Abstract
The management of knowledge is increasingly considered as a main source of competitive advantage for corporations. It is argued that organizations enjoy a competitive advantage if they know how to expand, disseminate, and exploit organizational knowledge internally. Moreover, organizations can achieve their strategic goals by encouraging knowledge sharing, flexibility, and adaptation to change. Furthermore, our position is that tacit knowledge sharing can lead to knowledge stratification. And that it is likely to lead to encode knowledge in behavioral schemas, apparently similar to organizational routines, but as a matter of fact more complex and refined: the cognitive scripts. Even if apparently similar to organizational routines, the scripts strongly differ from them in terms of power of replication, inertia degree, and search potential. The present study focuses on the analysis of the script localization in the organization as an important starting point for the understanding of the dynamics of knowledge stratification and encoding. Thus, hypothesizing kinds of knowledge reuse within spin-off decisions as well. The plausibility of the mentioned hypotheses is tested by a multivariate statistics approach.
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Notes
Tacit knowledge is a category of unconscious neurophysiological causation that provides the basis and context to action and conscious mental stages.
March (1989) observes that routines can be related to rules. Rules in themselves are not routines, as there are multiplicities of rules applicable to each situation.
Thus, scripts extend formal rules: containing information on how to behave when certain rules apply, scripts extend formal rules into the minds of individuals.
From the point of view of economics, we can refer to the definition of Cohen et al. (1996, p. 683), in the sense that routine is a capacity to generate (collective) action, to “guide or direst an unfolding action sequence that has been stored in some localized or distributed form”. Then, routines guarantee the regularity and predictability of individual behavior necessary for collective action.
“The composition and the delivery of scripts consist of sequences of words, gestures, pictures, sounds, and other expressions that can be symbolized and which facilitate the reproduction of human works and expressions” (Foray and Steinmueller 2003, p. 299)
The process of inscription is complex. It involves transforming knowledge into a form that enables effective performance of complex tasks by individuals who may or may not have a clear understanding of the underlying principles of design or operation of the component of the system that they are called upon to operate or maintain.
The Japanese term “ba”, introduced by Nonaka and Konno (1998) as a useful way of referring to the virtual and real spaces needed to nurture learning and knowledge creation, seems to have some similarities with the concept of a “community of practice,” where members of a community learn by participating in the community and practicing their jobs. However, these are important differences between the concepts of community of practice and ba. Whereas, a community of practice is a place where members learn knowledge that is embedded in the community, ba is a place where new knowledge is created. Whereas, learning occurs in any community of practice, ba needs energy in order to become an active boundary ba, where knowledge is created. Whereas, the boundary of a community of practice is firmly set by the task, culture, and history of the community, the boundary of ba is set by its participants and can be changed easily. Instead of being constrained by history, ba has a here-and-now quality. It is created, it functions, and then it disappears, all as needed. Whereas, the membership of a community of practice is fairly stable, and whereas new members need time to learn about the community of practice and become fully participatory, the membership of ba is not fixed, for participants come and go. Finally, whereas members of a community of practice belong to the community, participants of ba relate to the ba.
The compliance of this requirement has been guaranteed by selecting enterprises having differing organizational features (turnover, no. of employees, and capital stock).
An homogeneous set of data means that the same topic has been submitted to all the interviewed by the same surveying technique.
Data acquisition has been obtained through an ASP database to be filled in on http://www.maggioni.org/mq/uneng1.asp.
Bitner (1990) suggests resorting to direct observation for detecting the behavioral pattern of an employee within his organization (a similar stance is argued by Evrard et al. (1993), p. 128). As, however, direct observation is time-consuming and expensive (Evrard et al. 1993), it could not be applied to this research, and instead, a “method of sample calibration” has been opted, for which joins the benefits of direct observation with the advantages provided by the employment of questionnaires. The method applied has required that script knowledge be measured against a calibration sample (in this case, ten Italian high-tech enterprises, originating from spin offs). Taking as a reference, the stratification of knowledge as well as the generation of the script in enterprises affected by spin-off processes, script knowledge has been measured both through perceptive measurements and observed ones (perceptive measurements have been obtained through items concerning stratification processes of knowledge in employees and the reproduction of the script in a new enterprise, whereas the observed measurements have been obtained through the analysis of the knowledge as stratified by the employees as related to their functions and to the results of the spin offs). Next, the convergence of the two measurements has been tested (as suggested by Heeler and Ray (1972, p. 362). This method resorts to quasi experimentation and pursues the target of testing the relation between perceptive and observed measurements, verifying whether perceptions of individuals (obtained through a questionnaire) are reflected in their behavior (surveyed through direct observation). At the end of this study, after submittal of the questionnaire, the calculation of the correlation between two undisclosed factors, knowledge of the script perceived and observed, has given a high coefficient ϕ (=0.94). The significant convergence of the two constructs has been guaranteed by the fact that at a 95 % confidence level (two standard deviations), the ϕ range has resulted equal to 1.05< ϕ <0.87. As the interval contains the value 1, the two factors appear not separated (Bagozzi 1994b). In other terms, perceptive and observed measurements of knowledge converge, thus suggesting a substantial matching of the statements of the individuals involved in spin-off processes and their actual behavior.
Particularly, referring to the present research, the inscription process mentioned in H2 is an individual process but stemmed from a collective knowledge sharing (see H1).
In brief, the “tacit knowledge stratification” scale refers to the individual script summarizing the tacit knowledge stratified during his employment with the parent organization. The “cognitive script acquisition” deals with the encoding of the tacit knowledge acquired in a cognitive script. Likewise, the positive correlation between the mentioned scales describes the inscription process. The above-mentioned scales are described also by a number of other items. For briefness' sake, only the most relevant of them have been reported in Table 1.
Although χ2 has given high statistical values (χ2 = 37.25, df = 110, P < .01), other fit ratios have confirmed acceptability of the model (Tucker Lewis index = 0.84; comparative fit index = 0.91 (Bollen, 1989). The χ2 value is conditioned by the size of the sample selected.
In this study, for simplicity's sake, values relative to χ2 difference tests are omitted.
Every implementation of a process requires cognitive efforts that can be reduced through the learning and the use of cognitive scripts.
The Japanese term “ba”, introduced by Nonaka and Konno (1998) as a useful way of referring to the virtual and real spaces needed to nurture learning and knowledge creation, seems to have some similarities with the concept of a “community of practice”, where members of a community learn by participating in the community and practicing their jobs. However, these are important differences between the concepts of community of practice and ba. Whereas, a community of practice is a place where members learn knowledge that is embedded in the community, ba is a place where new knowledge is created. Whereas, learning occurs in any community of practice, ba needs energy in order to become an active boundary ba, where knowledge is created. Whereas, the boundary of a community of practice is firmly set by the task, culture, and history of the community, the boundary of ba is set by its participants and can be changed easily. Instead of being constrained by history, ba has a here-and-now quality. It is created, it functions, and then it disappears, all as needed. Whereas, the membership of a community of practice is fairly stable, and whereas new members need time to learn about the community of practice and become fully participatory, the membership of ba is not fixed, for participants come and go. Finally, whereas members of a community of practice belong to the community, participants of ba relate to the ba.
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Del Giudice, M., Della Peruta, M.R. & Maggioni, V. Collective Knowledge and Organizational Routines within Academic Communities of Practice: an Empirical Research on Science–Entrepreneurs. J Knowl Econ 4, 260–278 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-013-0158-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-013-0158-3