Title: Social intelligence and top management team: an exploratory study of external knowledge acquisition for strategic change in global IT service providers in India

Authors: Eric Kong; Doren Chadee; Revti Raman

Addresses: School of Management & Marketing, Faculty of Business, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia. ' School of Management & Marketing, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC 3125, Australia. ' School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract: This paper focuses on the processes by which firms, particularly knowledge intensive firms, can augment their overall knowledge stock by tapping into external sources of knowledge. It is argued that Top Management Teams' (TMTs') social intelligence is a critical learning capability in acquiring external knowledge that leads to strategic change. Social intelligence involves social awareness, social understanding and social skills. The study draws from the experience of 11 of the largest Information Technology Service Providers (ITSPs) in India and based on in-depth interviews. The findings show that TMTs' learning capability in the context of social intelligence to interact with external stakeholders is important to ITSPs in facilitating external knowledge acquisition and allowing new knowledge emerge within and across networks. The findings provide significant insights into ITSPs emerging in other developing countries such as in China. Research limitation and future research direction are also provided.

Keywords: social intelligence; top management teams; external knowledge; ICT; information technology; communications technology; service providers; India; knowledge acquisition; strategic change; global services; knowledge intensive firms; knowledge stock; external sources; critical capabilities; learning capabilities; social awareness; social understanding; social skills; external stakeholders; new knowledge; networks; developing countries; China; learning behaviour; change contexts.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLC.2012.045853

International Journal of Learning and Change, 2012 Vol.6 No.1/2, pp.1 - 17

Published online: 14 Mar 2012 *

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