explicitly shared in an organization. Many firms invest heavily to obtain this type
of knowledge .
Collective knowledge
resides in an organization in the form of social and institutional practices
obtained from its accumulated experience and collective behavior.
Organizational competitiveness lies in collective knowledge
because this type of knowledge is
difficult to transfer across organizations. Researchers have shown that knowledge
assets that contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage stem from tacitness
and social complexity .
For example, implicit individual knowledge becomes
collective knowledge through social interaction among individuals.
Collective knowledge can sometimes be acquired from external
sources such as alliances and acquisitions. Therefore, social
processes need to be reflected to capture the entirety of organizational knowledge
assets in the measurement model.