Predictors of individual knowledge acquisition commitment in a post-soviet setting.

Zusammenfassung

---

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

Auszug

---

Predictors of individual knowledge acquisition commitment in a post-soviet setting.

Abstract:

* Drawing upon interdisciplinary literature, particularly institutional theory, we tested Nonaka's (1994) predictors of individual knowledge acquisition commitment among 1,949 employees from four firms in Ukraine, a transition economy where low absorption of knowledge has slowed economic reforms.

* Five personality traits explained nearly 44% of the variance in knowledge acquisition commitment, but the results concerning the influence of individuals' perceptions of the organizational context were mixed.

* The findings affirm the value of individual level research in international management (IM), and underscore the importance of contextualizing theoretical models of knowledge acquisition rather than assuming universality.

* The results have practical implications for the performance of international joint ventures and subsidiaries that are dependent on host country labor in this context, and for indigenous firms attempting to transfer knowledge from developed economies.

Keywords: Knowledge acquisition * Contextualizing theory * Institutional theory * Personality traits * Transition economies * Ukraine

Introduction

Knowledge is an important strategic resource within the multinational firm's network of subsidiaries, partnerships and alliances (Ghoshal and Bartlett 1990; Gupta and Govindarajan 2000). Consequently, international management (IM) research has focused on the challenges faced by firms in transferring knowledge across geographic and cultural boundaries (e.g., Perez-Nordtvedt et al. 2008; Wang and Nicholas 2005; Wang et al. 2004), and on exploiting this knowledge for competitive advantage (e.g. Lane et al. 2001; Tsang et al. 2004). Perhaps nowhere are these challenges more pressing than in transition economies, which are characterized by a conflict between new knowledge concerning technology and competitive business practices from market oriented systems, and the values, experiences and habits underlying the old knowledge of the centralized planning past. The resulting individuals' resistance to new knowledge is compromising the development of organizational learning capabilities, particularly in post-Soviet countries, including Belarus (Kuznetsov and Yakavenka 2005), Bulgaria (Hollinshead and Michailova 2001), Hungary (Child and Markoczy 1993), Estonia (Alas and Sharifi 2002), Russia (May et al. 2005; McCarthy et al. 2008) and Ukraine (Stewart et al. 2009), but is an understudied topic in IM research (Yin and Bao 2006).

The process of transferring knowledge begins at the point of exchange between source and recipient firms. Recipients must value new knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Perez-Nordtvedt et al. 2008; Todorova and Durisin 2007) and be receptive to acquiring it (Gupta and Govindarajan 2000; Hamel 1991; Simonin 2004; Tsang et al. 2004) for effective absorption of information to occur. We assert that these conditions are necessary, but not sufficient, for effective knowledge transfer. Managers of recipient firms may value new knowledge as a competitive resource, and provide leadership on knowledge acquisition initiatives, but if the employees charged with absorbing the knowledge on behalf of the firm are not personally committed, then knowledge transfer efforts are likely to fail (Husted and Michailova 2002a; Kuznetsov and Yakavenka 2005; May et al. 2005; McCarthy et al. 2008; Michailova and Husted 2003). Multinational managers must gain a deeper understanding of the potential causes and consequences of culturally-based resistance to new knowledge (Fink and Holden 2005; May et al. 2005), if foreign investments in joint ventures and subsidiaries are to realize their potential (Yin and Bao 2006). Consequently, understanding individuals' commitment to acquire new knowledge is particularly important in advancing IM theory and practice in transition economies, where new knowledge is sorely needed to compete effectively (Uhlenbruck et al. 2003).

Increasingly, knowledge-based view (KBV) studies have been criticized for emphasizing the collective level of analysis to the neglect of individual level variables, which have the potential to enrich knowledge creation theory by integrating micro-foundations of organizational learning processes (Abell et al. 2008; Felin and Foss 2005; Felin and Hesterly 2007; Foss 2009; Foss et al. 2010; Minbaeva et al. 2009). Similarly, IM research has been cited for its lack of investigations beyond the firm or subsidiary levels (Shenkar 2004; Toyne and Nigh 1998; Werner 2002), particularly for ignoring insights to be gained from considering receptivity to new knowledge at the individual level (Inkpen and Crossan 1995). As evidence of this deficiency, even when individual knowledge behavior is the focus of investigation, most studies (e.g. Gupta and Govidarajan 2000; Minbaeva et al. 2003; Szulanski 1996) have used unit/organizational level data or a single respondent (e.g. the CEO) to represent the entire organization. Although this appro...

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

---