KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR COMPETITIVENESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Knowledge Management is crucial to the organization's survival and success in competitive global markets and has a strong potential for problem-solving, decision-making, organizational performance enhancements, and innovation. As Wiig (1996) observes knowledge management in organizations must be considered from three perspectives with different horizons and purposes; Business perspective, Management perspective, and Hands-on operational perspective. Therefore the definitions provided by most of the authors will fall under one or more perspectives provided by Wiig. According to Gregory (1996), knowledge management consists of activities focused on the organization gaining knowledge from its own experience and from the experience of others to fulfill the mission of the organization, which in turn underlines the business perspective of knowledge management. Beveren (2002) argues that the main focus for knowledge management should be on human intellectual capital and strategies for human resource management that encourage creativity and innovation within and between employees from a management perspective, In the context of an operational perspective, knowledge management is usually concerned with capturing an organization’s know-how and know-what through creation, collection, storage, distribution, and application (Miller, 1999). This paper looks at the relationship between knowledge management and organizational competitiveness and performance.