خرید و دانلود نسخه کامل کتاب Inter-firm Networks Coordination Through Board and Department Interlocks – Original PDF

Chapter 2 A Knowledge-Based View of Inter-Firm Interlock Coordination 2.1 A Knowledge-Based View of Inter-Firm Networks Board interlock (BINT), that is, sharing a director with one or more companies, is one of many ways in which companies do coordinate their behavior (Cropper et al., 2008; Ebers, 1997; Knoke, 2012; Nooteboom, 1999, 2004; Parmigiani & Rivera-Santos, 2001). This specific type has been investigated since long time ago and from different perspectives (Boyd et al., 2011; Domhoff, 1967; Jeidel, 1905; Mills, 1956; Mizruchi, 1996; Porter, 1956). The one we have chosen is the meso-level of an industry and its adjacent sectors, evidenced through its structural (network) dimension and the main content channeled through shared directors: knowledge. In fact, according to the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) of the firm (Curado & Bontis, 2006; Noote- boom, 2010; Rafael et al., 2008), knowledge is a fundamental—and likely, the most important—source of organizations’ growth, competitiveness and power, be them profit or not-for-profit ones. The KBV is not yet a structured and sound theoretical framework; rather, it should be meant not too much related to the original and current approach rooted in Management and Organization Sciences (MOS), but rather as a broader perspective taking contributions also from Evolutionary Economics (Dosi et al., 2000; Teece, 2009, 2012). In this chapter, we outline the application of this KBV to these three forms of inter-firm interlock coordination, demark its boundaries with other views, trace back to the main contributions, address to the main research stream crossing this field and to some main hypotheses that then we will test in Chap. 8. Therefore, this one and that final chapter are strictly related. Though knowledge should be distinguished from information (Biggiero, 2009, 2012; von Krogh & Roos, 1996; von Krogh et al., 1998; Yolles, 2006; Zeleny, 2005, 2006, 2007), at the level of width assumed in this work, we can comprehend in the word “knowledge” also the flow of informa- tion, which can or cannot be transformed into knowledge and eventually absorbed in an organization’s learning process (Lane et al., 1998; Nooteboom, 2000, 2010; Todorova & Durisin, 2007; Zahra & George, 2002). In a large part of economic, managerial and sociological literature, knowledge is considered a crucial factor of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 L. Biggiero and R. Magnuszewski, Inter-firm Networks, Relational Economics and Organization Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17389-9_2 7 8 2 A Knowledge-Based View of Inter-Firm Interlock Coordination competitiveness and innovativeness. A widely accepted idea in such research fields is that the complexity that characterizes the knowledge society and economy makes organizations more and more depending on others’ resources, among which knowl- edge is crucial, especially in knowledge-intensive industries. Therefore, capitalism is becoming network capitalism, characterized by a lot of formal or informal, inten- tional or unintentional inter-firm (or, more broadly, inter-organizational) networks (Tung & Worm, 2001; Oleinik, 2004; Schweitzer, 2017). The phenomenon of BINT claimed a lot of attention since the beginning of the twentieth century, because it was interpreted as a way to build collusive strategic behavior, thus producing extra-profits by violating a minimum degree of competition and therefore exploiting customers. Hence, the Clayton Act of 1914 included BINT among the practices to be sanctioned by the antitrust law, and since there, it has been updated in various forms, especially concerning the thresholds applied to the companies’ size parameters and industry definition. In the last section of this chapter, we come back to this issue and advance some aspect of current view that seems not well appropriate to deal with the reality of interlock forms of inter-firm coordination that we have evidenced in this book. Later and independently from standard economics and the law approaches to BINTs, since the fifties, MOS started to deepen this topic in many ways: the compo- sition of BINTs with respect to internal or external directors, the motivations to issue a BINT, the effects on companies’ behavior, etc. A first important systematization was finally found in the Theory of Resource Dependence (Pfeffer, 1983; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978), meant as a form of controlling environmental uncertainty and guar- anteeing crucial resources. Other authors (Mills, 1956; Mace, 1971; Domhoff, 1967; Zeitlin, 1974; Levine, 1972; Bearden et al., 1975; Mariolis, 1975; Sonquist & Koenig, 1975; Mintz & Schwarts, 1981; Mizruchi, 1982; Scott & Griff, 1984; Useem, 1984; Stokman et al., 1985; Carroll & Sapinski, 2011; Huijzer & Heemskirk, 2021; etc.), by taking a more macro perspective, contended that the aim is not control, but rather consolidating the class (élite) power, presumably against workers or other social classes. Then yet others (Davies, 1994; Davis, 1991; Galaskiewicz & Wasserman, 1989; Gilder, 2013; Haunschild, 1993; Hermalin & Weisbach, 1998; Kenis & Knoke, 2002; Pfeffer, 1972; Shropshire, 2010; Westphal et al., 2001) underline the relevance of BINTs as a channel for knowledge sharing and transfer, thus implicitly or explicitly assuming the KBV perspectiv