IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/indcch/v33y2024i3p694-711..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The organization of R&D work and knowledge search in intrafirm networks

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Gomez-Solorzano
  • Giuseppe Soda
  • Marco Furlotti

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of the organization of industrial Research & Development on industrial researchers’ knowledge acquisition behavior. Specifically, we test a model about how the fit of individuals with their research tasks affects whether industrial researchers acquire knowledge from outside their assigned projects. Empirical analyses from the R&D laboratory of a global pharmaceutical company show that person-task-fit has a non-linear effect on the knowledge content exchanged through interpersonal interactions. Implications for the management and organization of R&D activities are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Gomez-Solorzano & Giuseppe Soda & Marco Furlotti, 2024. "The organization of R&D work and knowledge search in intrafirm networks," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 33(3), pages 694-711.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:indcch:v:33:y:2024:i:3:p:694-711.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/icc/dtad035
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Ocasio, 2011. "Attention to Attention," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1286-1296, October.
    2. Sarah Kaplan & Keyvan Vakili, 2015. "The double-edged sword of recombination in breakthrough innovation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1435-1457, October.
    3. Stephan, Paula E., 2010. "The Economics of Science," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 217-273, Elsevier.
    4. Richard F. J. Haans & Constant Pieters & Zi-Lin He, 2016. "Thinking about U: Theorizing and testing U- and inverted U-shaped relationships in strategy research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1177-1195, July.
    5. Brennecke, Julia & Sofka, Wolfgang & Wang, Peng & Rank, Olaf N., 2021. "How the organizational design of R&D units affects individual search intensity – A network study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(5).
    6. Soda, Giuseppe & Zaheer, Akbar & Sun, Xiaoming & Cui, Wentian, 2021. "Brokerage evolution in innovation contexts: Formal structure, network neighborhoods and knowledge," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(10).
    7. Scott Stern, 2004. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 835-853, June.
    8. Sungho Park & Sachin Gupta, 2012. "Handling Endogenous Regressors by Joint Estimation Using Copulas," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 567-586, July.
    9. Srikanth Paruchuri & Snehal Awate, 2017. "Organizational knowledge networks and local search: The role of intra‐organizational inventor networks," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 657-675, March.
    10. Balagopal Vissa & Henrich R. Greve & Wei-Ru Chen, 2010. "Business Group Affiliation and Firm Search Behavior in India: Responsiveness and Focus of Attention," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(3), pages 696-712, June.
    11. James G. March, 1991. "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 71-87, February.
    12. Luke Rhee & Paul M. Leonardi, 2018. "Which pathway to good ideas? An attention‐based view of innovation in social networks," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 1188-1215, April.
    13. Linus Dahlander & Siobhan O'Mahony & David M. Gann, 2016. "One foot in, one foot out: how does individuals' external search breadth affect innovation outcomes?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 280-302, February.
    14. Julien Clement & Phanish Puranam, 2018. "Searching for Structure: Formal Organization Design as a Guide to Network Evolution," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3879-3895, August.
    15. Nicholas S. Argyres & Brian S. Silverman, 2004. "R&D, organization structure, and the development of corporate technological knowledge," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8‐9), pages 929-958, August.
    16. Maggitti, Patrick G. & Smith, Ken G. & Katila, Riitta, 2013. "The complex search process of invention," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 90-100.
    17. Manuel E. Sosa, 2011. "Where Do Creative Interactions Come From? The Role of Tie Content and Social Networks," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, February.
    18. Atul Nerkar & Srikanth Paruchuri, 2005. "Evolution of R&D Capabilities: The Role of Knowledge Networks Within a Firm," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 771-785, May.
    19. Lee Fleming & Olav Sorenson, 2004. "Science as a map in technological search," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8‐9), pages 909-928, August.
    20. Marc Gruber & Dietmar Harhoff & Karin Hoisl, 2013. "Knowledge Recombination Across Technological Boundaries: Scientists vs. Engineers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 837-851, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiao, Hao & Wang, Tang & Yang, Jifeng, 2022. "Team structure and invention impact under high knowledge diversity: An empirical examination of computer workstation industry," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    2. Samuel C MacAulay & John Steen & Tim Kastelle, 2020. "The search environment is not (always) benign: reassessing the risks of organizational search," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(1), pages 1-23.
    3. Castellacci, Fulvio & Gulbrandsen, Magnus & Hildrum, Jarle & Martinkenaite, Ieva & Simensen, Erlend, 2018. "Functional centrality and innovation intensity: Employee-level analysis of the Telenor group," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1674-1687.
    4. Shafique, Muhammad & Hagedoorn, John, 2022. "Look at U: Technological scope of the acquirer, technological complementarity with the target, and post-acquisition R&D output," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    5. Brennecke, Julia & Sofka, Wolfgang & Wang, Peng & Rank, Olaf N., 2021. "How the organizational design of R&D units affects individual search intensity – A network study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(5).
    6. Yuchen Zhang & Wei Yang, 2022. "Breakthrough invention and problem complexity: Evidence from a quasi‐experiment," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(12), pages 2510-2544, December.
    7. Hoppmann, Joern & Wu, Geng & Johnson, Jillian, 2021. "The impact of demand-pull and technology-push policies on firms’ knowledge search," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    8. Rajat Khanna & Isin Guler, 2022. "Degree assortativity in collaboration networks and invention performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(7), pages 1402-1430, July.
    9. Vivek Tandon & Puay Khoon Toh, 2022. "Who deviates? Technological opportunities, career concern, and inventor's distant search," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 724-757, April.
    10. Linus Dahlander & Siobhan O'Mahony & David M. Gann, 2016. "One foot in, one foot out: how does individuals' external search breadth affect innovation outcomes?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 280-302, February.
    11. Zakaryan, Arusyak, 2023. "Organizational knowledge networks, search and exploratory invention," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    12. Leone, Maria Isabella & Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio & Natalicchio, Angelo, 2022. "Boundary spanning through external technology acquisition: The moderating role of star scientists and upstream alliances," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    13. Jong, Simcha & Slavova, Kremena, 2014. "When publications lead to products: The open science conundrum in new product development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 645-654.
    14. Lee, Kyung Yul & Jung, Hyun Ju & Kwon, Youngsun, 2024. "Boundary-spanning technology search, product component reuse, and new product innovation: Evidence from the smartphone industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    15. Natalicchio, A. & Messeni Petruzzelli, A. & Garavelli, A.C., 2017. "Innovation problems and search for solutions in crowdsourcing platforms – A simulation approach," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 64, pages 28-42.
    16. Sheer, Lia, 2022. "Sitting on the Fence: Integrating the two worlds of scientific discovery and invention within the firm," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    17. Wang, Jian & Shibayama, Sotaro, 2022. "Mentorship and creativity: Effects of mentor creativity and mentoring style," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    18. Shinjinee Chattopadhyay & Janet Bercovitz, 2020. "When one door closes, another door opens … for some: Evidence from the post‐TRIPS Indian pharmaceutical industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(6), pages 988-1022, June.
    19. Luca Berchicci & Nilanjana Dutt & Will Mitchell, 2019. "Knowledge Sources and Operational Problems: Less Now, More Later," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 1030-1053, September.
    20. Belkhouja, Mustapha & Fattoum, Senda & Yoon, Hyungseok (David), 2021. "Does greater diversification increase individual productivity? The moderating effect of attention allocation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:indcch:v:33:y:2024:i:3:p:694-711.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/icc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.