The paper "Mobilizing Knowledge for International Projects" by Amy Javernick-Will, Raymond Levitt and W. Richard Scott received the Best Paper Award at ASCE's LEAD Conference in Tahoe, California.

The conference, occuring October 16-19, 20098 and is sponsored annually by CIB Task Group 64 and ASCE Construction Research Council.

The abstract of the award-winning paper is below:

The knowledge-based view of the firm identifies knowledge as a resource with at least as much importance as capital (Grant 1996). Many have argued that a key asset for global firms is the knowledge they are able to gain from the diversity of environments in which they operate (Bartlett 1987; Ghoshal 1987). However, previous research has also identified the additional challenges that global firms and global projects encounter. These projects frequently bring together diverse participants in an unfamiliar environment. In these situations, firms are exposed to different "institutions" (regulations, norms and cultural beliefs) that can increase project costs and durations and damage reputations and relations (Orr 2005; Orr and Scott 2008). Recognizing that challenges exist for firms who operate globally due to these differences, we are conducting exploratory research on the types of knowledge that global real estate developers, contractors and engineering firms feel are important and how they are able to mobilize this knowledge. In future work we plan to elaborate and expand this research to account further for knowledge type, firm type, and project phase. Ultimately, this research, combined with the work of others, can help firms engaged in international projects develop new processes to enhance the mobilization of their knowledge and thereby improve project outcomes.

Posted by rjorr at October 23, 2008 5:14 PM