Knowledge and Strategy Creation in Multinational Companies: Social-Identity Frames and Temporary Tension in Knowledge Combination

Abstract

• While a great deal of research on international business and management has fruitfully focused on knowledge transfer, this paper investigates knowledge creation; the process by which multinational companies (MNCs) continuously combine and recombine knowledge in order to generate a competitive advantage. • By integrating contemporary strategic management research into the field of international business, we have developed a new perspective on strategy and knowledge creation in MNCs, by elaborating on and extending the knowledge-based view and other views of MNC strategy making. We suggest that the agglomeration of a multitude of diverse social-identity frames, nested inside a corporate centripetal frame, creates an arena in which exploitable new knowledge can be created. • We propose that while a common corporate social-identity frame promotes knowledge transfer, the diversity of various subgroups' social-identity frames, in combination, with interaction and temporary tension between them, advances knowledge creation. Although this partly involves a serendipitous process, it promotes a systemic advantage for MNCs compared to local firms, as regards knowledge exploration, (re-)combination, and integration. This competitive advantage is firmly rooted in hard-to-imitate complex social processes and may therefore be sustainable. © 2011 Gabler Verlag.