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The aim of the paper is to identify the different directions of external knowledge search and to investigate their individual effect on performance at the firm level.

The empirical study is based on survey data gathered from two distinct informants of 248 large- and medium-sized high-tech manufacturing Spanish firms. In dealing with concerns on simultaneity and reverse causality, perceived time-lags among dependent and independent variables were introduced. Quantitative methods based on questionnaire answers were used.

Findings reveal six distinct external search patterns and indicate that, while market sources such as customers and competitors are positively associated with performance, knowledge acquired from general information sources, other firms beyond the core business and patents and databases have no significant effect. Moreover, knowledge obtained from science and technology organizations and from suppliers displays an inversed U-shaped effect on firm performance.

Conclusions can only be generalized to high-tech manufacturing firms from developed countries and, although well-established methodological procedures were followed, the nature of the study remains cross-sectional. Yet, an important implication emerges from this work: more openness to external knowledge is not always better. It is necessary to carefully evaluate the potential gains and pains of each type of partner and source.

This research provides guidance to managers about how to shape their companies’ inter-organizational networks, i.e. the specific external agents on which they should focus, as well as the efforts they should devote to each of these key partners.

By considering distinct directions of external knowledge search instead of a single dimension, the paper contributes to shed some more light to the mixed results reported by the scarce empirical studies that have investigated the effect of openness towards external knowledge on performance at the firm level.

The elements that constitute the organizational capital or capital of the firm, namely its culture, structure, organizational learning, can be a source of competitive advantage. This paper is an attempt to assess organizational capital from the resource‐based view.

From an extensive literature review, an assessment framework for intellectual capital is developed.

By means of this framework organizational capital can be depicted as a set of: valuable assets; difficult to imitate; to replace; to transfer; with a prolonged life expectancy; and with a feasible rent appropriation.

Building of such an evaluation framework allows further research about other components of the intellectual capital of the firm, bridging the literatures focused on the resource‐based view and on intangible assets or intellectual capital.

In the present business landscape, relations between firms are one of the most valuable assets. This work points out the main agents to which firms are related, and which build up their relational capital. This proposal highlights the gathering of agents in different levels; one of them constituted by the relations with customers, suppliers, partners, and investors; and the second one related to the relations with state or public sector entities, regulatory institutions, and with the community, as part of a wider or more general environment. Once presented, relational capital, the strategic relevance of corporate reputation is discussed, with a trigger and moderator role for all the previously mentioned relations.

The purpose of this paper is to try to assess the applicability of the SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi) to the processes of external knowledge acquisition for firms located on knowledge‐intensive clusters. The paper's intended contribution lies in improving our understanding about the different mechanisms that organizations can use to learn from this kind of environment.

The paper uses survey data obtained from a sample of knowledge‐intensive firms from Boston's Route 128, with custom tailored measurement scales. It applies a quantitative method based on questionnaire answers.

Findings show that external knowledge acquisition takes place through three different processes that raise important differences and similarities with the SECI model.

Conclusions can only be generalized to firms located in knowledge‐intensive clusters. Nevertheless, some implications for management practice can be derived. Tacit knowledge from the environment requires different mechanisms in order to be successfully incorporated into the organization, whereas explicit knowledge acquisition can be managed more smoothly. Managers should pay special attention when designing channels for acquiring external tacit knowledge.

The SECI model reveals itself to be a powerful guide for starting research about external knowledge acquisition. Nevertheless, context specific variables can show industry or country preferred ways for learning in practice, so highly focused empirical research may be required to disentangle the peculiarities of tacit knowledge.

In the field of external knowledge acquisition by organizations, empirical works about testing widely spread theoretical models are very scarce. This paper takes the theoretical processes of the SECI model and extends them for external knowledge acquisition.

This paper aims to find and rank the barriers of the four knowledge management (KM) processes including generation, storage, distribution and application in the gas and petroleum sector.

Reviewing the literature of KM and organizational learning, this paper extracted all of the barriers which impede KM processes. Then it designed a questionnaire for validating, ranking and categorizing barriers. Totally, 190 completed questionnaires were gathered from 26 gas and petroleum companies in Iran. Some statistical tests such as T, Friedman, Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney were used for analyzing data.

Findings reviewed the current literature of KM barriers, validated and ranked the barriers of knowledge generation, storage, distribution and application separately. The importance of knowledge generation and knowledge application barriers were significantly different between gas and petroleum companies. Hence they were disjointedly ranked for gas and petroleum. Finally, KM barriers were ranked according to their contribution to KM processes and the average mean of their importance in KM processes.

From the practical point of view, this paper suggests managers of gas and petroleum companies to emphasize solving high-priority barriers according to the KM process which they are focused on. Furthermore, the study provides a checklist that can be used as an assessment tool for evaluating KM processes considering barriers.

This paper finds the importance of each barrier for each of the four KM processes and ranks the “critical barriers” according to their contribution to four KM processes in the gas and petroleum sector.

The present paper seeks to provide a new insight into intellectual capital classification by theoretically and empirically differentiating relations‐based knowledge into social capital and relational capital. Additionally, taking into account the key role played by radical innovation to compete in the context defined by the “knowledge‐based economy”, the aim is to empirically investigate the possible effect of both relations‐based intellectual capital components on the development of this kind of innovation by firms.

Data were obtained from a questionnaire responded to by 251 Spanish high and medium‐high tech firms. Based on their answers, exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis are carried out.

