The Importance of Extra-Organizational Networks in the Diffusion and Appropriation of New Technologies

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Abstract
Excellence in developing networks that are able to detect and appropriate the new best-practice methodologies in manufacturing capabilities will determine the survival of national manufacturing industries (Abernathy et al., 1983; Hayes & Wheelwright, 1984). The numberof boundary spanners (Tushman & Scanlan, 1981) within a firm who are active in professional/technical/ scientific networks should therefore strengthen the external integration of an organization so that it gains in the amount of outside information available to it. The firm should therefore be earlier and more successful in appropriating technological innovations that help it to maintain its competitive advantage (Hage, 1980). Professional associations are an important element in this context, their aim being to create networks of professionals through which information about innovations in a particular field are disseminated to those working in industry/service. This article reports on a study of one particular professional association in the U.S. and U.K, the American Production and Inventory Control Society and its U.K. licensed equivalent British Production and Inventory Control Society and uses the data to compare the extent of organizational external integration in the U.K, compared to that in the U.S. This analysis suggests that an important reason why many British firms have been found to be less than fully successful in appropriating relevant technological innovations is that they lack direct access to these impor tant extra-organizational networks. In Britain these knowledge networks are often accessed through the mediating role of consultants. The limitations of not having knowledge possessed internally are illustrated by data showing a relationship between professional society involvement and innovativeness.