• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.117-138
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• 2017

While prior work has noted the importance of knowledge creation in gaining competitive advantages, much less is understood about why firms do not actually use what they create. Building upon institutional approaches to organization studies, we offer a new framework to explain the gap between knowledge creation and utilization. We test our framework in an empirical context of sustainable innovation and environmental technologies where ideas of environmental sustainability have recently gained public popularity and shaped how interested audiences make evaluative assessments of firms. In such a context, firms are apt to perceive the social attention toward sustainability to be a normative pressure, which causes them to create new knowledge and develop technologies consistent with the pressure. Using data from the government-initiated certification system for green technologies, our study finds that firms do not always fully implement new environmental technologies they develop in response to the certification program, the situation we refer to as knowledge decoupling. We also examine a set of conditions under which knowledge decoupling becomes more or less amplified. Taken together, our findings show how a firm's knowledge creation and utilization is shaped by its external institutional environment as well as internal learning processes.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.364-388
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• 1995

Even though rarely recognized as a separate approach, the institutional approach in geography is defined as an attempt to seek an explanation of the phenomena of geographical interest through focusing on the effects of institutional structure and actions. It can provide interdisciplinary links with other works and can offer complementary explanations for geographical interests. The concerns for institutions in geography can be found in early studies, the study of the state, the managerial approach, and the regulation approach. The Korean financial systems can provide good examples to apply institutional concepts into creating spatial outcomes, as it has been regarded as a useful tool to promote Korean economic development. Behind the current spatial pattern of financial systems, four different stages of institutional changes are identified in Korea. Each stage has different institutional features reflecting unique spatial implication.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.48
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• pp.90-108
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• 2009

While the term of the institution as social manifestation has been discussed intensively through various theoretical approaches over the last few years in Social Sciences, such a debate has been missing so far in Communication Sciences. This paper attempts a theoretical discussion about the media as an institution in the field of Communication Sciences by applying the theory of organizational sociological neo-institutionalism. This research started out with the question which influence exerts the media on organizations and participants. The media is understood as an institution in the sense of permanent monitoring systems which create a) normative expectations b) which become stronger in order to assert such normative expectations c) the norms are applied by the participants d) in this application process, the participants accept the organizations, look primarily for the chosen paragraphs and exert an influence to change the norms. Organizations orient themselves at the institutional rules, because this way, they want to gain legitimacy and support. The media unfold their influence on organizations through certain obligations in addition to the pressure of the participants who deal with the organization and the media. Thus, media cannot exert influence independent from the organizationbut the participants accept the situation, which is generated by the many conflicting processes within the organization, they analyse them and transfer them.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.29-41
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• 2012

This paper undertakes a conceptual review of transaction cost to broaden the understanding of the transaction cost analysis (TCA) approach. More than 40 years have passed since Coase's fundamental insight that transaction, coordination, and contracting costs must be considered explicitly in explaining the extent of vertical integration. Coase (1937) forced economists to identify previously neglected constraints on the trading process to foster efficient intrafirm, rather than interfirm, transactions. The transaction cost approach to economic organization study regards transactions as the basic units of analysis and holds that understanding transaction cost economy is central to organizational study. The approach applies to determining efficient boundaries, as between firms and markets, and to internal transaction organization, including employment relations design. TCA, developed principally by Oliver Williamson (1975,1979,1981a) blends institutional economics, organizational theory, and contract law. Further progress in transaction costs research awaits the identification of critical dimensions in which transaction costs differ and an examination of the economizing properties of alternative institutional modes for organizing transactions. The crucial investment distinction is: To what degree are transaction-specific (non-marketable) expenses incurred? Unspecialized items pose few hazards, since buyers can turn toalternative sources, and suppliers can sell output intended for one order to other buyers. Non-marketability problems arise when specific parties' identities have important cost-bearing consequences. Transactions of this kind are labeled idiosyncratic. The summarized results of the review are as follows. First, firms' distribution decisions often prompt examination of the make-or-buy question: Should a marketing activity be performed within the organization by company employees or contracted to an external agent? Second, manufacturers introducing an industrial product to a foreign market face a difficult decision. Should the product be marketed primarily by captive agents (the company sales force and distribution division) or independent intermediaries (outside sales agents and distribution)? Third, the authors develop a theoretical extension to the basic transaction cost model by combining insights from various theories with the TCA approach. Fourth, other such extensions are likely required for the general model to be applied to different channel situations. It is naive to assume the basic model appliesacross markedly different channel contexts without modifications and extensions. Although this study contributes to scholastic research, it is limited by several factors. First, the theoretical perspective of TCA has attracted considerable recent interest in the area of marketing channels. The analysis aims to match the properties of efficient governance structures with the attributes of the transaction. Second, empirical evidence about TCA's basic propositions is sketchy. Apart from Anderson's (1985) study of the vertical integration of the selling function and John's (1984) study of opportunism by franchised dealers, virtually no marketing studies involving the constructs implicated in the analysis have been reported. We hope, therefore, that further research will clarify distinctions between the different aspects of specific assets. Another important line of future research is the integration of efficiency-oriented TCA with organizational approaches that emphasize specific assets' conceptual definition and industry structure. Finally, research of transaction costs, uncertainty, opportunism, and switching costs is critical to future study.