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The purpose of this paper is to examine the negative effect of intra-firm causal ambiguity on the project team’s performance—efficiency and effectiveness, and also examine the moderating role of openness and the integrative capabilities.

The population in this study is teams that come from a variety of companies which work with cross-functional teams or matrices, such as advertising agencies, recreational or amusement parks, television companies, production houses, radio stations, private education providers, manufacturing enterprises and IT companies. The sample population was chosen based on their tendency to form creative teams to respond to environmental/market dynamics by involving employees from different backgrounds and levels in the planning and implementation of projects.

As hypothesized, intra-firm causal ambiguity negatively influenced the project team’s efficiency and effectiveness, while openness moderated the effect of intra-firm causal ambiguity to efficiency, but not to effectiveness, and the team’s integrative capabilities did not moderate the above relationship.

First, the sample in this study only focused on teams with creativity doing a project. Any future research is expected to focus more on the selection of sample types which also have a tendency to apply openness, and focus their activities on improving their integrative capabilities. Second, there are no data about the background experience of the members of the teams in working together on previous projects, so future studies need to discover whether that experience also affects the variables included in this study. Third, the category of the time horizon samples for the project’s implementation, which were between one month and two years, is still too wide. It may have contributed to the overlapping of the moderating effect, so future studies need the sample project’s categories to have a much narrower range (one to three months, four to six months, or one year). Fourth, the regression results for the moderating variables are partially not supported. This may relate to the characteristics of the respondents. To obtain the data and a more complete knowledge, further research can be done into creative on-going team types, such as an interior design team, a company’s production performance team and others.

A practical implication based on the research that has been done is that, when the condition of intra-firm causal ambiguity occurs, strategies to reduce the condition are needed. First, before a project starts, all the team members must understand the systemic process of the project’s resources related to the environment and the objectives. Systemic understanding of the resources system can help the team to effectively manage any causal ambiguity in the resources system. Second, referring that the higher the intra-firm causal ambiguity is, the efforts to codify the resources and the systemic process of the project should also be higher as well. So the second strategy is to codify/create tools that guide the project, in order to make it easily understandable, accessible and always up to date, over the lifespan of the project.

The results of research into the impacts of intra-firm causal ambiguity on the organizational performance are still inconsistent. Some researchers claim that intra-firm causal ambiguity has a negative effect on performance, but there are also studies that show the opposite result. This research accommodates these inconsistencies by examining the effects of a moderating variable on the impact of intra-firm causal ambiguity on a cross-functional team’s performance, in its contextual and internal aspects. The contextual aspect is represented by the openness of the team, while the team’s ability to integrate the diversity of knowledge, i.e. its integrative capability, is represented as the internal aspect.

This study aims to theorize a knowledge-based perspective on organizational commitment and turnover intentions among knowledge workers. The authors contribute by examining the impact of knowledge sharing, and managerial human capital respectively, on commitment and turnover in a sample of 274 knowledge workers (engineers) from India. Additionally, the authors examine the crucial moderating role of intra-firm causal ambiguity on these relationships.

Using structural equation modeling and analysis of survey responses, the authors test a moderated mediation model to provide evidence of the positive impact of knowledge sharing and human capital, respectively, on turnover intention, mediated by organizational commitment. More importantly, the authors theorize and present evidence on the moderating role of intra-firm causal ambiguity, on these relationships.

The authors find that knowledge sharing behaviors are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivating for knowledge workers, which results in their emotional attachments and higher levels of identification and commitment, which subsequently results in lower turnover intention. Our findings also highlight the role of intra-firm causal ambiguity in making things difficult for organizations to retain talented employees in tough environments.

The authors provide a knowledge-based perspective of commitment and turnover in knowledge-intensive work contexts. The authors also contribute by provide an interesting account of the role of intra-firm causal ambiguity in knowledge processes leading to commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the generational differences among publicly traded family firms in regards to value creation and value appropriation in the innovation process by drawing upon the knowledge-based view (KBV) and family business literature with a focus on socioemotional wealth perspective.

