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Given their complexity and tight coupling, one of the most serious challenges high-reliability organizations (HROs) face is how to innovate, learn, and adapt without upsetting the internal processes that lead to their reliability. This paper describes the success of the United States Navy in using a "platform strategy" to facilitate modular innovation in its attack submarine program while maintaining high reliability. We compare the United States' submarine development program against that of the Soviets, who innovated by building a number of different types of nuclear attack submarines to test their new design concepts and thereby aggressively push both manufacturing and performance limits. We illustrate that, by adopting a platform strategy, the U.S. development program was able to sustain reliability by controlling factors that derived from four classes of concern: 1) operational; 2) manufacturing and design; 3) resource limitations, and 4) cultural constraints. The use of a platform strategy assists in maximizing systemwide organizational learning, which helps enrich a culture of reliability. However, at the same time, a platform strategy can hinder revolutionary and architectural innovation and reduce op- erational flexibility. Finally, we consider whether an HRO's innovation strategy is partially shaped by its decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the knowledge-based view of the firm as our theoretical underpinning, we study partnerships between industrial firms and university research centers (URCs) in order to identify facilitators of knowledge transfer, particularly focusing on how firms learn from URCs. Data for this study were obtained from senior-level executives from a random sample of one hundred and seventy-three firms located in the northeastern US. Results indicate that social connectedness, trust, URC technology transfer-intellectual property policies, technological relatedness and technological capability are significant facilitators of knowledge transfer. We also found that the type of knowledge transferred, i.e., explicit versus tacit, moderated these relationships. We conclude with implications for future research and R&D policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A successful new product development strategy involves the identification, development, and exploitation of key resources. Such exploitation of a firm's unique knowledge base ultimately leads to successful new products and, in turn, a sustainable competitive advantage. In this paper, we look at a firm's knowledge strategy along three dimensions, and examine the impact of firm size and age on the type of knowledge strategies used to build technological strength and competitive success. The three dimensions of knowledge strategy examined are: extent of emphasis on speed of learning, emphasis on internal versus external sourcing of knowledge, and the development of a broad versus a narrow knowledge base. Using a population of 27 firms from the drug delivery sector of the pharmaceutical industry, we found that firm size and age influenced the success of firm knowledge strategies. Interestingly, we found that the differences in the knowledge strategy dimensions between large and small firms and between old and young firms were not as great as expected. However, we found that firm size and age moderate the relationship between knowledge strategies and technological strength. In other words, firms that used appropriate knowledge strategies for their size and age optimized their technological strength. Concerning size, smaller firms that focused on faster learning and developing a narrow knowledge base were able to optimize technological strength. On the other hand, large firms that developed a broader knowledge base and focused on internal learning achieved similar success. Concerning age, younger firms that maintained connections to external sources of learning and developed a narrower, niche-based knowledge optimized their technological strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses strategic management using the dynamic capabilities approach. A study to determine the influence of technological learning and strategic flexibility on organizational performance; The relationship of strategic flexibility and new product development; The internal and external learning dimensions of technological learning; The operationalization of strategic flexibility; Implications for further research; Methods of the study; Conclusions.