Prescott C. Ensign (with foreword by Melissa M. Appleyard), Knowledge Sharing: Why Reputation Matters for R&D in Multinational Firms, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009,215 pp

摘要

In this book, Prescott C. Ensign, using social exchange theory as his starting point, explores the forces that influence the informal exchange of knowledge among individual R&D scientists inside multinational pharmaceutical firms to examine the role that reputation plays in this process. His findings, based on data gathered from more than 200 scientists, demonstrate that sharing knowledge is a social activity; personal habits and idiosyncrasies in evaluating the reputation of colleagues and predicting their future behaviour shape professional conduct. Ensign justifies focusing his research on internal interactions inside firms rather than on external exchanges with customers, suppliers and the broader scientific community on the grounds that current literature stresses that colleagues inside an organization are the key sources of technical knowledge.