The authors tests the hypotheses via longitudinal regression analyses based on 285 yearly cross-firm S & P 500 firm observations.

First, the authors found that family ownership with second or later generation’s majority exhibits lower levels of value creation capabilities compared to non-family firms, whereas there is no difference between those of the firms with family ownership with a first generation’s majority and non-family firms. Second, the authors also found that family owned firms with a first generation’s majority have higher value appropriation abilities compared to nonfamily firms, while there is no significant difference in value appropriation between the later generation family firms and non-family firms.

The study help scholars, family business members, and investors better understand family involvement, and how it impacts firm performance through value creation and value appropriation.

The paper contributes to the family business, innovation, and KBV literature in several ways. While previous family business studies drawing upon resource-based view and KBV often focus on the value creation in family governance, the authors investigate both value creation and value appropriation phases of innovation process.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the effect that knowledge‐ambiguous innovations have on the subsidiary performance of multinational corporations (MNCs). Specifically, the paper sheds light on the relationship between knowledge ambiguity in the innovation context, in terms of tacitness, complexity and specificity, and innovation‐related subsidiary performance.

The authors build a model integrating these three main components of ambiguous knowledge and test a set of hypotheses on a sample of 85 innovation projects developed by subsidiaries of MNCs. Data were collected through personal interviews and a partial least squares (PLS) technique was used to analyze the data.

Knowledge ambiguity affects performance in different ways. None of the three components of knowledge ambiguity influences all areas of subsidiary activities (i.e. market, coordination, efficiency, and R&D). Moreover, it was found that innovations characterized by knowledge tacitness are detrimental to market performance.

The limitations to this research are its cross‐sectional nature and the use of perceptual indicators to measure the constructs. The major research implication is the importance of distinguishing between different dimensions of knowledge ambiguity in the innovation context.

During innovation development, it is important to understand the implications and control aspects of knowledge ambiguity. This ambiguity not only impacts subsidiary performance but also indirectly influences the decisions and strategies of knowledge transfer.

The paper contributes to the strategy and innovation management literature by suggesting that ambiguous knowledge does not always enhance performance. The paper fills a gap in the literature by addressing the impact on the subsidiary performance of MNCs by the three key components of knowledge ambiguity in innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to study how causal ambiguity around technological competencies can help firms to achieve superior performance.

Traditionally, it has been recognised that causal ambiguity of technology represents an effective protection against imitation. Recently, however, researchers have unearthed evidence that the effects of causal ambiguity also could be extending to the interior of the firm itself, hampering the diffusion of its own technological capabilities among its managers. In this case, the existence of causal ambiguity of technology will have a negative impact on firm performance. In this paper both effects are studied in a sample of 258 Spanish manufacturing firms using several statistical techniques.

The results indicate that causal ambiguity exerts a double‐edged influence on firm performance. On the positive side, by protecting technological competencies from imitation and, on the negative, hampering the diffusion of these capabilities within the firm, with this second effect being stronger.

The main limitation of this work is that there are clearly many other factors that can explain firm performance apart from causal ambiguity of technology. However, as the main objective of the present work is to study the relations between causal ambiguity around technological capabilities and firm performance, it did not seem wise, for operational reasons, to complicate the analysis by including other variables.

In order to achieve better results, firms must use causal ambiguity around technological competencies to protect these competencies against imitation and should make great efforts to diffuse them within the firm.

The results obtained allow one to make a contribution to the debate existing on the literature about the influence that causal ambiguity around technological competencies has on firm performance.

This paper explores the importance of the importing intensity for different intermediate inputs depending on their source (internal sourcing or intra-firm trade versus external sourcing or foreign suppliers) for different types of innovation (product and process innovation) and applied to MNEs (foreign versus domestic).

The sample contains 2,448 firm-year observations (2006–2016) of firms located in Spain that belong to an MNE group. The authors applied a conditional mixed process to a panel recursive bivariate probit model with robust standard errors.

