Technological knowledge is often claimed to be context-bound and sticking to local surroundings. This paper investigates how technological knowledge can be exchanged in international subcontractor relationships, using relationship-oriented organizational practices. Five hypotheses concerning...

Several researchers looking at the development of international export specialisation patterns have shown that there is a general tendency for OECD countries to de-specialise. This finding is in contrast to findings made by other authors, working on technological specialisation. These authors...

This paper develops a property rights perspective on the nature of the firm. The basic idea is that learning by doing in production and coordination stem from experience in production and that user rights over productive assets are necessary in order to accumulate the experience needed to...

The aim of this paper is to develop and implement an empirical model of firm behaviour. The data applied are patent applications taken out by 16 multinationals within telecommunications. The first dimension of the model deals with the strategic behaviour of firms. Second dimension deals with the...

This paper seeks to reconcile the notion of a 'societal effect' in business organisation with the considerable evidence that competitive pressures continuously lead national producers to emulate the business practices of other nations, which are perceived as providing a basis for superior...

This paper addresses a puzzle related to firm size and competition. Since Stephen Hymer´s pioneering contribution (Hymer, 1960/1976), theories of the firm implicitly assume that only large, diversified multinational enterprises can compete in industries that combine high capital intensity, high...

This paper discusses 1) the generic forces that drive the evolution of diversified industrial corporations and their implications for the corporate technology base, 2) the changing role of the central R&D lab in the context of these forces, and 3) the role of management of technology in...

This paper examines the nature of genuine uncertainty and rule-following behaviour and suggests some implications for the theory of the firm. The firm is seen here as emerging as a means to manage some of the experienced uncertainty. The nature of the firm is perceived as an evolving institution...

Firms do not exist because of the cost of using the price mechanism, but because they enable actions to be carried out concurrently in conformity with a particular design. This concurrent coordination, which production requires, is distinct from the evolutionary coordination, which is the...

We argue that strategizing fundamentally concerns disequilibrium phenomena, such as discovery, innovation, resource-combination, imagination - in short, entrepreneurship. Therefore, the understanding of strategizing is likely to be led astray by drawing too heavily on equilibrium theories....