The effect of organizational capabilities on the search and exploitation of external knowledge

Abstract

Recently, innovation literature has emphasized that firms can improve their performance by acquiring knowledge generated by other agents. This has driven multiple studies to analyze the learning process involving the acquisition, development and exploitation of external knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Cassiman and Veugelers 2006). Although these studies have explored the effect of technological capabilities (mainly R&D activities) on external knowledge processes, little attention has been paid to the role played by firm’s internal organization in this process. In fact, most of this stream of literature has treated the organizational dimension as fixed across firms, neglecting to analyze how this dimension influences the firm’s knowledge search strategy and its innovation results. In this PhD proposal we manifest our interest in contributing to this field by analyzing, theoretically and empirically, how firm’s organizational capabilities shape external knowledge sourcing processes. Specifically, the research will address the following questions: How do organizational capabilities influence the configuration of knowledge sourcing processes? And, do organizational capabilities influence in the effect of external knowledge sourcing on firm’s performance?