danish research unit for industrial dynamics druid working paper no ...

25concerning a laser Yag for exploring a new way of cutting metals before placing thewheels. This project including a system of censoring that was so specific to user needs thatit was difficult to transfer it in another plant.* Relational assetsTechnological assets are supported by relational conditions because firms need to knoweach other before engaging in specific investments. Communication between the differentcorporate cultures is essential otherwise alliances may be limited to an association ofdiverse knowledge without any absorption and transformation of it. These relational assetsprovide a mutual understanding and facilitate absorptive capacity: "Just as priorinvolvement in a given technological domain facilitates the understanding andinterpretation of subsequent information within that domain, prior information sharing witha given individual enhances the interpretation of subsequent information exchange. Theparticular "dialect" of different actors will be more effectively decoded" (Levinthal, 1996,p. 9). Shared language will be an important step for making current practices explicit andfor trying to share elements of tacit knowledge embedded in them.The transmission of collective knowledge through narration gives a better idea of the waythe firms work and solve in situ problems. In this construction of shared languages, there isan effort of translation for expliciting practices and trying to incorporate some of them in amore formal way. This narration is very important because some knowledge may beobservable but difficult to articulate and to codify (Winter, 1987; Senker, 1995). Closelinks in a small community help to observe and to teach some of it (Brown and Duguit,1990)In our case studies a shared language has been created in almost all the agreements andsustained by prior interactions. In some cases the language is common because historicaland organisational reasons have created a sort of commonality between the different firms(in the case of Renault and Renault Automation and in that of Fiat and Comau). Sometimesshared language is present despite an apparent cultural distance between the two firms(Citröen and Comau; Mercedes and Comau). In this later case, prior interactions played animportant role in implementing a shared professional language between partners. In thecase of Renault and ABB, the cultural distance between the two firms brought some