Knowledge combination and sustainability of the Eyre Peninsula's fishing industry in Australia

• Date: 01 October 2019
• Published date: 01 October 2019
• Author: Samuel Howard Quartey,Sam Wells
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1615

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Knowledge combination and sustainability of the Eyre

Peninsula's fishing industry in Australia

Samuel Howard Quartey

1

| Sam Wells

2

1

Department of Human Resource

Management, Central Business School, Central

University, Accra, Ghana

2

Adelaide Business School, Marketing and

Management, The University of Adelaide,

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Correspondence

Samuel Howard Quartey, Department of

Human Resource Management, Central

Business School, Central University, P.O. Box

2305, Miotso, Tema, Accra, Ghana.

Email: showard.quartey@central.edu.gh

Funding information

Adelaide Scholarship International (ASI)

Abstract

This paper develops a knowledge combination view on sustainable industries by

investigating the Eyre Peninsula's fishing industry in Australia. Although the notion of

knowledge combination has received great attention, it is less researched at the

industry level. Researchers examining knowledge combination have paid less atten-

tion to sustainable industries, which this paper seeks to address. After examining the

Eyre Peninsula's fishing industry by interviewing 54 different individual actors rep-

resenting a wide range of sectors within the industry, this study uncovers the follow-

ing seven distinctive bundles of knowledge that when combined can underpin the

sustainability of the industry: sustainability, industrial, intergenerational, institutional,

collective, scientific, and technological knowledge. The findings also reveal that dif-

ferent integrating mechanisms supported the combination and integration of the

bundles of knowledge towards the sustainability of the Eyre Peninsula's fishing

industry. The findings further suggest that the combination of these knowledge

explains current improvements in environmental, economic, and social sustainable

practices within the industry. The primary contribution of this paper is to introduce

and develop a knowledge combination view on sustainable industries and also add to

the literature on knowledge-based view of sustainability. The theoretical, managerial,

and research implications of these findings are discussed.

1|INTRODUCTION

The global economy faces unprecedented economic, environmental,

and social challenges. Businesses are now facing a host of new and

demanding challenges, such as the need to uphold justice, address

global poverty, income inequality, bribery and corruption, human

rights, climate change, and sustainability. Addressing these global chal-

lenges and building sustainable societies depends on sustainable

industries. With the changing role of business in society, the need to

sustain industries has increasingly become urgent. But building sus-

tainable industries to serve sustainable societies does not happen in a

vacuum (Angel & Huber, 1996).

Sustainability here captures the interconnection between social,

economic, and environmental dimensions of development that busi-

ness organisations seek to pursue (Gladwin, Kennelly, & Krause,

1995). Sustainable industries consist of firms that pursue long-time

existence by adopting environmentally, socially, and economically

practices (Russo, 2003). Developing sustainable industries that

serve society beyond the “business as usual”model requires knowl-

edge (Shrivastava, Ivanaj, & Persson, 2013). Knowledge is a fluid

mixture of framed experiences, expert insight, skills, values, and

contextual information (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Knowledge is

critical to understanding sustainable industries because it trans-

forms and develops appropriate sustainable behaviours (Faber,

Peters, Maruster, van Haren, & Jorna, 2010). Knowledge enables

managers to learn the art of sustainability (Whiteman & Cooper,

2000) and understand the local conditions that impact their mana-

gerial and organisational practices (Whiteman & Cooper, 2011).

Developing different forms of knowledge is considered essential to

making reasonable and robust decisions that shape, adapt, and

Received: 11 May 2019 Accepted: 30 August 2019

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1615

Knowl Process Manag. 2019;26:355–370. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 355

modifies sustainability strategies, behaviours, and practices

(Grunwald, 2007).

Knowledge management and sustainability scholars maintain that

pursuing sustainability requires organisations to explore and leverage

different types of knowledge (Faber et al., 2010; Hörisch, Johnson, &

Schaltegger, 2015; Jorna, Hadders, & Faber, 2009). However, exactly

what combinations of knowledge or bundle of knowledge are likely to

lead to a sustainable industry is underresearched (Hörisch et al.,

2015). In filling this gap in the literature and initiating rigorous

research on knowledge combination perspective on sustainable indus-

tries, this paper seeks to answer the following research question:

What combinations of knowledge are likely to sustain the Eyre Peninsula's

fishing industry? In answering this question, this study seeks to under-

stand the kinds of knowledge required in order for the Eyre Penin-

sula's fishing industry to achieve sustainability. The motivation behind

this paper is that knowledge and knowledge management are increas-

ingly viewed as critical components of sustainability (Jorna et al.,

2009) but is only beginning to be systematically studied in the context

of the fishing industry. Hence, this paper is not only timely but also

relevant for researching on knowledge-based view of sustainability, as

no study has examined what combinations of knowledge are likely to

influence the sustainability of the Eyre Peninsula's fishing industry.

