The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data

Sarah Guillou, Nathalie Lazaric, Christian Longhi and Sylvie Rochhia

Research Policy, 2009, vol. 38, issue 1, 170-180

Abstract: In the defence industry the recent development of a 'market for technology', the creation of new European high-technology companies as well as transformations in government agencies have driven firms to reposition their technological and organizational skills. Our objective is to show that the transformations that have occurred in the past 10 years have not only redefined skills and the organization of production, but also have given a more strategic place to knowledge management (KM) practices. We provide a contextual and historical overview based on qualitative interviews, in order to better understand the relation between KM and innovative behaviour in this industry. We build an original industrial and technological database comprising various samples that provides quantitative information concerning KM and innovative practices. The results of the statistical analysis reveal the specificity of firms in this industry. Taking account of the size of these firms and their technological intensity, we show that the behaviour of defence industry firms in terms of KM practices, differs from that of other firms. This is evident from their technological performance, and innovation and patenting intensity. This structural tendency is explained as an innovative behaviour in the French national innovation system rather than merely a 'trend'.

Keywords: Defence; industry; Knowledge; management; practices; R&D; Innovation; Technological; performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048-7333(08)00234-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data (2009)
Working Paper: The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data (2009)
Working Paper: The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data (2009)
Working Paper: The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data (2009)
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:respol:v:38:y:2009:i:1:p:170-180

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

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