Embedded firms, embedded knowledge: Problems of collaboration and knowledge transfer in global cooperative ventures

Abstract

Research on global cooperative ventures has tended to focus on governance forms and task structures. This study highlights the importance of knowledge structures and work systems in influencing the success of collaborative ventures. Based on an empirical analysis of a close collaboration in the knowledge-intensive area between a Japanese and a British high-technology firm, it illustrates how the socially embedded nature of knowledge can impede cross-border collaborative work and knowledge transfer. The research has applied and extended Michael Polanyi's concept of 'tacit knowledge' in a much wider context. It develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the main differences and 'points of friction' between the Japanese 'organizational' and the British 'professional' models of the organization of knowledge in high-level technical work. It shows how the dominant form of knowledge held in organizations, its degree of tacitness, and the way in which it is structured, utilized and transmitted can vary considerably between firms in different societal settings. These differences are shown to have contributed to project failures, weakened the technological relationship between the partner firms over time and led to asymmetry in knowledge transfer.