AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings - Academy of International ...

TUESDAY
An Integrated Process Model of Knowledge Management in International Joint Ventures
Yong Suhk Pak, Yonsei University
Wonchan Ra, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
Jongmin Lee, Yonsei University
This paper examines how knowledge evolves from the initial knowledge migration stage through adaptation and
creation eventually to the reverse knowledge migration stage in an international joint venture (IJV). While the
extant literature has focused on and analyzed each stage of knowledge management (e.g., mostly knowledge
transfer), we tried to show the path-dependent nature of knowledge flow in IJVs. Accordingly, we present that
the transferred knowledge from parents to IJVs needs to be adapted first before it reaches a creation stage and
that also only created knowledge is expected to be reverse transferred back to parents. We used 136 survey
responses from parent companies of IJVs to test the process model of knowledge management. The test results
show a significant relationship among steps of knowledge process which are all combined to result in an
integrated model of knowledge management in IJVs. Our study clearly demonstrates that the knowledge
adaptation stage mediates between the knowledge migration and knowledge creation stage and that created
knowledge is harvested back to the parents. Managerial implications and discussion are presented at the end of
the paper. (For more information, please contact: Wonchan Ra, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea,
South: wonra@hufs.ac.kr)
Session: 3.1.6 - Competitive
Track: 10 - Economics, Finance and Accounting
Country and Firm Competitiveness
Presented On: July 3, 2012 - 09:00-10:15
Chair: Joseph Clougherty, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and CEPR-London
The Determinants of National Competitiveness
Mercedes Delgado, Temple University
Christian Ketels , Harvard Business School
Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business School
Scott Stern, MIT
While competitiveness has become an increasingly important part of the economic policy debate, the academic
discussion of this concept has over the last twenty years suffered from terminological confusion. In this paper
we define national competitiveness as the expected level of output per working-age individual given the overall
quality of a country as a place to do business. The focus on output per potential worker, a broad measure of
national productivity, reflects the role of prosperity as the central goal of economic policy. Our framework
highlights three interrelated drivers of national competitiveness: social infrastructure and political institutions,
macroeconomic policy, and the microeconomic environment (including the business environment and the
sophistication of company operations and strategy). The estimation of this framework is based on the
integration of several data sets covering more than 130 countries during the 2001 and 2008 period. Our results
establish the separate and distinct influence of each of these three drivers in determining country-level
differences in output per potential worker. Our approach offers a novel methodology for the estimation of a
theoretically grounded and empirically validated index of national competitiveness. (For more information,
please contact: Mercedes Delgado, Temple University, USA: mdelgado@temple.edu)
Country Relatedness and International Coherence
Sokol Celo, Suffolk University
Aya Chacar, Florida International University
AIB 2012 Conference Proceedings
Page 192