Can knowledge management help companies gain competitive advantage?

Year : 2009

FIRST NAME (Given name

FAMILY NAME

NATIONALITY

Title : Use of Knowledge Management in Helping Companies Gain Competitive Advantage

Keywords : `Knowledge Management , `Siemens , `ShareNet `Competitiveness

Supervisor

Sponsoring organization and contact person (if applicable

Use of Knowledge Management in Helping Companies Gain Competitive Advantage

Name

Course

Supervisor

University

3rd June 2009

PREFACE

In the Knowledge Age , the competitiveness of an organization are supported not only by its business activity but also by the value of it intangible resources . In this

context , knowledge has become the main factor of economic production , rather than factors such as land workforce , capital and machinery . Therefore , organizations ' capabilities have been challenged to create , administrate and disseminate the use of knowledge , and so they need to increase their practices of Knowledge Management , in as much as these form tools for the orientation definition and development of strategic organizational horizons and objectives . Defined as entailing deliberate intent to increase , renew share or improve the use of knowledge represented in structural , human and social elements of intellectual capital , Knowledge Management has been asserted as being essential to organizational competitiveness . This is due to the fact that appropriate management and leveraging of knowledge can propel an organization to become more adaptive innovative , intelligent and sustainable . As the companies are increasingly being thrust into the knowledge age , the only competitive advantage is considered to be what they know and how they use that knowledge . The implementation of Knowledge Management in companies presents significant problems because Knowledge itself is ill-defined and...