2004
(with Torben Pedersen) “Governing Knowledge Processes in the Multinational Corporation,” Journal of International Business Studies 35: 339-349.
This Introduction discusses the contrast between, on the one hand, the current popularity of addressing MNC organization in knowledge terms and, on the other, the lack of adequate understanding of many of the causal mechanisms and contextual factors in relations between knowledge processes and organizational factors. A number of the relevant research challenges are identified, and it is clarified how the five articles in this Focused Issue addresses some of these.
---
(with Kirsten Foss) “The Next Step of Evolution of the Resource-based View: Integration with Transaction Cost Economics,” Management Revue 15: 1-16.
This essay addresses the role of transaction cost economics (TCE) in advancing the resource-based view. In particular, it is argued that TCE has the potential to remedy a number of weak spots in the RBV, such as the absence of attention in the RBV to the interaction between value creation and value appropriation. This and other weak spots in the RBV stem from not taking account of transaction costs to a sufficient extent. Integrating TCE with the RBV adds new insight into the analysis of sustained competitive
advantage.
---
(with Tore Kristensen and Ricky Wilke) “Corporate Communication in the Emerging Network Economy: A Provider of Common Knowledge,” Corporate Communication 9: 43-49.
This paper draws on ideas in economics and game theory to develop a new theory of marketing in the emerging network economy. The paper argues that in a network economy, firms and consumers will confront “coordination problems”. With the emerging network economy all this becomes urgent because the availability and cost of information decreases. Also, timing issues become urgent as millions of people get access to the same information simultaneously. That explains why events where masses of viewers simultaneously participate in the same events become so important. The paper introduces a simple game theoretic model and discusses marketing applications and possible strategies. These strategies imply considerable use of communication resources in order to fulfil the common knowledge requirements.
---
“Cognition and Motivation in the Theory of the Firm,” Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines 13.
Economics in general, and the theory of the firm more specifically, places motivation and cognition in very different analytical boxes, in spite of cognitive science evidence that the boundaries between the two are in reality blurred. While this analytical assumption has often served the theory of the firm well, a number of organizational phenomena are better understood if cognition and motivation are allowed to interact, for example, through framing effects, as organizational scholars have long argued. The paper exemplifies by developing the implications of this for Williamson’s notion of the “impossibility of selective intervention.”