Suchergebnisse

Despite growing evidence that suggests that tacit knowledge can serve as a critical resource, there has been little effort to understand how such a form of personalized knowledge can provide strong advantages to an entire group or organization. In this paper, we develop four different categories of tacit knowledge that are derived from the basic tenants of the resource-based framework. More specifically, we distinguish between the discrete and linked forms of productive tacit knowledge that is possessed by individuals and administrative tacit knowledge that is held by managers within an organization. Next, we evaluate the role of each of these four different forms of tacit knowledge by focusing on the contribution of players and managers of professional sports teams. Our analysis of a large sample of Major League Baseball teams from 1985 to 2001 provides significant support for the importance of each of these categories of tacit knowledge for the performance of an organization.

Organizations that go through rare and unusual events, whether they are costly or beneficial, face the challenge of interpreting and learning from these experiences. Although research suggests that organizations respond to this challenge in a variety of ways, we lack a framework for comparing and analyzing how organizational learning is affected by rare events. This paper develops such a framework. We begin by first outlining two views of rare events. The first view defines rare events as probability estimates, usually calculated from the frequency of the event. The second view defines rare events as opportunities for unique sensemaking based on the enacted salience of specific features of the rare events. We next use these definitions to explore how rare events trigger learning, and then examine the kind of learning processes that are triggered by rare events. We conclude with a discussion of promising areas of research on learning from rare events.

The dilemmas experienced by managers in cultural industries are also to be found in a growing number of other industries where knowledge and creativity are key to sustaining competitive advantage. Firms that compete in cultural industries must deal with a combination of ambiguity and dynamism, both of which are intrinsic to goods that serve an aesthetic or expressive rather than a utilitarian purpose. Managers involved with the creation, production, marketing, and distribution of cultural goods must navigate tensions that arise from opposing imperatives that result from these industry characteristics. In this paper we outline five polarities that are shaping organizational practices in cultural industries. First, managers must reconcile expression of artistic values with the economics of mass entertainment. Second, they must seek novelty that differentiates their products without making them fundamentally different in nature from others in the same category. Third, they must analyse and address existing demand while at the same time using their imagination to extend and transform the market. Fourth, they must balance the advantages of vertically integrating diverse activities under one roof against the need to maintain creative vitality through flexible specialization. And finally, they must build creative systems to support and market cultural products but not allow the system to suppress individual inspiration, which is ultimately at the root of creating value in cultural industries.