Connecting the dots: uncovering the technology scouting process

Monteiro, L Felipe (2008) Connecting the dots: uncovering the technology scouting process. Doctoral thesis, University of London: London Business School.

Abstract

This dissertation analyses the challenges of internal and external knowledge sourcing processes in large multinational corporations. I identify the cognitive and behavioural mechanisms emerging in the initiation of a knowledge transfer— i.e. the initial stage of recognising opportunities for knowledge transfer and acting on these opportunities—and I examine how they impact actual patterns of intra- and inter-firm knowledge flows. The gist of this dissertation consists of two studies: an in-depth qualitative study and a quantitative study both set in the telecommunications service providers industry. The qualitative paper sheds new light on the process that specialised units in large multinational corporations (viz. technology scouting units) use to recognise and act on opportunities to transfer external knowledge. While the qualitative study uncovers the technology scouting process, the quantitative paper focuses on the outcomes of this process. More precisely, I examine how much certain knowledge properties that emerged from the qualitative study (e.g. knowledge “proven-ness” and knowledge dissonance) explain why do firms (fail to) act on opportunities to transfer external technologies. The data collection effort for those studies has extended over two years, involved more than 50 semi-structured interviews with managers in Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia and access to a proprietary database containing detailed information on 137 technologies assessed by the scouting units of a large European telecommunication services provider between January 2003 and December 2005.