Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Network Capability

The study of knowledge and networks is not limited to how knowledge and knowledge transfers manifest in networks. As managing networks is fraught with difficulty, studies increasingly focus on the benefits of developing network capabilities. Research in social networks has focused on how relational capability increases the efficacy in which actors operate in their networks (Kale et al., 2000). Likewise, in the context of alliances, studies show that firms with alliance capabilities are more successful in their alliances (e.g. Anand and Khanna, 2000; Dyer et al., 2001; Kale and Singh, 2007; Lyles, 1988). As firms enter into alliances and alliance networks, they gain alliance experience. In their study of alliances in the manufacturing sector, Anand and Khanna (2000) found that firms learn to create more value as they accumulate experience, but only in the context of more extensive forms of collaboration, such as joint ventures. Since experience builds cumulatively, firms may become inert and may misattribute it across different contexts. Hence, firms need to learn from their experience and build know-how (Dyer et al., 2001; Kale and Singh, 2007), particularly of different alliance phases, such as partner search, negotiation, alliance management, and learning (Simonin, 1997). Gulati (1999) found that greater network alliance formation capabilities increase the chance that firms enter into alliances in the future (see also, Lyles, 1988). On the basis of a longitudinal ...