José Emilio Navas-López

Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm

Purpose – The elements that constitute the organizational capital or capital of the firm, namely its culture, structure, organizational learning, can be a source of competitive advantage. This paper is an attempt to assess organizational capital from the resource‐based view.Design/methodology/approach – From an extensive literature review, an assessment framework for intellectual capital is developed.Findings – By means of this framework organizational capital can be depicted as a set of: valuable assets; difficult to imitate; to replace; to transfer; with a prolonged life expectancy; and with a feasible rent appropriation.Originality/value – Building of such an evaluation framework allows further research about other components of the intellectual capital of the firm, bridging the literatures focused on the resource‐based view and on intangible assets or intellectual capital.

Organizational knowledge assets and innovation capability

Purpose – Organizational knowledge assets are key organizational factors responsible for firm innovation, as well as effective management. Traditionally, a good piece of research takes the innovation processes from an external perspective, leaving aside the internal complexity that characterizes innovation dynamics. Nevertheless, the innovation capability of a certain firm depends very closely on the intellectual assets and organizational knowledge that it possesses, as well as on its ability to deploy them. In this sense, this paper aims to test empirically the relationships between organizational knowledge assets and the innovation capability of the firm.Design/methodology/approach – The data collection was carried out through a questionnaire on a sample of 251 Spanish high and medium‐high manufacturing firms. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and multiple linear regressions were also used.Findings – Based on the literature review, this work explores the nature and measurement of organization...

External knowledge acquisition processes in knowledge‐intensive clusters

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to try to assess the applicability of the SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi) to the processes of external knowledge acquisition for firms located on knowledge‐intensive clusters. The papers intended contribution lies in improving our understanding about the different mechanisms that organizations can use to learn from this kind of environment.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses survey data obtained from a sample of knowledge‐intensive firms from Bostons Route 128, with custom tailored measurement scales. It applies a quantitative method based on questionnaire answers.Findings – Findings show that external knowledge acquisition takes place through three different processes that raise important differences and similarities with the SECI model.Research limitations/implications – Conclusions can only be generalized to firms located in knowledge‐intensive clusters. Nevertheless, some implications for management practice can be derived. Tacit knowledge from the en...

Radical innovation from relations‐based knowledge: empirical evidence in Spanish technology‐intensive firms

Purpose – The present paper seeks to provide a new insight into intellectual capital classification by theoretically and empirically differentiating relations‐based knowledge into social capital and relational capital. Additionally, taking into account the key role played by radical innovation to compete in the context defined by the “knowledge‐based economy”, the aim is to empirically investigate the possible effect of both relations‐based intellectual capital components on the development of this kind of innovation by firms.Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from a questionnaire responded to by 251 Spanish high and medium‐high tech firms. Based on their answers, exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis are carried out.Findings – As theoretically proposed, relations‐based intellectual capital can be separated into social and relational capital, with social capital as the main component. Both elements have a significantly positive influence on radical innovation developed by firms...

Directions of external knowledge search: investigating their different impact on firm performance in high-technology industries

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to identify the different directions of external knowledge search and to investigate their individual effect on performance at the firm level. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical study is based on survey data gathered from two distinct informants of 248 large- and medium-sized high-tech manufacturing Spanish firms. In dealing with concerns on simultaneity and reverse causality, perceived time-lags among dependent and independent variables were introduced. Quantitative methods based on questionnaire answers were used. Findings – Findings reveal six distinct external search patterns and indicate that, while market sources such as customers and competitors are positively associated with performance, knowledge acquired from general information sources, other firms beyond the core business and patents and databases have no significant effect. Moreover, knowledge obtained from science and technology organizations and from suppliers displays an inversed U-shaped effect o...

Vertical relationships, complementarity and product innovation: an intellectual capital-based view

In recent years, the role of a firm’s external relationships in technological innovations is becoming increasingly important among innovation scholars. Following this trend, our paper proposes a new model as a way of analysing vertical collaboration supplier and customer relationship (SUCU) effects on product innovation outputs. Taking complementarity among business actors as the main thesis of this article, we identify four distinctive vertical collaboration profiles with different impacts on the level of product innovation. Results indicated that manufacturers that maintain those supplier and customer relationships simultaneously have a higher level of product innovation. Moreover, customer relationships have a more important role than supplier ones within the development of product innovation.

The effect of knowledge complexity on the strategic value of technological capabilities

This paper analyses the relationships between knowledge complexity and technology-based competitive advantage sustainability via barriers to imitation and substitution of capabilities. The theoretical treatment of the complexity construct and the separate analysis of imitability and substitutability of technological assets contribute to improving our understanding of these relations. The empirical evidence from a sample of Spanish biotech companies indicates that complex capabilities are better protected from imitation. But the results for barriers to substitution show that an excessive proportion of complex tacit knowledge may have a negative effect on competitive advantage sustainability, as it reduces interested agents’ confidence in the technology, and hence, encourages competitors to seek more attractive alternatives.

Knowledge Codification and Technological Innovation Success: Empirical Evidence from Spanish Biotech Companies

This paper analyzes the influence of knowledge codification on technological innovation firm results. Based on a sample of biotechnological Spanish firms the effect of codification on incremental and radical technological innovations is tested, taking into account that in some cases codification practices may include legal protection mechanisms too. In addition, in this research we studied the effect of such knowledge management decision on barriers to imitation and substitution. Results show, on the one hand, that knowledge codification is of great interest in developing incremental innovation only. On the other hand, maintaining the exclusive character of innovations demands knowledge codification and its legal protection simultaneously.