INKNOWMAN · Uncertainty and Industrial Knowledge Management: A Dynamic Capability Perspective

Final Activity Report Summary - INKNOWMAN (Uncertainty and industrial knowledge management: a dynamic capability perspective)

Purpose This research project investigated a multi-faceted nature of managing development of emerging technology by integrating variety of conceptual perspectives with different levels of analysis. The project attempted to explore the development of strategic capabilities essential for integrating dispersed knowledge that enables different members of emergent technology innovation system to increase their innovativeness and sustain their competitiveness. It strove to capture in detail the contribution of proactive and knowledgeable agents that shape the emerging technology progress by purposefully engaging with the strategic, institutional and social context of technological innovation. The project responded to the recognised need for research on those managerial factors that enable firms, universities and the wider economy to capture value from an emergent technology. It also responses to the calls for better understanding of the changing role of knowledge and technology in relations to competitiveness in Europe and for making technology one of the pillars for realising the goal for Europe to become the leading knowledge-based economy. There is a general understanding that changing technology paradigms and discontinuous episodes in technological progress create environments of uncertainty and instability. It is also accepted that a myriad of agents in different roles influence technology innovation over time and eventually shape its development into periods of stability characterised by a dominant design. Research design This research adopted a case study research strategy. This is because the complexity and emerging nature of the research phenomena requires in-depth field research in a smaller number of companies taking place over time. The research centred on collecting qualitative and supportive quantitative data in order to develop deep understanding of the particular nature of each case. To develop more generalisable knowledge, cross-case analysis was performed. The chosen methodological approach enabled a researcher to be close to the practice and, therefore, the developed understanding is more likely to be relevant for practitioners. In the selected case studies the phenomenon of research interest needs to be transparently observable. Rather than take technological change per se, the research will focus upon a specific area of technological change: nanotechnology. The choice of nanotechnology has two related benefits for the case research. Firstly, as an emergent technology it challenges companies' existent knowledge bases and therefore triggers any dynamic capabilities they may possess or develop. Secondly, nanotechnology, as a general purpose technology, promises applications that are spread (potentially) through many different industries with varying magnitudes of impacts on companies and their competitive positions. Findings This research shows that the context of an emergent technology offers a fruitful research setting for investigating firms' capacity to constantly plunge into uncertainty and create surprising and unforeseen novelty. Illuminating such a path-creation process provides a complementary view for understanding dynamic capabilities and offers novel insights for the management of technology innovation. The research shows that development paths of complex technologies consist of different knowledge structure phases that are determined by different types of search, opportunity recognition and knowledge integration and by different dynamics of search, opportunity recognition and knowledge The temporal dynamics are largely influenced by the strategic context and maturity of the very process of path-creation. In all three identified phases human agency plays important role and actors are frequently challenged.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union