Janet Y. Murray and Mike C.H. Chao
Executive Summary
A key competitive advantage for multinational corporations (MNCs) is their organizational capacity to exploit existing firm-specific knowledge by sharing it within their corporate system. For MNCs to transform one technological platform to families of products, the knowledge that a new product development (NPD) project team produces must be transferred to other project teams that may be located in a foreign country. Yet little is known about how NPD project teams learn, especially how the recipient team acquires knowledge from the source team in the cross-team context. Murray and Chao develop a framework of international knowledge acquisition in which they examine (1) how team- and knowledge-related factors influence the level of the recipient team’s international knowledge acquisition and (2) how the recipient team’s international knowledge acquisition affects new product development capabilities and performance.
In developing a framework of international knowledge acquisition, Murray and Chao draw on the areas of the knowledge-based view of the firm, organizational theory on absorptive capacity, and NPD teams as the conceptual foundation. The authors identify three cross-team-related resources—source–recipient team integration resources, source team resources, and recipient team resources—that affect the recipient team’s international knowledge acquisition. They also suggest that the recipient team’s realized absorptive capacity influences the relationship between the recipient team’s international knowledge acquisition and the level of NPD capabilities. Finally, they state that managers should note that technology and market turbulence in the host country would likely weaken the positive relationship between NPD capabilities and new product market performance.
Murray and Chao caution managers that international knowledge acquisition is a difficult process. Successful international knowledge acquisition at the cross-team level depends on various types of team resources. It is imperative that top management provides support by creating a positive environment for such acquisition through the use of facilitators (e.g., face-to-face interactions) for the process. In addition, managers should be aware of the distinction between acquired knowledge and NPD capabilities. Those MNCs that have acquired the necessary knowledge may still not possess the critical NPD capabilities. Managers must nurture the recipient team’s realized absorptive capacity to enable the transformation of the acquired knowledge into NPD capabilities.
As competition becomes more knowledge based, MNCs should develop a thorough understanding of their own knowledge, the process by which knowledge is converted into NPD capabilities, and the capacity of those NPD capabilities to meet the demands of the environment to achieve desirable new product performance.
Biography
Janet Y. Murray is Associate Professor of International Business at the Boeing Institute of International Business at Saint Louis University. She received her doctoral degree in Marketing from the University of Missouri–Columbia in 1992. She has previously held faculty positions in Marketing and International Business at Cleveland State University and the City University of Hong Kong. She has published in Journal of Marketing, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Management International Review, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of World Business, among others. She was the recipient of the 1999 S. Tamer Cavusgil Best Paper Award and the 2002 Hans B. Thorelli Best Paper Award for articles that were published in the Journal of International Marketing in 1998 and 2001, respectively. She has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and other firms in the areas of marketing and international business strategies. She serves on the editorial review boards for the Journal of International Marketing and the Journal of International Management. Her research interests include global sourcing strategy, global competitive strategy, marketing strategy in emerging markets, learning and knowledge transfer, and strategic alliances.
Mike C.H. Chao is originally from Taiwan and is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in International Business and Marketing at Saint Louis University. He received his MBA from the University of Missouri–Columbia in 2001. Mike teaches International Marketing and Introduction to International Business courses at the undergraduate level at University of Missouri–Saint Louis and at Saint Louis University. His current research interests include the resource-based view of the firm, knowledge management, country-of-origin effects, and e-commerce. Mike has published in International Marketing Review. In addition, he has presented papers at conferences including events organized by Academy of International Business, American Marketing Association, Association for Global Business, and Academy of Marketing Science.
Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 13, No. 3, September 2005
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