Bruce Heiman

Towards Reconciling Transaction Cost Economics and the Knowledge-based View of the Firm: The Context of Interfirm Collaborations

This paper presents a set of relationships that have the potential to reconcile the dispute between the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV) and transaction cost economics (TCE). Several KBV scholars have argued that governance choice need rely only on bounded rationality and not on opportunism where TCE scholars maintain that both behavioural assumptions are needed to explain governance choice.We help to resolve part of the debate by developing an extension ofTCE to encompass certain knowledge-based attributes of transactions.We argue that high-levels of two knowledge transfer attributes - knowledge tacitness or problem solving complexity - lead to the adoption of the knowledge management practices - high-bandwidth channels or idiosyncratic communication codes - to economize on the cognitive limitations of man. It is these knowledge management practices that generate contracting hazards for whichTCE, and its attendant concern about opportunism, predicts equity-based collaborations are superior to non-equity-based collaborations.The linkages between knowledge transfer attributes, knowledge management practices, and governance choice add value via implications for managers which are not readily apparent from either theory alone.

Strategic, Organizational, and Cultural Fit: Effects on Performance in China‐US Joint Ventures

We explore the effects of three categories of fit on US‐China joint‐venture performance using four performance measures. Many studies prescribe strong fit across multiple categories as necessary for high performance, but little rigorous analysis supports this. Three important threads of existing “fit” research resonate in the literature: strategic, cultural and organizational fit. We analyze an original survey dataset of over 80 US‐China JVs, and test for effects of fit‐categories using two measures for each thread. Additionally, multiple control factors give a compelling look at a complete model of fit’s effects on JV performance. Objective congruence (strategic fit) among JV partner‐firms, impacts two performance‐measures. Efficacy of managerial communications (cultural fit) also matters, as does harmony regarding hiring decisions (organizational fit). Our findings are a step forward empirically, and partly resolve persistent questions about partner‐fit in JVs and performance.

Company Law and Corporate Governance Renewal in Transition Economies: The Bulgarian Dilemma

The main objective of company law and corporate governance structures is to provide rules and secure efficient functioning of decision-making mechanisms that maximise the value of enterprises and safeguard interests of various stakeholders. Company laws and corporate governance models in different countries have evolved in specific historical, cultural, market and legal conditions that prevent their direct transplantation elsewhere. Assessing available experiences, former centrally planned European economies, engaged in sweeping transformations, are challenged by the need to recreate a delicate balance between investor protection and business discretion of managers to work for corporate value maximisation and social welfare. This essay undertakes an explorative discussion on the possible choices and the costs and benefits related to principalagent problem resolution in economies in transition, with special emphasis on institutions and the case of Bulgaria.

How Knowledge Management Capabilities Help Leverage Knowledge Resources and Strategic Orientation for New Product Advantages in B-to-B High-Technology Firms

ABSTRACT Purpose: Current understanding of how new product development (NPD) teams use knowledge management capabilities to acquire, disseminate, and apply knowledge resources to achieve competitive advantages is limited by a lack of compelling theory supported by empirical evidence. This study provides a theoretical framework and empirical validation for how an NPD team manages knowledge resources and strategic orientation to enhance its knowledge management capabilities, which, in turn, lead to business-to-busienss (B-to-B) new product advantages. Methodology/approach: A total of 100 sets of data was collected from B-to-B firms in U.S. high-tech industries. In order to validate the proposed hypotheses, we estimated the main effects using path analysis in AMOS, and tested for interaction effects using interaction term regressions. Findings: Our findings show that the two dimensions of NPD knowledge management capabilities—acquisition and application—are important but differential drivers of product quality superiority and product differentiation. In testing whether NPD management capabilities matter for two product advantage constructs, we confirmed that product quality superiority can be enhanced by both NPD knowledge acquisition and application capabilities, whereas product differentiation can be increased strongly by NPD knowledge acquisition capabilities. Research implications: Our research confirms the importance of strategic orientation as a driver of NPD knowledge management capabilities, which enhances understanding of how strategic factors operate under a resource-based view. Our results further provide direct empirical support for the knowledge-based view of firms, in that an NPD team’s abilities to manage and deploy knowledge-based resources by acquiring and applying NPD knowledge lead to competitive advantages, for outcomes of quality superiority and differentiation. Practical implications: Our findings have relevance for managers in three ways. First, NPD knowledge acquisition and application capabilities have differential impacts on product quality superiority and differentiation. Second, in exploring NPD resource factors as antecedents, managers should manage levels of NPD market intelligence, resource tacitness, and NPD resource deployment differentially to directly improve NPD teams’ acquisition and application capabilities. Third, managers should not underestimate the importance of market and technological orientations in enhancing NPD knowledge management capabilities. Market orientation drives both NPD knowledge acquisition and application capabilities; technological orientation drives NPD knowledge application capabilities. Originality/value/contribution of the paper: An NPD team’s knowledge management capabilities generally, but differentially, mediate the relationships of knowledge resources and strategic orientation factors with new product competitive advantage. However, simply enhancing NPD knowledge management capabilities is not a panacea for developing product competitive advantage in B-to-B settings, because of their differential effects.