Knowledge Alliance Theory And Empirical Research

With China facing the challenge of joining WTO and global economy, enterprises will have to live in a changing and uncertain environment of competition. For Chinese enterprises, how to face such unprecedented challenge, how to take advantage of superior technology' and management owned by international companies and establish knowledge alliance with them, is a research topic with high priority. From global scope, knowledge alliance between enterprises is a key strategy to enhance competitiveness. Therefore, the research on knowledge alliance has gained great attentions from academics and industries. This work tries to look into enterprise knowledge alliance with case studies, which will be meaningful from both theoretical and practical points of view.Chapter one gives the objective of enterprise knowledge alliance. It is to benefit from such alliance, A procedure model of establishing knowledge alliance between Chinese enterprises and international companies is proposed, based on differences in objectives and needs for supplement. Some problems in knowledge alliance are also discussed. A cases study of the knowledge alliance between Eastern Communication and Motorola is conducted. Two fundamental questions are raised in this chapter, 1) why knowledge alliance is needed and 2) how to establish knowledge alliance. Detailed studies are extended based on those two questions. This study tries to answer those two questions from the perspective of combination of theory and practice. It concentrates on analyzing and resolving the following topics: 1) analysis of knowledge alliance based on principles of economics; 2) knowledge transition in knowledge alliance; 3) dynamic model of knowledge alliance: competition, cooperation and the scope of such alliance; 4) the evaluation of the effectiveness of knowledge alliance and the prototype of control; 5) strategies for the knowledge alliance and suggestions for controlling and managing such alliance for policy makers.Chapter two is the review and summary of the major references on the study of knowledge alliance. It first sums up the studies on the concept of knowledge alliance. One side is the knowledge and the knowledge alliance. On the other hand, it is about knowledge alliance and shared knowledge. Three aspects are discussed: 1) Knowledge alliance and resource compensation; 2) knowledge alliance and status similarity; 3) knowledge alliance and social assets. Thirdly, this chapter reviews the studies on management structure on enterprise knowledge alliance. Fourthly, it summarizes studies on learning how to manage enterprise knowledge alliance. Concentrating on a special learning process within the alliance, how can an enterprise learn how to manage enterprise knowledge alliance in details or obtain the capacity of such alliance?Chapter three is the theoretical foundation for enterprise knowledge alliance. It is suggested in this study that enterprise knowledge alliance can formulate the share of uncoded knowledge. Secondly, the capability of enterprise knowledge alliance is studied in this chapter. It is proposed that the capability of enterprise knowledge alliance is the quality and potential that the enterprise possesses to manage and execute knowledge alliance. It usually is manifested in two facets: 1) the effective coordination of internal resources and technologies; 2) the elaboration of such capability in the knowledge alliance to choose the right partners and to gain most benefit from such alliance. It is emphasized that the core ability theory and the dynamic ability theory are components of the fundamentals of enterprise knowledge alliance capability Lastly, the collaboration in enterpriseknowledge alliance is studied in this chapter. The characteristics of enterprise knowledge alliance are reflected in knowledge division and accumulation, the path dependency in the knowledge market and knowledge surplus. The studies on those aspects are helpful to acknowledge the regular pattern in enterprise knowledge alliance.Chapter four concentrates on kno...