Overcoming localization of knowledge: The role of professional service firms

Stefan Wagner, Karin Hoisl () and Grid Thoma
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Grid Thoma: University of Camerino

No ESMT-13-09, ESMT Research Working Papers from ESMT European School of Management and Technology

Abstract: The literature on organizational learning asserts that external learning is often limited geographically and technologically. We scrutinize to what extent organizations acquire external knowledge by accessing external knowledge repositories. We argue that professional service firms (PSFs) grant access to nonlocalized knowledge repositories and thereby not only facilitate external learning but also help to overcome localization. Focusing on patent law firms, we test our predictions using a unique dataset of 544,820 pairs of EP patent applications. Analyzing patterns of knowledge flows captured in patent citations we find that accessing a PSF’s repository facilitates the acquisition of external knowledge. As the effect is more pronounced for knowledge that is distant to a focal organization we conclude that having access to a knowledge repository compensates for localization disadvantages.

Keywords: Learning; knowledge acquisition; localization; patent citations; professional service firm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2013-09-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm and nep-sbm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Strategic Management Journal/i> 35(11): 1671–1688.

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http://static.esmt.org/publications/workingpapers/ESMT-13-09.pdf First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Overcoming localization of knowledge — the role of professional service firms (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-13-09

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