and three anonymous reviewers for ASQ. I thank Linda Johanson for editorial guidance. Research support from the Norwegian Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.This paper combines the concept of weak ties from social network research and the notion of complex knowledge to explain the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits in a multiunit organization. I use a network study of 120 new-product development projects undertaken by 41 divisions in a large electronics company to examine the task of developing new products in the least amount of time. Findings show that weak interunit ties help a project team search for useful knowledge in other subunits but impede the transfer of complex knowledge, which tends to require a strong tie between the two parties to a transfer. Having weak interunit ties speeds up projects when knowledge is not complex but slows them down when the knowledge to be transferred is highly complex. I discuss the implications of these findings for research on social networks and product innovation.' Why are some subunits in an organization able to share knowledge among themselves whereas others are not? Addressing this question, organization scholars have analyzed factors that inhibit knowledge sharing among subunits, in particular, the lack of direct relationships and extensive communication between people from different subunits (e.g., Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Galbraith, 1973; Allen, 1977). More recently, two other lines of research have addressed the topic of knowledge sharing among people in an organization. In the product innovation literature, the argument is often made that close and frequent interactions between research and development (R&D) and other functions, teams, and operational subunits lead to project effectiveness because of the timely integration of knowledge across organizational boundaries (e.g., Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Leonard-Barton and Sinha, 1993; Henderson and Cockburn, 1994; Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995; Szulanski, 1996). In this literature, efficient knowledge sharing is typically characterized by tight coupling between people from different organization subunits. Some social network scholars, however, provide a different argument. According to the weak-tie theory originally advanced by Granovetter (1973), distant and infrequent relationships (i.e., weak ties) are efficient for knowledge sharing because they provide access to novel information by bridging otherwise disconnected groups and individuals in an organization. Strong ties, in contrast, are likely to lead to redundant information because they tend to occur among a small group of actors in which everyone knows what the others know.The question thus arises whether it is strong or weak relationships between people in different organizational subunits that lead to efficient knowledge sharing among them. The discrepancy between the different arguments about the effects of relationship strength on knowledge sharing that are proposed in the product innovation literature and the wea...

This paper introduces the concept of knowledge networks to explain why some business units are able to benefit from knowledge residing in other parts of the company while others are not. The core premise of this concept is that a proper understanding of effective interunit knowledge sharing in a multiunit firm requires a joint consideration of relatedness in knowledge content among business units and the network of lateral interunit relations that enables task units to access related knowledge. Results from a study of 120 new product development projects in 41 business units of a large multiunit electronics company showed that project teams obtained more existing knowledge from other units and completed their projects faster to the extent that they had short interunit network paths to units that possessed related knowledge. In contrast, neither network connections nor extent of related knowledge alone explained the amount of knowledge obtained and project completion time. The results also showed a contingent effect of having direct interunit relations in knowledge networks: While established direct relations mitigated problems of transferring noncodified knowledge, they were harmful when the knowledge to be transferred was codified, because they were less needed but still involved maintenance costs. These findings suggest that research on knowledge transfers and synergies in multiunit firms should pursue new perspectives that combine the concepts of network connections and relatedness in knowledge content.

Different subsets of social networks may explain knowledge sharing outcomes in different ways. One subset may counteract another subset, and one subset may explain one outcome but not another. We found support for these arguments in an analysis of a sample of 121 new-product development teams. Within-team and interunit networks had different effects on the outcomes of three knowledge-sharing phases: deciding whether to seek knowledge across subunits, search costs, and costs of transfers. These results suggest that research on knowledge sharing can be advanced by studying how multiple networks affect various phases of knowledge sharing.

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This paper explores the possibility that utilizing the firm's knowledge resources to complete important tasks can backfire and undermine competitive performance. Drawing on organizational capabilities and knowledge sharing research, we develop a situated performance view that holds that the value of obtaining and using knowledge within a firm depends on the task situation. Using a data set of 182 sales proposals for client work in a management consulting company, we show that sales teams that had varying needs to learn and differentiate themselves from competitors derived different levels of value from obtaining and using electronic documents and advice from colleagues. Highly experienced teams were more likely than inexperienced teams to lose the sales bids if they utilized such knowledge. Teams that had a high need to differentiate themselves from competitors also had a lower chance of winning if they utilized electronic documents. There were situations, however, where teams performed better if they utilized the firm's knowledge resources. These results suggest that competitive performance depends not on how much firms know but on how they use what they know. ABSTRACTThis paper explores the possibility that utilizing the firm's knowledge resources to complete important tasks can backfire and undermine competitive performance. Drawing on organizational capabilities and knowledge sharing research, we develop a situated performance view that holds that the value of obtaining and using knowledge within a firm depends on the task situation. Using a data set of 182 sales proposals for client work in a management consulting company, we show that sales teams that had varying needs to learn and differentiate themselves from competitors derived different levels of value from obtaining and using electronic documents and advice from colleagues. Highly experienced teams were more likely than inexperienced teams to lose the sales bids if they utilized such knowledge. Teams that had a high need to differentiate themselves from competitors also had a lower chance of winning if they utilized electronic documents. There were situations, however, where teams performed better if they utilized the firm's knowledge resources. These results suggest that competitive performance depends not on how much firms know but on how they use what they know. Keywords:knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer, organizational capabilities, management consulting, competitive bidding SMJ 01-4613 2 A firm's ability to apply its capabilities in the form of knowledge resources to perform important activities is increasingly viewed as a critical source of competitive advantage in many industries (e.g., Kogut and Zander, 1992;Grant, 1996;Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997). Although employees can benefit from obtaining and using knowledge that exists in other parts of the firm to perform competitive tasks, sharing knowledge across subunits within a firm can be problematic and risky. Employees may find it difficult to search for relevant knowledge (e.g.,...