Tacit Knowledge Flows and Institutional Theory: Accelerating Acculturation

Knowledge is key to sustainable competitive advantage, but different kinds of knowledge affect competitive advantage differently. This applies especially to the environment of increasing globalization. Because cultural knowledge is deeply rooted and highly tacit, its flows are critical to global ent...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Adams, Alicemary A, Chin, June G, Lee, Yi, Nissen, Mark E
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
ACCULTURATION
Administration and Management
CLUMPS
COGNITION
COMPETITION
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
CROSS CULTURE(SOCIOLOGY)
CULTURE
Cybernetics
FLOW
GLOBALIZATION
Human Factors Engineering & Man Machine System
INFORMATION EXCHANGE
INFORMATION PROCESSING
Information Science
INFORMATION THEORY
INFORMATION TRANSFER
INSTITUTIONAL THEORY
INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE
INTERNATIONAL
KM(KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT)
KNOWLEDGE FLOW THEORY
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
PARADIGMS
REPRINTS
SYMPOSIA
TACIT KNOWLEDGE
THEORY
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Summary:Knowledge is key to sustainable competitive advantage, but different kinds of knowledge affect competitive advantage differently. This applies especially to the environment of increasing globalization. Because cultural knowledge is deeply rooted and highly tacit, its flows are critical to global enterprise performance, but tacit knowledge clumps noticeably and is known well to flow both slowly and narrowly. Such clumping and flowing are exacerbated when knowledge is required to flow across cultures. Unfortunately, knowledge management theory on intercultural knowledge flows remains limited. Alternatively, Institutional Theory provides an effective lens, and recent research to integrate it with Knowledge Flow Theory provides a powerful, new theoretical framework for understanding how tacit knowledge flows across cultures. However, the specifics of any particular, intercultural flow are likely to be critical, highlighting the need for immersive, qualitative research to identify techniques to accelerate acculturation. This study undertakes such qualitative fieldwork and informs theory and practice alike. Presented at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (43rd) held in Koloa, Hawaii on 5-8 January 2010. Published in the Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (43rd), 2010. The original document contains color images.