs in Make-Buy
Decisions: Exploring Operating Realities of Knowledge Integration
and Innovation
11: Anna Bergek, Christian Berggren and Thomas Magnusson: Creative
Accumulation: Integrating New and Established Technologies in
Periods of Discontinuous Change
Conclusion
12: Mike Hobday and Anna Bergek: Lessons and Insights for Managers
Christian Berggren is Professor of Industrial Management, Linköping
University, and Director of the KITE research programme. He has
written or co-authored several books on production and product
development in international firms, such as The Volvo experience
(MacMillan, 1992), The Resilience of Corporate Japan (Sage, 1997),
Being local world-wide - ABB and the challenge of global management
(Cornell, 1999), as well as many
publications in journals such as Creativity and Innovation
Management, Industrial and Corporate Change, Research Policy,
R&D Management, Sloan Management Review, Technology Analysis,
and Strategic Management and Technovation.
Anna Bergek is Associate Professor of Industrial Management,
Linköping University, and founding member of the KITE research
programme. She has published articles on industry dynamics, firm
strategy in relation to technical change, and innovation and energy
policy in journals such as Energy Policy, Industrial and Corporate
Change, Research Policy, Technovation, and Technology Analysis &
Strategic Management.
Lars Bengtsson is Professor of Innovation Management at the
Univeristy of Gävle and Professor within a PhD school at the Royal
Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. He is a founding member
of the KITE research programme and has published many articles and
books on the subjects of continuous improvements, manufacturing
strategies, and outsourcing.
Michael Hobday is Professor of Innovation Management at CENTRIM
(Centre for Research in Innovation Management), Brighton
Univeristy. As well as many journal publications, he is the author
of various books including Innovation in East Asia: The Challenge
to Japan (Edward Elgar, 1997), co-author of The Business of
Projects: Managing Innovation in Complex Products and Systems (with
Andrew Davies, CUP, 2005), and co-editor of The Business of Systems
Integration (with
Andrea Prencipe and Andrew Davies, OUP, 2003).
Jonas Söderlund is Professor at BI Norwegian School of Management
and founding member of the KITE research programme. He has
researched and published widely on the management and organization
of projects and project-based firms and the evolution of project
competence, including papers in Organization Studies, Human
Resource Management, International Journal of Innovation
Management, and International Business Review. He is the author or
co-author of five books and one of
the editors of The Oxford Handbook of Project Management.
`Review from previous edition Well written and easily readable ...
Managers will profit from the recommendations, if only in the sense
to widen their perspectives, and researchers with interests in
knowledge management and interface management gain access to a
particular stream of knowledge integration research together with
some interesting proposals for further study.'
Klaus Brockhoff, R&D Management
`This book is an impressive achievement and tribute to the power of
multidisciplinary longitudinal research. Through penetrating case
studies and systematic literature reviews, the KITE researchers
make an outstanding contribution to knowledge integration and
innovation in businesses and industries'
Andrew Van de Ven, University of Minnesota
`This book offers the first systematic account of what we currently
know about knowledge integration in organizations and its link with
innovation. In addition to synthesizing this rapidly developing
field of research in a structured and accessible way, the authors
extend our understanding of knowledge integration in several
important directions. In particular, the book explores the process
of knowledge integration among teams, the role of knowledge
integration in innovation, how knowledge integration occurs across
separate firms, and the characteristics of knowledge integration in
project-based organizations. A refreshing feature of the book is
the linkage it provides between scholarly developments in knowledge
integration and practical aspects of
knowledge management in organizations.'
Robert M. Grant, Eni Professor of Strategic Management, Bocconi
University, Milan, Italy
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