The authors obtained three key results. First, intermediate imports do not always contribute to improving innovation, since their effects vary depending on their source. Second, intermediate imports from foreign suppliers (external source) are more advantageous for product innovation than those from intra-firm trade (internal source). Third, intermediate imports from intra-firm trade are more important for process innovation than those from foreign suppliers. Thus, the impact of importing intermediate inputs on innovation is contingent on the source of the imports, the ownership of the MNE and the type of innovation.

The paper contributes to this topic with new insights and results for MNEs. It identifies which import source is best for innovation depending on the type of innovative result expected. Moreover, it helps to uncover simultaneity and causal relationships between product and process innovation, issues which have not previously been considered in the literature.

This chapter argues that intra-firm geographic mobility is an understudied mechanism that can help mitigate coordination failures in a geographically distributed organization. The chapter presents an organizing framework on how intra-firm geographic mobility creates value for firms and discusses how intra-firm geographic mobility can create value for individual workers. The chapter concludes by presenting a future research agenda for intra-firm geographic mobility in light of emerging phenomena such as global collaborative patenting by multinationals, temporary colocation of knowledge workers, and nonstandard work.

We propose an information-based view of the dynamics of network positions and use it to explain why bridging positions become stronger. We depart from previous network dynamics studies that implicitly assume that firms have homogenous information about the network structure. Using network experiments with both students and managers, we vary a firm's network horizon (i.e., how much information a firm has about the network structure) and the network horizon heterogeneity (i.e., how this information is distributed among the firms within the network). Our results indicate that firms with a higher network horizon occupy a stronger bridging position, especially under conditions of high network horizon heterogeneity. At a more general level, these results provide an indirect validation of what so far has been an untested assumption in interfirm network research, namely that firms are aware of their position in the overall network and consciously attempt to improve their position.

The aim of this paper is to examine the moderating role of information communication technology (ICT) competencies in enhancing knowledge transfer and mitigating the effects of two key knowledge barriers, namely knowledge stickiness and knowledge ambiguity, thereby increasing the firm's innovation competitive advantage.

The study is carried out in the context of the healthcare industry in Taiwan. A total of 160 questionnaires were distributed to hospitals and 112 usable responses were received, representing a response rate of 70 percent. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze the data.

The results show that ICT competencies do enhance knowledge transfer inside hospitals. Although knowledge stickiness and knowledge ambiguity have negative effects on knowledge transfer, the negative effects can be moderated by ICT competencies (defined in terms of competencies in computer‐assisted instruction, interactive videoconferencing, and hand‐held technology).

Among the three ICT competencies, computer‐assisted instruction and hand‐held technology have the largest and smallest effects on the relationship between knowledge barriers and knowledge transfer. The results also allow decision makers for forward‐looking allocation of ICT competencies.

The study presents a valid model that comprises the antecedents, moderators (three specific types of ICT competencies), and consequences of knowledge transfer for innovation competitive advantage of healthcare organizations.

The issue of project managers’ competencies has gained much traction in practice and more recently in academic debate. However, they have become analogous to extensive wish lists where a project manager is expected to have an exhaustive list of aptitudes and capabilities. Therefore, identifying and defining the most critical competencies for project success is urgently needed. Moreover, although the vast number of studies emphasize the significance of behavioral competencies, there is a dearth of empirical research and studies within the context of information systems (IS) are scarce. Consequently, the present study aims to investigate the influence of project manager's behavioral competencies for the successful delivery of IS projects.

This research conducted a systematic literature review (2009–2019) of 27 relevant studies incorporating 179 competencies. The authors also collected data from 121 professional IS project managers and used regression analysis and dominance analysis to test the hypotheses proposed.

The results confirm that behavioral competencies (including leadership, communication, result orientation, emotional intelligence, ethics, creativity and motivation) are significantly and positively related to IS project success. Furthermore, the findings show that emotional intelligence (resilience, stress management and self-control), creativity (resourcefulness, creativity thinking and imagination) and ethics (transparency, honesty and integrity) are the most influential behavioral competencies for IS project success.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first to use a quantitative analysis to empirically investigate project manager's behavioral competencies for project success in the IS discipline. It brings much-needed empirical evidence for the most important competencies for IS project managers.