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This study aims to empirically investigate the role of contracts in tacit knowledge acquisition in research and development (R&D) alliances. By combining the perspectives of sensemaking and transaction cost economics (TCE), this study proposes a model about the mechanisms through which shared goals and contract completeness jointly affect tacit knowledge acquisition.

This study adopted a quantitative design and used the questionnaire survey method to collect data. The authors finally collected data on 196 R&D alliance samples in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

There is strong empirical support that contract completeness has a positive effect on shared goals and that shared goals have a positive effect on tacit knowledge acquisition. Meanwhile, contract completeness weakens the positive effect of shared goals on tacit knowledge acquisition. Therefore, this study reveals that contract completeness has an inverted U-shaped effect on tacit knowledge acquisition.

The findings suggest that managers should consider both the psychological and rational effects of contract governance simultaneously, thus recognizing the importance of a moderate level of contract completeness for tacit knowledge acquisition in R&D alliances.

This study enhances the current understanding of contract governance by integrating the sensemaking and TCE perspectives. The findings provide a possible explanation of how contracts affect tacit knowledge acquisition in R&D alliances. The authors expand the research on contract governance and alliance knowledge acquisition by revealing the inverted U-shaped relationship between contract governance and tacit knowledge acquisition.

This study examines the relationship between higher education improvement and tacit knowledge importance. In this context, the scarcity of empirical and theoretical studies on acquiring tacit knowledge to enhance academic performance in higher education suggests that this research area holds significant importance for experts and policymakers. Consequently, this study aims to explore the factors that influence academic research performance at Chinese universities by acquiring tacit knowledge.

To achieve the study aims, the current approach utilizes the research technique based on the socialization, externalization, internalization and combination (SECI) model and knowledge management (KM) theory. To analyze the study objective, the authors collected data from post-graduate students at Chinese universities and analyzed it using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the model and hypotheses.

The results indicated that social interaction, internalization and self-motivation have a positive impact on academic research performance through the acquisition of tacit knowledge. Furthermore, the findings suggest that academic researchers can acquire more knowledge through social interaction than self-motivation, thereby advancing research progress.

This study addresses the critical issues surrounding the acquisition of tacit knowledge and presents a comprehensive framework and achievements that can contribute to achieving exceptional academic performance.

This paper investigates the paths through which innovation community affects content providers' new service development (NSD) performance in technology-based service ecosystem and contingency factors exist in the paths.

The research model is built based on service-dominant (S-D) logic, exploring the relationship among innovation community, content providers' knowledge acquisition and content providers' NSD performance as well as the moderating role of content providers' technology readiness and content providers' complexity. Using survey data collected from 386 content providers of selected open network platforms in China, this study finds broad support for the proposed research model.

The findings of this paper reveal that content providers' tacit knowledge acquisition from users plays a mediating role between the innovation community and new service ratings. Content providers' technology readiness plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between innovation community and their explicit or tacit knowledge acquisition. Content providers' task complexity negatively moderates the effects of their explicit knowledge acquisition from users on new service volumes or ratings, but positively moderates the effects of tacit knowledge acquisition from users on new service volumes or ratings.

Though extant literature highlights the importance of knowledge acquisition in NSD performance, few studies explore the antecedents of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users and the paths through which these antecedents affect content providers' NSD performance. Moreover, boundary conditions exist in the process of improving NSD performance are generally ignored in previous literature. With the lens of S-D logic, this paper explicates how content providers of different technology readiness and different task complexity enhance their new service volumes and ratings through acquiring explicit and tacit knowledge from users in innovation community. Adopting S-D logic from marketing area to NSD area, this paper not only enriches the theoretical accumulations of antecedents and boundary conditions of content providers' NSD performance but also offers insights for content providers and users on how to synergistically advance NSD activities and co-create value in the technology-based service ecosystem.

China has climbed from 22nd in the Global Innovation Index Rankings in 2017 to 11th in the 2022 due to the transition of its manufacturing firms from assemblers to system integrators. This paper examines how firms can enhance their innovation capability through inbound and outbound open innovation.

