Shared digital identity and rich knowledge ties in global 3D printing—A drizzle in the clouds?

• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Date: 01 February 2021
• Author: Ricarda Bouncken,Roman Barwinski
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1370

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Shared digital identity and rich knowledge ties

in global 3D printing—A drizzle in the clouds?

Ricarda Bouncken | Roman Barwinski

Faculty of Law and Economics, Chair of Strategic Management and Organization, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth,

Germany

Correspondence

Ricarda Bouncken, Faculty of Law and

Economics, Chair of Strategic

Management and Organization,

University of Bayreuth, Prieserstraße

2, 95444 Bayreuth, Germany.

Email: bouncken@uni-bayreuth.de

Abstract

Research Summary: Modern audio-visual digital

technology enables the immediate exchange of explicit,

but also of tacit knowledge worldwide. Still, when not

embedded in strong ties, the international exchange of

tacit and proprietary knowledge becomes risky. Our

flexible pattern matching qualitative research approach

develops new theory and finds that in the nascent 3D

printing industry firms exchange explicit and tacit

knowledge globally, even in weak ties. The exchanges

seem to be grounded in identification processes with

digital technology forming a shared digital identity. We

conceptualize the shared digital identity as the collec-

tive self-concept(s) of an in-group towards the creation,

emergence, application, and development of digital

technology built on a sense of community, enthusiasm,

being part of something special as well as common

values and norms.

Managerial Summary: Firms in the nascent digital

industry of 3D printing share knowledge worldwide.

Potentials of transferring tacit and proprietary knowl-

edge by modern audio-visual digital technologies

increase constantly. However, so do the dangers of

knowledge leakage and competitive risks. A resolution

of this tension comes from a new phenomenon, the

Received: 3 August 2019 Revised: 27 November 2019 Accepted: 2 December 2019

DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1370

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2020 The Authors. Global Strategy Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Strategic Management Society

Global Strategy Journal. 2021;11:81–108. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gsj 81

shared digital identity. A shared digital identity within

and among firms enables and informally guards the

sharing of tacit and proprietary knowledge via digital

technologies. We conceptualize the shared digital iden-

tity by a sense of community, enthusiasm, being part of

something special as well as common values and

norms. The knowledge exchanges assisted by digital

technology occur under the aegis of the shared digital

identity and accelerate the emergence of digital tech-

nologies and so facilitate global business.

KEYWORDS

3D printing, digital identity, digitalization, flexible pattern matching,

knowledge ties

1|INTRODUCTION

The present study examines and contextualizes local and global knowledge ties in the digitaliza-

tion context. Digitalization describes the stronger implementation of digital technologies,

the progressive transformation of firm's traditional processes to digitized versions, the increas-

ing use of digitalized business models, and/or the increasing use of digital platforms

(Bouncken, Kraus, & Roig-Tierno, 2019; Claggett & Karahanna, 2018; Clauss, Bouncken,

Laudien, & Kraus, 2019; Fichman, Dos Santos, & Zheng, 2014; Legner et al., 2017; Tallman,

Luo, & Buckley, 2018).

Global business of regionally dispersed activities and firms might flourish through digitally

supported exchanges (Bharadwaj, El Sawy, Pavlou, & Venkatraman, 2013; Fitzgerald,

Kruschwitz, Bonnet, & Welch, 2014; Tallman et al., 2018), that are not limited by spatial bound-

aries (Kohli & Melville, 2019). Firms in industries that are at the forefront of digital technology

integration, for example, 3D printing or artificial intelligence, will be prone to digital knowledge

exchanges and merits of digital technologies in global business. However, the digitalization

might bear an overestimation of the knowledge exchange potentials and an underestimation of

the knowledge spill-over risks. Furthermore, digital exchanges might limit the understanding

among international partners (targets, backgrounds, and expertise) resulting in inaccurate gen-

eralizations (Yamin & Sinkovics, 2006).

The overestimation of the digital knowledge exchange potentials might be based on the tacit

components of knowledge. Such sticky and often rich, complex, operationally embedded, or hidden

knowledge is much more difficult to transfer than explicit knowledge, which is easy to express, cod-

ify, and exchange (Carlile, 2002; Simonin, 1999; Szulanski, 2000). Tacit knowledge, especially the

operationally embedded components (Carlile, 2002), largely demands personal experiences, and it is

non-verbalized and intuitive making it hard to express and transfer (Polanyi, 1967). The transfer of

tacit knowledge requires direct personal interaction, typically by co-location of individuals and

becomes more difficult when international and inter-cultural differences exist so that spatial influ-

ences persists (Bouncken & Winkler, 2010; Kumar & Nti, 1998; Mudambi et al., 2018; Pesch &

Bouncken, 2018). An overestimation of potentials becomes prospective when (a) digital technologies

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