Twenty-first International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

This study explores the factors that lead to knowledge ambiguity and uncertainty in entrepreneurial contexts. In strategic management literature, knowledge ambiguity was used as a way for companies to intentionally increase the stickiness of knowledge to prohibit imitation and protect technological advantage. Communication scholars used knowledge ambiguity to capture the discrepancy between the knowledge desired and the quality of that acquired. While knowledge ambiguity has been widely studied in the inter-organizational context as a source of competitive advantage and in the intra-organizational context as a barrier of knowledge transfer, its origins in early entrepreneur’s knowledge-seeking process are less discussed. Interview data were collected from 20 early stage entrepreneurs in the knowledge-intensive industries in the New York City metropolitan area. Four themes emerged from the interview data as sources of knowledge ambiguity: complexity of knowledge, complexity of roles and responsibilities, environmental factors, and legitimacy as a premise of knowledge transfer.