The effects of organization context on knowledge exploration and exploitation

Rodrigo Valio Dominguez Gonzalez and Tatiana Massaroli de Melo

Journal of Business Research, 2018, vol. 90, issue C, 215-225

Abstract: The knowledge-based view of the firm points knowledge as the main resource able of generating competitive advantage for organization. This competitive advantage is the result of the innovative process, which requires knowledge exploration and exploitation. Several studies have aimed to analyze factors that support the knowledge management (KM) process and generate taxonomies related to the practice of KM. However, there is a gap in the literature on organizational knowledge regarding the relationship of contextual factors with the knowledge exploration and exploitation process as well as with the generating of a typology that considers these two processes. To achieve this goal, this study uses a quantitative approach, based on a survey with 234 companies in the automotive industry. Our results show that the knowledge exploration and exploitation process are differently impacted by five contextual factors considered in this research - human resources management, supportive leadership, learning culture, autonomy and systems of information technology (IT). While exploration is more impacted by learning culture, autonomy and IT systems, exploitation is more associated with supportive leadership and learning culture. Considering innovation for knowledge exploration and exploitation and contextual factors, this research also identifies three clusters in the automotive industry, named innovative companies, exploitative companies and passive companies.

Keywords: Knowledge exploration and exploitation; Innovation; Learning culture; Leadership; Human resource management; Autonomy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318302601
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:90:y:2018:i:c:p:215-225

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.025

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().