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Based on the sample of the European information and communications technology (ICT) companies, this paper aims to identify which strategy of knowledge generation is most beneficial for companies: internal knowledge development or absorption of knowledge external to the company through corporate acquisition or merger.

In this study, a longitudinal analysis of European ICT companies was conducted, contrasting internal knowledge creation, in the form of patent accumulation and research and development (R&D) efforts, with external learning through merger-and-acquisition (M&A) activities to uncover the best strategies for performance maximization.

Results suggest that the two knowledge generation strategies are not complementary and demonstrate only marginal impact on organizational performance. However, intriguing patterns in combining the two became apparent. It was found that patent accumulation improves learning achieved through M&A activities, while also acting as a protection against corporate takeover. At the same time, the internal knowledge generation strategy was found to have a negative impact on financial performance, with external knowledge generation demonstrating somewhat mixed results.

This paper provides practical insights into the patterns of internal and external knowledge generation activities. The two strategies were found not to be complementary, implying that companies must carefully choose their preferences.

This large-scale study tackles the interplay between internal and external knowledge generation strategies, which are mostly studied separately. It reveals new patterns in corporate acquisition and divestment strategies as sources of new knowledge. It also ties the knowledge paradigm to organizational performance.

Studies have found that founders of start-up companies are similar to students in certain psychological characteristics. Confirming this similarity would have methodological and phenomenological implications. Phenomenologically, students are a main source for recruitment in start-up companies. Methodologically, students are a more convenient sample to study than start-up founders. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The resemblance between students and start-up founders is tested by analyses of variance of the responses of 1,509 students and 53 start-up founders to a questionnaire survey.

The results indicate that, as a population, students are not entirely similar to start-up founders, though similarities were found to exist. The closest resemblance between students and founders was found for managerial, armed forces/police and medicine students; agricultural, humanities and natural science students had the least resemblance.

Although student samples are commonly used in the study of management phenomena, the validity of this approach has not hitherto been tested, which indicates that the use of student subjects as stand-ins for start-up founders may be a practice without a solid foundation.

This paper aims to report on signs of public awareness and empowerment among the general public that are presumed to determine the viability of the smart contracting (SC) approach and identifies prevailing concerns regarding individual transactional experiences.

A mixed approach was followed to explore perceptions of self-regulation and transaction friendliness by using an interpretative multiple case study method and by presenting a descriptive summative analysis of the data.

On self-regulation, the study reveals spread awareness, empowerment, contractual competences and responsibility. Regarding transaction friendliness, subject matter influences transaction experiences the most, and trust and engagement are the most problematic factors. The findings support the viability of SC, endorsing the application of proactive perspectives in legal and managerial practice.

The study confirms the foundational assumptions of SC, identifies key transactional issues that should be further addressed to improve the functionality of digital trade environments and contributes to the consolidation of the legal design research field on transaction usability.

The findings point to the viability of SC. Organizations and practitioners are given indications on transaction upgrade priorities and invited to adopt and help disseminate the proposal.

The expansion of a collaborative transactional culture can reduce legal disputes, improving the legal environment of business and strengthening private governance regulatory models.

This is the first empirical study on the viability conditions of the SC-approach, identifying transactional usability testing and intervention priorities.

The purpose of this paper is to show how interdependencies are used to make the project selection and review more effective in project portfolio management. Managers need to make appropriate pre‐evaluation of disciplines before taking them into use, therefore it is useful to know how much interdependencies can increase the success rate of projects and how big is the resource reduction from the use of interdependencies. This paper is an excerpt of a larger interdependency survey.

A large‐scale survey is carried out in two countries – Estonia and Finland. A total of 288 responses were received.

People see only positive aspects in interdependencies, but this paper proves that it is not always so. It is found that companies which take the phenomenon into account are more successful. Contrary to the respondents' perception and prior literature, a higher need for resources is noticed among the users of interdependency. The results indicate homogeneity between managerial issues of interdependencies in small‐to‐large companies.

The main limitation comes from the sample, as findings from the sample countries and industries may limit generalizability.

Practitioners can expect a higher success rate and resource consumption from interdependencies. Managers from small‐to‐large companies can find size‐related peculiarities and practices for their daily managerial actions.

This paper provides empirical evidence for a less investigated, but emerging field of interdependencies. So far, mostly components of interdependency have been investigated in isolation. The paper highlights the behavior of success rate and resource consumption among the users/non‐users of interdependency, which to the author's knowledge has not been provided so far.

