The individual manager in the spotlight: Protecting sensitive knowledge in inter-firm coopetition relationships
研究基于高层梯队理论，利用176家中小企业的多源时滞数据，发现管理者任职年限和女性性别正向影响知识保护，而年龄和高等教育负向影响，进而影响企业绩效。
When firms collaborate with their competitors (i.e., engage in coopetition), individual managers play a pivotal role in protecting their firm's sensitive knowledge from potential misuse by partners. But which managers are more successful in performing this role? To better understand the senior-level human resources who help secure a firm's competitive advantage, we build on the Upper Echelons Theory and explore how managers' cognitions and values, as expressed in their demographic characteristics, influence knowledge protection in coopetitive relationships. To test our hypotheses, we use multi-source, time-lagged data on a sample of 176 small and medium-sized firms involved in coopetition. Our results suggest that managers' tenure and female gender relate positively to knowledge protection, which in turn contributes to subsequent firm performance, whereas managers' age and higher education impact knowledge protection negatively. On this basis, our study helps develop micro-macro linkages between the Upper Echelons Theory and the Resource-Based View, and reveals how different managerial characteristics influence knowledge protection, thereby threatening or securing sustainable firm performance. We discuss the implications for knowledge protection processes and human resource management.