Managerial attention and antecedents of knowledge source exploitation in MNCs
Critical Perspectives on International Business
ISSN: 1742-2043
Article publication date: 19 July 2013
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the limitations of prior views regarding knowledge source exploitation by proposing a phenomenological approach to managerial attention and the antecedents of exploiting knowledge sources within the multinational corporations (MNC) network.
Design/methodology/approach
A phenomenological approach to attention is taken to explain the antecedents of managerial attention in knowledge source exploitation behavior. This approach provides an alternative way of conceiving of knowledge source remoteness and familiarity, on the one hand, and exclusion and inclusion on the other.
Findings
Drawing on a phenomenological approach to attention, the merits and limits of prior studies of attention and knowledge seeking/exchange behavior are addressed and three modes of managerial attention are proposed – relative attention, mimetic attention, implicit attention – to explain the antecedents of managerial attention to MNC knowledge sources.
Originality/value
This approach to knowledge source exploitation and attention provides a rich conceptualization of taken‐for‐granted assumptions in extant literature on managerial attention and knowledge‐seeking behavior. The framework offered here builds on a conceptually rigid foundation of attention that overcomes dualisms such as mind‐body, subject‐object, and thinking‐acting that are often embedded in other mainstream approaches to managerial attention.
Keywords
Citation
Kumar, N. and Demir, R. (2013), "Managerial attention and antecedents of knowledge source exploitation in MNCs", Critical Perspectives on International Business, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 271-300. https://doi.org/10.1108/17422041311330422
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited