Committee:
Patti Riley (Chair)
Janet Fulk, Ian Mitroff

Dissertation Title:
Interorganizational Knowledge Networks: A Case of the Biotechnology Industry

ABSTRACT:

We live in a knowledge society in which intellectual capital is the central driving force of social development and wealth creation. The competitiveness of today’s organization lies in its ability to create, transfer, assemble, integrate, protect, and exploit knowledge. The common interest that threads the intellectual development of my research has been the theoretical and empirical engagement with knowledge management, knowledge networks, collaborative learning, and innovation. My dissertation primarily focuses on the study of knowledge management within and among knowledge-intensive organizations through both interpretative and empirical approaches. Marrying network theory with the knowledge management literature, I developed a theory of knowledge network examining interorganizational knowledge sharing on both micro/individual and macro/organizational levels of analysis. Furthermore, I applied the knowledge network theory to the study of the biotechnology industry as a knowledge-based industry, examining how knowledge is shared and created in the process of university-company and company-company interactions.

The findings are based on a two-study design. The first study is based on interviews with professionals involved in interorganizational knowledge sharing in the biotech industry. In this study, I explore the knowledge sharing motivations, attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of four panels of respondents most involved in interorganizational knowledge sharing, i.e. company executives, company scientists, academic scientists, and technology transfer specialists. I engage in theory development based on the findings of the interview study and existing literature on knowledge management to move beyond individual-level knowledge sharing to look at how knowledge is shared and created on the organizational and interorganizational levels. Based on the theoretical development, I conduct a network analysis of a biomedical industry database containing data on deals and alliances in the industry from 1989 to 2006 as the second study. The goal is to test hypotheses derived from my knowledge network theory and to discover patterns and trends in the interorganizational knowledge network.