Knowledge sharing and innovation in complex, dynamic, and uncertain relational context- the cases of Teledomotics and ICT Security

In contexts characterized by a high level of complexity the individual strategy of a company is overcome by cooperative agreements (Teece, 1989), that express the growing necessity for a collective strategy and for conjoint strategic action. Every relationship is interconnected in a complex way and each node of the network develops interactions with other companies in order to exchange information, share experience and develop the properties of their own resources. Among their resources knowledge plays a key role. Knowledge is considered the strategic asset of a company (Grant, 1996); it is the result of the collaborative behaviour of companies and it cannot be created in isolation. Through interaction, the accumulation of knowledge based on the strategy and history of a company can be integrated with other companies’ knowledge and experience. In this perspective a close relationship between knowledge and innovation emerges: complementary knowledge is required to breed innovative ideas for products and services. In complex, dynamic and uncertain contexts, particularly, collaboration capability plays an important role as strategic asset, as it helps companies create and transfer knowledge in order to innovate, thus improving economic performance (Miles et al. 2000, 2004). Collaboration among actors could also compensate companies that try to innovate from a technological point of view without the necessary technological resources (Tyler, 2001). Starting from these considerations, the aim of this working paper is to understand if, and at what conditions, knowledge sharing can generate innovation in networks. Two industries characterized by a high level of complexity, uncertainty and dynamism have been chosen for this study: the industries of Teledomotics and ICT Security. This study highlights that, when competition is considered more important than cooperation, trust and commitment, facilitating communication flows and inter firms information exchange, don’t represent effective means to grant knowledge sharing and, consequently, innovation: other mechanisms are required. In the Teledomotics case trust arises in a “natural way”, since all the actors perceive the benefits of collaboration and knowledge sharing; in the ICT Security, instead, the perceived risk of opportunistic behaviour leads contractual means to represent the only way to create a gradual process of trust building, reaching in the long term collaboration and reciprocal benefits. In both the situations innovation is generated from knowledge sharing, but with different modalities and different implications.