Barriers in profiting from external knowledge: the role of organizational design

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes as to how organizational design impacts firms’ innovation success in integrating knowledge that they have obtained from external partners. Responding to the call for more quantitative empirical analyses on limits and boundary conditions of external knowledge, I provide findings of a study of 97 firms with multi-informants from the Western-European automotive industry. Based on multiple hierarchical regression analyses with robust standard errors, the study shows that organizational design (in particular specialization, formalization, communication/connectedness [non-] monetary rewards) acts as barrier for firms who strive to profit from integrating external knowledge.