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ESSAYS ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN FIRMS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT: ADAPTATION AND SHAPING
jacobs, charlotte
jacobs, charlotte
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Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2022
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Business Administration/Strategic Management
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/7686
Abstract
The co-evolution of firms and their environment is a central topic in strategic management research. On the one hand, as their environment changes, firms need to adapt to these changes by updating their knowledge base. An important pillar of a firm’s continued sourcing for new knowledge is the integration of externally developed knowledge, which is labeled as external knowledge sourcing. On the other hand, firms’ actions influence their environment. Hence, firms proactively design strategies that allow them to shape the future business environment to their benefit. In my dissertation, I examine both strategic actions by firms: adaptation and shaping.
Adaptation
In Chapter 2, I provide an overview of the literature on external knowledge sourcing. I assess and integrate the research on the antecedents as well as the outcomes of knowledge sourcing for the sourcing firm. Creating this overview, I find that the antecedents for a firm’s choice of external knowledge sourcing governance mode are rooted in the technology, firm, and industry level. I also highlight the importance of recognizing the dyadic character of interfirm collaboration when studying these antecedents. Regarding the outcomes, I find that innovation performance has extensively been studied, while other potential outcomes of knowledge sourcing have received scant attention. Avenues for future research are proposed. In Chapter 3, I present my research on the influence of the structure of a target firm’s intrafirm inventor network on post-acquisition leverage of its knowledge by the acquirer. More specifically, the study investigates if more centralized inventor networks facilitate post-acquisition leverage of a target’s knowledge. It is theorized that central inventors, inherently present in networks with a highly centralized structure, will function as directories of the target’s knowledge, in turn facilitating transfer and leverage of this knowledge by the acquiring firm. The predictions are empirically tested using 323 US domestic full acquisitions between 1980 and 2009. The results show that, in accordance with the predictions, there exists a positive relationship between the degree of centralization of a target’s inventor network and post-acquisition knowledge leverage. This relationship is contingent on the relatedness of the knowledge bases of the acquirer and target, and the coherence of the knowledge of the target’s inventors.
Shaping
Chapter 4 presents research that provides a first quantitative approach towards firms’ shaping strategies. A taxonomy of shaping activities is developed using data from the photovoltaic cell industry. Building upon this taxonomy we categorize firms’ innovative activities as either shaping or adaptation activities. This categorization allows us to examine antecedents shaping firms have in common. Moreover, we explore the special case of shaping by firms in the aftermath of the emergence of a dominant design.
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