Capabilities are a widely researched subject, but capability development techniques have received considerably less attention. Capability development is a long-term activity, where both how to choose “the right capabilities” and how to develop “the capabilities right” are important. The purpose of this paper is to approach to pick up the most widespread capabilities and development techniques in project-companies, and observes their shift of focus when moving from one lifecycle stage to another.

A long-scale survey was chosen and carried out in EU member state Estonia in 2011, resulting with close to a couple of 100 responses.

The quality of most business capabilities decreases in reaching the decline stage of the lifecycle, but project-related capabilities are improving. The same cannot be concluded for project-led capability development techniques, as they decline, and the quality of traditional and business-led capability techniques are improving. The use of development techniques changes less throughout lifecycle stages than capabilities do – it is not so important how companies develop capabilities, capabilities themselves matter.

Survey was performed in a small country which limits the generalizability to larger countries.

Capabilities and their development techniques are very much practice-oriented, especially development techniques. However, research indicates that it is more important to choose the right capabilities and worry less about their development-specific issues.

Results provide lifecycle-specific information which capabilities and their development techniques prevail at what stage of companies’ lifecycle. Thus far, learning, as the most important technique, has received the most attention, other techniques less – this research gives further information about a wider array of the techniques. Furthermore, the prior research was concentrated on a few specific capabilities or capabilities at an abstract level, this research focuses on a comprehensive set of capabilities.

The research finds how much the different types of capabilities influence the performance outcome of a company. A special focus is put on companies that use projects in their daily work; project-orientation is an expanding field, but their capabilities and influence on performance are not enough investigated. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Quantitative research setting was applied in EU member country Estonia. Survey was carried out with 189 responses.

Interestingly, project-related capabilities are singly more significant to performance than business capabilities. Capabilities mostly influence financial performance and less project performance (PP). Traditional project time/scope/cost management (iron triangle) and project delivery capabilities significantly influence the variance of outcome indicators. Surprisingly, companies should be careful in aligning projects with strategy and pay great attention to teamwork threats, as these present the most negative influence on the outcome in circumstances where they have been conventional benefit factors.

Estonia is a small and innovative country, which makes results generalizable for similar types of countries worldwide and/or neighboring countries with geographical and cultural proximity.

Companies behave in isomorphic environments (e.g. high competition, short new product development cycle, full of imitations, standardized business models), and therefore companies look for ways how to differentiate. Usually, findings that describe a 5 percent variance of outcome gain attention, variables used in this research provide much higher variance (48-83 percent). Due to constant environmental changes, companies should put more focus on project-related capabilities due to their high impact on performance.

Capabilities are complex and not widely researched empirically from different angles, such as project management. This research takes a comprehensive base by involving a large variety of capabilities, including project-specific capabilities, not only a few common large companies' specific capabilities. The capabilities impact on PP is not yet investigated, also the influence from project capabilities on performance is not thoroughly researched.

Typically, organizations tumble with project management, and failure rates are high. Usually, one key factor in establishing a manageable and successful project portfolio is to take into account interdependencies between different projects (resources, technology and market). With an increasing amount of international cross‐border project activity, it is vital to know how different countries manage interdependencies, and how management practices differ between countries.

This research bases its empirical findings on a large‐scale questionnaire completed during 2007‐2008 in Estonia and Finland. Altogether, 288 responses were gained, and roughly two‐thirds of the answers originated from Finland and one‐thirds from Estonia. Respondents were industrial and service companies.

The results of the survey indicate similarities and some significant differences between Estonian and Finnish responses. Some country size and context‐dependent hypotheses were not supported or only weakly supported, indicating great homogeneity between managerial issues of interdependency internationally. However, existing significant differences may stem from historical and cultural reasons, such as, peculiarities of transition country compared to mature country.

The main limitation arises from the analyzed sample, which was mostly limited to information and communication technologies, engineering, machinery and construction industries and thus the findings may not be directly applicable to other industries. Because responses originate only from two Finno‐Ugrian countries, this limits the generalizability of the research results directly into other regions and countries.

Managing interdependencies between projects has a clear practical significance, and it appears in companies in both of the countries in the form of bringing additional value, saving costs and in increasing the success rate of projects. In addition, international project owners can find differences in their daily work.

This research provides empirical evidence for the less investigated, but emerging field of interdependency phenomenon of project management. To the authors' knowledge, no research to date concerns cross‐country comparison.