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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 show how science-industry R&D cooperation (SIRC) generates effects on the strategy developed by firms to appropriate the benefits of innovations. Given the plurality of cooperation patterns between firms and public R&D institutions and the variety of appropriation mechanisms used by firms to protect generated knowledge or to strengthen their market position, this paper investigates to what extent different forms of cooperation are associated with different effects on appropriation strategy.

As evidence of this, the authors carry out a multiple case study, covering nine biopharmaceutical Argentine firms whose innovation projects are developed in cooperation with public R&D institutions. Using critical dimensions identified by public-private R&D cooperation literature, the paper analyzes the characteristics of cooperation in the cases studied, looking for different patterns. Given the existence of various appropriation mechanisms identified by appropriability literature, the paper analyzes how firms use (or not) those mechanisms within the specific context of jointly generated innovation.

The paper shows that SIRC generates opposing effects on the various appropriation mechanisms used by firms, both challenging and strengthening them. Likewise, the identification of three cooperation patterns in Argentine biopharmaceutical sector, namely, contract R&D, internalization and coordination, allows appreciating how each pattern affects differently the appropriation mechanisms used by firms, being the coordination one, the most functional to the appropriation strategy of firms analyzed.

The arguments presented here are necessarily limited to the biopharmaceutical Argentine sector, which is strategic to the country, for accumulated capabilities in scientific and business aspects. The analysis could be enriched by extending it to other industries with similar innovation characteristics and to other countries, where patents have a similar weight (emerging countries) or a different one (developed countries).

Innovation and public-private collaboration policies may benefit from the analysis presented here, which helps to assess advantages and challenges of different SIRC logics on firms’ appropriation issues and to considerate which aspects allow cooperation and appropriation combining in a more virtuous form.

There is no paper that explicitly examines the effects generated by different SIRC patterns on the appropriation strategy of firms, conceived as a combination of different mechanisms which may include patents but is not limited to them.

In contrast to the interest of describing and managing the social processes of knowing, information science and information and knowledge management research have put less emphasis on discussing how particular information becomes usable and how it is used in different contexts and situations. The purpose of this paper is to address this major gap, and introduce and discuss the applicability of the notion of situational appropriation of information for shedding light on this particular process in the context of daily information work practices of professionals.

The study is based on the analysis of 25 qualitative interviews of archives, library and museum professionals conducted in two Nordic countries.

The study presents examples of how individuals appropriate different tangible and intangible assets as information on the basis of the situation in hand.

The study proposes a new conceptual tool for articulating and conducting research on the process how information becomes useful in the situation in hand.

The situational appropriation of information perspective redefines the role of information management to incorporate a comprehensive awareness of the situations when information is useful and is being used. A better understanding how information becomes useful in diverse situations helps to discern the active role of contextual and situational effects and to exploit and take them into account as a part of the management of information and knowledge processes.

In contrast to orthodoxies of information science and information and knowledge management research, the notion of situational appropriation of information represents an alternative approach to the conceptualisation of information utilisation. It helps to frame particular types of instances of information use that are not necessarily addressed within the objectivistic, information seeker or learning oriented paradigms of information and knowledge management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a tendency towards appropriation or participation of the individual in the literature of knowledge management (KM).

This is a literature review paper. In terms of approach, appropriation in this paper is referred to as the KM tasks assigned to individual employees by the management whereas participation is referred to as KM tasks determined jointly by individuals and management.

The review suggests that while the participation of individuals is seen as important for KM, the KM discourse is visibly oriented towards the appropriation of individual employees and their knowledge for better economic performance of organisations. The review suggests that an appropriation of the individual in KM serves neither employees nor organisations, and that individual employees are meant to be valued participants in the development and management of knowledge.

The paper is concerned with the KM literature to study the appropriation or participation of individual employees in the discourse on KM. Consequently other streams of literature that address individual employees’ participation are excluded from this study.

The paper initiates a new research agenda for KM where the emphasis shifts from the appropriation to the participation of the individual in the discourse on KM practices.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the underlying characteristics that enable the acquisition and appropriation of external knowledge, paying special attention to the relationship between external and internal networks to support this process.

A case study methodology is followed, using not only semi‐structured interviews but also secondary data to triangulate the obtained information. For the interviews, the authors have considered not only employees in different strategic positions, from middle management to top management, but also participants in the main supplier, to obtain a holistic perspective of the knowledge acquisition and appropriation in the innovation process.

For the improvements of the process of knowledge acquisition and appropriation, organizations should configure internal and external networks to support this process reorganizing their classical structures. Moreover, this process is enhanced by the support of top managers and innovation champions, which act as sponsors and facilitators of the project respectively, to ensure that the whole process runs smoothly. At the end, to deal with new kinds of projects that are completely different to previous ones, it is recommended to be open to new ways of organizing and structuring participants; hence, coordination and socialization mechanisms are important to reach not only potential absorptive capacity (associated with knowledge acquisition) but also realized absorptive capacity (associated with knowledge exploitation). This situation is even more relevant in Web 2.0 environments, where each participant has autonomy to participate actively, be just a passive participant, or cease to belong to the community.

The paper's findings could be useful to identify the determinants of knowledge acquisition and appropriation because they could guide organizations in the development of external and internal networks to support this process, which would be used to promote innovation within the organization; and with this identification, organizations could take actions based on their organizational requirements and goals. It is important to note that organizational boundaries are shifting from being closed to be permeable, enabling a better interaction with key partners and facilitating the knowledge exchange. However, this situation offers new challenges for organizations that want to be leaders in the near future because traditional organizations should shift their old paradigms, having an organizational culture more aligned with Web 2.0 philosophy (e.g. collaboration and sharing), which is the paradigm of the new digital economy.

