Recent work on competitiveness has emphasized the importance of business networking for innovativeness. Until recently, insights into the dynamics of this relationship have been fragmented. This paper presents a systematic review of research linking the networking behaviour of firms with their innovative capacity. We find that the principal benefits of networking as identified in the literature include: risk sharing; obtaining access to new markets and technologies; speeding products to market; pooling complementary skills; safeguarding property rights when complete or contingent contracts are not possible; and acting as a key vehicle for obtaining access to external knowledge. The evidence also illustrates that those firms which do not co‐operate and which do not formally or informally exchange knowledge limit their knowledge base long term and ultimately reduce their ability to enter into exchange relationships. At an institutional level, national systems of innovation play an important role in the diffusion of innovations in terms of the way in which they shape networking activity. The paper provides evidence suggesting that network relationships with suppliers, customers and intermediaries such as professional and trade associations are important factors affecting innovation performance and productivity. Where networks fail, it is due to inter‐firm conflict, displacement, lack of scale, external disruption and lack of infrastructure. The review identifies several gaps in the literature that need to be filled. For instance, there is a need for further exploration of the relationship between networking and different forms of innovation, such as process and organisational innovation. Similarly, we need better understanding of network dynamics and network configurations, as well as the role of third parties such as professional and trade associations. Our study highlights the need for interdisciplinary research in these areas.

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Communities of practice have been identified as playing a critical role in the promotion of learning and innovation in organizations. Yet, while innovation may be facilitated within communities of practice, radical innovations frequently occur at the interstices across communities. Here, the performative advantages of communities of practice are less clear. Moreover, while it has been suggested that managers play a critical role in constructing, aligning or supporting communities of practice, there is little empirical evidence for these assertions. This article contributes to these debates on the construction of communities of practice and their role in the innovation process. It does this through a case study of a radical innovation for the treatment of prostate cancer. The case focuses on Medico-the company that manufactured a product for the new treatment-and explores attempts by managers to construct a new `community of practice' as a vehicle for innovation. While the case highlights attempts by managers to construct communities as `social objects', it also underlines the shift in management strategies and practices associated with such a construction. Faced with powerful professions, and limited organizational support, managers employed a strategy centred on constructing a community focused on the disease (rather than the product) using `community of practice' as a rhetorical device to enrol key professionals and to mobilize and legitimize changes in work practice. Thus community building reflected managers' lack of power to intensify innovation by other means.

 This paper explores the distinctive culture that existed within a knowledge-intensive firm (KIF) and also attempts to explain the emergence and effects of this culture. The findings are based on a detailed case study that was conducted over two years within a consultancy firm that created and applied scientific knowledge and expertise to the invention of solutions for clients. The firm employed highly educated scientists, considered 'leading' in their respective disciplines and project work was inherently fluid, complex, and uncertain. These kinds of 'knowledge workers', and this kind of work, are expected to demand high levels of autonomy. This creates complex managerial dilemmas around how to balance autonomy with control and uncertainty and flexibility with efficiency. The analysis shows how a strong culture based on an acceptance of ambiguity (e.g. in roles, power relations, organizational routines and practices) promoted the development of a loyal, committed, effective workforce and sustained a fluid and flexible form of project working over time. Critically, ambiguity allowed individuals to sustain multiple identities as both 'expert' and 'consultant'. This, coupled with a corporate identity premised on 'élitism', helped to maximize commitment to the work and minimize tensions between control and autonomy. Thus the culture that embraced ambiguity (a consensus that there would be no consensus) engendered a form of normative control whereby consultants operated freely and at the same time willingly participated in the regulation of their own autonomy.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the forms, significance and effects of elite identity constructions in four consulting firms based in the UK and Sweden. The paper examines a range of strategic and symbolic mechanisms that were used by the senior members and other actors of these firms to construct an elite organizational identity. In terms of general effects, an elite social identity was found to generate a ‘neoliberal’ form of governance in all of the cases such that consultants could be trusted to act and behave in the interests of the firm. We argue that elite constructions facilitated: (i) the promotion of self-discipline which sustained a want to accomplish high standards of performance; (ii) the attraction and retention of consultants; (iii) the securing of an image that clients were prepared to engage with; and (iv) a degree of ‘ontological security’—a relatively secure sense of self—which enabled consultants to function effectively in high-ambiguity and somewhat sceptical (with respect to clients) work contexts. In the contexts discussed here, consultants not only managed themselves, but they also intensified the commitment to live an organizational life that demanded high standards and often very long working days.

This paper draws attention to the potentially focal role that appropriate people management practices can and do play in facilitating knowledge management within the context of a specialist consulting firm that sustains its competitive advantage through processes of knowledge creation. The paper highlights the way in which traditional approaches to people management issues such as recruitment and selection, professional development etc. are not necessarily appropriate or relevant when managing an expert workforce that expects and demands considerable levels of autonomy. The findings highlight that perhaps too much reliance has been placed on technological solutions to KM to date. Hence the paper emphasises the highly situated and contextual nature of KM and the practices or systems in support of KM, which existing literature in this field has failed to adequately address.

Understanding innovation in the biomedical field requires an appreciation of its highly interactive nature and of the many professional and organizational boundaries that create barriers to interaction and the sharing of knowledge. Yet, research to date has directed much less attention to understanding the intricacies of interactive biomedical innovation in practice, than it has to exploring the factors influencing innovation at an institutional level. Drawing upon empirical research and taking an approach informed by symbolic interactionism and a practice-based perspective on knowledge and learning, this paper offers insights into the processes involved in supporting knowledge sharing by focusing on 'objects' and the varying roles they play (instrumental and symbolic) in enabling (or potentially disabling) interaction amongst groups and organizations involved in biomedical innovation projects.

This research considers the diffusion of computer-aided production management (CAPM) technology in the UK manufacturing sector during the mid to late 1980s, focusing on the role of inter-organizational networks in the diffusion process. Research on innovation diffusion has tended to adopt a 'pro-innovation bias' such that adoption of prescribed best practice technologies is always considered to be the best policy. In the UK, one particular form of CAPM (MRP/MRPII) has been heavily promoted by technology suppliers as best practice. However, the notion of 'best practice' de-emphasizes the importance of decisions about technology design when users attempt to develop firm-specific solutions. Crucial to these decisions are the inter-organizational networks through which potential adopters learn about relevant technologies. Using three case companies, where the introduction of CAPM occurred at approximately the same time, decisions regarding adoption, design and subsequent implementation, are explored in order to establish the influence of inter-organizational networks on the diffusion and subsequent appropriation of CAPM technologies. These cases revealed that potential adopters engaged in a range of inter-organizational networks through which they learned about new technologies. However, the knowledge diffused through many of these networks was shaped by technology suppliers who were promoting similar ideas about best practice. Thus, while involvement in inter-organizational networks gave potential adopters access to information about new technology, this information tended to reinforce supplier images of best practice and did not always lead these firms to develop appropriate technological solutions. Problematic relationships between the suppliers of the technology and the users was seen here to limit the redesign and further diffusion of CAPM. Copyright 1996 Basil Blackwell Ltd.