As theoretically proposed, relations‐based intellectual capital can be separated into social and relational capital, with social capital as the main component. Both elements have a significantly positive influence on radical innovation developed by firms in the sample, although those relationships maintained with external agents seem to have a higher impact.

The research contributes to the intellectual capital field by integrating the arguments provided by social capital literature and empirically separating relations‐based knowledge into two differentiated components. The paper also contributes to the knowledge management field by highlighting the important role played by knowledge emerging from relationships around the firm (both internal and external) in the development of radical innovation, whose antecedents have received little attention in the literature.

Organizational knowledge assets are key organizational factors responsible for firm innovation, as well as effective management. Traditionally, a good piece of research takes the innovation processes from an external perspective, leaving aside the internal complexity that characterizes innovation dynamics. Nevertheless, the innovation capability of a certain firm depends very closely on the intellectual assets and organizational knowledge that it possesses, as well as on its ability to deploy them. In this sense, this paper aims to test empirically the relationships between organizational knowledge assets and the innovation capability of the firm.

The data collection was carried out through a questionnaire on a sample of 251 Spanish high and medium‐high manufacturing firms. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and multiple linear regressions were also used.

Based on the literature review, this work explores the nature and measurement of organizational capital as well as its role on innovation performance in high and medium‐high manufacturing firms.

This paper proposes a theoretical and empirical model of technological innovation that, based on organizational knowledge assets, highlights the importance of culture and CEO commitment towards innovation, as well as the role played by communication and information technologies (CITs) applied to management on product innovation capability within high and medium‐high manufacturing firms.

The scarcity of empirical works analyzing the innovation phenomena from an internal point of view adds value to the current academic literature, specifically from an intellectual capital‐based view.

Counter-knowledge is knowledge learned from unverified sources and can be classified as good (i.e. harmful, for instance, funny jokes) or bad (for example, lies to manipulate others’ decisions). The purpose of this study is to analyse the relationship between these two elements and on the possible reactions they can induce on people and institutions.

The relationships between good and bad counter-knowledge and the induced reactions – namely, evasive knowledge hiding and defensive reasoning – are analysed through an empirical study among 151 Spanish citizens belonging to a knowledge-intensive organization during the COVID-19 pandemic. A two-step procedure has been established to assess a causal model with SmartPLS 3.2.9.

Results show that good counter-knowledge can lead to bad counter-knowledge. In addition, counter-knowledge can trigger evasive knowledge hiding, which, in turn, fosters defensive reasoning, in a vicious circle, which can negatively affect decision-making and also cause distrust in public institutions. This was evidenced during the covid-19 pandemic in relation to the measures taken by governments.

This study raises the awareness that counter-knowledge is a complex phenomenon, especially in a situation of serious crisis like a pandemic. In particular, it highlights that even good counter-knowledge can turn into bad and affect people’s decisional capability negatively. In addition, it signals that not all reactions to the proliferation of counter-knowledge by public institutions are positive. For instance, censorship and lack of transparency (i.e. evasive knowledge hiding) can trigger defensive reasoning, which can, in turn, affect people’s decisions and attitudes negatively.

The contribution of the present case lies in the critical view that every business actor should exercise – be it general manager, middle management, supervisor or executive – when building a strong organizational culture in corrupt political environments.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the dilemma in which Marcelo Odebrecht, once CEO of Odebrecht, found/determined whether to continue with the business model established by the founders of Odebrecht or take a new path for the organization. After exploring the corrupt acts of Odebrecht and the scope of Operation Lava Jato, the reader can reflect on the importance of organizational culture (according to the three levels proposed by Schein) in the face of the emergence of corruption. By generating discussions about organizational culture, business ethics, political culture and corruption, the organizational culture of Odebrecht is problematized in relation to its real behavior.

Students of administration, business and international business undergraduates and graduates, as well as members of senior management in companies in the infrastructure sector. Also, given the plurality of possible readings, it is recommended that the case also be used in courses or specializations in organizational psychology, organizational sociology or organizational anthropology.

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CSS 5: International Business.

East Asian industrializations and the crisis of Latin American developmentalism in the 1970s and 1980s have been at the center of disputes over the conditions leading to a socially optimal extension and intensification of capitalist production relations in the periphery. The contrast in regional styles and outcomes of development is deemed to be the key to a final adjudication between the competing analytical claims of neoclassical economists and statist currents within political economy. Neoclassical critiques of excessive Latin American tampering with markets find confirmation for neoliberal prescriptions in the open, export‐oriented East Asian regimes. That East Asian development is not a paragon of neoliberal virtue, and that relatively freer markets might not be the most important part of the story, is the crux of the enduring statist critique. Over a decade of contestation has given way to significant refinements, among them, a recognition of the importance of sequencing import‐and export‐substitution. The modicum of foresight and discipline that seems to be implied in proper sequencing has weighed in favor of the statist emphasis on the role of ‘developmental states.’ Even researchers disposed to enshrine the virtues of markets in the process of modernization, find it difficult not to concede that the East Asian record rests on more than macroeconomic stability; although they remain skeptical about the cruder claims of states successfully ‘picking winners and losers’ (Dollar and Sokoloff 1994). Perhaps the most enduring legacy of this controversy—only extreme zealots could deny this—is the mounting empirical evidence supporting the argument that economic development is an inherently discontinuous process, and reliance on the market institution leaves societies woefully unprepared to ‘negotiate’ through an unstable and asymmetrical international political economy.