Knowledge Integration and Innovation

Critical Challenges Facing International Technology-Based Firms

Michael Hobday editor Jonas Söderlund editor Christian Berggren editor Lars Bengtsson editor Anna Bergek editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:24th Jan '13

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Knowledge Integration and Innovation cover

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.

`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

ISBN: 9780199666324

Dimensions: 233mm x 171mm x 16mm

Weight: 490g

312 pages