This paper applies both open innovation and a knowledge-based view and proposes a conceptual framework that encompasses innovation capability and the significance of tacit knowledge acquisition. A questionnaire was designed to collect relevant data from 139 Chinese manufacturing firms in six regions to test this framework.

The authors found that inbound open innovation has a stronger impact than outbound open innovation on synergistic innovation capability. The acquisition of skill-based tacit knowledge has a slightly stronger intermediary role between open innovation (no matter inbound or outbound) and synergistic innovation capability than cognitive tacit knowledge does.

Firms should improve external tacit knowledge acquisition efforts to generate new knowledge, inspire the innovation passion of employees and implement ambidextrous open innovation.

This paper makes a good first step to analyze the effect of ambidextrous open innovation on the synergistic innovation capability of Chinese manufacturing firms. It verifies the role of skill-based and cognitive tacit knowledge acquisition and provides new reflections on open innovation strategy in emerging economies, thus enriching open innovation and knowledge-based theories.

Focusing on entrepreneurship in China's emerging economy, this paper aims to explore the extent to which the human capital and social capital of Chinese entrepreneurs facilitates their acquisition of tacit marketing knowledge.

Observation and literature review are presented.

The paper proposes a conceptual framework that links tacit marketing knowledge and entrepreneurs' human and social capital. When accessibility of the general knowledge of expertise and professional business in a society is low, Chinese entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) thus depend on their own resources of human capital and abilities of social capital to acquire tacit knowledge. Both specific and general human capitals facilitate Chinese entrepreneurs' acquisition of tacit marketing knowledge. With a strong awareness of the low level of institutional trust in the current transition economy, Chinese entrepreneurs develop the interpersonal trusting relationship to gain social support. Through the trust and trustworthiness, the quality of relationships in business networks creates the personal relational resource for tacit knowledge reciprocity.

This paper fills the gap in the literature by identifying critical intervening components of human and social capitals in the entrepreneurship process in China's emerging market knowledge which have previously remained untouched. The key issues of how Chinese entrepreneurs of private SMEs initially acquire knowledge‐based resources to operate their businesses are critically proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theoretical model to examine how exchange climate attributes and contextual factors between two parent firms in an international joint venture (IJV) affect tacit knowledge transfer. The authors investigate how this tacit knowledge, which comprises international marketing expertise, knowledge about foreign cultures and tastes and managerial practices, impacts IJV performance.

Based on data from a survey of IJV managers in 326 Korean firms from a variety of industries, structural equation modeling (AMOS 18.0) is used to test the authors’ hypotheses.

The findings show that conflict resolution and cooperation positively affect tacit knowledge transfer, but communication does not. It was found that the difference in the relative levels of economic development in the environments of partners significantly influences tacit knowledge acquisition, but cultural distance does not. Tacit knowledge acquisition positively influences IJV performance.

The paper fills a gap in the literature by articulating the relationships between exchange climate attributes and tacit knowledge acquisition. Exchange climate, characterized by behavioral processes that directly impact knowledge transfer, constitutes an important missing link in prior research about tacit knowledge transfer. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the dynamic relationships among relational capital, exchange climate and tacit knowledge transfers. The model the authors develop and test has important implications for the design of organizational processes that facilitate tacit knowledge transfer.

The purpose of this paper is to try to assess the applicability of the SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi) to the processes of external knowledge acquisition for firms located on knowledge‐intensive clusters. The paper's intended contribution lies in improving our understanding about the different mechanisms that organizations can use to learn from this kind of environment.

The paper uses survey data obtained from a sample of knowledge‐intensive firms from Boston's Route 128, with custom tailored measurement scales. It applies a quantitative method based on questionnaire answers.

Findings show that external knowledge acquisition takes place through three different processes that raise important differences and similarities with the SECI model.

Conclusions can only be generalized to firms located in knowledge‐intensive clusters. Nevertheless, some implications for management practice can be derived. Tacit knowledge from the environment requires different mechanisms in order to be successfully incorporated into the organization, whereas explicit knowledge acquisition can be managed more smoothly. Managers should pay special attention when designing channels for acquiring external tacit knowledge.

