Knowledge exploitation, knowledge exploration, and competency trap

Abstract

It is no surprise that knowledge exploitation and knowledge exploration have become the consistent theme in organizational learning literature. Strategy and organization theorists have similarly observed the dynamic capabilities anchored in a firm's ability to simultaneously exploit current technologies and resources to secure efficiency benefits, and creating variation through exploratory innovation. While some studies argue that excessive exploration or excessive exploitation can lead to a competency trap, the 'competency trap' component actually has received less empirical scrutiny. This paper provides a study about how competency traps are formed in the process of knowledge exploration and exploitation as well as their effects on business performance.The paper includes three main sections: First, the theoretical interpretation of the 'competency trap' construct is broadened by investigating the formation of competency traps based on organizational learning theory; second, factors leading to the formation of different competency traps are identified; and third, the relationship between an organization's competency trap and business performance is investigated. The article ends with a discussion of implications for the organizational learning literature.

The effect of social network, funding and productive organizational energy on the capability of organizational ambidexterity in research institution

“…Previous research has shown that organizational learning capabilities, including the exploration and exploitation of knowledge is the main source of competitive advantage (Kogut and Zander, 1992;Prahalad and Hamel, 1990;Liu, 2006). The study also mentions that an appropriately manage of balancing between exploration and exploitation becomes a major factor that can support the survival and prosperity of organization (March, 1991;Cohen and Levinthal, 1990;Levinthal and March, 1993).…”

“…In line with the opinion of March (1991), Sitkin et al (1994) defines exploitation of knowledge as learning activities that include the use of resources already owned by the organization, as well as the exploration of knowledge as learning activities that lead to the addition of new resources. Both definition of March (1991) and Sitkin (1994) indicates that there are two basic modes for the production of knowledge in organizations, namely the exploitation or exploration of knowledge (Liu, 2006). The process of knowledge exploitation is basically the process of acquiring competence by adopting, integrating and applying existing knowledge.…”

“…Exploration of knowledge is useful in providing new knowledge and the level of freedom to adapt and thrive in a dynamic environment and making the organization more open to knowledge from outside (Land and Lubatkin, 1998). While the exploitation of knowledge enables organizations to transform and utilize the existing knowledge and make it absorbed into the system for optimized operations in order to increase performance (Liu, 2006).…”

Moveable Factories for Leapfrog Manufacturing in an Industrial Economy

“…Common sources of preconceptions in industrial psychology include competency traps, success traps, path dependencies, and lock-ins. Competency traps involve organisations focusing on competencies they are already expert in, even when new technologies make that expertise increasingly irrelevant [20]. Success traps involve a period of successful organizational performance leading to stale ideas about what makes success for all time into the future [21].…”

Individual Customer Knowledge Exploitation: A Multiple Case Study

“…Exploitation is basically the process of gaining competence by adopting, synthesizing, and applying current existing knowledge [27] [28]. Knowledge exploitation can be divided into internal and external knowledge exploitation.…”