THE LEARNING DYNAMICS OF EXTERNAL-INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE AND EXPLOITATION-EXPLORATION: THE CASE OF SMES' LEARNING-CAPACITY BUILDING

摘要

The research aims to explain the degree of complementarity, interdependency and co-evolution within the process of knowledge integration and learning and over the firm's technological trajectory. In doing so, it searches for the process of capacity building, emphasizing the interaction between knowledge reconfiguration and its orientation. Three bodies of literature frame the analysis. First, from the literature on knowledge management the main problems of coordination regarding knowledge transfer are discussed. Second, publications on both organizational learning and dynamic capability are considered together to enable the firm's learning dynamics to be understood by distinguishing the mechanisms, the processes and methods used by firms to develop common ground in their interpretative system. Lastly, the absorptive capacity construct is examined in terms of the different levels at which the firm approaches external knowledge and develops its learning experience. Accordingly, taking a process and micro view of learning, the analytical approach emphasizes the learning schemes, defined as the vehicles through which the action of mobilizing component knowledge into capabilities and routines occurs. Based on their differences and similarities regarding knowledge source and orientation, these learning schemes define six categories of learning capacity: formative, adaptive, transformative, inventive, created and renewed. The way these learning capacities are developed over time defines the firm's learning trajectory, presenting a functional relationship with its technological trajectory. The research deployed a historical in-depth two-case-study method. The first case is a nursery seedling firm (NSF) within the fruit industry and the second case supplies ingredients for the food industry (ISF). The data was taken from annual review reports and project documents combined with semi-structured interviews with key individuals of the firms. The cases provide evidence of the firms' learning-capacity building and co-evolution of their knowledge-integration and learning system (KILS). The evidence show that what really matters is how firms develop, at a certain point, a simultaneous and complementary interaction among these learning capacities. This process creates what are defined as a 'sense of opportunity' and 'technological flexibility'. Moreover, the evidence reveals that the oscillation between 'path-dependent' and 'path-breaking' changes is not linear along the trajectory. Thus, a rather complementary and iterative dynamic between the six learning capacities throughout the learning trajectory and technological trajectory is exhibited. The contributions of this research are relevant to firms categorized as established engineering-based SMEs within market contexts identified as 'moderately dynamic' with disperse and erratic 'technological opportunities'.