Knowledge-management collaboration and labor brokerage performance : a multilevel study of entrepreneurial market making

Downing, James A. (author)

Entrepreneurs operating in knowledge-intensive markets will seek to reduce costs with tacit-knowledge-management mechanisms. When seeking a competitive advantage in knowledge-intensive industries, individuals will create value from general market information and engineer the transaction cost for clients. These market-making individuals will operate within a firm to gain benefits from information-sharing collaboration. Firms will make investments in tacit- information sharing to assist individual collaboration, resulting in increased firm performance. The value creation process for knowledge-intensive markets is crafted from general market information. The value appropriation process is unique to knowledge-intensive industries with the engineering of a client’s transaction costs as a competitive ad- vantage. The research develops a schema for the engineering of transaction costs using entrepreneurial market-making efficiencies mapped to the determinants of transaction costs theory. The multilevel econometric model examines both firm-level and individual-level investments in tacit-knowledge management. Results suggest firm-level investments in information sharing may not improve the performance of the individuals in the firm. However, when there is a firm structure and individuals actively share information, then efficiency is created, leading to larger deals and increased firm performance. Future research developing those efficiencies found in knowledge-management strategies is needed. This article also calls for further development and observations of engineering transaction costs, specifically in knowledge- intensive industries.

• Language: English
• Keywords: entrepreneurship, knowledge management, labour efficiency, business efficiency, transaction cost engineering, labor brokerage
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 1-15
• Numbering: Vol. 28, iss. 1, article no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-180694
• UDC: 658.3
• ISSN on article: 2335-4216
• DOI: 10.15458/2335-4216.1365
• COBISS.SI-ID: 270204419
• Publication date in RUL: 13.03.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Economic and business review
• Publisher: Ekonomska fakulteta
• ISSN: 2335-4216
• COBISS.SI-ID: 268649216

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: podjetništvo, obvladovanje znanja, delovna uspešnost, business efficiency