【Speaker】Professor Andrew Davies and Professor Lars Frederiksen, Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London

【Topic】Knowledge Creation and Transfer

【Time】13:30-15:30, 2010-05-17, Monday

【Venue】Room 336, Weilun Building

【Language】English

【Organizer】Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Building on the literature on "dynamic capabilities"(e.g. Teece et al, 1997; Helfat and Peteraf, 2003), we present a conceptual model consisting of three overlapping phases of capability development when an organisation attempts to position itself in a market: renewal, replication and reinforcement. Empirically, we explore how a UK-based global engineering consultancy firm developed and grew into a new market for designing 'ecocities'. 55 interviews in the UK and China and observations from three site visits to consultancy's Shanghai office enabled us to identify three distinct phases of the capability development process: (1) a renewal phase as the consultancy created the knowledge (including the technologies and organisational approaches) to design the Dongtan ecocity; (2) a replication phase as the consultancy transferred the knowledge gained on the first breakthrough project to subsequent projects in China and elsewhere in the world; and (3) a reinforcement phase as the consultancy became an "institutional entrepreneur"in marketing the concept of ecocities around the world, providing legitimacy for its leading role in this nascent market for sustainable integrated urban design.