Knowledge Sourcing and Knowledge Reuse in the Virtual Product Prototyping: An Exploratory Study in a Large Automotive Supplier of R&D

The capacity of organizations to share knowledge is seen as a source of competitive advantage in many industries. Knowledge sourcing and knowledge reuse have been indicated as important enablers of organizational efficiency and innovation performance. Although firms may own valuable knowledge, the presence of barriers to knowledge sourcing and reuse may hinder the exploitation of such knowledge. The present study explores the barriers to knowledge sourcing and reuse from electronic repository and their implications within the virtual product prototyping stage of new products development. The study is based on 24 interviews with research and development R&D employees of a large supplier of R&D in the automotive sector. Results demonstrate that the poor operational quality of a repository hinders knowledge sourcing; thereby, people prefer sourcing knowledge from other colleagues rather than from the repository. Moreover, the inefficiencies in knowledge sourcing from a repository, the poor quality of the codified knowledge and its complexity affect the reuse of existing knowledge. This study reveals that knowledge sourcing and knowledge reuse can affect the time performance in the virtual product prototype development process.