[...]... firm-specific routines and the conditions necessary for the production of knowledge; 14 3 4 5 6 Knowledge and the firm ‘Learning’ theories (Argyris and Schon, 19 78; Brown and Duguid, 2000; Senge, 19 93) consider the creation and application of knowledge at various levels, its centrality to organizational performance, its construction at an individual and group level (‘communities of practice’), and the ways in... consequences for our understanding of the management of knowledge and innovation and hence for theories of the firm and of strategic management .1 Section 2 provides an overview of the role of knowledge in firm behaviour and competitiveness with respect to theories of the firm, evolutionary economics and strategic management Section 3 describes various Intensification of innovation and management of knowledge 13 ... competition The work of business historians such as Chandler (19 77) and Lazonick (19 91) has added to this framework, contributing to the understanding of the way in which firms’ organizational and technological capabilities have changed over the past century and how these changes explain the shifts in international industrial leadership Drawing on the above contributions, the chapters of this book take up the. .. direction The importance of routines has been further refined by the contributions on strategic management (Teece et al., 19 97) that argue that the competitive 1 2 Technology, knowledge and the firm advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes, shaped by the firm’s assets and the evolution path it has adopted or inherited These theories emphasize the significance of knowledge, and place the. .. ICT-related technologies, and their relation to knowledge management, focusing on technologies used in design Section 4 assesses the impact and relevance of these new technologies for innovation and Section 5 draws conclusions 2 KNOWLEDGE, THEORY OF THE FIRM AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT Theoretically and empirically, the creation and use of knowledge takes centre stage in explaining firm behaviour and determining... constructs For example: 1 2 Resource-based theories (Barney, 19 86; Grant, 19 91; Penrose, 19 59) consider firms as bundles of assets comprised of both tangible and intangible resources and tacit knowledge For Penrose, it is the firm’s capacity to dynamically adjust its resources that sustains competitiveness; Behavioural theories of the firm (Cyert and March, 19 63; March and Simon, 19 58) analyse the development... effectively designing the 11 12 Knowledge and the firm process as well as the product (a subject which we shall address elsewhere) Hitherto, much of the discussion about the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in innovation processes has focused on the codification of knowledge Although there is increasing realization of the potential impact of these technologies within the innovation... necessary to coordinate and use the markets respectively and hence little room is left for understanding the process of accumulation of new organizational knowledge and the introduction of organizational innovation The resource-based theory is unable to appreciate the role of organizational constraints in shaping the rate and direction of the growth of the firm In the context provided by the economics of governance,... resulted in the intensification of the innovation process The authors ground their analyses on resource-based and behavioural theories of the firm, and strategic management theories on dynamic capabilities and evolutionary economics – all of which emphasize the significance of knowledge, and place the practices that surround the use of knowledge as fundamental elements of firm constructs Also, they base their... knowledge in the economics of governance provides a framework that can integrate the research programmes of the economics of transaction costs and of the resource-based theory of the firm and overcome their limitations He compares and contrasts the two theories and discusses the weaknesses of the approaches He argues that transaction costs economics pays little attention to organizational knowledge and the competence . A. Richards and V. Walsh Technology and the Market: Demand, Users and Innovation 20 01 ISBN: 1 84064 469 9 Technology, Knowledge and the Firm Implications for Strategy and Industrial Change Edited. x Introduction 1 Ken Green, Marcela Miozzo and Paul Dewick Part One Knowledge and the firm 1Craft and code: intensification of innovation and management of knowledge 11 Mark Dodgson, David M. Gann and Ammon. 36–76. Nelson, R. R. and S. G. Winter (19 82), An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Penrose, E. (19 59), The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, Oxford: Oxford University