Understanding the Impact of Competitive Advantage and Core Competency on Regional Tourism Revitalization: Empirical Evidence in Taiwan

Competitive advantage and core competency are the unique capabilities and assets of an organization to provide valuable products or services to customers, thus giving the organization a better competitive position in the market than its competitors. In addition, how to create a competitive advantage is also one of the main objectives of business strategy. Therefore, this study focuses on understanding the decisive factors in regional revitalization and the relationship between business strategy, strategic alliance, and alliance performance through small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan. This study selected a sample of 220 SMEs in Taiwan that had participated in the SME regional revitalization counseling program. The results showed that competitive advantage, core competency and strategic alliance partner selection had significant effects on alliance performance. In addition, core competency had an indirect effect on alliance performance through strategic alliance partner selection. However, competitive advantage did not have a significant effect on strategic alliance partner selection. Finally, this study proposes management implications and practical suggestions for SMEs' competitive advantage, core competency, and alliance performance.

Harnessing knowledge of building end-users: identifying knowledge brokers that matter

Purpose

This study aims to investigate projects as social exchange networks, focussing on identifying knowledge brokers within the project network where they are key holders and disseminators of end-user needs. The purpose is to augment current theory through a practice lens so that building end-user requirements can be better incorporated in evolving project ecosystems.

Design/methodology/approach

An interpretive, an inductive case study is used to map knowledge brokers during a complex construction and co-location project. During the wider study, a variety of methods including archival data, interviews and questionnaires along with social network analysis (SNA) were used. The mixed methodology used has been pivotal in the triangulation of data from various sources. However, the output of SNA presented in this paper relies mostly on interviews and questionnaires administered to the project’s core network. Network relationships were mapped with knowledge of user requirements, being the key determinant of the binary relationships between actors.

Findings

The research found certain roles to be central knowledge brokers of knowledge related to end-user processes, including real estate and strategic planning, building operations and management, human and environmental factors, planning and project management and facility and service delivery. The knowledge of the above roles, albeit in a contextually situated case study, augments current understanding of which roles to tap on during project execution for better representation of end-user needs.

Practical implications

The research site is representative of a complex network of construction project stakeholders, including several categories of end-users and their representatives. The study demonstrates the use of the project-as-practice approach, whereby project theory is seen to emerge directly from practice. This has impact on practice as emergent theory about knowledge transfer and knowledge brokerage is essentially practice-led and hence more useful and relate-able to practitioners.

Originality/value

Research presented here is novel in terms of its approach towards understanding end-user needs such as need for privacy, control, attachment and interaction during construction projects. This is done through the identification of relevant knowledge brokers. The study uses SNA as an analytical tool to map knowledge transfers through the project’s network. End-user requirements are usually captured in the front-end of projects as specifications and deliverables, as new challenges emerge during execution, changes are required to the project’s direction and outcomes. It is therefore imperative that end-user needs are re-identified through knowledge brokers holding key knowledge. This allows project managers to prepare appropriate responses to changing project ecosystems.

Knowledge acquisition through process mapping

Purpose

– Business improvement initiatives have benefit for both an organisation’s operational effectiveness and its knowledge acquisition capabilities. These have a synergistic effect upon the ability to gain and maintain competitive advantage. Among the multitude of approaches that can be adopted process mapping (PMapping) is widely used. The purpose of this paper is to examine the utilisation of PMapping for undertaking business process improvement and the resultant acquisition of knowledge among those that are involved in its performance and the subsequent use of process maps (PMaps).

Design/methodology/approach

– Adopting the notion of " knowledge as knowing " and Activity Theory as the research framework, a four-year Participatory Action Research study of three organisations was conducted. Data were gathered through cyclically developed semi-structured interviews, on-site observation and instantaneously sampled field notes.

Findings

– It finds that PMapping is a useful technique for conducting business process improvements and acquiring knowledge of organisations and their people. It also finds that PMaps are useful knowledge repositories that have value beyond aiding the development of improved business processes. Socialisation is a key determinant of knowledge coproduction and transfer. This study finds that it occurs in formal and informal modes between individuals engaged in PMapping.

Research limitations/implications

– The choice of PMapping technique may have significant influence upon the knowledge that is acquired by individuals and organisations during business process improvement initiatives. Future research should explore the relationship between PMapping methods, their knowledge-generative potential and the usability of the resultant PMaps.

Practical implications

– Organisations undertaking business process improvement initiatives should take account of those factors that mediate its undertaking and its knowledge-generative potential. The objectives of improvement initiatives and of specific activities such as PMapping need to be carefully considered. Changes in objectives need clear communication and justification, and the purpose and benefit of such changes must be weighed against the potential detrimental effect that they may have upon the workforce. Inconsiderate goals setting and changing can lead to individuals coming under significant psychological and sociological pressures.

Originality/value

– This research furthers the understanding of knowledge acquisition and business process improvement in non-manufacturing environments. It identifies the challenges involved in adopting PMapping as a business improvement tool. It also provides insight into the use of the tool as a technique for fostering knowledge acquisition in individuals.

