Knowledge based strategy

INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO Y DE ESTUDIOS SUPERIORES DE MONTERREY
CAMPUS CIUDAD DE MEXICO

Doctoral Seminar in Strategic Management
January – May 2012
Professor: Dr. Jorge Pérez Rubio Aguilar

Project Research proposal:
KNOLEDGE BASED STRATEGY by Zamira Burgos
Research paper dealing with a topic in the strategy field, include:
1) Conceptual background.
2) Theory development and researchproposal.
3) Literature review, discussion and conclusion.
KNOWLEDGE BASED STRATEGY
BURGOS SILVA ZAMIRA, RESEARCH SCHOLAR 2012 DOCTORAL STUDIES IN MANAGEMENT SCIENCES EGADE BUSINESS SCHOOL, ITESM MEXICO CITY

ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted that the world economy has moved on from the industrial age into a new age of knowledge work in the information society, where the main assetof an organization, is not its physical resources but its knowledge (Stacey, 2001). Organizations that can convert information into knowledge and learning will be the most successful, especially those in highly dynamic environments. Inside this framework knowledge generation and assimilation can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage for firms whose capabilities help to overcome thebarriers in the objective of acquiring, codifying, storing and sharing valuable knowledge.
Knowledge is a critical organizational resource that contributes to superior performance if relevant management capabilities are built and applied to the knowledge resources. The perspective “that operation’s strategy applied to knowledge is necessary for a firm to develop a competitive advantage” is discussedin this paper. The objective of this paper is to discuss existing literature on the effect of knowledge management on firm’s performance, and collecting information regarding knowledge based strategy as a competitive advantage. This paper suggests that the process of knowledge management operations positively impact performance. Arising from these findings, it is proposed that studies be launchedinto firm’s culture to determine the relative disposition and contribution of each employee to create knowledge as well as the desire to share it.

1. INTRODUCTION.
The velocity and dynamic of the new marketplace has created a competitive incentive among many companies to consolidate knowledge asset as a means of creating a value that can be sustainable over time. To make possible competitivesustainability, nowadays many firms are launching extensive knowledge management efforts.
Past literature indicates that knowledge management surveys have been focused on knowledge management practices used by professionals in the implementation and management of knowledge management functions in large organizations (Ernst & Young, 1996; Frey, 2001; Wong, 2005). These surveys assess managingknowledge management and KM technology. They explore how firms are assimilating, transferring, sharing, and maintaining knowledge and turning it into a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Anantatmula, 2008; Okunoye & Karsten, 2002; Shu-Hui, 2004). Even though some authors, like Frey (2001) and Okunoye & Karsten (2002), realized that knowledge management was important for allorganizations, irrespective of their size.
Knowledge strategy should focus on the creation of knowledge, besides transfer mechanisms between tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge and viceversa. Employees gather knowledge as they interact with each other in a social context (such as a production environment). This knowledge and understanding impacts employees' behaviors, perceptions, interpretations, andcognitions, which help them, make sense of novel situations, generating both tacit and explicit knowledge (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). The knowledge created in the process, in turn, becomes valuable input to developing technology strategy in the future. (Ahmad, 2011).
In the next section, a literature review is performed, following a research proposal on the knowledge management’s impact on...