The locus of knowledge: The implications of the individual and mobility on organizational knowledge building

It is now commonly argued that critical knowledge leading to a competitive advantage is largely a collective or firm-level phenomenon. In this dissertation I start from a controversial, though more (or at least equally) plausible assumption about knowledge---that is, that the individual is the locus of knowledge. Or put differently, knowledge is more heterogeneous at the individual level versus the collective or firm level. Given the remarkable a priori heterogeneity in individuals, I point to the role of individuals in, in effect, embodying the organizational advantage. The theoretical development and the associated empirical tests build on arguments from learning theorists from psychology and the cognitive sciences, which point to the critical importance of a priori individual-level knowledge, collective knowledge simply being an artifact of the individuals that compose the collective. Empirically I test the thesis of an individual versus collective locus of knowledge in the semiconductor industry for the years 1975-1989. Specifically, individual mobility provides a natural experiment or litmus test to disentangle the locus of knowledge question and I thus trace the mobility of scientists across organizational boundaries and point to the accompanying effects that their mobility has on subsequent organizational knowledge building. Overall, the contribution of this dissertation is to begin to question the present primacy given to collective knowledge heterogeneity (e.g., organizational routines or capabilities) in the knowledge-based view and strategy in general, and I point to the need to understand individual-level effects, which at present are confounded with (potentially) artifactual collective effects. More general implications are drawn in conclusion for knowledge-based work with an emphasis on the individual as the locus of knowledge.