This study is a step forward to understand the relationship between external and internal networks that act as enablers of knowledge acquisition and appropriation. The authors extend the knowledge‐based view by applying it in a Web 2.0 context, highlighting coordination and socialization mechanisms as critical success factors to integrate internal and external knowledge. Finally, the inclusion of interviews of employees from the main supplier of BBVA in these kinds of projects provides a holistic perspective of the process of knowledge acquisition and appropriation.

The literature on knowledge management and organizational improvisation have emerged as important perspectives for organizing, while existing almost in parallel. Both have significant implications for, inter alia, innovation and creativity, adaptability, and management in turbulent times. Previous research has considered the role of improvisation in innovation. We build on this literature to examine the specific role of improvisation in knowledge creation. Our assessment of organizational improvisation indicates that it constitutes an important potential source of knowledge, thus opening up a new avenue for exploring the strategic as well as political significance of embedded, situated knowledge. We argue that the rapprochement of the two literatures brings about the notion of “improvisational knowledge”. We develop the significance of this form of knowledge, focusing in particular on the challenges of appreciating and appropriating it as opposed to seeking to codify it. We offer propositions and identify some avenues for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the knowledge processes that interplay in the social construction and appropriation of knowledge and to test these constructs empirically in project teams.

Literature research and quantitative survey were used. The research identified project success, faster completion times, operational efficiency, innovation and generation of new knowledge as dominating project management expectations in the past ten years. It studied how these projects construct and appropriate knowledge within project teams to achieve these five objectives. Using a quantitative approach, data were sought from 1,000 respondents out of a population of 10,000 from 11 project management areas in eight world regions to test the conceptual model in real-world scenarios. The data gathered were analyzed using quantitative analysis tools and techniques such as reliability, correlation and regression.

There is a lingering difficulty within organizations on how to translate tacit knowledge into action. The transfer and utilization of tacit knowledge was shown to be embedded and nested within relationships. Innovation in projects was found to be mostly linked to replication and codification of knowledge (explicit dimension) as opposed to interpretation and assimilation (tacit dimension). Arriving at a mutual interpretation of project details and requirements does not depend on canonical (formal documentation) methods but mostly on non-canonical (informal) and relational processes embedded within the team.

This work studies, in empirical and geographical detail, the social interplay of knowledge and provided evidence relative to the appropriation of knowledge in the project organizational form, which can be extrapolated to wider contexts. The work scoped the inter-relational nature of knowledge and provided further evidence on the nebulous nature of tacit/intangible knowledge. It also proved further that organizations mostly rely on explicit knowledge to drive organizational results, as it is easily actionable and measurable.

The commercial value of Africa's indigenous knowledge may potentially jumpstart development if the returns are shared with its African owners. The internationalisation of an intellectual property regime appears to be facilitating the appropriation of indigenous knowledge and products from developing countries by multinational corporations. Indigenous knowledge is removed from the communal domain and converted to foreign‐owned private property, effectively depriving developing countries of the commercialisation value of their heritage via exports and value‐added processing. The lopsided benefits of IPR protection are exemplified in the case of the US‐owned trademark on South Africa's indigenous Rooibos tea, which is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. Trademark protection may have devolved perversely into trade protectionism, thus undermining the Millennium Development Goals of market access and sustainable development. A revision of IPR's and TRIPS to incorporate recognition and protection of indigenous knowledge is necessary to foster development.

This study aims to understand if and how European digital innovation hubs (DIHs) filling the role of knowledge brokers (KBs) can support the digital transformation (DX) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by triggering open innovation (OI) practices.

After presenting a conceptual model of reference, a survey and a subsequent in-depth interview were conducted to capture evidence from Italian DIHs. These structures were selected for their growing importance, as confirmed by the National Plan for Industry 4.0.

The findings highlight that Italian DIHs act not only as KBs but also as knowledge sources that give rise to a digital imprinting process that is able to shape the DX of SMEs.

Research on knowledge sharing and OI has mainly focused on large firms. The study covers the gaps identified in the literature by considering the role of KBs in enabling SMEs to embrace DX.

This paper aims to explore how to build firm’s radical innovation capability from its own knowledge resources. It proposes the impact of knowledge base on radical innovation and outlines why and how appropriability regimes are important throughout the radical innovation capability development process.

Questionnaire and in-depth interviews were used to empirically test the relationship between knowledge base, appropriability regimes and radical innovation capability. To correct for potential endogeneity, a two-stage regression model was used to test the interaction effects

By examining 237 firms involved in R&D activities in high-tech manufacturing firms in China, this paper finds that when a firm have a deep knowledge base, strategic appropriability regime may reduce concerns about problems such as knowledge leakage and innovation appropriation associated with deep knowledge bases. In contrast, legal appropriability regime will also tend to strengthen the positive effect of knowledge breadth on radical innovation capability.

In this study, self-reported measures are used because of their potential for concept specific accuracy; future research might wish to replicate our model and test it with objective data.

The paper includes implications for the fit between the existing internal knowledge base and the way a firm appropriates from its knowledge, and provides entrepreneurs and managers with direct implications about how to manage knowledge resources for radical innovation capability development.

This paper provides a more nuanced understanding of how knowledge base and value appropriability mechanisms jointly affect radical innovation capability development.