Abstract
The production of the 1993 article awarded the JIBS Decade Award was written during a time when ideas regarding knowledge and the international expansion of the firm confronted a hostile audience. The sources of these ideas were directly related in Winter's and Roger's prior work, but also to a broader literature on ‘category errors’ and technology transfer. The theory of the firm as a social community is a distinctly sociological theory and, though sharing many key ideas with the resource-based view that developed at the same time, is deeply opposed to engineering conceptions of firms as Lego-modular pieces that can be easily shifted, bought, and sold. We describe our individual biographies and the subsequent intellectual development of the concepts in our article.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Zander (1991).
Udo, in his fieldwork on the management of international R&D found many examples of national engineering cultures. Sometimes the introduction of hardware like CAD/CAM systems was the only way to standardize action: a French engineer could accept adapting to a ‘stupid machine’, but would never conform to a ‘Swedish’ way of engineering.
Steve Kobrin related to us in a message sent after the publication of the article that the Soviets in fact produced a camera, the Kiev, that advertised its manufacture used the old Zeiss machinery.
References
Akerlof, G.A. and Kranton, R.E. (2000) ‘Economics and Identity’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 115(3): 715–754.
Bain, J.S. (1956) Barriers to New Competition, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
Barney, J. (1991) ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’, Journal of Management 17(1): 99–121.
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1998) ‘Organizational learning and communities of practice’, Organization Science 2(1): 40–57.
Buckley, P. and Casson, M. (1976) The Future of the Multinational Enterprise, Macmillan: London.
Contractor, F. (1980) ‘The composition of licensing fees and arrangements as a function of economic development of technology recipient nations’, Journal of International Business Studies 11(3): 47–62.
Dierickx, I. and Cool, K. (1989) ‘Asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage’, Management Science 35(12): 1504–1511.
Foss, N.J. (1996) More critical comments on the knowledge-based theories of the firm’, Organization Science 7(5): 519–523.
Hall, G. and Johnson, R. (1970) ‘Transfers of United States Aerospace Technology to Japan’, in R. Vernon (ed) The Technology Factor in International Trade, Columbia University Press: New York, NY, pp: 305–358.
Hansen, M.T. (1999) ‘The search-transfer problem: the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits’, Administrative Science Quarterly 44: 82–111.
Hedlund, G. (1986) ‘The hypermodern MNC – a heterarchy?’, Human Resource Management 25: 9–35.
Hennart, J.-F. (1982) A Theory of the Multinational Enterprise, University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI.
Kogut, B (2000) ‘The network as knowledge: generative rules and the emergence of structure’, Strategic Management Journal 21(3): 405–426.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1992) ‘Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities and the replication of technology’, Organization Science 3(3): 383–397.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1993) ‘Knowledge of the firm and the evolutionary theory of the multinational corporation’, Journal of International Business Studies 24: 625–645.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1995) ‘Knowledge, market failure and the multinational enterprise: a reply’, Journal of International Business Studies 26(2): 417–426.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1996) ‘What firms do? coordination, identity and learning’, Organization Science 7(5): 502–518.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (2000) ‘Did socialism fail to innovate? a natural experiment of the two Zeiss companies’, American Sociological Review 65(2): 169–190.
Lall, S. (1978) ‘Transnationals, domestic enterprises, and industrial structure in host LDCs: a survey’, Oxford Economic Papers, New Series 30(2): 217–248.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Lippman, S.A. and Rumelt, R.P. (1982) ‘Uncertain imitability: an analysis of interfirm differences in efficiency under competition’, Bell Journal of Economics 13: 418–438.
Machlup, F. (1980) Knowledge: Its Creation, Distribution, and Economic Significance – Vol. 1 Knowledge and Knowledge Production, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Makadok, R. and Walker, G. (2000) ‘Identifying a distinctive competence: forecasting ability in the money fund industry’, Strategic Management Journal 21(8): 853–864.
Nelson, R. and Winter, S. (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Oxford University Press: New York.
Rogers, E.M. (1962) Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press: New York, NY.
Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind, Barnes and Noble: New York.
Streeten, P. (1974) ‘Social science research on development: some problems in the use and transfer of an intellectual technology’, Journal of Economic Literature 12(4): 1290–1300.
Szulanski, G. (1996) ‘Exploring Internal stickiness impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm’, Strategic Management Journal 17: 17–43.
Teece, D. (1985) ‘Multinational enterprise, internal governance, and industrial organization’, American Economic Review 75(2): 233–239.
Tilly, C. (2000) ‘How do relationships store histories?’, Annual Review of Sociology 26(1): 720–723.
Wernerfelt, B. (1984) ‘A resource-based view of the firm’, Strategic Management Journal 5: 171–180.
Williamson, O.E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications, Free Press: New York, NY.
Williamson, O.E. (1981) ‘The economics of organization: the transaction cost approach’, American Journal of Sociology 87(3): 548–577.
Winter, S.G. (1987) ‘Knowledge and Competence as Strategic Assets’, in D. Teece (ed) The Competitive Challenge – Strategies for Industrial Innovation and Renewal, Ballinger: Cambridge, MA, pp: 159–184.
Zander, U. (1991) Exploiting A Technological Edge – Voluntary and Involuntary Dissemination of Technology, IIB, Stockholm School of Economics: Stockholm.
Zander, U. and Kogut, B. (1995) ‘Knowledge and the speed of the transfer and imitation of organizational capabilities: an empirical test’, Organization Science 6(1): 76–92.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Appendix A: Quotes from the review process
Appendix A: Quotes from the review process
To the editor: ‘We can't see anything in them [the reviews] which should prevent publication, though we have incorporated by and large all comments other than those just objecting to the story.’
To the editor: ‘Reviewer 1 took the high ground, citing everything but the Bible to us.’
To the editor: ‘The last reviewer made many good points. Frankly we want to write this paper as an essay, not hypothesis one, two, etc. It is hard to interpret the comments on jargon; there has to be some common vocabulary specific to our field and the cited words strike us to be precisely this vocabulary.’
To reviewer 2: ‘Thank you for your supportive comments. It is very unusual that a reviewer states a disagreement, while fully supporting the efforts of an article.’
To reviewer 4: ‘We are aware that we have written this paper in a different style than the usual article, and we would like to stay with it. We have tried to present the intellectual heritage, if you will, of the field so that we might all have a chance to reflect on it and move forward. For this reason we have included the quotes, and whereas you may be right that they are disturbing, they should also mean something to all of us educated in this line of thinking. Curiously enough, from the selfish perspective of the authors, this practice will make the article less accessible to people outside the field. But we are trying here to address the central readership of JIBS.’
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kogut, B., Zander, U. A memoir and reflection: knowledge and an evolutionary theory of the multinational firm 10 years later. J Int Bus Stud 34, 505–515 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400066
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400066