Journal Article Critique “From common to uncommon Knowledge: Foundations of Firm-specific use of Knowledge as a Resource” Essay

Research question How can managers create uncommon acquaintance when rivals have access to similar, commonly available fellowship? (page 425) Authors purpose The importance of intimacy is well established in research. The companionship-based theory considers fellowship as the around strategic each(prenominal)y significant resource of a firm. Notwithstanding, the authors illustrate that it is not known much closely how firms create, acquire, and apply knowledge breach than different firms (page 421). Nag and Gioia set up a qualitative study to develop an inductive model to reveal the processes how and under which circumstances managers transform common into characteristic knowledge.The foundry industry in the northeast and midatlantic United States served as study population. The authors conducted 53 inter look outs with CEOs and other key phalluss involving 22 different foundries. Major conclusions The model genuine three propertys how executives differ in the process fr om common to uncommon knowledge executive knowledge schemes, executive scanning and uncommon knowledge use. The study indicates the in the flesh(predicate) impact of executive behavior how they identified, searched for and used uncommon knowledge Under kindred external circumstances they act in different ways to underwrite strategic situations. (1) Interpretation of the resultsThe interviews were structured like following. There are three aggregated dimensions (executive knowledge schemes, executive scanning and uncommon knowledge use). Each of these dimensions consists of twain second-order themes. These feed on the first-order categories which are coded quotes. Executive knowledge schemes mean how executives are determined towards theirs perceptions of knowledge. They are also called knowledge structures.A more detailed view onto these structures reveals that they consist first of the second-order-themes knowledge significance (criticality and distinctiveness relate to the imp ortance of knowledge to the strategic performance of a firm). The usage of knowledge is mostly seen in three areas technical posture, operational efficiency and node responsiveness. Second, the knowledge schemes consist of knowledge source (external accessibility, personal competence and lower-echelon knowledgeability relate to the usefulness and type of different origins of knowledge). Executive scanning means the activity to acquire additional knowledge. It differs in the quantity and the character how managers search to extend the strategic resources. Scanning enthusiasm describes the amount of time and effort managers invest to acquire new knowledge.The other second-order theme scanning proactiveness goes beyond the intensity in order to get better and other information than competitors do. Uncommon knowledge use means the application of knowledge to a firms challenges. As long as a foundry does not know how to use common knowledge for its own problems it does not have a com petitive advantage of knowledge (it does define about costs as differentiation). Only if it is using uncommon knowledge it be deducts distinctive knowledge and therefore turns into a competitive advantage. In the second-order themes this dimension is separated into knowledge adaption and knowledge augmentation. The first one describes how to use new knowledge to solve specific problems and generate new methods.The second one goes beyond it is about understand problems in principle. When you are familiar with the principle you can adapt knowledge to related problems and through that it is possible to generate new knowledge by you. incompatible emphases in second-order themes are more likely to be linked with certain emphases on another second-order theme (e.g. strong believe in technological effectiveness is associated with engaging in proactive scanning). Through those linkages Nag and Gioia were able to draw tree knowledge pathways.The knowledge adaption pathways describe the tra ck how managerial distinctions emerge to knowledge adaption. The knowledge augmentation pathways describe the way to the augmentation of knowledge and the third track describes how it happens that uncommon knowledge is not used. In the knowledge adaption pathways executives consider knowledge as most important for operational efficiency.They believe its hard to obtain from external sources and they have confidence in their own knowledge but limited hope in workers knowledge. They are scan-ning intensively for knowledge and personally they had a greater share in knowledge work. Firms on that pathway are adapting knowledge and come more likely to an incremental development. In contrast described before in the knowledge augmentation pathways leaders have a strong confidence on own knowledge, on workers capabilities and they believe their know-ledge is distinctive and hard to imitate for competitors. Therefore they are scanning pro-actively and engaging others to knowledge work.These c ompanies use uncommon know-ledge through augmentation. extremist innovations are more likely in those companies. On the path for no uncommon knowledge use the executives contribute knowledge mostly to raise customers responsiveness. They have low confidence in companys knowledge, their own and in workers knowledge. Through low and infrequent scanning activity they repress the information available and therefore they avoid uncommon knowledge usage. Companies on that path are less cost efficient than companies on the paths described before. (2) Strengths and weaknesses of the methodological approach In general the study appears consistent and methodologically well done. While interpreting participants the authors included quotations (in vivo codes) of the respondents in the motif to underline their interpretations. For member checking they organized two group discussions with executives to verify the findings.They had a grounded theory approach. Starting from the interviews they de veloped inductively the model. In a quite good manner they developed art illustrating their model which make the study easier comprehensible for outsiders. It could be criticized that the authors did not reveal their bias and research background to the topic. In 2006 Nag published his dissertation with the statute title From common to uncommon knowledge An investigation into the socio-cognitive foundations of inter-firm heterogeneity in the use of knowledge as a resource. Gioia was the chair of the dissertation committee.The dissertation had the same study population from the foundry industry with partially identical interviewees. In that dissertation more and less detailed sketches of the model in the current paper were presented. Against this backdrop the inductive approach could be suspected. It is more likely that there already existed some detailed ideas how the outcome could look like. Maybe here is the terra firma why the authors presented the literature review in the begi nning which is unusual for an inductive approach. But nevertheless the developed model seems to be fully founded in the data. It could be mentioned more clearly when actually common knowledge becomes uncommon knowledge.The kind of knowledge which is spoken about is not clear enough. For example in the dimension knowledge schemes there are mentioned market insights as well as technological insights. But concurrent the dimension uncommon knowledge usage is all about technological and process effectiveness issues. Furthermore following there are detailed critiques concerning the sampling and the interviews. SamplingThe study population like elect in the study is well defined and concrete Firms belong with the same industry Saturated industry with a lot of established common knowledge (=same basis) and where uncommon knowledge is the way to compete Foundries have a comparable (low) complexity (