Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

2.3 The inter-relations between SC and AC
Omid Omidvar
External knowledge is increasingly contributing to organisational growth, innovation, and
performance. While many organisations have been able to convert <strong>the</strong>ir external knowledge into
beneficiary outcomes, <strong>the</strong>re are many instances <strong>of</strong> inability in taking advantage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se knowledge
sources. Due to its routinized nature, AC (Lewin et al., 2011) is hardly replicable by organisational
rivals, and is found as <strong>the</strong> major source <strong>of</strong> organisational competitiveness (Zahra and George, 2002,
Tsai, 2001). However, organisations are unable to take advantage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir AC unless <strong>the</strong>y are
equipped with <strong>the</strong> social relations providing <strong>the</strong>m with access to external sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge (Uzzi,
1996, Yli-Renko et al., 2001), or possess internal social capabilities to share knowledge and expertise
inside <strong>the</strong> organisational boundaries (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990) called SC. On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, it is
suggested that <strong>the</strong> values driven by SC can augment in <strong>the</strong> presence <strong>of</strong> complementary capabilities
(Teece et al., 1997), which brings valuable sources into social relations (Adler and Kwon, 2002). This
duality has raised confusions in <strong>the</strong> current body <strong>of</strong> research. We know little about <strong>the</strong> nature <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
interrelations between AC and SC.
Ample research findings suggest that social dimension is one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> major aspects <strong>of</strong> AC (Lane et al.,
2006, Lewin et al., 2010, Zahra and George, 2002, Jansen et al., 2005). For instance, although
Jansen et al. (2005, 2006) investigate <strong>the</strong> role <strong>of</strong> social capabilities in organisational learning and AC,
<strong>the</strong>y call future research to consider those aspects <strong>of</strong> social capabilities, which are not limited to <strong>the</strong>
network dimension <strong>of</strong> SC (i.e. centrality or degree <strong>of</strong> connectedness), and more concerned with <strong>the</strong>
quality <strong>of</strong> relations (e.g. trust).
The inter-relations between SC and AC are examined in some research, though <strong>the</strong>y might have
adopted different terms in <strong>the</strong>ir studies. For instance, Tsai (2001) argues that AC moderates <strong>the</strong>
innovative performance <strong>of</strong> an organisation located in a network. Jansen et al (2005) discuss that
socialisation capabilities, as one form <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> combinative capabilities (Kogut and Zander,
1992),enhance realized and Potential AC (Zahra and George, 2002). However, as <strong>the</strong>y show in <strong>the</strong>ir
later article (Jansen et al., 2006), <strong>the</strong>y have not addressed relational aspects <strong>of</strong> SC (Nahapiet and
Ghoshal, 1998, Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998), and <strong>the</strong>ir study was mainly limited to <strong>the</strong> structural
dimension like connectedness, and network density.
3. Methodology
Being driven by critical realist epistemological stance (Sayer, 1992), this research will use case study
as <strong>the</strong> research strategy in 4-5 R&D partnership cases where <strong>the</strong> unit <strong>of</strong> analysis will be collaborative
R&D projects. Although case studies are not fashionable in <strong>the</strong> R&D alliance research, <strong>the</strong>y are
appropriate for this study because <strong>of</strong> two main reasons. First, research questions necessitate an indepth
analysis <strong>of</strong> R&D partnerships, a comprehensive analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> study and a rich
picture <strong>of</strong> life and behaviour in R&D units as well as <strong>the</strong> inter-organisational settings (Easterby-Smith
et al., 2008) 2) <strong>the</strong> high level <strong>of</strong> complexity <strong>of</strong> inter-organizational learning processes are not possible
to be realized through quantitative methods and surveys. Following from that, this study adopts
qualitative methodology where research methods mainly involve semi-structured interviews and
observations.
Case studies will involve two phases <strong>of</strong> empirical work. At <strong>the</strong> first stage, semi-structured interviews
with R&D project managers and R&D scientists, observation <strong>of</strong> meetings, and document analysis will
be conducted in order to achieve a basic understanding <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> research and clarifying
<strong>the</strong> relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> research questions. Then, a set <strong>of</strong> propositions will be derived which will be
tested in <strong>the</strong> second phase <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> research.
Interviews will be around 90 minutes and all will be taped, transcribed, and sent back to <strong>the</strong>
interviewees for <strong>the</strong>ir feedback. In <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> discrepancies, I will go back to <strong>the</strong> respondents for
asking for fur<strong>the</strong>r clarification. They will be conducted in a retrospective way to reduce <strong>the</strong> risk <strong>of</strong> data
overload and collecting much unusable data. However, retrospective data ga<strong>the</strong>ring has its own
costs. For instance, respondents may have <strong>the</strong> tendency to filter out those events that do not fit or
may render <strong>the</strong>ir story less coherent. Therefore, by triangulating <strong>the</strong> data I will try to mitigate <strong>the</strong>
potential risk. Finally, template analysis will be <strong>the</strong> basis for analysing <strong>the</strong> qualitative data and drawing
conclusions.
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