A Model of Knowledge Acquisition for Technology-Based New Businesses

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This paper focuses on the knowledge acquisition that accompanies the development of technology-based new business (TBNB). TBNB refers to the practice of incumbent firms developing new businesses by exploring external technologies that can be integrated with those that already exist within the firms. Previous studies (e.g., Tushman and O'Reilly, 1996; Christensen, 2011; O'Reilly and Tushman, 2007) on incumbent firms' knowledge acquisition for new business concentrate on organizational design-specifically, organizational separation-to make their new businesses small and autonomous. This can reconcile the seemingly inconsistent activities of exploration and exploitation: searching for new knowledge while moving away from existing knowledge, and still using fully existing knowledge. However, the previous studies paid limited attention to the fact that the practice of simultaneously developing its existing business and new businesses means that the existing-field knowledge in incumbent firms becomes difficult to be accessed by their new businesses. Thus, this paper investigates a knowledge acquisition model for TBNB aimed at addressing the problem of knowledge separation, which is generated by an organizational separation. We conduct an explorative, comparative analysis of two new businesses of incumbent firms. As a result, we propose a model with three different knowledge-acquisition methods: "exploration," "dual-use exploitation," and "integrative exploitation" of knowledge, depending on whether it is novel/heterogeneous, related/homogeneous, and tacit, respectively.

Journal

  • 経済科学

    経済科学 67 (1-2), 15-29, 2019-09-30

    名古屋大学大学院経済学研究科

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