We examine how social capital dimensions of networks affect the transfer of knowl edge between network members. We distinguish among three common network types: intracorporate networks, strategic alliances, and industrial districts. Using a social capital framework, we identify structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions for the three network types. We then link these social capital dimensions to the conditions that facilitate knowledge transfer. In doing so, we propose a set of conditions that promote knowledge transfer for the different network types.

Many papers have been published recently in the fields of strategy and international business research incorporating the role of organizational knowledge as a basis of firm competitive advantage. While such knowledge is normally developed within the firm, it is important that firms possess the ability to learn from others in order to meet the increasing pace of competition. Knowledge transfer, defined here as an event through which one organization learns from the experience of another, has thus become an important research area within the broader domain of organizational learning and knowledge management. This paper presents a theoretical framework, identifies key themes covered by the six articles included in the Special Issue on Inter-Organizational Knowledge Transfer, and then discusses priorities for future research. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2008.

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Organizational unlearning is widely considered an important condition for successful adaptation to environmental changes, promoting organizational learning and enhancing a firm's performance. Yet, organizational unlearning has received scant attention in the literature, making theory building difficult. This article defines and clarifies the meaning of organizational unlearning, distinguishes it from organizational learning, articulates its dimensions and discusses ways organizations can unlearn.

Despite the growing popularity of the term 'organizational learning," writings on the topic have little consensus in terms of definition, perspective, conceptualization, and methodology. This article examines the dichotomy between two main streams of theorizing in the field. The first stream, prescriptive writings on the learning organization, is concerned with the question "How should an organization learn?" Targeting practitioners, these studies are usually based on the authors' consulting experience and seldom follow rigorous research methodologies. They also tend to overgeneralize their theories to all types of organization. Descriptive researches on organizational learning fall in the second stream which tackles the question "How does an organization learn?" These are academic studies striving for scientific rigor. Nevertheless, they often fail to generate useful implications for practitioners. In the final section of the article, brief suggestions are made to integrate the two streams of research.

This study investigates the effects of entrepreneurial personality traits, background and networking activities on venture growth among 168 Chinese entrepreneurs in small and medium sized businesses in Singapore. Personality traits include need for achievement, internal locus of control, self-reliance and extroversion; background comprises education and experience; networking activities consist of size and frequency of communication networks. A structural equation modelling technique -partial least squares (PLS) -is used to estimate a path model with latent variables. The results indicate that experience, networking activities, and number of partners as well as internal locus of control and need for achievement all have positive impact on venture growth. Two other personality traits, self-reliance and extroversion have negative impact on number of partners and positive impact on networking activities, respectively. The impact of education on venture growth, however, is moderated by firm size, positive for larger firms and negative for smaller firms. Our findings indicate that among all the factors that we have considered, an entrepreneur's industrial and managerial experience is the dominating factor affecting venture growth.

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This paper proposes and tests a model of how firms acquire knowledge from their international joint venturing experience. Based on survey responses from 73 Singapore and 89 Hong Kong firms with respect to their joint ventures set up in China, the results indicate that both overseeing effort and management involvement are significant channels of knowledge acquisition. The former channel is more important for firms with a great deal of operational experience in China and for parents of older joint ventures. This finding indicates that firms improve their skills of knowledge acquisition through learning-by-doing. Moreover, the strategic importance of the venture concerned, instead of the learning intent of the parent, is the driving force behind the allocation of resources to the two channels. This implies that firms mainly learn through managing their key joint ventures. Since a venture that provides novel and fruitful learning experience may not, and need not, be an operation of great strategic importance, this finding suggests the existence of learning myopia.