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Desorptive capacity and its impact on the external commercialization of knowledge

  • Companies may not only apply their knowiedge assets intemally, i.e. in own products and/or Services, they may also exploit the knowiedge assets extemally, i.e. commercialize them in disembodied form. While the extemal acquisition of knowiedge in general and the concept of absorptive capacity in particular have received great attention by researchers, the extemal exploitation of knowiedge has long been neglected despite its increasing importance in practice. To bridge the resulting gaps in prior research, the concept of desorptive capacity as a complement to absorptive capacity is proposed by taking a capability-based approach to the extemal knowiedge exploitation. Building on this theoretical concept, measures are developed, and data from a questionnaire-based study in 136 European Companies across industries is used to examine various hypotheses relating potential sources of desorptive capacity to the success of firms in extemally commercializing disembodied knowiedge. Thus, this work also constitutes the first large-scale study that intends to empirically identify success factors of extemally leveraging knowiedge assets. The findings of the study provide strong Support for the desorptive capacity concept, which helps to explain the discrepancies between the very positive view on the extemal knowiedge commercialization in most works in the literature and the considerable difficulties with managing these activities that are often perceived in practice.

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Metadaten
Author:Ulrich Lichtenthaler, Holger Ernst, Eckhard Lichtenthaler
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:992-opus4-6241
Series (Serial Number):WHU-Forschungspapier (104)
Publisher:Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Unternehmensführung (WHU) Otto-Beisheim-Hochschule
Place of publication:Vallendar
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2018/04/06
Date of first Publication:2004/12/01
Release Date:2018/04/06
Tag:Wissensmanagement; Wissenstransfer
Knowledge management; Knowledge transfer
Page Number:35
Institutes:WHU Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group / Chair of Technology and Innovation Management
Licence (German):Copyright for this publication