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This research reviews numerous studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external search in conventional marketing channels to investigate differences among these studies that have produced conflicting results. The findings provide a benchmark for future researchers and practitioners seeking to gain insight into consumer information search processes unfolding in the new environment of online, mobile, and social networking channels.

A meta-analysis of an extensive array of empirical studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external information search was conducted. Regression analysis was used to test whether certain characteristics in the studies can explain variability in the effect sizes in which effect sizes are entered as dependent variables and moderators as independent variables.

Objective and subjective knowledge tend to increase search, while direct experience tends to reduce search. Consumers with higher objective knowledge search more when pursuing credence products. However, they search relatively less when pursuing search products. Consumers with higher subjective knowledge are much more likely to search in the context of experience products, but as is the case for objective knowledge having little effect on search for experience products, subjective knowledge has no significant effect on information seeking for search products. In addition, objective knowledge facilitates more information search in a complex decision-making context while higher subjective knowledge fosters more external information search in a simple decision-marketing context. Finally, the findings indicate that the knowledge search relationship reflects strong linkage in the pre-Internet era.

Relatively little is known about how the relationship between knowledge and information search varies across different types of products in simple or complex decision-making contexts. This study begins to fill this gap by providing insight into the relative importance of objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and direct experience in influencing consumer information search activities for search, experience, and credence products in simple or complex decision-making contexts.

This chapter goes into deeper discussion and consideration of holistic leadership through the concept of holistic leadership presented in Part 1 and analysis of a number of case studies presented in Part 2. The chapter first analyzes and considers the concept of dialectical leadership, which is an element for achieving a balance between centralized leadership and distributed leadership at the psychological boundary layer located at the boundary layer between the formal organizational layer and the informal organizational layer from the perspective of four dimensions: the time axis, spatial axis, strategic axis, and management axis. This is because there is new knowledge gained from multiple case analyses and because dialectical leadership has an impact on management elements in these four dimensions when companies execute strategic knowledge creation processes to achieve business innovation. Second, the chapter discusses the concept of leadership interaction which occurs among leaders at the individual boundaries of the three-layered structure (practice layers) of the informal organization layer located in the business community, the psychological boundary layer located in the boundary layer of the business community, and the formal organization layer located in the formal organization, and the three management layers. Third, as demonstrated in the cases of Apple, Cisco Systems, Dyson, SoftBank, and Sony, strategic collaboration with other companies including customers is extremely important for those practitioners who are promoting business ecosystem strategies across different companies. To achieve this, synchronization of leadership at the three practice layers and three management layers in holistic leadership through boundary negotiations among individual leaderships across different companies is important. These concepts are discussed in this chapter. Fourth, this chapter indicates that excellent holistic leadership is necessary for practitioners to achieve strategic knowledge creation high in quality, but this requires leadership for value creation for the formation of new business communities that originate in the formation of “Ba.” The chapter also indicates that “practical wisdom” is an important element for practitioners in such value creation, and the presence of this element is a necessary condition for generating excellent holistic leadership.

How is medical knowledge produced and what are the implications of that knowledge production for medical practice? Using theoretical ideas on evidence-based medicine, standardization in medical research and practice, and biopower, I examine the relationship between medical knowledge and medical practice through the case of pelvic pain care in the US.

Data from ethnographic observations at two medical conferences as well as interviews with healthcare providers inform a critical analysis of the medical discourse.

The analysis reveals how evidence-based medicine is practiced in the context of medical conditions that lack objective evidence, as well as the unintended consequences of such practices. I provide an alternative approach to medical practice for conditions lacking traditional evidence through presenting outlier cases in the data.

In doing so, I make the broad theoretical argument that biomedical paradigms must emerge through the critical process of negative dialectics in order to reach past the limits of standardized medical care.

In sociologically analyzing the case of pelvic pain care, I reveal dire limits in the evidence-based approach to medical care for conditions and symptoms that may be deemed medical anomalies, demanding an alternative approach to care for such conditions.

Strategic Alliances (SAs) have become widely used by global businesses for pursuing strategic goals.¹ Because of the special nuances that can make these kinds of joint ventures (JVs) effective means for achieving challenging strategic goals, they are generally more difficult to establish and manage. Some of the larger, more successful users of SAs recognize the special nature of these relationships and some such as Cisco and Pfizer have even created high-level divisions or departments in their organization explicitly focused on planning, pursuing, and managing outside strategic partnerships. These units not only monitor the alliances (in some cases, dozens at a time) but also develop tools and insights that will allow the organization to engage in SA more successfully.