Knowledge Flows Governance And The Multinational Enterprise

This book contributes to the understanding of Knowledge Governance in the Multinational Corporation. Intra-firm and inter-firm processes of knowledge creation, sharing and exploitation have attracted increasingly managerial and scholarly interest. However the relation between particular knowledge processes, determinants of organizational choices, governance mechanisms, their relevant costs and benefits, and associated strategic advantages remain less well understood. To address these challenges, this book gives answers to the following questions. What are key challenges of governing knowledge in the multinational corporation? How do contingencies influence relevant trade-offs? How do sets of governance mechanisms respond to problems of cognition and incentives?

The objective of this special issue is to contribute to the understanding of Knowledge Governance in the Mulitnational Corporation. Like the traditional literature on corporate governance the authors are concerned with the attraction of crucial capital, its efficient allocation, as well as the mechanism used to achieve capital accumulation and optimal utilization. Knowledge as a particular sort of capital is seen as increasingly crucial to the existence, boundaries, and economic organization of modern Multinational Corporation.

Global knowledge flows are becoming a key driver of economic development. This book examines how countries can develop policies to reap the benefits that they bring.

Diploma Thesis from the year 2001 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1.0 (A), European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) (FB BWL), language: English, abstract: In the world of today, business is no longer limited by national boundaries. The majority of the world’s large corporations perform a significant portion of their activities outside their home countries. The rapidly emerging global economy creates numerous opportunities for businesses to expand their revenues, drive down their costs and boost their profits. At the same time, markets have become fierce battlegrounds where firms have to fight aggressively for market share with domestic and foreign competitors. It is commonly accepted that one of the primary sources for competitive advantage of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in this globalized business environment is their ability to transfer superior knowledge at the international level1 and to create a “learning organization”2. To succeed, or at least survive, in the global market-place, organizations need to adapt quickly to the changing environment and must commit themselves to permanent learning. This paper presents a general overview of the process of international knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises. It deals with the problems of organizational knowledge creation and sharing. A particular emphasis is placed on the implications for international human resource management practices in managing the international transfer of employees, since global assignments are recognized hierin as the most important mechanism of transferring tacit knowledge3 across borders. As the sharing of easily codifiable knowledge is relatively easy to manage, the means of transferring it are not focused on in this study. [...] 1 See, for instance, Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1992): „Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology“, Organizational Science, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 383-397; Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1993): „Knowledge of the Firm and the Evolutionary Theory of the Multinational Corporation“, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 24, pp. 625-645; Björkman, I. and Forsgren, M. (1997): „The Nature of the International Firm. Nordic Contributions to International Business Research“, Handelshojskolens Forlag, p. 71. 2 See, for instance, Garvin, D.A. (1993): „Building a Learning Organization“, Harvard Business Review, July/August, pp. 78-91. For definition of the learning organization see p. 23. 3 For definition of the tacit knowledge see p. 22.

This book shifts the debate on knowledge transfers within multinational corporations (MNCs) back to its core: How can we increase the effectiveness of cross-boarder transfers of knowledge? Several perspectives on international knowledge flows, from control issues to cultural barriers, are integrated into a comprehensive framework. Based on a sample of leading MNCs, empirical results show which managerial mechanisms have to be implemented to increase the benefit from knowledge transfers in headquarters and subsidiaries.

This text focuses on contemporary cutting edge research concerning the increasing strategic importance of subsidiary networks to the multinational firm. It combines contributions from three major related areas of inquiry; the changing theoretical conception of networks and the structure of the multinational firm, the importance of spillovers and agglomeration economies related to multinational investments and the management of the flow of information and knowledge from headquarters to subsidiaries and vice versa.

What is innovation and how should it be measured? Understanding the scale of innovation activities, the characteristics of innovative firms and the internal and systemic factors that can influence innovation is a prerequisite for the pursuit and analysis of policies aimed at fostering innovation.