Strong Ties as Sources of New Knowledge: How Small Firms Innovate through Bridging Capabilities* (original) (raw)
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Embedded ties and the acquisition of competitive capabilities
Strategic Management Journal, 2005
We build on previous research that explores the external acquisition of competitive capabilities through the embedded ties that firms form in networks and alliances. While information sharing and trust have been theorized to be key features of the interorganizational ties that facilitate the acquisition of competitive capabilities, we argue that these mechanisms provide an incomplete explanation because they do not fully address the partially tacit nature of the knowledge that underlies competitive capabilities. Joint problem-solving arrangements play a prominent role in capability acquisition by promoting the transfer of complex and difficult-to-codify knowledge. Drawing on a set of case studies and a survey of 234 job shop manufacturers we find support for the role of joint problem solving with suppliers in facilitating the acquisition of competitive capabilities.
Strategic Management Journal, 2007
This paper employs comparative longitudinal case study research to investigate why and how strong dyadic interfirm ties and two alternative network architectures (a 'strong ties network' and a 'dual network') impact the innovative capability of the lead firm in an alliance network. I answer these intrinsically cross-level research questions by examining how three design-intensive furnishings manufacturers managed their networks of joint-design alliances with consulting industrial design firms over more than 30 years. Initially, in order to explore the sample lead firms' alliance behavior, I advance an operationalization of interorganizational tie strength. Next, I unveil the strengths of strong ties and the weaknesses of a strong ties network. Finally, I show that the ability to integrate a large periphery of heterogeneous weak ties and a core of strong ties is a distinctive lead firm's relational capability, one that provides fertile ground for leading firms in knowledge-intensive alliance networks to gain competitive advantages whose sustainability is primarily based on the dynamic innovative capability resulting from leveraging a dual network architecture.
Strategic Management Journal, 2007
This paper employs comparative longitudinal case study research to investigate why and how strong dyadic interfirm ties and two alternative network architectures (a ‘strong ties network’ and a ‘dual network’) impact the innovative capability of the lead firm in an alliance network. I answer these intrinsically cross-level research questions by examining how three design-intensive furnishings manufacturers managed their networks of joint-design alliances with consulting industrial design firms over more than 30 years. Initially, in order to explore the sample lead firms’ alliance behavior, I advance an operationalization of interorganizational tie strength. Next, I unveil the strengths of strong ties and the weaknesses of a strong ties network. Finally, I show that the ability to integrate a large periphery of heterogeneous weak ties and a core of strong ties is a distinctive lead firm’s relational capability, one that provides fertile ground for leading firms in knowledge-intensive alliance networks to gain competitive advantages whose sustainability is primarily based on the dynamic innovative capability resulting from leveraging a dual network architecture.
Catalyzing Strategies and Efficient Tie Formation: How Entrepreneurial Firms Obtain Investment Ties
Academy of Management Journal, 2012
Although network ties are crucial for firm performance, the strategies by which executives actually form ties are relatively unexplored. In this study, we introduce a new construct, tie formation efficiency, and clarify its importance for superior network outcomes. Building on fieldwork in 9 Internet security ventures seeking investment ties, we unexpectedly identify two equifinal paths for how executives form ties efficiently. One relies on existing strong direct ties and is only available to privileged firms. The other relies on a second new concept, catalyzing strategy, by which executives advantageously shape opportunities and inducements to form ties, and is available to many firms. Overall, we add insights to the network and signaling literatures, and to the nascent literature on how strategic action, especially by low-power actors such as entrepreneurs, shapes critical network outcomes. at tie, portfolio, and network levels all suggest that firm performance is higher when firms have many network ties of varied strength with the right partners.
Asian Business & Management, 2008
We investigate the influence of tie strength and the mediating effect of behavioural factors on knowledge acquisition in new product development alliances in the Korean machinery and electronics industries. Tie strength on the operational level, as measured by interaction intensity and intimacy between partners' project managers, was found to enhance knowledge acquisition, whereas the depth and length of firm-level ties did not. Moreover, the influence of interaction intensity and intimacy on knowledge acquisition was mediated by communication quality and fairness, suggesting that operational-level tie strength becomes less relevant for knowledge acquisition when good communication and perceptions of fairness between alliance partners have been established. Taken together, when knowledge acquisition is the objective, behavioural factors seem to play a more prominent role than tie strength in Korean new product alliances.
Big Fish versus Big Pond? Entrepreneurs, Established Firms, and Antecedents of Tie Formation
Academy of Management Journal, 2021
Entrepreneurial and established firms form collaborative relationships to commercialize products. Through such ties, entrepreneurs seek (1) development help to hone ideas into marketable products and (2) access to markets. In most cases, entrepreneurs face a trade-off: they can be a big fish in a small pond, getting more attention and development help from a smaller firm with less market access; or a small fish in a big pond, getting less attention and help from a larger firm with more market access. Our study investigates what goes into
The Bright Side and Dark Side of Embedded Ties in Business-to-Business Innovation
Journal of Marketing, 2011
Although the number and importance of joint innovation projects between suppliers and their customers continue to rise, the literature has yet to resolve a key question: Do embedded ties with customers help or hurt supplier innovation? Drawing on both the tie strength and knowledge literatures, the authors theorize that embedded ties interact with supplier and customer innovation knowledge to influence supplier innovation. In a sample of 157 Dutch business-to-business innovation relationships, they observe that embedded ties weaken how much suppliers benefit from customer innovation knowledge because of worries about customer opportunism (the dark side of embedded ties). However, they uncover three moderating relationship and governance features that allow suppliers to overcome these dark-side effects and even increase innovation (the bright side of embedded ties). Finally, although the authors predicted a bright-side effect, they find that embedded ties neither help nor hinder the ...
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES, INNOVATION AND EMERGENCE OF ORGANIZED PROXIMITY
In this paper a model for the formation of strategic alliances is studied. Innovation results from the recombination of knowledge held by the partners to the collaboration, and from the history of their collaboration. Innovation brings partners closer together, while at the same time the repetition of partnerships fosters trust and helps improving the outcome of each round of cooperation. A tension exists between innovating with people I know in order to reduce uncertainty at the expense of the net benefit from our joint effort, and innovating with strangers with whom the outcome of joint innovation can be greater but at a larger risk of failure. This "organized proximity", built through the experience of cooperation, can be at the origin of strongly structured networks of innovation, where agents' relations focus on limited cliques of partners.