Knowledge Beyond the Individual? Making Sense of a Notion of Collective Knowledge in Organization Theory

Although the notion of ‘collective knowledge’ has become a building block of many knowledge-based studies on the organization, there is little clarity about the precise meaning of the term. This paper aims at closing this explanatory gap by investigating the question of what it can mean for knowledge to be collective. In drawing on relevant literatures it analytically distinguishes three types of collective knowledge and elaborates on their nature. Through analysis of their interrelationship and interaction within the organization, these types are integrated into an overarching framework forming a pluralistic epistemology of collective knowledge. Finally, some implications of the proposed epistemological framework for our understanding of higher-order knowledge-related constructs (such as routines and capabilities) as well as for the architecture of firms and industries are outlined.

The evaluation of knowledge claims in an innovation project: A case study

Understanding how an organization determines what knowledge is valid leads to new insights about how firms cope with innovation. Although the evaluation of knowledge is a relevant topic in the field of knowledge management, the existing literature does not provide substantial contributions. Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) theory of justification is the only established approach. This study adopts an empirical approach for improving the understanding of knowledge claim evaluation by presenting a conceptual framework based on Toulmin’s (1958) argumentation theory. We apply the framework in a small-scale study at the headquarters of a large building technology multinational. Based on the results, we reflect upon Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) justification theory. Our findings indicate that the justification theory explains actual knowledge claim evaluation only partially. The unexplained parts, for which we explore alternative meanings, enlighten why innovations fail or succeed from the viewpoint of knowledge claim evaluation.

Something Old, Something New and Something Puzzling: A Commentary on the Schneider–Geiger and Schreyögg Debate

In this commentary, I suggest that the discussion between Schneider, Geiger, and Schreyögg revives some of the themes of the debate between Habermas and Luhmann, two of the main figures of post-war German social philosophy. Both Habermas and Luhmann put meaning making and knowledge at the centre of their theorization and therefore speak directly to the issue of knowledge and organizing. One of the effects of the discussion between Schneider, Geiger, and Schreyögg is that of enriching the current conversation on these themes and opening new opportunities for future research. In the commentary, however, I also note a tendency to provide a revisionist and edulcorated version of both Habermas’ ideas and some of the principles of post-modernism. I therefore ask whether we should resist readings that expunge all the emancipatory potential from radical authors so that they can become usable for managerial purposes. I conclude by purporting the idea that the mission o f organizational scholars is to generate knowledge about business but not necessarily for business.

Coping with the Concept of Knowledge: Toward a Discursive Understanding of Knowledge

The present paper is a response to a paper published by Ursula Schneider in Management Learning (Vol. 38, No.5) in which we try to clarify our position and illustrate how a discursive understanding of knowledge, as developed in our essay, can enrich the management learning debate. In building on Habermas’ theory of communicative action we suggest an understanding of knowledge which is based on intersubjective reasoning processes.

Narratives and Organizational Dynamics

This article aims to demonstrate how narratives have the potential to bring about organizational inertia by creating self-reinforcing mechanisms and blind spots. Drawing on extensive interview data from a U.K. bio-manufacturing company, the empirical analysis shows how such narratives emerge by constructing a web of related, self-reinforcing narratives reflecting a consistent theme. The analysis demonstrates how the dominant (success) narrative remains vivid despite the existence of deviating narratives and severe crisis. In particular, the empirical findings illustrate how narratives construct a self-sustaining frame of reference, preventing the organization from questioning the principles underlying its past success. The discussion explains how narratives create self-reinforcing mechanisms and blind spots. It contributes to our understanding of the role of narratives in organizational change efforts and illustrates the way such self-reinforcing blind spots become a potential source of organizational inertia and path-dependence.

Revisiting the Concept of Practice: Toward an Argumentative Understanding of Practicing

In recent years, the topic of organizational practices has come to the fore in organization studies. A practice perspective is meant to provide a new method for studying organizations beyond the formal, quantifiable and abstract. But despite, or because of, its prominence the concept of practice has been used in a variety of ways and to evoke different associations. This article is intended to critically review the current approaches of practice-based studies in organizational analysis. The discussion shows that approaches that understand practice simply as `what actors do' are not unfolding much critical power in organization studies, as opposed to epistemic-normative conceptions of practice which open a non-cognitive, non-positivist and non-rationalist avenue in organizational analysis. In order to enrich our understanding of practices in organizations—particularly in circumstances of breakdowns and conflicting ethical values—a Habermasian conception of practice is introduced which distinguishes between life-world practices following a narrative mode of communication and discourses which are argumentative in nature.

Simon and Polanyi on Rationality and Knowledge

Organizational researchers cite Simon and Polanyi without adequately acknowledging and dealing with the disparities in their perspectives on rationality and knowledge. This study explains the views of Simon and Polanyi and traces their disparities to differing underlying philosophical perspectives. Simon's research emphasized cognition over action, explicit knowledge over tacit knowledge, mechanistic information processing over human judgment, and means over ends. Polanyi provides counterbalancing emphases for each of these orientations in his explanation of skillful performance. The latter portion of this study draws conclusions about the perspectives of Simon and Polanyi and identifies implications for research on rationality and knowledge management.