The SECI model reveals itself to be a powerful guide for starting research about external knowledge acquisition. Nevertheless, context specific variables can show industry or country preferred ways for learning in practice, so highly focused empirical research may be required to disentangle the peculiarities of tacit knowledge.

In the field of external knowledge acquisition by organizations, empirical works about testing widely spread theoretical models are very scarce. This paper takes the theoretical processes of the SECI model and extends them for external knowledge acquisition.

Expert systems have come to the forefront in the modeling of problems. One of the major problems facing the expert system designers is to develop an accurate knowledge base and a meaningful model of uncertainty associated with complex models. Decision-making is based on knowledge, and decision system support needs a knowledge base as well. An adequate knowledge acquisition (KA) process leads to accurate knowledge and improves the decision-making process. To manage the risk of a medical service (twin pregnancy in this case) a knowledge management system was created. The captured knowledge may be associated with an uncertainty. This study aims to introduce a method for evaluating the reliability of a tacit KA model. It assisted engineering managers in assessing and prioritizing risks. The study tried to use this method in risk management and new case in the health domain.

In this study, relevant variables were identified in the knowledge management literature reviews and the domain of expertise management. They are validated by a group of domain experts. Kendall’s W indicator was used to assess the degree of consensus. On the basis of combined cognitive maps, a cognitive network was constructed. Using Bayesian belief networks and fuzzy cognitive maps, an uncertainty assessment method of tacit KA was introduced. To help managers focus on major variables, a sensitivity analysis was conducted. Reliability of model was calculated for optimistic and pessimistic values. The applicability and efficacy of the proposed method were verified and validated with data from a medical university.

Results show that tacit KA uncertainty can be defined by independent variables, including environmental factors, personality and acquisition process factors. The reliability value shows the accuracy of the captured knowledge and the effectiveness of the acquisition process. The proposed uncertainty assessment method provides the reliability value of the acquisition model for knowledge engineers, so it can be used to implement the project and prevent failures in vital factors through necessary actions. If there is not a satisficed level of reliability, the KA project reliability can be improved by risk factors. The sensitivity analysis can help to select proper factors based on the resources. This approach mitigated some of the disadvantages of other risk evaluation methods.

The contribution of this study is to combine the uncertainty assessment with tacit KA based on fuzzy cognitive maps and the Bayesian belief networks approach. This approach used the capabilities of both narrative and computational approaches.

A model of knowledge-based resource transfer during acquisition integration is developed and tested in a sample of 75 high-tech acquisitions. Results indicate that transferring tacit knowledge is both desirable and difficult in acquisitions of technology intensive firms. It was found that acquired firm autonomy preserves tacit knowledge, while rich communication and retention of key employees facilitates transferring knowledge in acquisitions.

This paper aims to theorize how tacit knowledge influences implementation success in mergers and acquisitions (M & As), and contrasts this with explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge can be a source of sustained competitive advantage because its lack of codifiability precludes easy appropriation by competitors. However, such non-codifiability also makes it difficult to transfer knowledge within a firm. M & As exemplify this challenge because they are often motivated by opportunities for transferring knowledge. With differing demands for tacit and explicit knowledge across departments (Sales and Operations), the empirical results demonstrate how tacit routine compatibility affects implementation outcomes in different functions.

This research draws from a survey of 86 M & A implementation processes between 1996 and 2002, using seemingly unrelated regression to analyze the predictions.

There is strong empirical support that tacit routine compatibility leads to success in sales but not operations and further support for the differential moderating roles of trustworthiness and integration.

Managers should make implementation choices based on the type of knowledge being transferred and where that knowledge will reside post-integration. Routine compatibility, trustworthiness and integration facilitate knowledge transfer in M & As – but only if applied in the right combinations for the context.

The type of knowledge is a critical distinction for the value of M & A implementation. Furthermore, despite integration receiving significant attention in this literature, trustworthiness, not integration, facilitates successful tacit knowledge transfer in M & As.