Eonsoo Kim

The Applicability of Porter’s Generic Strategies in the Digital Age: Assumptions, Conjectures, and Suggestions

Because current management theories evolved in the context of brick-and-mortar firms, this paper examines three key questions raised by the advent of e-business: (1) Will the strategy types found among e-business firms resemble Porter’s (1980) generic strategies? (2) Will we find performance differences among e-business firms pursuing different types of strategies? (3) Will we find differences in the strategy-performance relationships of pure online firms (pure plays) and firms with both online and offline operations (clicks-and-bricks)? We conclude that integrated strategies that combine elements of cost leadership and differentiation will outperform cost leadership or differentiation strategies. We also argue that, regardless of business strategy type, clicks-and-bricks firms that closely integrate their on-and offline operations will enjoy performance advantages over their pure play counterparts.

Board capital and exploration: from a resource provisional perspective

Purpose – Drawing upon the resource dependence theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the board capital diversity influences the explorative innovation of firms, attempting to resolve the inconsistent empirical findings of the effect of outside directors on firm’s R & D strategy. Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of Korean manufacturing firms which consider R & D capability to be one of their core competencies, the study uses negative binomial model to test the influence of board capital diversity on explorative innovation. Findings – Results support the value of moderate level of board diversity hypothesis by demonstrating that board capital diversity shows an inverted U-shaped relationship with explorative innovation. The results also suggest that CEO ownership positively moderates the relationship between board capital diversity and firms’ innovative performance. Originality/value – Mainstream research has focussed on the directors’ monitoring role based on agency theory, overlo...

Where to find innovative ideas: interdependence-building mechanisms and boundary-spanning exploration

ABSTRACT The primary issue in innovation is not lack of ideas. Organisations abound with them inside and out. The challenge is to understand how firms can systematically and consistently recognise and exploit new knowledge. This paper, in the context of boundary-spanning exploration, suggests a theoretical framework to describe how organisations recognise opportunities and exploit knowledge to foster innovation. Specifically, we suggest that successful internal and external boundary-spanning must overcome the intended or unintended indifference to internal or external ideas that result from the strong pull of local search. We propose that crossing organisational and technological boundaries to achieve explorative innovations requires different types of interdependence-building mechanisms. We also suggest that promoting both types of boundary-spanning can eventually lead to radical exploration.

Characteristics of codified knowledge and replication-imitation speed differentials

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate knowledge replication-imitation speed differentials in the context of patents as the target knowledge. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzes patent citations in the electric digital data processing class employing an accelerated failure-time model. Findings This study finds that replicators can turn the private aspect of knowledge into an advantage against imitators with respect to the speed of knowledge transfer, even after the knowledge is codified in a patent. Specifically, being a replicator provides no knowledge transfer speed advantage over imitators. Instead, a joint consideration of knowledge characteristics and organizational boundaries is necessary when explaining knowledge replication-imitation speed differentials. Thus, “organizational advantage” in knowledge transfer is knowledge characteristic-specific rather than general. Originality/value This study illuminates the differential effects of organizational boundaries on knowledge transfer by investigating both replication and imitation in conjunction with each other, which has been a weakness in previous studies. This study also investigates knowledge transfer speed, another void in extant research.

The Transfer of Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility Profile through Executive Migration

In strategy literature, decreasing heterogeneity of firms’ CSR profiles has been mostly attributed to external factors, while internal factors are thought to increase heterogeneity. By integrating stakeholder theory and upper echelons theory, we propose that the executive migration can be an internal factor that decreases heterogeneity. The empirical analysis with 269 executive migrations over a 14-year period suggests that a newly migrated executive’s origin firm’s CSR profile is transferred to the focal firm’s CSR profile, narrowing the distance between two firms’ CSR profiles. We further examine the moderating effect of an executive’s origin firm’s CSR performance, and find differential impact of CSR and CSiR performance on the transfer of CSR profiles.