A formal analysis of knowledge combination in multinational enterprises

This paper outlines a model of process organisation for the combination of different types of knowledge from spatially separated sources in the multinational enterprise. The model envisages an initiator-entrepreneur as the motor of the process, and identifies regularities in the types of knowledge combination within the firm that provide additional value. Knowledge losses, decision losses and coordination losses are imperfections in the process, and result in barriers to the effective combination of knowledge. Strategies of combination are of three types - additive, sequential and complex - implying different types of control outcomes.