How firm organizations adapt to secure a sustained knowledge transfer†

Abstract

To produce an effect, knowledge needs to be first acquired and expressed by a human agent. This trivial fact is a constraint on knowledge commercialization. The highly systemic nature of the decentralized production of knowledge is another constraint. This paper analyses the nature of the two constraints and their interplay from an individualistic perspective, focusing particularly on the often-neglected entrepreneurial aspects of the transfer of knowledge. It shows how the constraints are overcome by organizational adaptations inside firms and how, by these adaptations, a sustained knowledge transfer into the commercial sphere of the innovation system is secured.