The paper explores the Eyre Peninsula's fishing industry in

Australia to understand the combinations of knowledge that support

its sustainability because an understanding of the kinds of knowledge

that leads to a sustainable industry is also woefully limited, especially

in the fishing industry. More importantly, Johannes, Freeman, and

Hamilton (2000) have cautioned that ignoring the inherent value of

the knowledge embedded within fishing industries can lead to their

eventual collapse. Focusing on an industry is important, because both

sustainability issues reach beyond individual organisations and

because knowledge cannot be easily limited or bounded by individual

organisations. This paper seeks to develop a knowledge combination

view on sustainable industries by gathering qualitative data from an

in-depth interview with key value chain actors of the fishing industry

in the Eyre Peninsula region in Australia.

2|THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 |Knowledge combination perspective

Kogut and Zander's (1992) notion of knowledge combination empha-

sises a firm's capability to share, transfer, and combine knowledge

from individuals and groups. Consistent with this view, this paper

rests on the idea that an industry, as a collective of firms or sectors,

can integrate different kinds of knowledge from external and internal

sources towards sustainability (Zack, 1999). Grant (1996a) posits that

a sustained organisational performance is underpinned by inherent

combinative capabilities developed from diverse knowledge. This

paper argues that the Eyre Peninsula' fishing industry can deal with

the challenges of sustainability by developing combinative capabilities

by identifying and integrating different kinds of knowledge within its

diverse firms and actors. By identifying diverse foundations of

knowledge, the industry can better leverage diverse knowledge

resources and capabilities to cope with challenges, neutralise threats,

and seize future opportunities (Carmeli & Azeroual, 2009). Although

identifying the kinds of knowledge within an industry is a critical step

towards an understanding of knowledge combination, this might not

happen without proper knowledge of the existing integrating mecha-

nism within the industry. The knowledge combination perspective

also focuses on the processes by which knowledge is combined. This

is because one of the assumptions of this perspective is that firms

would have to use mechanisms to integrate knowledge whether tangi-

ble or intangible at a particular point, which may be an industry.

Accordingly, an exploration of this perspective requires an exploration

and discussion on the kinds of integrating mechanisms that support

knowledge combination towards the sustainability of the Eyre Penin-

sula's fishing industry.

The literature on knowledge provides a conceptual understanding

of the kinds of knowledge that might be available to the Eyre Penin-

sula's fishing industry and how these kinds of knowledge might be

combined to support sustainability. To be sustainable, an industry can

combine tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is not easy to

articulate, distribute, and codify because “we know more than we can

tell”(Polanyi, 1966). This knowledge is obtained from people's per-

sonal and lived experiences (Lam, 2000) and includes skills, expertise,

and experiences handed down from one generation to another as it is

personal (Liebowitz, Ayyavoo, Nguyen, Carran, & Simien, 2007).

Explicit knowledge is easy to articulate, distribute, and codify, con-

sisting of those sources of knowing that are easily expressed in words

and numbers (Nonaka, 1994). Combining tacit and explicit knowledge

contributes to product, service, and process innovation and support

organisational survival and existence (Nonaka, von Krogh, & Voelpel,

2006). An industry can also integrate individual and collective knowl-

edge. According to Polanyi (1962), individual knowledge is developed

through years of personal reflection and practical experience. Collec-

tive knowledge is more than the sum of combined individual knowl-

edge (Hecker, 2012). Spender (1998) argues that collective knowledge

is developed by integrating individual knowledge and other

organisational knowledge assets. Zander and Kogut (1995) maintain

that collective knowledge includes information embedded in

organisational routines, norms, schemes, and past experiences. Com-

bining individual and collective knowledge is essential for solving com-

plex industry problems (von Krogh, 2009). Sustainability may require

industries to apply formal and informal knowledge. Formal knowledge

is developed through official interactions, collaborations, contacts,

and networks (Dori & Tal, 2000). Informal knowledge, on the other

hand, is obtained by sharing ideas, assumptions, meanings, stories,

and viewpoints during unofficial relationships, interactions, and net-

works (Allen, James, & Gamlen, 2007). Barrutia, Echebarria, Apaolaza-

Ibá-ez, and Hartmann (2014) also suggest that combining formal and

informal knowledge improves industrial innovation and performance.

Knowledge has a professional content, which is useful for solving

practical, conceptual, and complex industry problems (Eraut, 1994).

An industry can tap ideas and information from different generations

of industry experts (Liebowitz et al., 2007), which is crucial for

QUARTEY AND WELLS

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