KNOWLEDGE OF THE FIRM, COMBINATIVE CAPABILITIES, AND THE REPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY
KNOWLEDGE OF THE FIRM, COMBINATIVE CAPABILITIES, AND THE REPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY
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DOI：
10.1287/orsc.3.3.383
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发表时间：
1992-08-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
ZANDER, U
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
KOGUT, B;ZANDER, U
如何理解企业为什么存在？一种普遍的看法是，它们的作用是控制个人自利动机所产生的交易成本。在这篇文章中，我们发展的论点是，企业比市场做得更好的是在一个组织内的个人和团体的知识共享和转移。这种知识包括信息（例如，谁知道什么）和知识（例如，如何组织一个研究团队）。我们的论点的核心是，知识是由个人持有的，但也表达在社会共同体中成员合作的知识中（即，组、组织或网络）。如果知识只掌握在个人层面上，那么公司可能会因为员工流动而改变。因为我们知道，雇用新员工并不等同于改变企业的技能，所以分析企业能做什么，必须将知识理解为人们在组织内合作的组织原则。基于这一讨论，我们发现了一个悖论：企业通过复制其技术来实现增长的努力增强了模仿的潜力。通过考虑企业如何通过创新来阻止模仿，我们对企业如何创造新知识提出了一个更动态的观点。我们建立了这个动态的角度来看，建议企业通过重组他们目前的能力来学习新的技能。因为新的合作方式不容易获得，所以增长是建立在公司现有的社会关系上的。一个公司以前做过什么往往可以预测它将来能做什么。从这个意义上说，企业积累的知识为企业在未来新的但不确定的市场中扩张提供了选择。我们详细讨论了制造/购买决策的例子，并提出了几个关于企业边界的可检验假设，而不诉诸“机会主义”的概念。"
How should we understand why firms exist? A prevailing view has been that they serve to keep in check the transaction costs arising from the self-interested motivations of individuals. We develop in this article the argument that what firms do better than markets is the sharing and transfer of the knowledge of individuals and groups within an organization. This knowledge consists of information (e.g., who knows what) and of know-how (e.g., how to organize a research team). What is central to our argument is that knowledge is held by individuals, but is also expressed in regularities by which members cooperate in a social community (i.e., group, organization, or network). If knowledge is only held at the individual level, then firms could change simply by employee turnover. Because we know that hiring new workers is not equivalent to changing the skills of a firm, an analysis of what firms can do must understand knowledge as embedded in the organizing principles by which people cooperate within organizations.Based on this discussion, a paradox is identified: efforts by a firm to grow by the replication of its technology enhances the potential for imitation. By considering how firms can deter imitation by innovation, we develop a more dynamic view of how firms create new knowledge. We build up this dynamic perspective by suggesting that firms learn new skills by recombining their current capabilities. Because new ways of cooperating cannot be easily acquired, growth occurs by building on the social relationships that currently exist in a firm. What a firm has done before tends to predict what it can do in the future. In this sense, the cumulative knowledge of the firm provides options to expand in new but uncertain markets in the future.We discuss at length the example of the make/buy decision and propose several testable hypotheses regarding the boundaries of the firm, without appealing to the notion of "opportunism."