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AbstractIn organizations striving for continuous innovation, the deliberate handling of knowledge plays a fundamental role. This far, most knowledge management initiatives have consisted of the implementation of new IT tools allowing for more efficient information handling. This approach has been criticized, as it does not consider certain aspects of knowledge, e.g. tacitness, social embeddedness and the creation of new knowledge. Alternative knowledge management approaches based on a more comprehensive notion of knowledge have been called for, but few examples of what these could look like in practice have been given. One example of an attempt to manage knowledge in a more holistic manner is knowledge networking. Based on case studies of seven different knowledge networking initiatives within Ericsson, the key components of the overall approach are described and some of the challenges posed to management are identified. Key issues that need to be attended to when designing and implementing individual knowledge networking initiatives are the extension and focus of user groups, the role of management in the initiatives and the promotion of knowledge‐sharing behaviour throughout the organization. Ericsson's knowledge networking strategy aims at developing a loosely coupled structure of nuclei for knowledge creation and sharing, connected to each other by different kinds of knowledge directories. This appears to have some advantages compared to traditional knowledge management strategies, as it supports the creation and sharing of both tacit and explicit knowledge. Furthermore, its strong focus on locally developed initiatives and knowledge directories may offer a more dynamic support structure than traditional top‐down initiatives focusing primarily on knowledge repositories. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractThe dynamic capabilities perspective has received increasing attention in the field of strategic management research. By focusing not only on the competitive advantage that is provided by a certain resource constellation, but also on the change of firms' resources over time to fit changing business environments, this perspective underlines the strategic importance of innovation. Despite the apparent interest in the dynamics of firm resources, there is still limited empirical evidence for how the strategic matching of resources and market needs is actually done, particularly in more rapidly changing environments. In order to investigate this process, an empirical study of 59 start‐ups in the Swedish mobile Internet industry was performed. A first finding from the study is that start‐ups which change market focus have a significantly higher probability to survive their first years. Furthermore, it is seen that in most cases, the change in market focus takes place without any related change in the technological resources that are used by the firm, indicating that an important factor at this stage is the flexible use of resources in searching for a suitable match between resources and market opportunities. This mode of learning and adaptation is very different from earlier proposed models focusing on the acquisition and transformation of resources. Instead, the early‐stage dynamic capabilities reveal themselves as bricolage, that is, the capacity to re‐interpret and re‐combine already existing resources and thereby improve their fit with the demands of the market environment. The results suggest that earlier proposed dynamic capabilities frameworks need to be modified, by taking into account the single entrepreneur as a source of dynamic capabilities, and by introducing the concept of resource flexibility. In terms of managerial implications, the findings underline the importance for entrepreneurs to balance the striving for distinctive capabilities that provide competitive advantage and the experimentation and improvisation needed to adapt to changes in the market. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reflecting the emergence of new organizational forms and hybrid organizations, this edited collection explores the processes of exchange, collaboration and technological management that have changed organizational structures. By investigating the impact that inter-organizational collaboration can have on the production and implementation of ideas within new firms, this study contributes to the growing field of innovation and responds to the need for a greater understanding of renewed processes. The authors argue that collaborations need to go beyond existing practices to create emerging paths such as bricolage, experimentation, effectuation and learning. Drawing together a diverse body of literature on the internal dynamics that drive organizational change, Learning and Innovation in Hybrid Organizations presents multiple perspectives on combining organizational flexibility with learning and innovation, and provides implications for future practice.

Competition today is forcing companies to increase their effectiveness through exploiting synergy and learning in product innovation. Literature, however, is still mainly focused on how product development projects, seen largely as isolated efforts, should be organised and managed. This article proposes a model to describe and explain how companies can gain a substantive competitive advantage by extending their innovation efforts to other phases of the product life cycle and by facilitating knowledge transfer and learning both within the company and with other partner organisations. The model is based on collaborative research by the authors, based on their involvement in the Euro‐Australian co‐operation project CIMA (Euro‐Australian co‐operation centre for Continuous Improvement and innovation MAnagement).