17 Mar This week we focus on the knowledge management cycle noted in Figure 5.3 in the Information Technology and Organizational Learning

Knowledge Management

There is an increasing recognition that the competitive advantage of organizations depends on their “ability to create, transfer, utilize, and protect difficult-to-intimate knowledge assets” (Teece, 2001, p. 125). Indeed, according to Bertels and Savage (1998), the dominant logic of the industrial era requires an understanding of how to break the learning barrier to comprehending the information era. While we have developed powerful solutions to change internal processes and organizational structures, most organizations have failed to address the cultural dimensions of the information era. Organizational knowledge creation is a result of organizational learning through stra- tegic processes. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) define organizational knowledge as “the capability of a company as a whole to create new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the organization, and embody it in products, services, and systems” (p. 3). Nonaka and Takeuchi use the steps shown in Figure 5.3 to assess the value and chain of events surrounding the valuation of organization knowledge.

If we view the Figure 5.3 processes as leading to competitive advan- tage, we may ask how technology affects the chain of actions that Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) identify.