Derechos Humanos en el modelo carcelario Colombiano

This work enhances the current understanding of the organization science, information systems, alliance, and decision analysis literature streams. First, this study enhances the knowledge management and organizational learning literature by addressing knowledge creation. Knowledge management literature recognizes that there have been more studies on knowledge transfer and retention than those that address knowledge creation (Argote, 1999; Argote, McEvily, & Reagans, 2003a). For instance, Argote (1999) noted that,

“We know relatively more about knowledge retention and transfer than we know about knowledge creation in organizations.” pp. 203.

Additionally, the study focuses on the dynamics of knowledge creation alliance and on the negotiation process, while making decisions regarding each organization’s participation in the endeavor, as well as, its share of the gains. Although prior studies have noted that cost sharing is one of the motives for the formation of R&D or knowledge creation alliances, the current study enhances this understanding by answering the question of “how” these resources are shared. Also, the current study answers the question of “what determines” the resource participation rate.

In relation to the variables included in the study, this work is in line with the future directions for knowledge management research laid out in recent literature. For instance, Argote et al. (2003b) recently noted that dyadic research could investigate the influence of variables such as power and conflict on knowledge management outcomes. This study addresses the need for such new variables in knowledge management literature by answering the research question raised as to what factors determine the resource-sharing rates of the partner firms and how do they affect the resource-sharing rate. However, I recognize that I provide game theoretic factors

that affect the participation rate. There might be other factors contributed by other theoretical lenses that aid in determining the resource participation rate of the organizations. For instance, Heiman and Nickerson (2002) noted that knowledge attributes, such as tacitness, determine the knowledge management practices adopted in inter-firm alliances and hence determine the choice of governance structure. They argue that such knowledge management practices including collaborative knowledge creation determine whether the chosen governance structure – equity- based alliance or non equity-based alliance – is adopted.

Second, viewing alliances as games between partnering organizations is a contribution to the growing literature, which applies game theory to understand the dynamics of collaborations. Alliances have been examined from several theoretical viewpoints such as transaction cost economics, resource dependency theory, and organizational learning theory (Barringer et al., 2000). However, studies that have viewed alliances as games are rare, and this study provides a viable theoretical lens to understand the resource-sharing decision-making process. Additionally, this study contributes to the alliance literature in terms of adding risk propensity and bargaining power as two additional criteria - as informed by the application of game theory - to be considered during the partner selection phase of alliance management. Such consideration of bargaining power and risk propensity adds to the currently prevalent factors for partner selection identified in literature (Hitt et al., 2000). Some of the other factors are goal congruence between potential partners, level of cultural compatibility, political support for the alliance within the partners’ hierarchy, and resource complementarity (Doz et al., 1998; Sinha & Cusumano, 1991; Spekman, Forbes III, Isabella, & MacAvoy, 1998).

In relation to TCE, this study takes the main tenets of the theory that are proposed at the macro level and presents a bridge that managers can use to put the principles of TCE into

practice. Game theory, in particular complements TCE by allowing the organizations to explicitly model the decision-making process of the contract details and accommodating the changes that unfold during the relationship. Additionally, as expected, game theory allows modeling the collaborative relationship as a value maximization proposition, in addition to a cost minimization proposition, by enabling the specification of payoffs and investments.

Similarly, the current work enhances the resource dependency theory (RDT) by extending its recommendation that organizations need to devise strategies to manage dependencies by claiming ownership over the knowledge produced and by agreeing on a participation rate. Game theory allows one to model the collaboration as a relationship, and a similar analysis can be conducted at subsequent stages when the dependencies between the organizations, and hence their individual behaviors, change.

The current study encourages the shift in the information systems (IS) field’s focus from “techno-centric” to a “technology/organizational/management/social focus,” which makes IS a reference discipline (Baskerville & Myers, 2002) rather than a discipline safe in its silo. Such expansion in focus is important to improve the applicability of the concepts developed in the IS discipline to explain processes outside of its general lines of inquiry.

In relation to the IS literature, the contributions of this study are manifold. First, similar to the recognition in the learning theory literature, there is a recognition in the IS literature that there is a need to focus attention on the knowledge generation and realization processes and on exploring the relationship between strategy and knowledge processes (Grover & Davenport, 2001). This study contributes to IS literature by addressing knowledge generation and realization. By focusing on knowledge creation collaborations, this study enhances the current understanding of inter-organizational knowledge management. The inter-organizational focus of

this study is a step in the direction of developing inter-organizational systems for facilitating the joint creation of knowledge. Also, the gain to performance ratio parameter used in the model is an explicit attempt to incorporate the extent to which an organization realizes gain from the knowledge created.

Second, knowledge creation has been the target of recent studies (Ravichandran & Rai, 2003). However, such studies focus more on the impact of the knowledge created in achieving outcomes for the organizations – that is on the post knowledge creation stage - and on translating the knowledge created into performance improvements or capability accumulation for the organizations. The current study enhances the understanding of the knowledge creation process itself by unveiling the dynamics involved in this complex process, how those dynamics might impact how organizations realize the value of the knowledge created. By specifying the relationship between investments and payoffs in the production function, this study has provided a ground for modeling inter-organizational knowledge creation relationships from a value creation and gain maximization viewpoint.

Third, recent advances with respect to knowledge accumulation have identified three types of learning processes - learning-by-investment, learning-by-doing and learning-from-others- through which organizations accumulate knowledge (Ryu, Kim, Chaudhury, & Rao, 2005). One of the fundamental limitations of the referenced study is that it considers the three types of learning as independent of each other, which is suitable for the study of individuals. However, in an inter-organizational knowledge creation context, there is a necessity to consider these three types of learning in conjunction with one another. For instance, in dyadic knowledge creation collaboration, it is more likely that the collaborating organizations make joint investments, learn from one another and other sources external to the dyad, and also accumulate knowledge by

doing. This study enhances this current stream of IS literature by considering the creation of knowledge as a result of joint investments and building on the prior knowledge available with each partner.

The study contributes to the alliance literature in the following ways. First, this study focuses on the dynamics that unfold before the formation of the collaboration that eventually lead to the contractual agreements between the partners. Next, this study focuses on the collaborative relationship as a unit of analysis, which has been particularly stressed upon as important by the learning theory literature (Dyer et al., 1998; Larsson et al., 1998).

The current study contributes to the decision analysis literature in the following ways. First, it augments the current work in the growing application area of decision modeling inter- organizational behavior under the realm of knowledge management and supply chain management literature (de Cesare & di Liddo, 2001; Li, 2002; Rogers, 2001). The application of concepts such as game theory, to other new literatures such as knowledge management, has been recently recognized as one of the ways decision analysis literature is extended (Clemen & Kleinmuntz, 2004). Specifically, the current study models the relationship between organizations as games between players and provides a way to model the decision-making process as a game comprised of strategies that players can follow with payoffs for the players.