Knowledge Sharing among Scientists: Why Reputation Matters for R&D in Multinational Firms?

Citation

Assudani, R.H. (2009), "Knowledge Sharing among Scientists: Why Reputation Matters for R&D in Multinational Firms?", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 319-321. https://doi.org/10.1108/17422040911003060

This book explores the dynamics of the micro‐level processes for knowledge sharing in a scientific community. The dispersed nature of knowledge mandates a precise understanding of how to conduct dispersed collaboration effectively and efficiently. However, the current body of research on dispersed collaboration and knowledge management is young and the domain is still being mapped. This book advances this stream of literature by presenting the role that one form of social governance mechanism – reputation – plays in the occurrence of technological knowledge sharing among scientists.

The book offers valuable insights for the voluntary sharing of non‐codified knowledge. While intuitively reputation seems like one of the logical precursors to voluntary sharing of an intangible asset such as non‐codified technological knowledge; the book provides an empirically grounded justification. The recipient's reputation as perceived by the source is instrumental in the decision of the source to share (or not) knowledge with the recipient. Ensign offers valuable insights into the construct of reputation by disaggregating it into its component parts. Further, the physical distance, as also the organizational connection between the source and the recipient, help determine whether to share (or not) knowledge with the recipient. Interestingly, the findings also demonstrate that the propensity to share knowledge is least for applied rather than basic or developmental research.

These findings have profound implications for the R&D community. First, it is imperative to recognize and appreciate that ‘knowledge sharing’ is a dyadic and a dynamic construct. The past and the anticipated future relationship among the source and the recipient determine the level of engagement between the two. Second, as businesses spread across the globe and as knowledge continues to disperse across space and time, it becomes imperative to understand (a) how reputation of the recipient may be constructed and perceived by the source across spatial and temporal distances; (b) how organizational connection may be generated among the source and the recipient across spatial and temporal distances, and (c) as corporations scramble to shorten the time to market for commercializing innovation, how organizational members may be motivated to share applied research across spatial and temporal distances.

While the scope of the book was limited to intra‐firm knowledge sharing, it will be interesting to expand the scope to see whether the findings will hold true for inter‐firm knowledge sharing as well or not. The boundaries of firms are getting more porous – firms are beginning to experiment with the concept of open innovation and are seeking knowledge from outside the firm as well. It will be valuable to examine whether the propensity for the source to share knowledge with the recipient will depend upon the ‘corporate’ reputation of the firm. What will also be valuable will be to replicate this study across various different industries, various different countries and cultures – do the social nuances to voluntarily share knowledge differ across these various contexts? While Ensign's findings suggest that increased inter‐personal relationships are counter‐productive to knowledge sharing, it will be interesting to explore whether the same relationship holds true in different cultures.

The findings demonstrate the effects of the duration and frequency of interaction on knowledge sharing ‐ while duration of past interaction has a positive effect on knowledge sharing, frequency of past interaction has no substantive effect on providing knowledge to the recipient. It will be of great interest to future studies to examine the interaction effects between the duration and frequency of past interaction on the future propensity to share knowledge. It will be interesting, for example, to compare dense short term interactions with less frequent (or staggered/phased out) long term interactions on the propensity to share knowledge. This may shed further light on some of the findings in Ensign's book. Perhaps, the relationship between duration and frequency on knowledge sharing is more complex.

The basic tenet of the book expands our horizons on the role of reputation in knowledge sharing and the social nuances underlying it, and offers early evidence to suggest that too much close inter‐personal interaction may in fact be counter‐productive to knowledge sharing. This interesting finding prompts us to consider the ‘dark side’ of social capital. Further, it may be worthwhile to explore whether social capital and the perception of reputation may be socially engineered.

Knowledge is recognized as one of the key resources for competitive advantage, especially for knowledge intensive units – we therefore need a better understanding of the social governance mechanisms that enforce exchange of this intangible asset. Knowledge and its management (storing, accessing and retrieving codified knowledge) have received considerable attention from the technological stand point. However, research has not progressed enough to explain the voluntary sharing of non‐codified knowledge – this book fills this gap and offers valuable insights for the academic and practitioner communities.