Networked Strategic Communities

Long Range Planning　Volume 38, Issue 1 (February 2005)より。
Knowledge creation through networked strategic communities: Case studies on new product development in Japanese companies（PDF)　 「場」のコンセプトに基づくStrategic communitiesによる知識創造について、富士通のアライアンスのケーススタディ。　★要フォロー

Networks of strategic communitiesより

Strategic communities are based on the concept of ‘ba’ as shared spaces for emerging relationships that serve as a foundation for knowledge creation. Participating in a ‘ba’ means transcending one’s own limited perspective or boundary and contributing to a dynamic process of knowledge creation. In a strategic community, members (including customers) who possess different values and knowledge consciously and strategically create a ‘ba’ in a shared context that is always changing. New knowledge and competencies are formed by organic merging and integrating communities to form new ‘ba’ to address multiple new eventualities. From the practical aspect, we see the strategic communities as informal organizations possessing elements coherent with both the resource-based view of emergent shared-context learning and the planned strategic-based view of planning for target market position.
In this article, we define strategic communities as both emergent and strategic, as negotiated inter-organizational relationships that are associated with creative yet strategic thinking and action in an ongoing communicative and collaborative process, dependent on neither market nor hierarchical mechanisms of control. SCs may be part of the mix in several arrangements, such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, consortia, associations, and round-tables.

Conclusion and managerial implicationsより

‘How can corporations achieve innovation in a speedy yet reliable manner?’, is the greatest issue facing innovative companies in the 21st century. For example, on one side of this double-faceted issue is speed in introducing innovative new products and services to market ahead of the competition, while on the other side is expansion of the market for these products and services. To attain success, it is important for innovative companies to balance the various paradoxes in the SCs networked within and beyond the organization, and to exhibit practical abilities.
These NPD case studies present one view on the proposition of what the capabilities of leading companies in the knowledge-based society are for strategic community-based firms that form dynamic innovative processes in SCs and network these SCs. In other words, one of the keys to producing innovation in a knowledge-based society is how companies can organically and innovatively network new and different knowledge created from the formation of a variety of SCs inside and outside the company, and acquire the synthesizing capability they need to generate new knowledge.